Palm / Passion Sunday
March 29, 2021
For this reason {Christ] is the
mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the
promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them
from the transgressions under the first covenant. Where a will is
involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will
takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who
made it is alive. Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated
without blood. For when every commandment had been told to all the people
by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats,
with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself
and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God
has ordained for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood
both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law
almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood
there is no forgiveness of sins.
Thus it was necessary for the
sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the
heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. For Christ
did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but
he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our
behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest
enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for
then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the
world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to
remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for
mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been
offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal
with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Over the years, our church has worked with a lot of kids. We do our best to explain this coming week. We tell them it’s Holy Week, the last week that Jesus was with us before he went to heaven. A lot of things happened this week, leading up to Easter, the day that God raised Jesus from the dead. One way to understand this week is to understand that some of the big days of Holy Week have a name.
Today is Palm Sunday. There is joy in the air, glad songs of praise. We shout a great word: hosanna! It’s a word that creates a buzz. We lift it from one of the Psalms, Psalm 118, which is a Passover psalm. All the people were gathering in the city to celebrate the great feast of Passover, when God rescued them from slavery. “Hosanna” means “rescue.” Rescue us, save us. Hosanna!
When the crowds saw Jesus, that’s what they shouted. Rescue us, save us! Hosanna! They put their cloaks on the street, a poor person’s red carpet to welcome him. And they cut branches from palm trees and waved them as a sign of victory. They heard about his power. They saw him heal the sick and feed the hungry. They rejoiced that he was riding right into the city.
Some of the people knew Jesus was riding down the hill to face trouble. Indeed, the first few days after Jesus arrived, he had nothing but trouble. The city leaders questioned him, attacked him, tried to trip him up. But Jesus answered every question. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, he dismissed every challenge. The hosannas ran true from Palm Sunday.
The next big day was Thursday. We call it Maundy Thursday. The name comes from the Latin form of the word “mandate,” as in “I give you a new mandate, a new commandment, to love one another as I have loved you.” This is what Jesus said as he gathered his friends to celebrate the Passover feast. They shared the story of how God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, leading them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
With the grand traditions of that feast, Jesus and his friends remembered how their ancestors had suffered. They broke the bread of affliction. They remembered the ten plagues, the terrible power of God, the smearing of lamb’s blood over the doorframes. And they poured the cups of blood-red wine.
Suddenly Jesus broke into the old tradition with new authority. He held the bread and said, “This is my body broken for you.” He poured another cup and said, “This is my blood, poured out for you.” And then, he took a towel and a basin of water, and he washed their feet as if he was their servant. Then he looked at them again and said, “Love one another. This is my mandate.” Maundy Thursday.
As we recount all of this, the kids are still with us. They get it. Then we get to Friday. We tell of the horrible crucifixion. And somebody always asks, “Why do we call it Good?” What’s so good about Good Friday? No matter how we’ve answered the question, no matter how quickly we’ve moved on to Easter, resurrection, and all the hallelujahs, it is a question to consider again and again. Some Christians believe it is the most important question of all.
What’s so good about Good Friday? The quick answer is that Jesus died for our sins. But what does that mean? We’ve heard a lot of broken sermons about this, bits and pieces of extracted doctrine. Preachers and teachers toss a lot of theories and theological equations into the air. Before we latch onto any of one of them, let’s confess the obvious. Jesus died because of our sins. All the accounts of his death agree on this point.
It's easy to blame the Jewish leaders who were threatened by him. It’s obvious the Temple priests were offended by him. The Roman officials wanted to squelch any trouble by this troublemaker. They were brutal in exerting their power. And then there is crowd of those who shouted hosanna on Sunday and crucify on Friday. It was the same crowd, as far as the four Gospels were concerned. Jesus was crucified because we put him on the cross.
This is the hardest truth to face about Holy Week. If we had our druthers, we would skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, from hosanna to hallelujah, and pretend Friday never happened. But the reality is we put him on the cross. This was the human response to the grace of God that we encountered in Jesus of Nazareth.
It is difficult to face this. Want to know how difficult it is? Try having a conversation with someone about gun violence. Families disagree. Friendships break down. Polite people want to change the subject.
Just the other day, after ten people were shot in a Colorado supermarket, I saw something offensive on Facebook. Normally I try to mind my own business. Don’t try to convince somebody on the internet they are wrong. Just let it go, keep moving. But this time I couldn’t do it. After some otherwise normal person was ranting how the government was going to take away all his guns. All I wrote was, “It sounds to me like you are afraid.” Well, that set off an internet powder keg, some back and forth, some piling on. I couldn’t understand the fear, the anger, the demand for blood.
And then I remembered what we did to Jesus. Call it sin. Call it brokenness. Call it rebellion against the God who commanded, “Thou shalt not kill.” God gave us that commandment because God knows what we are capable of doing. Jesus was the best person anybody ever met, and we had to get rid of him. He was completely innocent, and we nailed him to the cross. How can we call it Good Friday?
