Sixth Sunday in Lent/Palm Sunday

Text: St. Matthew 21:1-13

The Rev. Jerry D. Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Our Triumphal King”

The borrowed donkeys, the clothes on the path, the waving of the palms, the cheers of the people, the Sunday before the Passover, the day each Jewish family purchased their Passover lambs from the sellers in the temple, four days until Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and gives them a new feast, five until he dies and the women mourn him as though he’d never rise, seven days till he breaks forth from the tomb, the first-fruits of a new creation… today is Palm Sunday, and Palm Sunday is our gateway into Holy Week.

It is a wonder, special, holy week – a chance again to walk alongside our Lord through His last days on earth as He rides on to glory by way of suffering and death. And this is why, on this day that commemorates His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as the King come to open up to us the way into His Kingdom, we begin our Holy Week celebration with a festive procession from outside the church, with palms in our hands and a song on our lips, “All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer King.”

Christ’s “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. You know, it’s been called that for ages, but it’s really not what we would ever imagine as the victory march of a triumphing king. How many of us, if we had a chance to script our own coronations, would choose to ride into our capital city sitting on the dirty clothes of a bunch of homeless people on the back of a baby donkey? Who would that impress? I wonder if we wouldn’t all rather script our coronations with a “triumphal entry” like the one I read about this past week.

This is what I read: “On December 4, 1977, the world witnessed the coronation of his Imperial Majesty, Bokassa I, in Banqui, capital of the Central African Empire. The price tag for that single event, designed and choreographed by French designer Olivier Brice, was $25 million [Remember this was back in 1977]. At 10:10 A.M. that morning the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums announced the approach of His Majesty. The procession began with eight of Bokassa’s twenty-nine official children parading down the royal carpet to their seats. They were followed by the heir to the throne, Jean Bedel Bokassa II, dressed in a white admiral’s uniform with gold braid. He was seated on a red pillow to the left of the throne. The followed Catherine, the favorite of Bokassa’s nine wives, wearing a $73,000 gown made by Lanvin of Paris, which was strewn with pearls she’d hand-picked. Finally the Emperor arrived in an imperial coach bedecked with golden eagles and drawn by six matched Anglo-Norman horses. As the Marine Band played “The Sacred March of His Majesty,” Emperor Bokassa strode forth. He was cloaked in a thirty-two pound robe decorated with 785,000 strewn pearls and gold embroidery. He wore white gloves and pearl slippers on his feet. On his brow he wore a gold crown of laurel-wreaths, similar to those worn by Roman consuls of old – a symbol of the favor of the gods. As the “Sacred March” came to a conclusion, Bokassa seated himself on his $2.5 million eagle throne, took his gold laurel wreath off, and – like Napoleon had done 173 years earlier – took the $2.5 million crown, topped with an 80 carat diamond, and placed it on his own head. Here was a new emperor, a new king.”

Now that’s the way to make an entry! That’s the way to empress somebody. That’s the kind of entry almost all the great rulers throughout world history have learned you have to make if you’re going to take control of the hearts and minds of the people – by instilling fear and awe in them so they cow to your royal will. It’s an art that wasn’t in any way lost on people like Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein. But this was not the way of our Lord Jesus.

Jesus was following a different script for His Royal Procession. It was written hundreds of years before in the book of the prophet Zechariah: “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Now, did you notice in the Gospel reading there are two donkeys Jesus rides in on? an older one – the mother that was bound – and a younger one – a colt, the mother’s foal. I think these two donkeys tell us something about Christ and His Kingdom. They may not speak quite as explicitly as did Balaam’s Ass, but they do “say” something important to us about the way Christ comes into His Kingdom, and the way He continues to come to us today.

