Called to Deep Hope (Hope Against Hope)

We have been considering variations on the theme of “deeper with God”. As the old hymn puts it, “Deeper, deeper in the love of Jesus/ Daily let me go;/ Higher, higher in the school of wisdom,/ More of grace to know. Oh, deeper yet, I pray,/ And higher every day,/ And wiser, blessed Lord,/ In Thy precious, holy word.”  

 

We began with “deep relationships” and progressed to “deep commitments”. We have sought “deep wisdom” and “deep healing”, leading to “deep growth”. Today, we seek a deep hope, deeper than the problems and struggles of our lives, deep enough to bring joy when griefs surround us. 

 

Isaiah 50 

Our passage from Isaiah is titled, “The Servant’s Humiliation and Vindication”. This is the third of four servant songs contained between Isaiah 40 and 53. Isaiah 53 is perhaps best known to many Christians – a clear reference to the trial and execution of Jesus, which we remember this coming Friday. Isaiah 50 is also a song that refers to the life and death of Jesus. Read this way, Jesus is the servant of the Lord, who is first humiliated and then vindicated. [Note: Jewish interpretation of these passages sees the servant of the Lord as the People of Israel; Christian interpretation as Jesus, the Messiah. It would be worth exploring these two interpretations in dialogue in another setting.] 

• Verse 4 portrays the ministry of Jesus as the teacher who brings understanding of God’s Word to the people. 
• In verse 5, the servant obeys God in his ministry and experiences the consequences of faithful service. 
• Verse 6 is quoted in Handel’s Messiah, referring to the trial of Jesus, in which he is stripped and beaten and prepared for execution. 
• Verses 7 to 9 then speaks words of hope in the darkness of the moment. In the experience of Jesus, these verses proclaim hope when hope is least evident. He maintains confidence in God’s goodness as he enters the worst time of his life on earth.

In the Servant’s Song, we hear this note: God is good, and we can hope in God even as we enter the darkness of difficult times in our lives. 

 

John 12 

We read the account of the Triumphal Entry from John’s gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke give similar accounts of Palm Sunday. John tells his own story – clearly the same event, but he was looking at it from a different perspective. We follow his view through the verses we read. 

• “The next day” in verse 12 locates the event just after Mary (sister of Martha and Lazarus) anoints Jesus’ feet in their home in Bethany, just after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus uses this anointing to speak of his coming death, and the entry into Jerusalem leads to that death. 
• We read that a large crowd of people were in Jerusalem for the Passover, now less than a week away. Apparently, they had heard of the way that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11), so when they heard that Jesus was coming into the city, they went to meet him. 
• Verse 13 records them picking up palm branches as part of their celebration, which gives today its name of “Palm Sunday”. [Where the people get the branches is a matter of some scholarly discussion.] They also start cheering for Jesus, calling him “the King of Israel”. 
• In verse 14, Jesus sits on a donkey to enter the city, and John explains that this action fulfilled the prophecy quoted in verse 15. 
• Jesus’ disciples only recognized the significance of this action after he had been executed and then raised from the dead. This last point is important: They did not recognize what Jesus was doing until later, when they had time to put the whole picture together.

In the next few verses, the Pharisees (and of course the other leaders who were threatened by Jesus’ ministry) realize that they are in trouble of being overwhelmed by the popular response to Jesus, and they set in motion the actions that lead to Jesus’ arrest and execution. The night is getting dark, and the shadows are gathering. 

 

Called to Deep Hope 

These events are familiar. Usually, we would have started our service this morning with the children acting out the “triumphal entry” (as we call it). We do this every year, and we know this story well. We know it so well that we may not realize how completely backwards the whole story is. Look at it again. 

