Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis April 9, 2006

Mark 11:1-10 Palm Sunday

“When Might Meets Right”

This was no happy little children’s parade that’s described in this scripture reading. For generations, the Jews had dreamed and prayed for the day when God would send a messiah to liberate them from their oppressors and rule over all people in righteousness and justice. They dreamed and they prayed. And they saw their courts take their ancestral land and give it to the rich, and force them to sell their daughters into slavery and beg in the streets. They dreamed and they prayed. And they saw their taxes go up to pay for more Roman soldiers to march through their streets. They dreamed and they prayed. And they saw their own High Priest getting cozy with the Romans, and holding onto power by reporting to Herod the Jews who were most likely to stir up trouble for the Romans. They dreamed and they prayed. And the Roman governor Pilate mocked the Jewish laws, sentenced people to death without trials, freely accepted bribes, and brutally made an example of anyone who was suspected of questioning his authority. The more people dreamed and prayed, the more rotten, unjust, and hopeless the whole system became.

So here came Jesus riding into Jerusalem with a throng of supporters crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” They had seen fire-tempered zealots and swaggering insurgents stirring up the people to storm the citadels of power. But they had never seen anyone who could heal the sick, cast out demons or raise the dead take on the authorities . Jesus must be the one they had been dreaming and praying for. He was their only hope! So there was excitement in the air. “Hosanna! Save us!” they cried “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” They waved their palm branches and laid their cloaks in his path to create a grand entrance. And I imagine their hearts were pounding and their throats were dry with fear. What exactly was going to happen when this bringer of the new kingdom entered Jerusalem and faced off with the religious, political and military guardians of the old kingdom?

I imagine that the crowd hung back a little as he actually entered the city gate. You go, Jesus! Bring them down! Establish your kingdom! I’ll be right behind you–just as soon as it’s safe!

Jesus’ first public act was to enter the courtyard of the Temple. Here he found religious corruption and injustice in full swing. The priests told the people that to be right with God, they had to sacrifice unblemished animals to God. And the priests always managed to find some blemish or fault with the animals people brought themselves. So the people had to buy the animals that were sold in the temple courtyard at exorbitant prices. Even doves, the sacrifice of the poor, were expensive. And the priests wouldn’t accept Roman coins or most of the other currency common in Palestine. So money changers exchanged the people’s coins into currency that was acceptable to the Temple, and charged a hefty fee for the exchange, and another hefty fee for making change. This was on top of the Temple tax that every Jew was supposed to pay, which was being used to cover the dome of the Temple with gold, and, rumor had it, to line the priests’ pockets with silver.

So Jesus cried out, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer.’ But you have made it a den of robbers!” And he drove out the sellers and the buyers, and overturned the tables of the money changers, and turned over the seats of the dove sellers.

Didn’t Jesus know that Caiaphas, the High Priest, was in cahoots with King Herod, and could have Jesus added to the pile of trouble makers that had already been disposed of? How could Jesus act with such fearlessness?

And as we watch Jesus move through the next few days, that’s what astounds us. This humble, unarmed man continues to simply do what’s right and boldly speak the truth, regardless of who it inflames and what they might do to him. Teaching after teaching exposes the hypocrisy and spiritual blindness of the religious authorities. Even as they plot against him, he doesn’t mince words or soften his message. He has thrown all caution and self protection to the wind.

Is he naive? No, he knows full well what the consequences will be. As he shares his last meal with his disciples, he breaks the bread and tells them, “This is my body, broken for you.” He offers them the wine and says, “This is my blood, shed for you.” His mission now is to fully embody the truth, the love, and the passion of God, and to carry this light right into the depths of the darkness in a way that nobody has ever done before.

Is he frightened? Oh yes. In the Garden of Gethsemane, his human side cries out, “Wait, God. If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” But then Jesus offers himself totally to God’s plan: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

He hears Judas, one of his own, coming up the path to betray him, along with thugs armed with swords and clubs. He stands in their path to receive the kiss of betrayal, and tells Judas, “Friend, do what you are here to do.”

But his disciples try to resist, and one of them strikes out with a sword. But Jesus tells him to put it away, and heals the hacked off ear of the high priest’s slave. Then all the disciples run away in confusion and fear. But Jesus willingly goes forward into the darkness.

He’s hauled before Caiaphas, the high priest, who has quickly assembled a late-night court session to try to find Jesus guilty of something deserving death. When none of the witnesses can agree in their testimony, Jesus himself gives Caiaphas what he’s looking for. Caiaphas asks him point blank, “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus simply answers, “You have said so.” Then the elders, council members and chief priests–the role models of righteousness–commence to spitting in his face and hitting him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Tell us who struck you!”

