Misunderstood - Palm Sunday 2019

14 April 2019 – Palm Sunday

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40

There may be no greater social curse than to be misunderstood – unless what may be worse is giving and giving of oneself only to discover few are giving back.  This is part of what it means to be willing to invest in another person’s potential but unwilling to engage in that person’s humanness – warts and all.  It’s sort of like receiving a new pastor.  Many get excited at first about the possibilities; but when it is discovered this new pastor is pretty much like everyone else, the excitement fades as quickly as the crowds.

Or demanding or expecting so much from the Church but offering nothing back.  I suppose the worst thing of all is to feel used.  That is, one is good for something as long as that one is giving something.  But ask something in return?  A little attention.  A little support.  A little loyalty.  Any reasonable expectation that our humanness will at least be acknowledged.  Because in the end, being used also involves feelings of having been abandoned, even betrayed.  Apart from these, there is no greater sense of loneliness or feeling of worthlessness.

There was a time – and may still be for some – when Jesus’ march into Jerusalem was considered a “triumph”, a win.  Even Jesus seemed to bill it as such when He told the Pharisees that if His disciples were to stop shouting for joy, “the stones would shout out”.  This seems to indicate there was something wonderful going on. 

Indeed it is written in Luke’s Gospel that, as Jesus was making His way down from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem, “the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen …” (19:37). 

You know, back when Jesus was useful …

Yet when certain elements of the Christian faith believe what is wonderful about His arrival in Jerusalem is that Jesus was about to suffer a very painful, excruciating death, we have reached the point at which Jesus is once again being “used” – and when He no longer has any other purpose to serve, will soon be abandoned by the crowds and even His disciples who had seen or experienced or had heard or had read about these “deeds of power” – then and now.  With a wink, a nod, and a “Thanks, Man”, we leave Him to face the Cross alone because we have “stuff” to do – not realizing or seeming to care that the Cross He faced was, in fact, our own.

I have shared with you my aversion to “washed in the blood” analogies, and part of my disdain stems from the idea that all Jesus was good for were not the long-forgotten “deeds of power” showing that the Kingdom of Heaven had come near but for this incomprehensible torture and painful death He would endure.  As some (like myself) who have a difficult time wrapping their minds around all the animal sacrifices and the very bloody narratives of ancient Israel, I wonder why the very bloodied Jesus of Nazareth does not cause the same reaction or raise the same questions.

I think part of being so misunderstood is the inability – or unwillingness - to discern between what may be “foreordained” and what is merely “foretold”; between that which is commanded to take place, and that which is revealed to come.  Our first Scripture portion from Isaiah 50 as well as the entire 53^rd chapter of Isaiah have been quoted often in the New Testament as referring to Jesus and all He would endure, and there are too many parallels to ignore.

But were these things “foreordained”?  Or did The Lord only reveal our inevitable reactions when things don’t turn out the way we demanded or expected?

Ultimately, however, we need to know something.  We need to have a greater understanding of something.  We need to be assured of something.  We need to know how it can be that these many persons of the crowd and of His disciples had witnessed these “deeds of power”, celebrated His march into Jerusalem, but turned on Him only a few days later.  We can have none of this, however, if we are willing to celebrate the Gift of Messiah only because He was beaten to near death and then left to die.  Very.  Painfully.  On a Cross.

It is easy enough for us to say that crowd at that time was celebrating “the King who comes in the Name of The Lord” as the warrior Son of David come to claim His rightful throne.  The heavy hand of the Roman Empire had done its damage, and the people were quite fed up.  Clearly they misunderstood His intentions then – and perhaps as much as we do now. 

You see, we try to explain away the crowd’s reactions while keeping that crowd at a safe distance – but we refuse to see ourselves in or as that very crowd.  We refuse to hear Isaiah’s words in our own ears and in our own time – “… he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him … despised and rejected, a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account” (53:2-3).

In other words, not useful to us … until He’s dead.

From whom “others” hide their faces – but not us.  Heaven forbid that we first be honest with ourselves so we can finally be honest with Him!  Heaven forbid that we would choose to be faithful rather than seek to be popular.  His teachings can be a real pain and devotion to Him downright inconvenient, but we are glad He was beaten to death, “wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities … and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

How barbaric.  How utterly uncivilized.  How animalistic of us to rejoice at His suffering and death but treat with disdain His teachings, His commandments … His very example of the Way we must go.  We won’t follow Him, we won’t study Him, we won’t adore Him, we won’t obey Him … but we will use Him, and we will teach our children and grandchildren to use Him – not for His purposes but for our own.

There is nothing worse than being misunderstood – and then turned on or ignored when we no longer suit someone’s purpose. 

This coming Holy Week must not be like every other one.  We can no longer treat Him as an afterthought.  We must not assume all is well only because we believe He existed – or revel in His blood.  Just as there is more to you and to me than that, there surely is more to Him than that; but we will never know until we actively “seek, ask, and knock”. 

He delivered … once … for all.  Now it’s time to get past the navel gazing and live into the Covenant established for us.  For real.  For now.  Forever.  Amen.