 

“The Triumphal Entry” bears a name that suggests triumph and success and joy. The event leaves the Pharisees themselves saying, “The whole world has gone after him!” (verse 19). In fact, this parade is the beginning of the darkest hour. It ushers in the full weight of the religious authorities acting against Jesus, leading to his execution. Jesus himself knows well that this apparent triumph is the beginning of trouble. This upside-down series of events mirrors what we read in Isaiah 50, where the faithful action of the servant leads to punishment and scourging, a whip laid across the servant’s back. 

 

In the same way, this beginning of trouble is God’s call to deep hope in our lives. Isaiah reminds us that God is good, and we can hope in God even as we enter the darkness of difficult times in our lives. The application of this truth to Jesus adds a special dimension to the experience of entering life’s shadows. Jesus did not need to be purified, but we do. Jesus did not need to enter into darkness, but we do. Jesus could have stayed with the trinity of persons within the Godhead, but we cannot. To enter the presence of God, we need radical purification. Without entering the shadows of this life, we cannot enter into the light of God’s presence. Jesus goes first to open the path for us and to light the path for us as we follow him into the shadows. 

 

This is a theme we have dug into often over the past weeks, so often that we might wonder why we need to say it again. We say it again because we have trouble really believing it. We return to this theme because it is a constant theme in our lives. I have reminded you before of the Friday prayer in the Anglican Prayer Book:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Why does the prayer book give this prayer for each Friday of the year? Because we can pray the words easily without internalizing them. Repeated use helps to bring us to the point that we discover the truth of these words in our own lives. 

 

Finding Hope in the Shadows 

In last week’s bulletin, we saw some questions to help us think about the passages for today: Are you a glass half-full or a glass half-empty person? Are you a realist who hopes against hope or an optimist who thinks everything is fine as the boat sinks beneath the waves? What do you think Jesus wants you to be? 

 

I don’t know if you thought about these questions or not, but we can think about them now. Are you a realist or an optimist? Do you see possibilities or trouble when something starts to go wrong? I used to be an optimist – at least, I think I was. Now, I can see the problems ahead more easily than the possibilities. The answer to this question is probably more a matter of personality than anything else. I don’t think Jesus wants us to be one or the other. I do think that Jesus wants to do something in us and through us as we enter into the shadows of life. 

 

Some of us face hardships cheerfully; some of us face hardships fearfully. Some of us see clearly the possible problems that may come; some of us see clearly the possibilities for joy. All of us can rest in Jesus and follow him into the shadows. When we walk with Jesus, we begin to find something of what God wants to do in our lives. 

 

I think of my grandfather. He was a singer and teacher, a missionary and a minister. He and my grandmother went to Zimbabwe with BIC Missions in 1921. They came home in 1929 for a furlough. Their oldest son was then 13, and they made the decision to leave him with my grandfather’s brother, a teacher at Messiah College. But that brother and his wife refused to take responsibility for their nephew, and my grandparents found that their missionary career was over. Their belongings in Zimbabwe stayed there. Their relationship with the church and people in Zimbabwe ended without a chance to say goodbye. I don’t know how they processed the events, but I am sure it was a time of walking in the shadows. 

 

Why did these things happen to them? I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. I do know that Jesus had gone before them, entering into Jerusalem and facing his own death. I do know that Jesus provided for them as they processed a difficult change of plans. Grandfather was then 45 years old. Within a few years he had moved to Oklahoma, where he was superintendent of our church bible school in Jabbok, Oklahoma and then to California, where he taught Bible at our church college in Upland. 

 

Upland College was the scene of another time of darkness. When he was about 55, the college went through a financial crisis. In order to meet their budget, they cut the benefit that instructors had, allowing their children to attend the classes for no tuition. When they gave my grandfather a contract, he handed it back to the board chair and asked them to reconsider the child tuition benefit. The board chair simply kept the contract, and grandfather was out of a job. My Dad has told me how grandfather drove into the hills around Upland and sat under a bridge by the road, dwelling on what had happened to him. 