This was a problem in the early church. People expected a glorious Messiah. The primary expectation of the Messiah is that he would never die, he would live eternally. The crucifixion was a scandal. It’s there, even in some of our Easter stories. “We thought he was the One, but he was killed as a common criminal.” And even after the resurrection, the critics would ask, “What do you mean, God’s Son was nailed to a tree?” Certainly, the cross has always been a mystery. We’ve had a lot of time to think about it.
That’s where the text for today steps in. It comes from the
letter to the Hebrews, an anonymous sermon from an early Christian leader. It
is a dense document, not easy to understand. If I were to announce, “We’re
going to study the letter to the Hebrews,” some people would miss. Especially
the second week.
But if we can listen to chapter nine, some of the fog may roll away. The preacher is talking about Jesus. That’s what preachers do. And this preacher refers to Jesus as a priest. At a human level, that’s curious. Jesus wasn’t related to any priest; Joseph was a woodcutter. At most, the Bible says Mary had a distant relative named Elizabeth, and her husband was a priest. Jesus wasn’t a priest. Except, Hebrews says he was a priest.
What does a priest do? A priest stands between God and the people. A priest bridges the gap between God and the people. The preacher from the book of Hebrews says Jesus is a new kind of priest.
· The old way was to send a priest into the Jerusalem Temple on behalf of the people. The new way is to see Jesus go into God’s very presence on our behalf.
· In the old way, the priest sprinkled the blood of an unblemished lamb seven times on the seat reserved for God. In the new way, Jesus is like an unblemished lamb, who offers his own blood on the cross.
· In the old way, the priest offered a sacrifice for every sin, which meant he did so over and over and over. In the new way, Jesus offered one single sacrifice – himself – and he did it only once.
· The old way required the priest to repeatedly convince God to be merciful and forgiving. In new way, Jesus doesn’t need to convince God of anything.
As a priest, Jesus offers a sacrifice in the presence of God. It resembled the sacrifice the priests offered in the old house of God. The greatest difference between the old way and the new way is summed up in a single word: once. Three times in our text, the preacher says, “Jesus died once.” Not again and again. Not Friday after Friday. Not year after year. Once. It is a revelation of God’s forgiveness.
On the Friday of Holy Week, the human race nailed the Son of God to a cross. Looking from below, it was the worst thing we have ever done. And in response, from above, what does God do? God listens to the priest Jesus, who enters his presence to say, “Father, forgive them.” (Luke 23:23) God declares, “They are forgiven.”
As the letter to the Hebrews declares, Jesus is like God and
can help us. And Jesus is like us and will help us.
The deep magic of Christian faith happens when we accept with complete trust that the High Priest’s work has been done. Sin is forgiven and released. The priest has made the final appeal on our behalf. He has offered the one sacrifice that can release us. He has reconciled heaven and earth through his work on the cross.
And this is the covenant that God makes with us through Jesus. Jesus is our priest. And Jesus himself is the sacrifice. There is nothing we can do to erase the power and authority of what Christ has done on the cross. He has done the work for us. Our work is to claim the finality of his work which has been done once.
But there’s the rub. Guilt hangs overhead like a shadow. Regret lingers. Fear creates hostility. Rebellion casts off responsibility. We doubt the sufficiency of the cross. Sometimes we remember things that God has long since forgotten.
In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells a fun little story about a woman who claimed she was having visions of Jesus. She was a Roman Catholic, and the word spread all over the diocese. The archbishop heard about her and called her in for a meeting. He asked, “Is it true, ma’am, that you are having visions of the Lord?”
“Yes,” she replied.
The archbishop said, “Next time you have a vision, ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed on my last confession.” The woman was stunned. She replied, “Did I hear you correctly, your grace? You want me to ask the Lord to tell me that sins you have confessed?
“Exactly. Please call me when you hear from him.” She departed.
A week and a half later, she called and requested a meeting. The archbishop agreed. He asked, “Did you do what I asked?” “Yes,” she replied, “I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession.”
He leaned forward. His eyes narrowed in anticipation. The archbishop said, “What did the Lord say?” She took his hand, looked into his eyes, and said, “Your Grace, these are his exact words.” Yes, what did he say? “Jesus said, ‘I can’t remember.’”[1]
Jesus reveals the God who loves us enough to let go of our sins. That’s why the favorite New Testament word for forgiveness is “cancel.” Whether we call them “debts,” “trespasses,” or “sins,” they are cancelled. Not by us, but by the One they offend. Christ the priest offers the one sacrifice that sets us free. He will not cling to the terrible things we have done or left undone. Nor does he want us to keep doing them. So it’s our work to cancel them, too.
Even before we get to Easter, the cross announces our sins are forgiven. And when God raises up the very Christ that we crucified, it is further confirmation that this is the way of God in a world like this. God wants to take the very worst that we can do and transform it. God wants us to proclaim this Good News and to join Christ in his mission to take in the world for repairs, moving all of us toward the day when all things shall be redeemed.
We are forgiven through Jesus Christ, who is both priest and sacrifice.
So that’s the reason, that’s the only reason, why Good
Friday is good.
[1] Brennan
Mannin, The Ragamuffin Gospel, (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1999)
pp. 115-116.
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