Good morning, Friends! Today is the day we call Palm Sunday. It’s the day when Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem, just before the Passover.
Passover was the greatest holiday of the whole year for Jews. If it was humanly possible, every Jewish family tried to get there. The population of the city exploded. There were millions of pilgrims. They came to celebrate the time when God delivered them from slavery, over a thousand years before.
The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They were broken and in despair. They cried out to God, and God delivered them. It was a mighty deliverance. Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt was cruel and determined. He refused to let them go.
God sent a prophet, Moses. God told Moses to try to convince Pharaoh. God sent plagues to Egypt, plague after plague, disaster after disaster, unmistakable signs that Egypt was on the wrong track altogether.
Pharaoh wouldn’t listen. Pharaoh retaliated, making their lives worse. Finally, God sent the final plague, which took the life of every first-born male in every Egyptian household, right up to Pharaoh’s own eldest son. The plague passed over the people of Israel. None of them were harmed. That’s why they call it Passover.
The next day, Pharaoh let the people go. They started to leave Egypt. Then Pharaoh changed his mind. Why should he let all those valuable slaves escape? He sent an army to recapture them. They were hemmed in, up against the shore of the Red Sea, with no where to go.
God opened a path through the midst of the sea. They passed through the sea, not even getting their feet wet. Pharaoh’s army tried to follow them, and the walls of the sea came crashing in. Pharaoh’s mighty army was no more.
That’s what they were celebrating, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. God’s victory. God’s deliverance. The utter defeat of their enemies. And in every Jewish heart, there was the feeling, “God did it before. God can do it again!”
Passover week was filled with public worship at the temple. There were tens of thousands of people crowding the streets. The Romans were nervous, as you can imagine. There were many extra armed troops at every point in the city.
Jesus rode in to Jerusalem, and it was like a powder keg, just waiting to explode. People were looking for a leader. They were waiting for someone to set the city on fire. That’s the setting for Palm Sunday.
The crowds welcomed Jesus. There was a parade, as Jesus rode into the city. The crowd lined the road for miles. They shouted “Hosanna!”, which means “God saves!” They shouted it over and over again. The cheering rocked the city. It felt like the walls were tumbling down.
Jesus saw all this, and he wept inside. He knew that he wasn’t going to be the kind of king they wanted. He wasn’t going to be any kind of a king at all. Jesus wanted people to share in God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. He prayed for God’s will to be done “on earth, as it is in heaven. . .“
He said that we can begin to live in God’s kingdom today. And he said that whoever enters God’s kingdom, will live forever. Even if we suffer, even if we die, we’re part of God’s kingdom. Whatever we lose, when we do anything for God’s kingdom, will be repaid to us, many times over.
People then, just like now, are fickle. We wave back and forth in the wind. We lose our focus. We change our mind. Jesus knew that. Jesus knew the crowds in Jerusalem, the people who lined the roads to cheer him, and he wept inside him.
He said, “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! You kill the prophets, you stone the messengers God sends to you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all of your people, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you wouldn’t let me!. . .So be it! I assure you that you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
So, that’s the background to Palm Sunday. The question I want to ask today is, “Why did the crowds turn against Jesus? Why did they cheer him one day, and less than a week later, why did they shout for Jesus to be crucified? Why did they love him, then turn against him?” Let’s find out the answer.
Jesus told people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.
Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’
But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!”
Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
Luke 20:9-16
Palm Sunday is all about triumph and tragedy. It was a triumph, because the crowds welcomed Jesus, and said he was going to be their king.
It was a tragedy, because Jesus was never going to be the kind of king they expected, or even wanted. The very same people who welcomed Jesus by the side of the road, waving palm branches, stood by the side of the road again, when he went out to Calvary. The same crowd that called Jesus king, were spectators at the cross, and mocked him as he died.
Why, oh why, did they turn against Jesus? What did he do, that they suddenly rejected him?
If you read the stories about the life of Jesus – which we have done together, over these last few months – you know that Jesus did nothing but good.
He healed people. He cured every person who ever came to him. He didn’t charge them any money. He didn’t even ask if they deserved it. He saw people. He knew their suffering. And he reached out, with God’s power to heal.
Jesus taught people, in simple words they could understand. He told stories – about a sheep that was lost, about a mustard seed that grew and grew.
He told stories about a farmer who kept planting seeds, knowing that many would be lost, but always planting, because the seeds that grew would pay him back a hundred times over.
He told about a son who came to himself and turned around and came home again, about a father who welcomed him back with open arms.
He told a story about a foolish rich man, who had nothing but money, and couldn’t take it with him to heaven when he died.