 

He was, I suppose, experiencing depression, brought on by the combination of financial hardship in the college and a personality clash with the board chair. Unemployed, in his mid-50s, wondering how he would provide for his family or do the work God had called him to do. For the moment, he and grandmother took a mission church in Pennsylvania. Eventually, she began teaching art at Messiah College, where they had started their lives together some 40 years before. Grandfather gradually lost his sight, and when I knew him, he could only distinguish light and darkness; he could not see me when we visited him. 

 

Again, I don’t know how they processed these events, and I don’t need to know. I do know that Jesus had gone before them, entering into Jerusalem and facing his own death. I do know that Jesus provided for them as they dealt with the loss of job and status and moved into their retirement years. The truth is that they had a hope that was deeper than the shadows in which they sometimes lived. Their hope was in Jesus, and they lived and died knowing that God cared for them. 

 

Grandfather lived his last years at a place called Messiah Home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a retirement home run by our church. The board chair, whose actions led to his loss of a job 20 or so years before, had fallen ill and lay near death. Those with him asked if they could do anything for him. He asked them to bring John Climenhaga to pray with him. I don’t know what exactly was behind that request or what grandfather thought of it, but he went and prayed with the board chair. Two old ministers in the Brethren in Christ Church, both near the end of their days, knowing that they had hurt each other, approaching the end of their lives in the hope of their common Lord. 

 

Conclusion 

You notice that I am being careful not to say that Jesus’ example sets us free from pain or hardships. I have told a piece of my grandparent’s story. I could have told other parts as well. I cannot say what exactly God was doing in their story, but I am confident that they discovered a deep hope that went deeper in their lives than the loss of job or dreams, deeper than anything that can happen in this life. 

 

Palm Sunday. A reminder that great triumph often precedes great hardship. Next Sunday, Easter Sunday reminds us that great hardship also leads to great triumph. We will not anticipate that triumph yet. Instead, we live in the space where Isaiah acknowledges the pain that the servant of the Lord feels. We live in the moment where clouds gather on the horizon, telling of the storm about to break around us. 

 

I have used a simple story of my grandparents’ lives. I could have used a story of systemic distress and injustice, something perhaps that those who work with the SCO could tell us. I could have used stories from the political world or from our own history of fleeing from Russia. In all these stories, the same truth holds: Jesus has gone before us, entering into Jerusalem and facing his own death. Jesus provides for us as we face the darkness of our own lives and times. Our hope is deeper than our fears, and God is stronger than death. “Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why so disquieted within me? Put your trust in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Palm Sunday, 28 March 2021

 

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Servant’s Humiliation and Vindication

⁴ The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 

⁵ The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. ⁶ I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 

⁷ The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; ⁸ he who vindicates me is near. 

Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. ⁹ It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

John 12:12-16

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

¹² The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³ So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” 

¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: ¹⁵ “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” ¹⁶ His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.

Focus 

As we follow Jesus into Holy Week, we sense the rush of the crowds and seek the deep, steady current of God’s steadfast love, calling us to deep hope in the One who comes in the name of the Lord. 

 

Thinking Ahead Questions 

Are you a glass half-full or a glass half-empty person? Are you a realist who hopes against hope or an optimist who things everything is fine as the boat sinks beneath the waves? What do you think Jesus wants you to be? 

 

Going Deeper Questions 

1. In the sermon, I said that God is good, and we can hope in God even as we enter the darkness of difficult times in our lives. How does God’s goodness “fix” the problems that we face in life? 

2. We have heard many times now the theme of trusting God in times of trouble. What benefit is there in hearing this theme more than once? 

3. Do you think optimists or pessimists are closer to the way God wants us to be? 

4. What is “deep hope” anyway? How does deep hope work in our lives when we’re experiencing the problems of this world?

The Glory of Shame

Introduction

Everyone loves a parade! Two months ago, Donald Trump stated that he would like a really big parade in Washington, probably on July 4, to help lift everyone’s spirits in the United States. Other countries from France to North Korea have their own parades to show off their own military strength. Some of the best parades of all take place in England – the English know how to do pageantry right!

