Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from April 9, 2006

“Ride On!  Ride On In Majesty!”

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scriptures:

Philippians 2:5-11

Mark 11:1-11

Here we are, lining the sides of the streets that lead into Jerusalem, ready to say, “Hosanna!” and to sing, “Ride on!  Ride on in majesty!”  But then, are we really sure we want to do this even though we know how this week unfolds?  The choir set the stage.  It isn’t done with the “Ride on!  Ride on in majesty” alone.  What follows only a few days later is the Passion Chorale “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”.  So do we really want to stand there and praise the King of Kings as “majesty” if we know that, only a few days later, those who shout “Hosanna!” next to us will shout “Crucify him!” as well?  Don’t we want to stop him on his journey and take him aside and say, “Does it have to be this way?  Do you have to come this time?  Do you have to choose this path that leads you to your death?” 

So how are we going to go about this day?  Maybe it helps to recognize that Jesus did know what he was doing even at that time.  The events of the week were not a surprise for him.  We have multiple reasons to believe Jesus knew exactly where this was leading him.  If you look in the surrounding scriptures, the surrounding verses of this part of Mark’s gospel leading up to it, Jesus announces his death three times.  The disciples reject that piece of news and that announcement because they can’t handle the idea just as we have a hard time handling the idea. 

Later in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus announces the destruction of the temple and that he will rebuild it in three days.  People laughed at him saying, “This temple has taken decades to build.  Who are you to say you can rebuild it in three days?”  But even if you look at this morning’s scripture, in the end, what does Jesus do?  He has just been greeted and celebrated with this extravagant expression of adoration and praise.  You would think he would hang out with people for a while and enjoy their support, specially knowing that it won’t last.  But, no, it sounds like he seeks some solitude.  At the end of the day, he goes to the temple and the scripture says, “He looks around at everything” as if he was preparing himself, as if he was taking one last look at the very place where the events of the week would unfold only to then retreat with the disciples to Bethany.  Jerusalem, at this moment in time, is filled with masses of people who have come for Passover—some on an annual pilgrimage, for some a once-in-a-lifetime event because they live farther away.  But no, he chooses to be alone.

So you can make a case from surrounding verses as well as from this very part of Scripture.  You can even use the New York Times to make an argument.  The New York Times, on its website, lists the top ten articles that people have read the most and emailed to one another the most at any given time.  In the last couple of days, guess which ones were there as number 1 and number 2?  It was articles about the newly found gospel of Judas.

I haven’t read it yet, obviously, but from what we learn in the New York Times, the gospel of Judas makes a point that Jesus not only knew about his betrayal by Judas but that Jesus asked Judas to do it, that Jesus not only knew about his trial and death, but that Jesus asked Judas to be the one to betray him.  It wasn’t an expression of how bad a person Judas is.  Instead, it was the complete opposite—it was an expression of the closeness between Jesus and Judas that he picked him to be the one to betray him.  The gospel of Judas, anyway, says that Judas knew more about who Jesus would turn out to be, that Jesus is the Messiah, than any of the other disciples.

How does this gospel come to us?  If you have read it, it comes as a leather-bound papyrus that was written about 300 A.D. and is a Coptic translation of a Greek text, a Greek original, that was written even earlier, about a century before that.  We didn’t just find that.  It was found in Egypt in the ‘70s but it has only now been examined and translated.

How do we handle gospels outside of the Bible?  We have an indication that those existed from very early on.  The earliest church fathers, like Irenaeus, wrote about them frequently but we didn’t actually have proof of their existence until about 1945 when about 50 manuscripts were found.  Among them were gospels that have become popular like the gospel of Mary Magdalene and, my personal favorite, the gospel of Thomas.  At home, anytime I say that something I’m saying is the gospel of Thomas, I don’t get very far.  It is not the authenticity that is questioned, but the authority certainly is.

