Scripture Passage
{Transcript}
Sermon Text
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
This is the word of the Lord.
Celebrating Suffering
Today is Palm Sunday. I’ve always been uncomfortable with Palm Sunday. The lectionary has two choices for today – you can go with Palm Sunday or you can go with Passion Sunday, passionate meaning suffering. I always took Passion Sunday because it is a reflection on suffering. We are going through the lenten season. During lent, what we are meditating on is the suffering of Jesus Christ. And today is the peak. With the beginning of Palm Sunday, the passion comes, so it is a continuation of the theme of suffering. Then, all of a sudden, on Palm Sunday you see this celebration. People shouting Hosanna. They were laughing and playing with each other, the children were running, and people were waving palm branches and they put their clothes on the road, and that they were really, really celebrating for the coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus was entering into Jerusalem. Of course, we understand why they did that because they probably had different expectations from what really actually happened in Jerusalem.
What they expected was that Jesus, being such a powerful king, would enter into Jerusalem and conquer all the leaders and powerful people, and then he will bring the Kingdom of God and then he will win the victory. That’s what they expected. That’s why they were celebrating. They were shouting. They were already in a victorious mood. I understand very much of why they do that. But as a person, all of you, you already know what would happen in Jerusalem to Jesus. And that’s why it is difficult for me and for all of us to reconcile these two scenes. You know, Jesus in Jerusalem, he went through so much suffering there. He was opposed and rejected by people, betrayed by a friend, and his best friend denied him. I mean, in a matter of a week, he went through the worst human experience.
Think about your best friend rejecting you, betraying you, selling you and denying you saying that he doesn’t know you. All these things happened from Monday to Thursday. And then people were spitting at him. They were angry with Jesus. They finger pointed at him, ridiculed him and they finally put him on the trial. At the trial they said, ‘Okay, you’re guilty, your punishment is capital punishment, crucifixion on the Cross’. So finally they condemned Jesus at the trial. People who followed Jesus were hoping for the best, but they came up with the worst. And then finally on Friday, Jesus was crucified. And that’s what happened in Jerusalem. Jesus was entering into Jerusalem to receive all of that. People were shouting, “Hosanna”, and they were happy, laughing. I mean, this is what they said, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
I found that very hard to see these very contrasting and contradicting images. You don’t celebrate for the suffering of a person. That’s not nice. We don’t do that. If somebody goes through suffering, we sympathize with them, we cry with them. But you don’t celebrate by shouting ‘Hosanna’. You don’t laugh and wave palm branches. You don’t do that for a suffering person. That’s not nice, but we do it officially on Palm Sunday. That’s why I have a difficult time to preach on Palm Sunday. But this time while preparing the sermon, I understood more deeply the reason why we can or we should celebrate for the suffering of Jesus Christ, we can celebrate the suffering of Jesus Christ because Jesus changed the meaning of suffering. That’s why we can now celebrate for the suffering of Jesus Christ. To many of us, suffering is not a good thing. It is a bad thing that happens to us. We want to avoid suffering at all costs. When suffering happens to us we don’t want to say ‘wow that’s great!’, most of us say ‘this should not have happened’. So we don’t like suffering.
The Road To Victory
Whenever I preach, something happens to me that is relevant to the sermon. And on the way home after a visitation, this car just came into my lane and hit my car, the front parts. I was going down University and Front – this guy was on the left side and from there he tried to go to York and he didn’t see me. He just came in and hit me. I’m so busy, so things are happening right now in my life and I never had an accident. He just jumped in and banged my car, and then immediately I was upset and angry. He was lying and all kinds of stuff, he was with two or three young guys, and then immediately the sermon that I was preparing came to mind.
Be calm, be quiet, and all of a sudden I had a kind of compassion for these guys because they were swearing, and it is a bad thing for them to do. Suffering, we don’t like it. We like to avoid it as much as possible, but somehow, when I look at Jesus and then listen to his message, all along, he was choosing the suffering.
It’s not as if He tried to avoid the suffering and then somehow encountered suffering and then he overcame it. No, he was choosing the suffering from the beginning. That was really odd to me. But you know, it was refreshing and even inspirational. He was choosing the suffering from the beginning because to Jesus suffering was the road to victory. Not to many of us, but to Jesus suffering was the road to victory. That’s why he choose from the beginning to suffer. What kind of victory was that? Jesus’ victory was not to conquer the enemies. If that was Jesus’ fight, he would not have come into Jerusalem on a donkey, but on a horse with swords. But he didn’t come in with swords on a horse. He came on donkey with palm branches. 300 years before Jesus came, 332 BC, King Alexander the Great came into Jerusalem on his famous warhorse, a black stallion and he conquered Jerusalem. But Jesus did not come on a horse, he came on a donkey. The donkey was a symbol of peace and the horse was an animal of war. Jesus’ fight was not to conquer, but to bring peace and love. That was the fight of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ fight was not to dominate the weaker people. Jesus’ fight was to bring peace and justice and love. And if your fight is not to conquer, but to bring peace, justice and love, then I realized that suffering is the only road. There is no other road. Suffering is the road to take. Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Mandela, all of these people took the road of suffering because that was the road to victory. And that victory was not to conquer, but that victory was to bring peace and justice and love. Jesus fulfilled what Isaiah foresaw. This was what Isaiah saw. When I went to south of Jerusalem, I mean, as soon as I landed, I felt suffocated. Why? Because there are walls all around. So you have to go round and round to just to get from point A to B. You can’t just walk there, but you have to go around so much and there were soldiers guarding everywhere.