We have our own annual parade in Steinbach. We celebrate with tractors and flags, reflecting the community’s farming background and the present influence of immigration on our community. I remember our Pioneer Days’ Parade a few years ago, when I carried the flag from Zambia (where I was born), one of over 100 flags of different countries represented in Hanover.

Today, we started our service with our own little parade, but this is a parade with a difference. We remember Jesus and his “triumphal entry” parade into Jerusalem. Instead of tanks or warhorses, he had a donkey. Instead of soldiers, he had ordinary people cheering for him. Instead of a powerful speech, he went quietly into a room, where he washed his disciples’ feet (another unusual action for a leader).

We read the account in John 12 this morning, and we read a passage behind the events of Holy Week from Isaiah 50. We look at these passages, asking what’s going on in this unusual parade, and what it means for us.

John 12

The triumphal entry, as we call Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, is recorded in all four gospel accounts. This event begins what we refer to as Holy Week. In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), it is followed immediately by Jesus cleansing the Temple of the moneychangers, an action that shows Jesus’ desire to renew the true worship of God. In John, the account of the cleansing comes near the beginning of the gospel, linking this renewal with the whole of Jesus’ ministry. By detaching the account of cleansing the temple from the parade, John provides a clear focus for the entry into Jerusalem: It leads directly to the cross of Jesus. These verses lead to several questions (among others):

• Who planned the parade?

John’s account leaves the planning unclear. The first three gospels suggest that Jesus planned the entry, and the disciples carried out his wishes. John notes simply that there were many Jews in Jerusalem, present to celebrate the Passover. They were drawn into the parade by the enthusiasm of the disciples, and by the rumours of the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11). The verses immediately after our passage make it clear that the Jewish leaders were afraid of Jesus’ evident popularity. They responded by putting their plans in motion, which led to his death.

• Why did Jesus ride a donkey?

The donkey is a nice touch. Jesus enters Jerusalem as the king, a clear claim to be God’s Messiah. Such a claim could only cause concern among their Roman rulers, who were used to such triumphal parades. Any Roman triumph was led by the conquering Emperor or General, riding on a warhorse. Horses can be majestic creatures, and a warhorse is impressive, especially with a warrior king on his back. Jesus rides on a donkey, because he comes as the Prince of Peace, not as a warrior. Jesus enters Jerusalem peacefully, inviting the people to follow him.

• What’s up with the palm branches?

The crowd gathered up palms from the streets, perhaps from outside of people’s houses, where they may have been placed in anticipation of the Passover Feast, or from the palm trees that lined the road. They were easily found, and the people used them with joy. They cried, “Hosanna!” “Save us!” Save from whom? Save from the Roman Empire! Clearly, they saw Jesus as a potential King, ready to overthrow their Roman rulers. Jesus rides the donkey, confounding their hopes and making it clear that the Messiah comes in peace to bring peace. The road to the cross is a road of pain and a road of peace.

• What does it all mean, anyway?

Jesus knows where he is going. He is going to die. He is going to the cross. He is entering the place of pain and suffering, even as the people cheer for him. He comes in glory, but enters into the place of shame and suffering. As Anglicans pray every Friday, “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: ….” We will come back to this thought – that Jesus is going to the cross. This is the centre of our faith, from which all else flows.

Isaiah 50

This passage is one of four passages in Isaiah that we sometimes call “the servant songs”. Commentators have looked carefully at these passages, connecting them to their historical context, preparing for the return to Israel from Exile in Babylon and Persia. A proper consideration of the servant songs must wait for another occasion. This morning, I note one basic truth about them.

As someone has said, the Bible was written for us, not to us. That is, each book of the Bible was written to a particular audience in a particular historical context. Commentaries and biblical studies help us to discover this original audience and context, the people each passage is written to. Behind or beneath these specifics, there are principles from God, which are written for our benefit.