Dan Brown wrote “The Da Vinci Code” and that book has made the presence of gospels outside of our biblical canon a little better known to people who don’t look at this professionally.  What we need to recognize, I think, are two things.  One is that the church decided, several centuries into its existence, what the canon of the Bible ought to be and what not.  So, let’s recognize that the decision that we have four gospels in the Bible, and Thomas is not among them, was a vote taken in the church which wasn’t even a unanimous vote.  Let’s also recognize that after 2,000 years of history of the Bible have passed, the canon, as we know it, carries the weight of tradition in a significant way.  We should absolutely study and not disregard at all the gospels that we know of that are not in the Bible.  At the same time, we don’t need to feel that the Bible, as we know it, has been taken away in any way, shape or form.

What may have been the meaning of this procession for Jesus himself since he knew what was going to happen?  He does enter as the Messiah, the Messiah that the Jewish people were waiting for.  If you compare the different Gospels, Mark makes the least effort to show that Jesus enters gloriously as the Messiah.  Matthew quotes Zecariah ( the same Zecariah 9:9 that Chris was referring to) which describes that when the King comes, it will be triumphant and humble at the same time and he will be riding on a donkey’s foal which is exactly how Jesus enters.

There is a messianic cue there.  Even Mark says, “Here comes the King in the lineage of David” which is the other indication that he is the Messiah.  So Jesus enters as the Messiah and yet, he does not fulfill the expectation of most people what that might look like.  He does not enter with an army; he does not enter as this powerful, mighty, military man who might have the ability to overthrow the powers that be.  He comes very humbly.  The religious authorities not only don’t acknowledge him as the Messiah and stand there shouting “Ride on!  Ride on in majesty!”but they’re worried and are opposing his entry.  Fred Craddock, who is one of the preeminent American preachers, calls this Palm Sunday ride a protest march because it somehow focuses everything that Jesus has done and will do to offend the religious authorities in this one glorious procession.

Now, what are going to do with Palm Sunday?  The same Fred Craddock warns us a little bit.  He says, “Sometimes, we think it’s spring and it’s not yet.”  I felt that very, very clearly on March 30th which was the most spring day I’ve every known in my life but it wasn’t quite spring yet.  Fred Craddock calls it “false spring”.  You have to make it through yet another phase of winter before you really get to spring.  He criticizes or warns us not to engage in a “false Easter” either.  He says, “Don’t you celebrate this day with the Risen Christ in mind and skip over the significance of Holy Week.”  Well, I’m all for experiencing the significance of  Holy Week but I’m going to disagree with Rev. Craddock here for a moment.

I want to make this one point.  If you think about it, our central symbol of Protestant Christianity is the cross like we see it here.  What’s significant about it?  Not the cross itself.  The cross itself is not all that cheerful a symbol; it’s an execution device.  What’s significant about it is what is missing.  Jesus is not on the cross; Jesus is risen.  That is what we celebrate when we look at the cross.  What is the central event of our Christian faith is Easter and what do we celebrate?  We don’t celebrate the act of resurrection per se because nobody has seen that.  What we’re celebrating about Easter is, again, the absence of the body, that the tomb is empty.

What I’m trying to say is our faith is very subtle.  You have to think about it for a while before you understand that the most significant things we believe are the things that are not there—the body that is not on the cross and the body that is not in the tomb.  I think we deserve the right to wave palms and shout “Hosanna!” at the king when he’s still there.  Who is Rev. Craddock to tell us we can’t sing “Ride on!  Ride on in majesty!” because, at that point, Jesus is still there and we already know who he is.  I say we celebrate today and we don’t skip over the rest of Holy Week.  Then we arrive at Easter.

Palm Sunday does not take away the suffering that will follow.  We should go together through the Last Supper and then encounter the cross on Good Friday.  Only then does Easter Sunday have its full significance.  Only then do we understand, in this week of darkness and violence, the love of God and the abiding compassion of God for God’s people.  But today, let us praise the King of Kings.  Let us praise Jesus the Christ, Son of God, Messiah.  Amen.