He told a story about a traveler who was beaten by robbers and left for dead by the side of the road. All the religious people saw him and walked on by. The only one to stop and care for the fallen traveler was a stranger, a foreigner.
And Jesus fed people, by the thousands. He made a little go a long, long way.
He forgave people. He set them free from their inner chains, from the fears that kept them locked inside. He freed them from guilt, and blame and shame. He told them to start over, that God would welcome them back. And he told us to forgive each other.
“Even if they keep failing,” Jesus said, “even if they fail seventy times seven, forgive them. God has forgiven you so much more.”
What good deed did Jesus do, ever in his whole life, to cause people to reject him? Why would people lay their coats down on the street in front of him one day, and cheer and wave palm branches, and shout for him to be crucified just a few days later?
Tragedy.
The week before Easter was filled with all kinds of different things happening. Jesus was teaching in public. He was praying in private.
He went into the temple, which he said was his Father’s house, and he pushed over the tables of the people who were making money off the pilgrims, and drove the sacrificial animals out of the temple.
He said, “My Father’s house is supposed to be a house of prayer! But you have made it a den of thieves.“
Jesus had supper with his friends, and passed around the bread and wine and said some things we’re still trying to understand.
And he told them a story, Luke says, about a man who planted a vineyard. This was something everybody could understand. They saw vineyards and orchards all around them, every day.
It takes a lot of work to plant a vineyard. There’s plowing, digging up the soil, maybe terracing if it’s on a hillside. The planting has to be done carefully, with selected stock, if you want good wine. It takes three to five years before the first grapes can be harvested. Experts claim it takes seven to 11 years before you can actually start making wine. A big investment.
The owner went away, to a different country, and leased the vineyard out to tenants. Didn’t come back for a long, long time.
Well, you all know what happens with tenants. They act like they own the property. They didn’t buy the land. They didn’t plow it, or plant it. But they act like it’s theirs. Happens all the time.
The owner didn’t come back right away, Jesus said. He had other business to do, in a land far away. So he sent messengers, one after another, to collect the rent.
The tenants got bolder and bolder. They beat up the messengers, and sent them away empty-handed.
“Are you starting to get this?”, Jesus asked. “Who does this story remind you of?”
We don’t own this earth, you know. We’re just the caretakers. That’s what God made us for, back in the days of Adam and Eve. God made this world to be paradise, and told us to till it and keep it, to know the name of every tree and plant, every animal and bird.
God told us to take care of each other. To take special care of the widows and orphans, the homeless and the sick. “Don’t come asking if you’re your brother’s keeper,” God said. “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. You know who your brothers and sisters are.”
If you don’t know what to do, God said, here are ten good rules. If those are too complicated, boil it down to just two: “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, strength and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Back to the story: the tenants had got way above themselves. Treated the owner’s messengers really badly. Finally, the owner said, “What am I going to do? I’ll send my only son; maybe they’ll listen to him.”
The tenants got together and said, “Hey, this is the son! He’s going to inherit the vineyard some day. Let’s just kill him, and it’ll all be ours!”
You all see where this story is going, don’t you? You see who all the characters in the story really are.
“The tenants took the son, and killed him,” Jesus said. “What’s the owner going to do then? He’s going to come back, and destroy those wicked tenants, and take back the vineyard, and give it to others.”
“God forbid!”, everybody shouted. And then the lightbulb went on. They suddenly got the point of the story.
Then Jesus looked them all in the eye, and he said, “I’ve got two more things to say to you. The first thing is, when you build a house, there’s always one stone, that’s the cornerstone. It’s the foundation. It’s the stone you build everything else on.”
“If you fall on that stone,” Jesus said, “It will crush you. And if you pull that stone out from the foundation, the whole house will fall on top of you, like a house of cards.”
If we take Jesus away, everything collapses. If we act like we own this world, it’s not going to end well.
We can all shout “Praise God!” at the top of our lungs. But our job is to do what Jesus said – teach his message, share his peace, share his love. Forgive each other, don’t judge each other. Help any way we can.
When people ask, “Why do you do these things?” the answer is, “Jesus helped me. I’m just trying to pay it forward. I’m just doing what Jesus said. Do something good for Jesus, today.”
We’ve still got a long way to go, to live up to that. But in our hearts, that’s what we all want to do.
I hope I’ll see you all here next Sunday. Easter is the big day! Please come, and bring your family, and invite your friends. They’re all welcome!
And pray this week. Pick one of the gospels, and read your way through the Easter story. Any one of the gospels is OK. Let it enter your heart. Welcome Jesus. And be here, for the great discovery, on Easter morning.