In our text this morning, Isaiah 50 is written to people in Exile, waiting for their salvation, for their return to their homeland. The prophet refers to the servant who suffers in order to save his people from Exile here and in Isaiah 53. The prophet probably means that Israel as a people is God’s suffering servant, and that their suffering also brings their salvation. Some suggest that Isaiah saw Jeremiah as a model of this suffering servant, which makes sense, given Jeremiah’s own difficult experience as God’s prophet.

In the New Testament, Jesus applies these passages to himself, and the early church clearly understood them to be prophecies about the suffering Messiah, whose work on the cross saves not only the Israelites, but the whole world. In Acts 8, for example, Philip explains Isaiah 53 to the Ethiopian eunuch as applying to Jesus. In Luke 24, Jesus explains to the two disciples walking home to Emmaus how the prophecies of Scripture were fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah.

With this understanding, then, we hear the words in verse 6: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.”

Handel’s Messiah has collected these verses (and others) from Isaiah and the Psalms to describe the cross of Jesus in a moving and remarkable piece of music. Hear the way that the librettist describes the cross, using OT passages:

PART TWO

22. Chorus: Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1: 29)

23. Air: He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53: 3) He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off His hair: He hid not His face from shame and spitting. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 50: 6)  

24. Chorus: Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows! He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. (Isaiah 53: 4-5)

25. Chorus: And with His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53: 5)

26. Chorus: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53: 6)

27. Tenor: All they that see Him laugh Him to scorn; they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying: 

28. Chorus: “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, if He delight in Him.” (Psalm 22: 7, 8) 

29. Tenor: Thy rebuke hath broken His heart: He is full of heaviness. He looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man, neither found He any to comfort him. (Psalm 69: 20)

30. Tenor: Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow. (Lamentations 1: 12)

31. Soprano or tenor: He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgressions of Thy people was He stricken. (Isaiah 53: 8)

32. Soprano or tenor: But Thou didst not leave His soul in hell; nor didst Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption. (Psalm 16: 10)

The libretto is a profound and moving account of Jesus on the way to the cross, entering into the shame of the world on his way to glory. I encourage you to sit down and listen to it this whole section during Holy Week, preparing yourself for Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

For Us, and For Our Salvation

All of this was written to the first readers of the Bible, but I said that Scripture is also written for us, even if it is not written to us. So, what does this mean “for us”? We can get at this question through another question. Why did Jesus have to die on a cross? This question is really two questions: Why did Jesus have to die? Why did it take a cross?

The full discussion of these questions would take far too long, so I will just hint at it. We know that sin is in the world. Sin is rebellion against God. Sin is the source of all that is wrong in our world. When we ask why a loved one had to die, or why someone has cancer, or why marriages dissolve in anger and shouting, or why someone kills other people with a bomb in Austin, Texas, the answer is always, “Because of sin.” Not that a death is connected to a particular sin, but that human rebellion against God has brought about a world in which such things happen.

Sin, then, creates space where God refuses to come. God rules all that is. If we rebel against God and seek to live under our own control, we expel God from that space. The result is a godless place, filled with all that is wrong and twisted in our world. When we cry, “God, save us!” we are asking God to remove us from this godless place and reunite us with God. Reconciliation. Reunion. Joy and health and hope restored.

God saves us by taking our rebellion into the very being of God, where it is destroyed. God enters our rebellion, our sin, our worst fears and nightmares, and takes them into the very being of God. We call this destruction “death”.

We could describe this process in terms of a court where God will judge our sin, and a penalty that must be paid. That is one metaphor we can use, but I have been using the metaphor of destruction, a kind of battle that Jesus wins – sometimes called “Christus Victor”. We are trying to describe the indescribable, the reality of human sin against God, and the path back to life with God.

