Isaiah 50:4-9
Palm Sunday
April 10, 2022
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?
One of my first memories of the day was riding in the station wagon when I was a kid. We were on the way home from worship at the Presbyterian Church. We went around the corner, and as we passed the Methodist church on Main Street, I saw two classmates out front on the sidewalk. They were engaged in a sword fight with their palms. One of them lunged to poke the other’s eye. Such behavior had never occurred to me. I had to try it out when I got home. And then I was assured that violence is never the way of God, especially against your sister.
Palm Sunday is a paradox. Jesus comes down the hill into Jerusalem, and the people cheer. When they see him, they shout, and wave leafy branches. According to the accounts, they break into singing the Passover psalms, Beginning with Psalm 118, “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.” Here he comes, whether they have been waiting forever, or are simply swept up in the enthusiasm of the moment. Jesus rides into the city and is acclaimed as a prophet. The crowd cheers!
Halfway down the hill, he turns aside, and we remember what he says about the prophets of Israel before him: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones who are sent to it!” (13:34) By the end of the chapter, Luke reports that all the religious leaders wanted to kill him.
Cheers and violence: that’s the paradox. We know it from the Holy Weeks that we survived before.
There are some who believe the violence is necessary. We hear it in some of the language, in phrases like, “God sent his son to die.” That is a particularly Old Testament point of view. Take an unblemished goat, a scapegoat, and pin on him all the sins of the people. It’s written down in Leviticus, chapter 16. Kill the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement, and the sins will be taken away. That’s how I was taught. Nobody ever told me what you do when the scapegoat comes back from the dead.
And when I had children of my own, my attitude changed dramatically. I couldn’t imagine handing them up for the benefit of others. No, no way.
It helped to read the Gospel of Luke, the whole thing, all the way to the end. Jesus was met from resistance from the beginning, threatened as early as chapter 4, marked for elimination by the religious people by chapter 6. When you get to the end, what does the centurion say at the foot of the cross? Not “truly this was the Son of God.” No, that’s the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, and John Wayne in one of those Jesus movies.
No, Luke’s centurion says, “Truly this man was innocent.” Innocent. Did nothing wrong. Suffered unjustly. Which is to say, in Luke’s Gospel, the cross of Jesus is a catastrophic mistake. God sends the Son, and everybody rejects him. Those who cheer as he enters the city will change their tune on Friday.
Now, we know this. The church calendar names today as “Palm Sunday.” It’s also named as “Passion Sunday.” So long before we plan it, there’s the inevitable question from the church staff: are we doing palms or passion? My answer is “yes.” Both. To be faithful to the story, we must hold both together. We sing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” and “Ride on, ride on in majesty, in lowly pomp, ride on to die.” Both of them.
The cross is the counterweight to the hosannas. The hosannas remind us of the truth beyond the crucifixion. We hold the paradox of both. Otherwise, we can come for the cheers on Palm Sunday, return a week later for the alleluias on Easter, and never realize that, in between, somebody has died.
The scriptures give us a place to stand. Like that short poem we heard from the prophet Isaiah. It’s considered a song, one of four such songs in the middle of that anthology of Isaiah’s writings. These are the songs of the servant of God who is never named.
The romantic notion of many Christians is that these four songs predict Jesus, in both his mission as well as the response. We have no evidence that Isaiah himself saw it that way. He’s writing down these songs while Israel is in exile, reminding them of the call of God, their mission to be a light to all nations, and the inevitable suffering that comes from doing God’s work in the world. Over and over, God spoke through the prophets to the people. Over and over, they were pushed aside – or worse.
Yet there’s something new in the song for today. The servant persists. Like every prophet of God, he has been given the tongue of a teacher. Day by day, he listens for God to speak. He shares what he hears. He sustains the weary with a word, with a Word from God. And he will never, ever back away from that mission.
This servant does not turn away. He refuses to water down the Word. He is courageous enough to stay at his calling, no matter what happens.
