Harriette Simmons
Palm Sunday

Our Epistle today is that great passage from Philippians which tells us of Christ’s “emptying of himself” and coming to earth in human likeness. In seminary, I have had to write more than one paper on this passage. It is very important in New Testament theology. “Christology” is the fancy name for the various theories of what Christ does for us when he comes to earth.

Did he really “empty himself” of his divinity as Jesus of Nazareth? If he did, that means that he was confined to time and space as we are. That is, he didn’t know the outcome of things. He was required to walk one day at a time by faith just like you and I are required to do. He was subject to the confusion and the exasperation that comes with being a human being.

We sure see that in our reading on this Palm Sunday. We begin with the liturgy of the palms. The crowd can’t get enough of Jesus. He rides into Jerusalem mounted on a donkey, and everybody treats him like a king. That was the point – they wanted a king. So they take this man, this young Rabbi, this healer and elevate him to a hero. They strew palm branches before him as he rides into the city. “Hosanna,” they say, “Hosanna to the King.”

But before the end of the week is out, Jesus experiences betrayal and abuse that few of us ever have to endure. We read that as he goes into the Garden of Gethsemane, he starts to get nervous – “distressed and agitated” we are told. For, God has told him that he is to be “glorified,” and “glorification” for him means death. Jesus is scared, and he wants his friends to sit with him while he prays, while he begs his His Heavenly Father “to remove this cup of suffering from me.” All his buddies let him down. They can’t even stay awake; they fall asleep, and he struggles with his fear alone. I’ll bet each of you can identify with being betrayed by a friend. I’ll bet each of you has betrayed a friend.

Then things start to get ugly. An angry crowd, armed with swords and clubs, come into the Garden, and he is again betrayed – this time with a kiss. A kiss given to him by a man he has loved and trusted - Judas, part of the “inner circle.”

He is ushered into the courtyard of the High Priest, and then the false accusations begin. He listens as one after another make up stories about him. Then begins the physical abuse by the bored soldiers. He is blindfolded and spit on. He is hit about the head. In the meantime, his friends still continue to betray him. Three times, Peter, his dear friend, curses and swears he does not even know who Jesus is.

He is taken to Pilate, the Roman Procurator, and in exchange for his life, a criminal goes free. Gross injustice. It goes against all our sense of “fairness.”

He is mocked by the soldiers - beaten, tortured, despised. He is nailed to the cross, and the most desolate sense of desertion overcomes him. He thinks that even God has deserted him – the ultimate desertion for human beings. Here is a man who has felt as forlorn as you and I have ever felt in our lives.

Where is his hope? Where is our hope?

The story ends for us today with Jesus being laid in the tomb of a Jewish Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea. A large stone is rolled across the entrance to the tomb. Bam! What could be more final?

Our reading tells us that during these dark events the curtain of the Temple was then torn in two from top to bottom.

Pretend for a minute that you don’t know what happens during the next three days. The soldier at the foot of the cross didn’t know what was going to happen. He only knew that he had been in the presence of a holy man. “Truly this man was the Son of God,” he says.

What has all this suffering been about?

We have a God who knows what it is like to be human. We have a God who knows what it is like to suffer. We have a God who was afraid, was betrayed, was in pain, was broken hearted. He truly does share our humanity.

God is a good God. God is all merciful. God takes upon himself our humanness. He shares our frailties. And finally, He literally absorbs all the evil which the world can ever do to us. When he does, he becomes the “first born” of a new race of people.

Jesus, as the second Adam, becomes what the first Adam never was - a person whose life and will is in tune with God’s – the first born of a new creation.”

Why was the curtain of the Temple torn from top to bottom and not from bottom to top when Jesus died? This was no small curtain. It was a huge curtain, something like a large, thick, oriental rug, and it hung before the “Holy of Holies,” that sacred room where no one but the High Priest was allowed to enter, and then, only once a year. It was torn from top to bottom to indicate that it was torn by God, not by human hands. God tore the curtain in half so that we would know that for all time there was no longer a barrier between us and the holiest things of God.

Jesus, the obedient son, obedient, even unto death, has forever opened the way for us to have a personal relationship with God. There is no other religion on earth which makes this claim. We could never get to God with all our good works, so God came to us.

We have yet to hear the “rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would say. We have only heard part of it. “The rest of the story” gets acted out in the events of this upcoming week – “Holy Week,” as we Christians know it. We will get the events described today in more detail this week, and then we will witness the miracle of Resurrection.

Will you watch with Jesus this week? I urge you to come to church as much as you can this week. You business men and women can come, you housewives and mothers and grandmothers can come. You young people can come. You children can come. Put aside whatever it is that you think you have to do, and do what you need to do.

Come, watch with Jesus. Feel what he felt. Be prepared to walk with him in pain so that you can sit with him in Glory.

Amen.