The death of Jesus, then, was necessary for Jesus to swallow up our rebellion and destroy it within himself, but why did it have to be a cross? Is it not enough that Jesus died? Consider this. If Jesus enters into and carries the consequences of human sin with his death – and his death was more or less normal, I can imagine someone saying that some exceptionally bad person is not covered by his death. We might say that Hitler, for example, was simply too evil for God to save.

Fleming Rutledge has written extensively about this question in her study of the atonement, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. She observes that death on a cross was the most shameful way for a person to die. The Old Testament Law states, “Cursed is he who dies on a tree” (Dt 21: 22f). Crucifixion not only killed the person, but it also blotted that person’s memory out of the family. A crucified criminal could not be buried with the rest of the family. Jesus died by the most shameful way possible, the most agonizing death possible in his context, a manner of death that cut him off from the rest of the world. As the tenor sings in Handel’s Messiah, “He was cut off out of the land of the living.” There is no one, therefore, who is beyond the reach of the cross. Jesus went to the deepest places of our existence possible and swallows up the consequences of our sin and rebellion in himself.

None of this would make any difference if Jesus had remained dead, but Jesus rose from the dead. Next Sunday we celebrate his resurrection, and this Friday we celebrate communion to remember his death, the great saving event of all human history. This fact gives us something else to do during Holy Week. We examine ourselves and prepare for communion as we gather on Good Friday and remember the great events that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem led to.

Conclusion

There is one final point. Jesus embraced the most shameful death possible, and then he transformed it into glory. Jesus’ death on a cross really did deserve a parade, because he transforms our shame also into the glory of redemption.

We make a mistake, however, if we think that Jesus died so that we do not have to die. Jesus died, and Jesus invites us also to die. “Whoever would be my disciple,” Jesus said, “must take up his/her cross and follow me.” Paul put it, “I am crucified with Christ.” This path – embracing the shame of people and situations around us – is the path that Jesus invites us to follow.

My father experienced clinical depression when he retired. Jesus tells us to embrace my father in his depression, not to back away because we don’t know what to say. I have friends who are convicted criminals. One has finished his jail time, and the other hopes to soon. Our natural instinct is to isolate them. Jesus encourages us to remain in relationship, and I thank God for church communities who relate to them, accepting their shame on the path to our mutual glory. Folk in our congregation have found the glory of God in relating to people on the margins through the SCO.

None of this means that we seek bad things and then embrace them with a cry of delight. Shameful things are shameful. We are right to shrink from them. Once we get past the natural instinct to pull our hand from the flame, however, we look again at the people around us and we enter into their pain and suffering with the presence of Christ. When we do, we discover that shame is the path to glory, and we pray again the prayer of Good Friday: 

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

25 March 2018

Scriptures: John 12: 12-16; Isaiah 50: 4-9a.

John 12: 12-16

Jesus comes to Jerusalem as king

¹² The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³ They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!”

¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written: ^15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
    see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

¹⁶ At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realise that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

Isaiah 50: 4-9a

⁴ The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. ⁵ The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away.

⁶ I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. ⁷ Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.

⁸ He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! ⁹ It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me?

Finding God in History

Introduction

Palm Sunday. The day we remember what we call “the triumphal entry”. We have enjoyed the parade of children this morning, and we sing and rejoice, joining in the ancient triumph of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. “Ride on, King Jesus! No one can hinder thee!” Palm Sunday begins what we call “Holy Week”, which culminates in Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. This is the centre of the church’s year, when we remember and re-enter the mystery of God’s work in God’s Son to redeem the world and reconcile the world to himself.

The Passage

This year we read the account from Mark 11. I will describe the passage briefly and then expand on one basic point that impressed me as I read the story again this year. In the first verses we find Jesus and his disciples at Bethany (and Bethphage). Bethany is a little less than two miles east of Jerusalem, and Jesus stayed there quite regularly with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. He sent two of the disciples on ahead of the rest to find a donkey, which Jesus told them they would use for his entry into Jerusalem.