This is a description of Israel at its best, even in the worst of times. Time and time again, God called servants to speak truth to power, to call for peace, to beckon everybody back to God and God’s ways. And this vocation both empowered the people and stirred up opposition to the status quo.
So it’s no wonder that when Jesus arrives on the scene six hundred years later, the faithful nod and say, “Here we go again.” The similarities are striking. The Servant sings,
I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard.
I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
He will not back down from his mission. He will not chicken out. He goes willingly because he knows that speaking the Word that God gives him is what he needs to do. God has called him; God stands close at hand. There will be no dis-grace when you work on behalf of the God of grace. There will be no shame in doing the right thing in a world that has stopped listening.
Stopped listening to what? The world stopped listening to the Word that violence is never the answer. Brutality is not the way to treat one another. Damage is never acceptable. There is an alternative, regardless of the opposition we may face. And it’s there, in the center of this Palm Sunday scene.
Someone tells about visiting a small ranch that had some horses. One day the owner said to my friend, “I have a new colt. Come and meet him.” His name is Maverick. Maverick was young, just a few months old, and he was full of fire. As they approached the paddock, he rolled his eyes and began to snort. The horse began to race around in circles, kicking and snorting. The owner said, “He’s never been ridden, so he’s never learned any manners.”
The rancher gently stepped into the paddock with a handful of oats, an apple, and a coil of rope. The colt began to charge him, but stopped abruptly, while John, the owner, held his ground. John spoke quietly and waited him out. After a while, Maverick cautiously stepped forward and nuzzled the owner’s arm. John offered a handful of oats and apple, which Maverick took gently. As he ate, John gently lay the rope on the back of the colt’s neck. Not to restrain him, but to let him feel it. Maverick was learning not to be afraid of the rope. My friend said it was one of the gentlest things he had ever seen.
Between the cheers of the crowd and the cries for crucifixion is a man who rides an unbroken colt into the middle of an emotional hurricane. The colt has never felt the weight of a rider, never felt spurs pierce his side, never known the sting of a whip. All the accounts say Jesus rode this unusual steed right into the city, the city that stones its prophets. And it’s this quiet spectacle that prompts the crowd to shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”
There are many times when a crowd will get it wrong, but I agree with my friend, this was not one of them.[1] They saw something that the world will usually miss. They perceived the kindness, the compassion, the gentleness, and said, “Look at this. Could this be the One? The king? The one who can save us from ourselves?”
Aren’t we tired of the hatred, the division, the senseless attacks? Aren’t we repelled by the mistreatment of a good man? Can’t we agree to reject the rejection of one who acts on our behalf? Aren’t we numb from the 24-7 revelations of senselessness of war? Aren’t we ready for it all to stop? Of course we are. And the crowd cheers when the humble man rides the unbroken colt into the city. For the moment, they understand. They see the alternative to anger, destruction, and oppression.
And then, a blink or two and it’s back to the usual ways. The haters will conspire. The courageous will chicken out. The confident ones will have their doubts. Even one of the disciples closest to Jesus will pull a sword when the temple police arrive to drag him away. Not a palm branch sword like one of the kids, but a weapon forged from steel. He will strike out in retaliation to create more damage – yet Jesus will shout, “No more of this!” (22:51). That was the Word that God opened his ear to hear. That is the Word he still speaks to us.
So we stand within the crowd, swept up by the excitement, amazed by the spectacle. It’s a snapshot before everything reverts to the way it always seems to go. And we really want it to go right this time. We truly want peace, and joy, and balance, and calm. Maybe this week will go differently from all the other weeks. Maybe this time we will look upon an innocent man and say, “Let him go!” Maybe. What do you think?
The good news is that whatever happens will not depend on us. It depends on him. On his commitment. On his compassion. And Jesus will ride that unbroken colt all the way down. Because his face is “set like flint.” And nothing will turn him away from saving us from ourselves.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] Scott Black Johnston, “Unbroken,” Journal
for Preachers, Easter 2020, p. 27.
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