Preached by Michael Cheuk
April 5, 2009, Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B
Mark 11, 14:17-36, 15:1-39
It was a most amazing week filled with drama, exhilaration and dejection as Jesus, the Son of God journeys into Jerusalem. “As they approached Jerusalem,” says Mark, throngs of people gathered to catch a glimpse of the arrival of this charismatic leader. It was an inaugural of sorts, where the hopes and dreams of a whole nation were placed upon this one man, riding into town on a donkey. “Hosanna!” they shouted, which originally meant, “Save us!” and later came to represent an enthusiastic burst of praise. “Hosanna! Here’s our savior!” they cried, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” In their audacity of hope, these crowds were screaming out for a change they could believe in. ”Save us!” they said. “Save us from the Roman Empire! Blessed is the conquering hero who comes to kick out the occupying Romans!” If this were to happen today, it would not be a far stretch to witness the crowd lining up alongside Constitutional and Pennsylvania Avenues waving their flags and crying out:
Hosanna! Save us from terrorism! Blessed is the one who comes to wipe out the terrorists!
Hosanna! Save us from bankruptcy! Blessed is the bailout to revitalize the economy!
Hosanna! Save us from our pain! Blessed is the drug that can dampen our distress!
Hosanna! Save my failing marriage! Blessed is the one who comes to change my spouse!
The crowds wanted salvation. They celebrated to inaugurate a savior to take away their problems, to shield them from all pain, to get rid of their enemies, and to guarantee their security and their way of life. They cried out for a salvation that they could witness from a safe and comfortable distance. They desired a salvation that wouldn’t demand any commitment or any sacrifice. They yearned for a salvation suitable for spectators. So, from their deepest hopes and anxieties, the crowd cried out their Hosannas.
But this Messiah did not tarry to bask in the adulation from the crowd. Yes, he was on a saving mission, but the salvation he was offering was not going to be cheap. His mission would take him on a journey into Jerusalem, to an upper room, to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, to the palace of Pilate, and finally, to a hill called Golgotha. Jerusalem was dangerous. Jerusalem demanded sacrifice. Jerusalem required followers and not just spectators.
But the crowds just couldn’t understand that, or perhaps they understood it all too well. For the crowds fell away when Jesus entered into Jerusalem. At least the Twelve were with Jesus. They were his followers, his disciples for the last three years. Surely, they would follow their Master as he journeyed into Jerusalem. But in that upper room, at the last Supper, in that inner circle of friends sharing a common meal, Jesus shockingly predicted that one of them would betray him. When they heard this, the Twelve were saddened, and one by one they said to Jesus, “Surely not I?” They could not conceive that such a thing could happen. But they will soon find out that Jerusalem was a place of a deep betrayal.
After the meal, Jesus journeyed to the Mount of Olives, and there he told his disciples: “You will all fall away.” Peter, of course, objected and promised, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, today–yes, tonight–before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” And while Peter and all the others insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you,” we know that in the end, Jesus was right. Peter did disown Jesus three times, and all the rest fell away. Yes, they had the best of intentions, and yes, they talked a good game, but in the end, Jerusalem was a graveyard of good intentions and a cemetery of broken promises.
With heaviness of heart, Jesus took Peter, James and John and they journeyed to the Garden of Gethsemane. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, Jesus fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.” We can all relate to this prayer. We’ve all been in situations where we have pleaded with God with heavy and sorrowful hearts to spare us and those we love from further pain and suffering. We might have even prayed for God to spare us from what we sense to be God’s direction for our lives. On that night in Gethsemane, Jesus prayed no differently than many prayers that we have prayed, but with one exception. Jesus ended his prayer with “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Too many times, we attempt to control life according to our own agenda. But on that night in Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to relinquish his need to control human events, and he fully placed his life and his future into his heavenly Father’s hands. All throughout the first half of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus was a man of action, journeying here and there in quick succession to teach his followers, to heal the sick, to exorcise demons, and to perform miracles. All of those things were done according to his Father’s will. But now, as he journeyed into Jerusalem, as he prayed in the Garden, Jesus reaffirmed the primacy of his Father’s will even though it would mean that other people and events would conspire to take him to places where he didn’t want to go. Jerusalem was a place where one was no longer in control.