In the meantime, Peter, who has vowed he would never desert or deny Jesus, has just denied that he even knows Jesus three times. Jesus’ closest followers don’t even dare to be identified with him. Yet Jesus keeps moving forward–even to the palace of Pilate, the ruthless Roman governor. Pilate asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus could have argued that he was not a king. But he simply answers, “You have said so,” and doesn’t defend himself against any of the charges against him. The mob outside the palace cries out for his crucifixion. Afraid of a riot breaking out, Pilate turns him over to the soldiers, and Jesus submits his head to the crown of thorns.

He accepts the taunts and the blows to his head by the soldiers.

He gives his back up to the 40 lacerating lashings of the barbed whip.

He stumbles along the road carrying his own cross until his knees buckle for the last time.

He submits his hands to the nails.

He allows himself to be hoisted up on a cross, the most gruesome, agonizing, shameful means of execution the Romans could devise.

He endures the taunts and jeers of the bystanders.

And instead of lashing back, he cries out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do!”

After three hours of agonizing pain, intense thirst and gradual suffocation, he yields up his spirit to God,

and dies.

Why? Why did he go through all of this? The money changers and animal sellers went back to their profitable jobs. Pilate still ruled over Judea with an iron fist. Caiaphas still maintained his corrupt control over the Jewish High Court and the Temple.

Matthew says that when Jesus died the earth shook and rocks were split. His death also shook the people who witnessed it. And his death put a crack in the foundation of that old order of corrupt power. Even the Roman centurion in charge of the crucifixion was moved to say, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” Why? Not because he miraculously avoided dying on the cross like some kind of super human. But because he obediently died on the cross like any human, yet he went about it unlike any other human ever had. Instead of hating his persecutors, he forgave his persecutors. Instead of fighting for his life, he freely gave his life. Instead of cursing the darkness, he shone a light into the darkness that exposed its evil for all to see. What kind of legitimate authority could the Roman rulers and the religious leaders claim to have if they brutally killed an utterly innocent unarmed man who only spoke the truth, who had compassion for all people, and who prayed for them as they killed him?

“Surely this was the Son of God.” The light he shone sparked something in people. They began discovering that, in a very real powerful sense, he was alive. That light hadn’t been put out! Those who believed in him and received his gift for them and followed his way, found that light flaming up in them too! They found that they had a choice they hadn’t had before. They didn’t have to shrink their souls into being powerless victims of oppression, or else sell out their souls to ally themselves with the powerful who exploited the innocent. They could choose to boldly, actively love those who would victimize them–and then they couldn’t be victimized. Their sense of inner power and self-worth were stronger then ever. They found that they could live in freedom, hope and joy, because they knew that no punishment or death could harm their soul or extinguish its eternal light. They found that they could themselves create an alternative kingdom to the greed and oppression and divisions around them by building a new community of love, equality and inclusion. Following Jesus’ light opened up to them depths of freedom, courage and power that they never could have imagined.

The cost was still high. Rome still persecuted “the followers of the way.” But when Rome threw these Christians to the lions in the Colosseum to the cheers of the crowd, the Christians would kneel down and pray for the crowd and the Emperor. It’s hard to cheer for the death of someone who is praying for you. And the cheering grew silent. And more people found something deep stirring in them, and they wanted to follow this light too. And people took note of how these Christians took care of the sick, the widows, and the orphans, and how they were honest and generous with everyone. Eventually virtually all of Rome and all of Europe called themselves followers of the one who had died on a Roman cross.

When might met right, might was able to stop its messenger. But it wasn’t able to stop its message. And God’s message lives on. It lives on as forgiving grace when we come to terms with the ways we betray, desert, lash out at or violate God’s sons and daughters and add to Jesus’ suffering on the cross. It lives on as freedom in the face of oppression, by giving us a way to seize the initiative from those who would rob us of our power and actively neutralize their hate by the power of love. It lives on as the power to create communities of love, inclusion and peace like the one gathered right here today, even in the midst of the kingdom of greed and divisions. It lives on as the eternal hope that death itself can’t extinguish the light of our souls when we live in the light of Christ.

Many Christians wait for Jesus to come again and really clean up the messes in this world next time. I see Jesus coming again and again. I see him coming again right now--to us here. Will we hang back and say, “You take care of it Jesus, we’ll be right behind you, as soon as it’s safe”? Or will we walk along with him, and work together with him to bring redeeming love, peace, hope, and light into the darkness in our world?