Sermon - 2013-03-24 - From Shepherd to King/Palm Sunday

Today is a joyous day indeed.  Today we hear of David entering the city of Jerusalem and also his descendant Jesus enters into the city of Jerusalem. David enters into the city dancing and basically looking like a fool for the Lord.  David is bringing forth the Ark of the Covenant, the container for the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses and also the presence of God.  For where the Ark of the Covenant went, often time, the people would be blessed. Now God would bless the King and the nation will grow and be prosperous.  For David knew that it was not his ability, skills or success but that the success and prosperity would be gifts from God.  David wanted to build a place for God to reside.  However, what we want for God is not what God wants for himself or for us.  

God did not want a place that was great and magnificent because a building is easily built, it is also easily destroyed.  What God wanted was the heart of the people.  David was chosen as the new King because he was a Godly man.  Not because he was willing to do anything in the name of God like go forth and face the giant Goliath, but David was willing to stop what he was doing to listen and find out what God wanted him to do.  David was not allowed to build the House of God in Israel but he was able to grow the people, the nation, and allow the people around to know the greatness that is found within the God of Israel.

The celebrations of the arrival of the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant mirror greatly the arrival of the Messiah among the people.  For the people were shouting, celebrating and so hopeful of what was to come.  At long last, the Messiah has come.  With as much fanfare as Christmas, the people now celebrate the arrival of God’s Chosen One among them.    Have you ever stopped to think about how Jesus will return for the second coming?  I mean Jesus was a poor man who wandered through the wilderness with a group of people who by past and modern times were the working poor.  They were not successful.  They would have put in long hours to barely make it.  They were not the sharpest tools in the shed and nor were they really able to understand what it meant that the Messiah was actually going to come.  Jesus did not live in a great house or was even popular.  Yes, thousands knew of the miracles that he had done within the communities.  However, the message that Jesus brought was not a message that the people always wanted to hear.  They wanted Jesus to help them achieve the greatness of this world and yet Jesus gave them the Word of God.  

When Jesus enters into Jerusalem, he has no wealth, he has no land, even the colt that he is riding on is not his but what he has is the respect of the people.  He has their faith in the works that he has done and the hope of the future that he brings. He has their attention.  However, with their attention comes with it their expectations of what he will be for them.  They begin to wonder, what will the world be like when the Messiah is King and we are his subjects? It will be great not having Rome around or serving other nations, but instead us being on top like we were when David was king.  

For many of you, you know that the good old days are just that, in the past.  However, this Palm Sunday, I want to stop and take some time to look to the future.  What do you hope would happen if Jesus came to our church today?  I mean actually came here.  For many, they have this understanding that Jesus will return filled with power to crush the oppressive nations and rulers within the world.  There will be a great leveling and a final judgement in which all will be cast down from their position that they have worked so hard for and yet it will all be taken away.  It will no longer matter if you are rich or poor, black or white, we shall all stand in the presence of God.  

But Jesus already did that when came the first time.  Jesus got rid of the nationalistic tendencies of people so that you do not care more about your country or your people, but instead that you care more about God. For you are part of the Kingdom of God.  You are united with the people around you because of your Baptism and not your birth.  The old kingdoms and nations are gone and we have one nation under God.

And that great leveling, Jesus did that through your Baptism too.  No longer is there a greater and lesser within the Kingdom of God for we are all God’s children.  We are the ones who perpetuate and sustain that false understanding that there is a better Christian.  For if you are a Baptized Child of God, it means that you are fully and completely a Christian.  NO ifs, ands, and buts, you are part of the Kingdom. No one is greater than the next.  What truly tries to separate us are false teachings and our own expectations.

Jesus entered into Jerusalem not to enter into the world to fulfill our expectations, but to meet the needs that we so desperately longed for but never knew existed. He did not come to slay our foes and lift us high.  He came to serve and give his life as a ransom for sin.   For at root, the real heart of the human dilemma is not our political problems but our sin sickness. The truth is, Jesus didn’t come to be that kind of king, that would run the Romans out of town.  He came to die on a cross even for the sins of the enemies of Israel.  Still to this day, we have a very difficult time understanding this.  Still to this day we tend to think that military solutions to our problems are the ‘final answer’.  The last week of Jesus’ life tells us— this is not so.

We could win all the wars over our political foes and still lose our souls to the Devil.   Indeed, if you look at America today, I would say we are no better off than ancient Israel in Jesus’ day—we are losing the battle for the soul of our nation, the battle against ‘the world, the flesh, and the Devil’ and no amount of military might can compensate for such a loss, salve such a wound, solve such a problem.    

Our land needs a revival of the heart desperately, it needs to embrace the prince of peace, not the dogs of wars.   There has been a coarsening of our culture in my lifetime. We have become a less civil, a less civilized, a less Christian nation in my lifetime.  Indeed, we have even become a nation that wants not merely a separation of church and state, but a separation of God from country!  This does not bode well, and no amount of shock jocks on the radio ranting and raving about our demise will fix it.

For some of our Christian Brothers and Sisters, would say that we need to decide to make Jesus a focus in our life.  We need to have a battle cry, to rally the troops, and celebrate the arrival of Jesus.  However, you are about 2,000 years too late and we bore witness to what happened to those who were closest to Jesus, who knew him, loved and who shared in that same devotion that Jesus was their Messiah.  They left him, they denied him and ultimately realized that it was God coming to them, that saved them.  It was not something that they did, but it was Jesus coming to them.

For Christ was born to be the Messiah, and all who believe and live after him can follow the path that is laid out before them.  They can live out their Baptismal Promise.  They shall deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me, all the way to Golgotha.  For it is here at the cross, that we bear witness to the full work that is done for us.  We bear witness to the love that God has for us.  We bear witness to the life that Jesus is calling us to. And it is here, we gather together to celebrate.  I hope you come and join in the celebration.