SERMON: Hosanna! Who Is this?

 10:30 am, Palm & Passion Sun, Apr, 2023 - JGWhite / FBCA

(Isaiah 50:4-9a; Phl 2:5-11; Mtt 21:1-11)

 One year after we arrived in our previous town, Alex and Sharon arrived there, from ON, Alex to be minister of one of the other churches, Sharon to be an emergency room nurse. Sharon White and I became good friends of this couple. We were sad when they left that town before we did.

But we were also happy for them. They had opportunities to move to Newfoundland, where they wanted to work and eventually retire. I was one of Alex’s references. NL was where that Sharon had been born, and where her father still lived.

After one year there, I think Alex was not thrilled with his ministry in the two churches he served, and Sharon was not happy with her work at the hospitals. They also discovered they did not fit into their part of rural NL; they were not into hunting and fishing and ATVing and all. After one year, they moved back to Nova Scotia. They are very happy.

So it sometimes happens. What we expected, not to mention hoped and worked for, turns out very differently. In some cases, we say things turned out rotten; at other times we realize things got better by not following our plan.

Such is the story of Jesus, today. We call it ‘Palm Sunday,’ welcoming Jesus as a humble King into the Holy City! We also call it ‘Passion Sunday,’ remembering that he ended up arrested and tortured and cruelly executed. It seems the majority of people, even those who had followed Jesus, gave up on Him when He did not take over the city and force the Roman Empire out. He ended up taking the path that Philippians 2 describes. A path of suffering that much like the servant of Isaiah 50. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting.

We welcome Jesus! But, does He do what we want? Is Christ who we expected? We too may switch from “Hosanna! Hooray!” to “Who is this, anyway?!”

Yet what God accomplished in Jesus is indeed great, the best. What seems dreadful at first, becomes amazingly wonderful. But we people tend to go through a rejection, a disappointment, to get to that point. I think it happens in life in many ways.

A person is impressed and emotionally excited about Christian faith. They are touched, somehow, and simply love what is going on in a Church. They get involved. They try some new things, maybe about praying, or serving other people, or whatever. But then things get dull. Or go sour. Or don’t quite prevent some tragedy from happening. ‘This is not what I expected, not what I was looking for.’

Someone else follows Jesus in the best ways they know how for a while, maybe a long time. Then, they start truly reading the Bible – the whole Bible. And it alarms them. They find a lot there they did not know about, or they find way too much of certain things: violence, or sexism or other subpar attitudes. Someone else find out about Christian history, which is a mixed bag of miraculous blessings for so many and disgusting tragedies perpetrated upon others. Or, yet others discover a great leader in Christianity fails them, terribly.

Hosanna, hurray! ... Who is this, anyway?

Before I finish, I need to clarify: there is a big difference between the failures of religion, and what feels to people like the failures of God and Jesus. Perhaps that is exactly the important thing to notice. We may expect Christians to be better than they are – why doesn’t God make us better?? Yet Christ remains incredibly better than all of us, all the while shining through, peeking out from within us.

Our Christian symbol continues to be an execution tool. Our central ritual keeps being about the life leaving one body and going out to millions of people. There is Something bigger than life and death here, greater than failures and evil. When we feel God did not do what God was supposed to do for us, we have taken our next step to learning what God is really up to; as much as we can know this.

 What have we expected of the Son of God?

What do we show of Christ?

In his BBC Reith Lecture, a few months ago, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spoke of freedom of worship and freedom of religion. In the Q&R after, he said: One of the things that I often want to say to others in the Church, and in other religious communities, is that the worst message we can convey to the society around us is embarrassment and anxiety. And quite often, religious communities convey that. We're worried, and we'd like everyone to know just how worried we are.

The retired Archbishop then said, I want to say the opposite of that. We're not there because we're worried, we are there because we believe we have some gift to offer into the conversation, and that's what motivates.

At this time of the year, we declare that taking a journey with Jesus is worth the trip. Again, we walk a Holy Week with the Master. Again we see how the Divine agenda was better than the human expectations. ‘To conquer death, you only have to die.’ To win over violence, you only have to suffer and not ‘fight.’ To live a good life, you only have to give it away, to the world.

Church, shall we go out seek, seek, seeking attention and recruits and survival? Or shall we continue to go out into our corner of the world with Gifts: good wisdom, real help, deep answers, and a holy Presence?

Think on these things, this Holy Week. Pray.

May the Spirit of Christ be near, and answer.