The disciples found the donkey and brought it back, and they all went into Jerusalem together, with Jesus riding on the back of the donkey. Soon a crowd had gathered around Jesus. I am guessing that they recognized Jesus as a teacher and miracle-worker, and put his actions and words together with the action of riding into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back.

Why a donkey? What did the people see? They would have remembered the words of Zechariah 9:9 and 10: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Perhaps they would have also thought of the prophecy contained in Jacob-Israel’s blessings for his sons in Genesis 49: 9 and 10, which serve as deeper background to Zechariah.

Zechariah’s prophecy is a Messianic passage, and the people could hear the promise of the restoration of God’s reign in full. They may have thought that Jesus was a country prophet, come to fulfill a vow at the Passover Feast and remind people of the Messiah (so argues William Lane in his commentary on Mark). In any case they joined in the fun, although they did not grasp the depth of what God was doing in front of them.

The use of a donkey indicates that God has won the victory, and that God’s Messiah now comes in peace—not on a warhorse, but on a humble donkey. So the people cheer for God’s victory and for a future of peace and prosperity. Then the passage ends with a strange sort of anticlimax: “Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.” Mark is the only one who records this interlude, as the big parade turns into a small sightseeing excursion.

There are at least two reasons for this anticlimax. The first is that it happened. When Jesus and the disciples had completed the entry, they took the donkey back to its owner and spent the night in Bethany. Mark probably collected much of his account from Peter, who told the story many times within the early church community. Mark also was probably there, and remembers what happened. After looking around for a bit, everyone went back to Bethany for the night.

The second reason is the one I want to focus on for the rest of our time. Throughout his account of “the Gospel of Jesus Christ”, Mark emphasises the way that Jesus moved from climax of healing or exorcism to anticlimax of “Don’t tell anyone”. Here again Jesus steps back before he moves to the climax of his whole ministry. Quietly now!

The Power of Smallness

This quietness leads me to look again at the triumphal entry. Imagine with me that one of the people watching this is a reporter for The Jerusalem Times. This reporter is normally assigned to cover events in the capital of the Empire, in Rome itself. Just a week before he came home for the Feast of the Passover he covered a real Triumph. Here is a description of a Roman Triumph, from Wikipedia:

On the day of his triumph, the general wore a crown of laurel and the all-purple, gold-embroidered triumphal toga …, regalia that identified him as near-divine or near-kingly. He rode in a four-horse chariot through the streets of Rome in unarmed procession with his army, captives and the spoils of his war. … [Over time] increasing competition among the military-political adventurers … ensured that triumphs became more frequent, drawn out and extravagant, prolonged in some cases by several days of public games and entertainments.

Now he watches this Palestinian peasant riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. He can’t help thinking to himself that people would not cheer so loudly if they could have seen what he has seen in Rome. The donkey, on the other hand is a strange and humble animal—not nearly so proud as a war horse. Yet the donkey carried the King of Kings into Jerusalem. G.K. Chesterton wrote a poem called “The Donkey”:

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood,

Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil’s walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

This idea (of finding God’s power in small things) is a repeated note in the Bible. It is the way that God works. As the Lord said to Samuel: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) We look at power and prestige and think that these God at work. But God is at work where God chooses to work. Listen to the way that Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 1:22-29:

²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. ²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him.

God is at work in history, but not where we often look. God is at work in in the small places of our world, in your life and in my life, among and in ordinary people, to bring the Reign of God into the whole world. God uses you and me, just as God used the donkey and the crowds and the children, to make our world right.

Some Examples

Allow me to illustrate with some examples I have learned about in the past two weeks. A week and a half ago I had lunch with a man we’ll call John. He and his wife worked in Pakistan for many years with a Baptist Mission. Now they are based in Winnipeg, working with indigenous churches in Pakistan and Nepal. They travel back to Pakistan periodically and to Nepal more frequently.

