We recognize this fact liturgically by taking the roles of the people in the story, shouting “Hosanna” and also shouting “Crucify him”– it’s our story, we’re there. It’s the story of the human race – our hunger for power, the instinct of powerful people to scapegoat the weak in order to maintain their power, the self-interest that leads to human judges condemning the Son of God to death. We are all present as the Word of God falls silent, an event which puts the entire human race on trial.
But, though we are proved guilty of death of Jesus, there is hope for us. We call it Atonement, a word that means “at-one-ment.” In Jesus, God became at-one with human beings so that in Jesus, we might become at-one with God. In his death, we see the final act of the pageant that began at Christmas. In his cry of forsakenness, Jesus shows how completely he has entered into our separation from God – in death, he completes God’s offering of life to us. And because it is his offering to us, we are all present with him on Golgotha. We were there when they crucified our Lord.
So, where are you in this story, in your life, today? Maybe some of us are in the crowds that gather around Jesus as he walks toward Jerusalem, in a carefully stage-managed procession he arranged. There was nothing unusual about people entering Jerusalem for Passover. The reason he got attention was because he took some very specific and calculated steps – marching toward Jerusalem, healing and teaching and gathering crowds in towns, who all understood that this would be no ordinary Passover, because Jesus is walking in the footsteps of David, the first “Messiah.” You can imagine the people in each town Jesus walks through on the way to Jerusalem, getting intrigued and excited by the possibility that here, finally, was a new Messiah who would step into David’s shoes, throw off the Roman oppressors and establish a new Jewish kingdom. And at every town, dozens or hundreds more people would join his entourage, until it’s a huge crowd, marching to Jerusalem for the Passover, the feast of freedom.
Imagine the anticipation that is building as they approach the holy city – imagine what they are picturing – Rome will be overthrown, injustice and the oppression of the ordinary people of Israel will be stopped, a new day will dawn.
But if that is what they are hoping for, they will be disappointed. The last line of the opening gospel tells us what Jesus did when he arrived. The people are expecting an armed takeover of the holy city – and all he does is he goes to the temple and looks around, then leaves quietly, to come back just as quietly the next day.
Perhaps that’s the moment when the crowds lose heart, when some of them change from people shouting Hosanna to people hoping for crucifixion. When their dreams of takeover and power are shattered, when their leader proves to be a disappointment – that’s when they lose their faith in him.
And that’s the place some of us might find ourselves in today: disappointed in God, wanting God to change the world, relieve oppression, end poverty, stop the world’s hurt, fix our lives, wanting God to use all that divine power to set things right for us. But if God governed through power, God wouldn’t be any different from us. God is going to take a different path – not the path of power, but the path of love, the path of atonement – and love will ask us to look at the world differently. Love will ask us to give ourselves for the sake of those we love.
Today, love might disappoint us, with its lack of satisfying power. And blessed are we in our disappointment, as we share that loving path with God; because God will use his love to share power with us, and to give us power to change things in our world, with God’s help.
Or maybe, we find ourselves in the person who owns the donkey. Jesus has apparently set this up in advance, in his carefully calculated scheme to fit the people’s hopes for the Messiah. He plans to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah that the king of peace will come to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. So he has arranged a code word with the donkey’s owner – “The Lord needs it.” It’s a code word – like Holmes saying to Watson, “The game’s afoot,” it means the time is now, God’s plan is underway.
So maybe that’s where some of us find ourselves today – waiting, hoping for a sign, wondering when God will call us into service –wondering what the next thing is in our lives, trying to make important decisions. And praying that God will come to us with a call – listening for something that will tell us what that call will be.
And blessed are we in our waiting, because the waiting time is the time God uses to speak into our hearts about God’s true hopes for us. And God’s call will come for us, to tell us when it’s time to join Jesus, to give what we have to give, to join him with what we have, even if it seems small, insignificant, symbolic, like a donkey. Whatever it is you have to offer, Jesus will say that is exactly what he needs.
But perhaps some of us find ourselves in the young man who runs off naked – it’s odd little story in the garden that appears in Mark but in no other gospel, and it doesn’t seem important. Many scholars think this young man is Mark himself, who wrote this gospel. We don’t know much about Mark, but in this story he seems to be an obscure young man, perhaps not a disciple, just caught up in the excitement, curious, following the disciples to the garden to see what will happen, and escaping naked, with nothing but his life.
And he might seem like an insignificant part of the story, but without him we might not have the story – because Mark goes on to write this story, to invent the whole concept of a gospel, to bring this story home to us, 20 centuries later.
And maybe that’s where we are today – obscure, vulnerable, but with a story of how Jesus has touched our lives, has changed us, has given us a mission. And God might be building in our hearts and minds a way to share that story. And blessed are we in our story-telling, because there are so many people in our world who need to hear this story we’ve heard today – the story of love.
Perhaps that’s not where you find yourself today. Perhaps you see yourself in Peter. Peter, the blunt, the outspoken, Peter, who always makes mistakes, Peter, the brave disciple who suddenly loses his courage. Peter, who denies ever knowing Jesus, and in denying it, somehow ends up telling the truth after all – saying the heartbreaking words, “I do not know this man you are talking about” – and it turns out it’s true: Peter never knew Jesus. Peter never believed Jesus when he said he was going to die. Peter always, to the end, hoped that Jesus would be the Messiah of victory, not of defeat on the cross – and Peter misunderstands, denies, disappoints, Jesus, and Peter breaks down and weeps.
And maybe some of us find ourselves there today – in a dark place, knowing that we have denied Jesus, that we have disappointed him, that we may never have known him at all, wishing that somehow, some way, he could forgive us. And blessed are we in our denial – for in our own failure, our recognition of our own weakness, we open up space for the Messiah first to forgive us, and then to work through us in a way we never expected. Like Peter, we have the potential to become true disciples, rocks on which Jesus builds his church.
And maybe there are many of us here who see ourselves in the women at the cross. They are powerless to change what is happening to the savior they love, powerless to change much about their world, but what they have, they give – their presence, and their love. At the end, when Jesus feels forsaken even by God, he is not forsaken by these women, who suffer themselves so they can be with him and comfort him.
And maybe some of us are those women, suffering ourselves, suffering alongside others we love, walking with them through the most difficult time. And blessed are we in our suffering, for we are doing for others what Jesus has done for us – and for those who suffer, yours is the kingdom of heaven.
And I think most of us, almost every week, every time we come to worship, can find ourselves in the disciples, at supper the night before Jesus dies – stretching out our hands to receive the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus. We don’t understand what Jesus is giving us, perhaps – not sure what he is about or what this gift of bread and wine means, but willing to accept it because he is the one who is giving it. We are willing to take the bread of life from the one who is the bread of life, willing to let him nourish us with his love, feed us with his life, inspire us with his death, become at-one with us in our own body and blood, so that we can be at-one with him, on the cross and in the resurrection to come.
And blessed are we as we accept in our hands the love of the savior who lives, and dies, for us. Blessed are we as we become at-one with the Body of Christ. Blessed are we who come here, today, in the name of the Lord.
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