Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis Luke 19:28-42

April 1, 2007 Palm Sunday

“Powerful Medicine”

Have you ever tried to imagine this first Palm Sunday scene?

I picture children running alongside Jesus’ donkey, waving their palm branches at Jesus as Jesus waved at them, chasing each other, and laughing. They vividly remember how they felt when Jesus took them in his arms, or stooped down to look into their eyes and bless them. Just being around him makes them feel exuberant and bubbling with joy. “Hosanna! Hosanna!” they shout as they run.

Some of those following in the parade are lepers whom Jesus had cleansed. Here they are, surrounded by people-- people! And nobody is running away or cursing them! They‘re soaking up the warmth and smells and commotion of the crowd like cracked land soaks up the rain. They’re in the land of the living again! “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” they cry.

Those who have had demons cast out are lifting their faces to heaven, beaming back to God the light that they feel pouring into their souls. The heavy clouds and inner storms are past. It is all sun, and light, and peace. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” they keep saying over and over.

The formerly lame are leaping and dancing like young deer cavorting around, scarcely believing it themselves.

The formerly blind occasionally walk along with their eyes closed, remembering what it was like to stumble along in their world of darkness. Then they open their eyes just so they can be dazzled all over again with the colors and shapes and movements that still leave them open-mouthed and entranced.

“Hosanna! Praise God! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Some Pharisees stride up alongside Jesus. “Teacher, order your disciples to stop!” To stop? To stuff back inside themselves their joy, their giddiness, their overflowing gratitude to God, because God had entered their world and unleashed into their lives the power of healing, hope and love? Could their response be silenced? “I tell you,” Jesus said, “If these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

But there was even more to the exuberance of the crowd than what Jesus had done. As Jesus resolutely processed with his followers into Jerusalem, the people had to wonder, Was this the one who would crush their enemies as they had been crushed, who would turn the tables and restore Israel to power and put the other nations under their feet.

There was no doubt that Jesus had their plight in mind, as he turned from teaching and healing in the towns and villages to entering the citadel of power. As he approached Jerusalem, he wept for the city and its inhabitants.

Maybe he wept for a sickness that needed a different kind of medicine than the touch of a Spirit-charged hand.

Maybe he wept for people who were paralyzed by guilt and shame because they couldn’t fulfill all the laws the Pharisees told them that God required of them.

Maybe he wept for people who were deeply wounded by cutting labels of “sinner,” “unclean,” “traitor,” and “outcast.”

Maybe he wept for people who were blind to each other’s humanity by their position of wealth or poverty, their power or impotence, their history as victimizer or as victim.

Maybe he wept for people who were being asphyxiated by an oppression that extinguished the light in their eyes and the life in their souls.

There was a rampant sickness that was infecting the world with corruption, exploitation, hatred, resentment, and hopelessness. It would need powerful medicine to reverse it.

I wonder if Jesus had the temptation most of us would have to call down the power of God to just destroy all the “evil doers”?

But Jesus knew that it was the evil, not the evildoers, that needed to be eliminated. This was a systemic illness, and eradicating those who were showing its symptoms wouldn’t cure it. Everybody was showing its symptoms in one form or another. Besides, the fear of divine vengeance and retribution was one of the things that was feeding the sickness of fear, guilt, and domination.

If Jesus couldn’t call down the wrath of God to wipe out the disease, what tools were at his disposal? All he had was the power of God’s infinite love. Day by day he had embodied this love as healing, compassion, forgiveness and wisdom. What if he carried this divine love force right into the jaws of jealous power and oppression, hatred and fear? Could this set loose a healing process right inside the diseased body that could begin to neutralize evil and reverse its grip on everyone?

I wonder if that’s what Jesus was preparing himself for as he rode that donkey through the gates of Jerusalem. Maybe he was working to release his human fears as he came into the place of vindictive power, armed only with redeeming love.

What happened over the next five days was one of the most remarkable things humans have ever seen. He went right into the Temple area, where the relationship between God and humans was being reduced to what animals could be sacrificed, and what money you could use to buy them with, and what priests could determine if your offering was worthy. It was spiritual strangulation for a profit, instituted by the high priest, Caiaphas, who was collaborating with Herod, the puppet king held in power by Caesar. Jesus drove out the money changers and the animal sellers, crying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers!’”

What was Jesus doing? He was cleansing the Temple of corruption, yes. But he was doing more than that. He had entered the place where religious power, political power, and financial power were united to exploit the people while using “God’s Commandments” as their cover. And Jesus stood up to all of that authority and called what they were doing robbery. Illegitimate. Against God. And as the authorities quickly got together to figure out how to eliminate him, he kept coming back to the Temple, openly exposing the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and challenging their legitimacy.

The chief priests, scribes and elders came to him and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” The people marveled silently, “By what fearlessness are you doing these things, and how did you get this fearlessness?” The people were spellbound by this man who had no fear of what they lived in fear of every day. The gospel writers report that they got up early in the morning to come to the Temple to hear him.

But sure enough, on Thursday night, the authorities managed to capture him when he was away from the crowd. People shook their heads and shrugged. “Well, I guess we should have known it all along. There really isn’t a way to get out of this stranglehold we’re all in.”

But Jesus was only moving deeper into the dark sickness of the body. The authorities interrogated him and threatened him. But they couldn’t get him to fear them enough to answer their charges. They whipped him and mocked him and beat him almost to death. But they still couldn’t get him to fear them enough to defend himself. Finally, they spread out his hands and feet and nailed them onto a cross, and spat on him and mocked him for his powerlessness. But they couldn’t get him to hate them enough to curse them. All they got him to do was to cry out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do!” Those most infected with the sickness of power and pride and hate had unleashed the worst they had against him. But they had been powerless to control or diminish that force of infinite love.

Pilate, the ruthless governor who had massacred thousands, seemed totally unnerved by him and publically washed his hands of Jesus’ blood. The centurion who oversaw the crucifixion exclaimed when it was over, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

Matthew reported an earthquake at the moment of Jesus’ death. But something besides the earth shook at that moment. The whole foundation of this authority that controlled people by fear and shame, and that claimed its legitimacy came from God, cracked that day. The political rulers and religious leaders had sought to expose Jesus as a powerless false prophet, blesphemer and traitor. But they had exposed themselves as ruthless, godless sinners in desperate need of forgiveness.

And something else was exposed that day. Our sins were exposed as well as theirs.

We have used our power or knowledge to manipulate, control, coerce, threaten, or intimidate other souls to get what we wanted.

We have set ourselves in a position to judge and even condemn the sons and daughters of God.

We have betrayed, denied, and abandoned Jesus out of our fear of others’ opinions.

We have wounded others by the cutting things we have said to them or about them.

We have been blind to others’ humanity because of the labels we have put on them.

The disease that Jesus died to heal didn’t only infect the people of his day; it infects us as well.

As Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me.” And the powerful medicine he offered to them, he offers now to us–the truth of God’s infinite love for each of God’s creatures–a love that is bigger than our sins, bigger than our differences , bigger than our fears, bigger than our mortal lives.

Is it enough to cure our pride, our judgment, our shame, our power plays, our selfishness, our intolerance, our fears? Is it enough to set us free–free to live fully, love lavishly, give deeply, and create God’s kingdom in the midst of our world? It all depends on if we take this medicine–if we take into our selves this truth of God’s infinite love for us and for all–a love that stretched its arms out on the cross to forgive all and embrace all.

If we take this medicine and let it work in us, the angels in heaven, and creation, and maybe even the very stones will cry out, “Hosanna! Blessed are the ones who come in the name of the Lord!”