John told me about a group of Christians he works with in Pakistan. They come from a Pakistani Hindu background. As John told me, the Hindu minority in Pakistan is small, about 1% of the population of the country, and they are at the bottom of the social pile—practically speaking most of them are slaves. Over a period of time a small group of Christians grew up in this Hindu minority, about 35 house churches by the time he left the country two years ago. This year he went back to Pakistan and provided some Bible training for their leadership. He found that they had grown from 35 to 100 house churches.

Now this is not the kind of movement that people look at and say, “Wow! Two million new believers!” Rather it means perhaps a thousand new followers of Jesus from the Hindu minority of Pakistan.  This is not the sort of thing that will make the international news, nor will many people be impressed by it; but this is God at work in our history. This is God at work in the small ordinary places of our world.

Sometimes these small things result in events that do get reported in the news. You may recall an event several months ago in Kenya. Last December a militant Somali group named Al Shabab stopped a bus travelling in northern Kenya near the Somali border. They started to separate the Muslims from the Christians in order to execute the Christians, when the Muslim passengers took action. One man, named Salah Ferah, stood up and told them that they were all brothers and would not separate. The Muslim women on the bus started to give their hijabs to the Christian women so that the armed men could not tell them apart. The gunmen shot Salah and two other men and then they fled. Salah later died of his wounds. This is a wonderful story of Muslims and Christians pursuing peace together in the midst of conflict. There is more to the story than I will tell here, but you can sense the echoes of God entering Jerusalem on a donkey’s back, bringing peace to the world.

God is at work in our world in ways that you would never guess. If you are focussing on the big events in the news, you could be like that reporter in Jerusalem who thought the important Triumph was in Rome, and missed the entry of God’s own self into human history.

A teacher at Providence was telling me about a student in her class—we’ll call him Sam. When you watch Sam, you notice his awkwardness and loudness, but his teacher told me he is really a good person. I was walking to the Student Centre this past week and passed Sam. He greeted me awkwardly as we passed each other and I saw two things: I saw the socially awkward young man, and I saw goodness shining in him. I said that to his teacher, and she told me of a conversation Sam once had. A fellow worker at his job was talking about the hardships he has experienced, which made it hard for him to believe in God. Sam has had a harder life than most, greater than the person talking to him could know, but he responded simply that God loves him and he loves God. His friend was silent for a bit, and then he said, “I’ll have to think about that.” In that conversation you can see, if you are looking for it, God at work in history. There was a little triumphal entry, with voices calling, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Conclusion

This is the beginning of Holy Week. We remember this great climax of Jesus’ life and ministry, as he dies on the cross for you and for me. Often we think that we are not important enough to join in the parade, but that’s just the point. Jesus wants to enter your life and my life in triumph.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young. As Randy reminded us last Sunday, God wants young people to do his work in the church and in the world. We need you. God needs you! It doesn’t matter if you’re middle-aged. You may be focussed on career as you enter the time you can become a real success. But real success is found in following Christ, in allowing Jesus to enter your life in triumph. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting older. I’m reading a lot about the beginning of Brethren in Christ Missions. The first missionary group went from North America to Zimbabwe in 1898—one young woman in her early 20s (Adda Engle), one almost middle-aged woman in her mid 30s (Frances Davidson), and one older couple of 60 years old (Jesse and Elizabeth Engle). God used all four of them. Adda eventually married another of the early missionaries, who died in the 1920s following an attack by a lion. Frances worked there until she was in her 60s, when she returned to the States. Jesse died after only two years, and Elizabeth returned to the States. Each one of them was part of God’s work beginning the BIC Church in Zimbabwe.

The only thing that matters is that Jesus wants to enter into every one of us and work in our world through us—old or young, married or single, parent or child, blue collar or white collar, awkward or graceful or anything else. We find God in history when we find God in each other. I pray that you are part of his triumphal entry into our lives this morning.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

20 March 2016

Palm Sunday: Mark 11:1-11