After that prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus, the man of action became a man acted upon. In the rest of the Gospel, Mark recorded all the things that happened to Jesus rather than what Jesus did. Jesus was arrested, bound, led away and handed over to Pilate at his palace. There, the chief priests accused Jesus of many things, and Pilate interrogated him, but Jesus remained silent. The chief priests then worked up the crowd to demand that Pilate pardon a terrorist called Barabbas and crucify Jesus. As long as Jesus obliged to meet their expectations, the crowd was willing to crown him as Christ. As soon as Jesus failed to meet their expectations, the crowd was willing to crucify him as a criminal. There’s a fine line between being lifted up to be crowned and being lifted up on a cross.
Jesus was then flogged and handed over to solders who mocked him by putting a purple robe on him and twisting a crown of thorns onto his head. They struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. They mocked him and led him out to crucify him. At the crucifixion, those passing by hurled insults at him by saying: “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” Even those crucified with Jesus also heaped insults on him. Everyone surrounding Jesus swirled with activity while Jesus remained the calm eye in the center of the storm. Jerusalem was a violent, chaotic place of injustice, rejection, mockery and persecution.
But Jesus willingly journeyed into this Jerusalem, not because he was a masochist, but because of his mission. For you see, Jesus knew that his journey into Jerusalem and the experiences of deep betrayals, failed promises, loss of control, injustice, mockery and persecution were not unique to him. In fact, this is the universal human journey in a fallen, sinful and broken world. These are the experiences of you and me as we journey separated from the life-giving love of our creator God. And in order for Jesus to save us, he willingly took on even this separation as he made one final journey to a hill called Golgotha and hung on a cross. There, Jesus took on the sin of you and me and of the world and journeyed to a place no beloved Son of God should ever have had to experience: the abandonment of his own heavenly Father. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And with that, Jesus breathed his last, and fulfilled the mission that his Father had sent him to accomplish. Jesus said in Mark 10:45: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” On the cross, Jesus revealed to the world exactly what kind of a savior he was – a savior who comes not in power but in weakness, not to be served but to serve, not to destroy the lives of his enemies, but to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus came as a suffering savior, and the salvation he offered was not cheap.
Jesus died experiencing the separation from his heavenly Father, a separation symbolized by the curtain in the Temple of Jerusalem. That curtain separated human beings from the Holy of Holies, the place where Jews believed the terrifying presence of God dwelled. No human can enter into that sacred space except the High Priest once a year when he offered a sacrifice on behalf of the people. When Jesus died, that curtain that blocked the way to God’s presence was torn in two from top to bottom. And at that very moment, when the separation between God and humanity was breached, a non-Jewish Roman centurion became the first human being in the Gospel of Mark to correctly identify Jesus: “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
On this Sunday, many of us are journeying into our own “Jerusalems.” We live in a world in the throes of terrorism, reeling from a crashing economy, and our lives are a mess. We have experienced deep betrayals, broken promises, abandonment, injustice, rejection, mockery and suffering. Some of us are journeying into a Jerusalem where bad things are happening to us beyond and out of our control, and it is causing us deep anguish and sorrow. We need a savior. The good news is that Jesus is our savior, but not necessarily one to save us from terrorism, or economic recessions, or even betrayals and suffering. No, Jesus journeys with us into our Jerusalems to save us from everything that separates us from our heavenly Father. It is only when the curtain of sin that separates us from Almighty God has been torn in two, that we can have access to a power strong enough to face the Jerusalems of our lives. The way of salvation only comes through a costly cross, and all Jesus asks is that we take up our cross and follow Him. I pray that on this last Sunday of Lent, that God will give us the strength to follow. For when we do and as we survey the wondrous cross of Christ, there Jesus will be revealed to us as truly the Son of God. Amen.