I’m not usually given to allegorizing the Scriptures, but I must say that I’m intrigued by on very ancient allegorical interpretation of this text – one that keeps popping up through Church history in the sermons of the likes of Jerome and Martin Luther, just to name a couple. According to this interpretation the two donkeys represent God’s Old and New Testament people. Jesus rides upon the old, the mother that was bound, to show that He is the fulfillment of all that Israel was about and all the prophets foretold, and that He has come to loose those faithful Jews who had been waiting for Him from their bondage to the Law. But He also rides upon the new, the offspring of its mother, the New Israel, the one upon whom no man had yet sat, the Church. And so the overall picture is that Christ unites under His Kingship all believers, from the Old and New Testaments, from every nation and race, and joins them into one holy people who bear Him and lift Him up before the world. Isn’t that marvelous? I don’t know if it’s true to the text, but the message sure is great.

But let’s not forget what this interpretation makes of us. We’re the donkey, a stubborn, hard-headed, unclean animal set in our ways, wanting always to go in our own direction, or else just sitting back on our haunches refusing to budge. That’s us in this picture. Isn’t it amazing that this is the animal Jesus chooses to bear Him? – us, despite all our obnoxious braying at one another; us, despite our tendency to try to buck Him off and bolt and run. We’re the ones He chooses to ride upon as Lord and King.

And so He must break us. He must ride us and gently but firmly drive us to the cross to die with Him. To die to ourselves. To die to our self-directed lives, so that we may willing take upon ourselves His easy yoke and His light burden, and be led by Him in the path that leads to eternal life.

But you know, in reality it’s Jesus who carries us. Jesus Himself became the beast of burden, lifting off of us the weight and burden of our sin, and carrying it to the cross. And in exchange, He has laid upon us the perfect garment of His righteousness, which alone makes us worthy now to bear Him as Lord and King.

This is the way Christ the Redeemer King rides into His Kingdom: humbly, whether on the backs of lowly animals, or on the backs of humble people, like you and me. He’s not a King who compels submission through “shock and awe,” but One that lays down His own life to give true freedom to His subjects. His service is perfect freedom. He doesn’t ride in on a white stallion emblazoned with shining armor, or - if we were to use a modern image – in the turret of an M1A1 tank. In fact, He purposely lays down the infinite store of weapons and armor He has at His divine command, and rides in defenseless and vulnerable to the mob, who cheers Him now, but will soon shout, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” He comes not on a warhorse, but on an animal of peace, to make peace. “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” He said, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight.” To Peter, “Put away your sword,” He said. “Or do you think that I cannot now pray My Father and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels. [But] how then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?” This is a King who does not ascend to His throne wearing a gold laurel wreath, but a crown of thorns.

This is the Triumphal Entry of our King. By making Himself weak and defenseless and obedient to the point of death, He triumphs over death and hell and the devil, and opens the kingdom to our entry. “Behold, your King comes to you; He’s just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, the colt the foal of a donkey.”

This is still the way our King comes to us. We have to learn to recognize the humble beasts of burden on which Christ continues to ride in to us. We shouldn’t be looking for spectacular displays of glory and power. We need to learn to see the meek and humble means by which Jesus still enters into this place and in our lives. The Savior-King rides into His New Jerusalem, the Church, upon His Word and Sacraments. He walks to you upon the water of Holy Baptism, and lifts you out of the drowning world and into His holy ship. He saddles the backs of humble, sinful men, and comes to us by their preaching of His holy gospel. He comes to us – or, actually, causes us to ride up to Him – upon the ordinary means of bread and wine, and the same Jesus who rode into the earthly Jerusalem meets us in the Jerusalem which is above, and feeds us with His heavenly food.

So it is, as we lift up our hearts to the Lord, we sing with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, the hymn of heaven – the Sanctus: “Holy, Holy, Holy” – which in the ancient Church was concluded with the words the crowds shouted to Jesus that first Palm Sunday: “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”

Today is Palm Sunday. Let us triumph in our Triumphal King. +

This sermon is based on a sermon by The Rev. Aaron Koch, pastor of Mt. Zion Lutheran Church, Greenfield, WI