But this is what Isaiah the Prophet said many years ago before Jesus came, “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4) What a beautiful imagery and how much we need this message today in this world. There’s so much tension, fighting, terrorism, struggles, killing, violence. There is just too much violence for me to take in the world. Jesus Christ came into Jerusalem as a humble servant of God to bring peace. He came to bring peace. He lowered himself to the lowest of all human beings. He took all the humiliation, ridicule, rejection and horrible death upon himself, but did not say much. He did not say much, and this was what got me yesterday. As soon as I saw that, at first I got angry and then I had compassion. So I asked, ‘maybe I should have given them a ride’ because they had no car. Their car had to be towed.
Suffering Is Strength
Suffering to Jesus was the road to victory. When he took suffering, he was silent. This is, again another vision of Isaiah. He was oppressed and he was afflicted and he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is left to slaughter and like a sheep that before is sheared is silent, so he did not open his mouth. He entered Jerusalem and made a peaceful demonstration against evil, his courageous embrace of suffering brought healing to all of us. Jesus’ suffering was the road to victory. Jesus’ suffering brought healing to all of us. When you fight with others, you don’t bring healing. You may win. You may justify yourself. You may say that ‘I am right and you are wrong’, but there’s no healing. Only when there is suffering, there is healing and this is what Isaiah foresaw. Jesus was despised and rejected by others. 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, but he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. Jesus’ suffering healed all of us. Suffering, I realized and I discovered, was Jesus’ weapon, not a sword. Suffering was Jesus’ weapon. If your fight is a fight for peace then suffering is your weapon. That’s why Jesus chose suffering. He took it upon himself. I’m thankful to Jesus to show that humanity, I’m thankful to Jesus because he showed what a good life is. Truly, his suffering was a suffering of love and we have a special word of suffering love. That is Compassion. Compassion meaning come together. Passion meaning suffering. You suffer with somebody; that is compassion and that is the kind of love Jesus showed during his life. He wasn’t scared of suffering.
I’m embracing the suffering. He transcended the fear of suffering. If you’re running away from suffering you will always be scared of suffering. When we embrace suffering, we will transcend the fear of suffering. So many young people get scared of suffering. What if I lose my job? What if I don’t get a boyfriend or girlfriend? What if my life is not that great? They’re scared of suffering and they try to avoid it as much as possible. They try to deal with it… but Jesus suffering was the road to victory and his best weapon. He quietly and confidently walked into Jerusalem to go through all this suffering and finally completed that suffering on the cross. That’s why he just said on the cross, “It is finished.” It is completed.
We are living in a violent world. I just can’t believe how we human beings have become this low. Just because you suffer, you go through so much, you take 150 people and plunge into the mountain? If you’re hurting, not just the death of 150 people, but the hurt of the families of 150 people and the fear caused for anyone who rides the plane. So many conflicts and fights. Why do we have to do that? Why do we have to fight so much? We human beings, sometimes I wonder whether we have lost the ability to live together in peace and harmony. Our fight is not to win. Our success is not to go higher. Happiness is not to have more. Our fight is to love and to bring peace. Jesus walked through the violent Jerusalem and suffering was waiting for him, but he did not submit to the temptation of this world to conquer, to go higher and to have more. He chose suffering to love and to bring peace.
My friends, you are the disciples of Jesus Christ. The Prince of Peace. May God fill you with this peace. And in your life, whenever this hostility or enemies or volatile situation comes to not lose, be kind. Be hospitable, be gentle, and be peaceful. That is the only road to victory. We’re going to be different. We are not going to use weapons, violence, to deal with problems. All the movies that you see, the only solution is violence. I don’t believe so. I don’t believe that message. I believe in the message of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
{Reflection Song: My Peace I Give Unto You}
Reflection Question
We are the children of peace. We are the disciples of peace. How many times have we neglected that? Have we tried to avoid the road to suffering? Even though we take the road of suffering, we are the disciples of peace. Let us pray that God may grant that powerful peace in us.
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