Sermon delivered at Church of the Redeemer
Palm Sunday 2008
Fr. Joseph Scalisi
What does the Palm branch mean? Why do we do this stuff anyway?
About 150 years before the birth of Christ, the Jewish people were occupied by a foreign power. Not by the Romans but by the Greeks. During this time, the Jews went through a period of terrible persecution in which the occupying power attempted to strip away their identity and remake the Jews so that they would look more like themselves. In order to do this, the Greeks assaulted the very heart of the Jewish people, their relationship with God.
Finally, there was a revolt that led to all out war and eventually victory for Israel. The forces intent on redefining the physical and spiritual landscape of the Jews had been defeated and removed from the land. And the symbol of this victory, as they marched back into the Temple after it had been reclaimed and purified… was the palm branch.
Fast forward about a hundred years, and now it is the Romans that occupy Israel. It seems that they had learned from the mistakes of the Greeks that had been there before them by allowing the Jews to worship God without trying to impose Roman religion. But the fact remained that Israel was occupied by a foreign power.
And just as Israel in the time of their Greek oppressors looked for deliverance, the Israel under Roman rule also looked for someone to rise up and lead a rebellion that would set them free from Roman occupation. And this is how the scene is set for what we now know as Palm Sunday.
Jesus comes riding into the city on a donkey, looking – to everyone who knew what to look for – like the king they were waiting for. Looking like this deliverer that would rid Israel of this Roman problem. Hosanna, they cry. Hosanna means save us…help us! In other words, I’m so glad you’re here, please help us by getting rid of these Roman scum. They wave palm branches and put them along his path. And just as the palms were the symbol of victory during the Greek occupation, it was now, only about 150 years later, a rallying cry for victory against the Romans.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the victory parade. It turns out that Jesus didn’t do what they wanted him to do. They were very happy to see him coming, asking him to save them from the Romans. But when he was bound, arrested, humiliated, beaten and bloodied in front of those same people, it seemed obvious that he wasn’t the one they wanted after all. To put it bluntly, he didn’t give them what they wanted, so they had no more use for him…crucify him!
Sure, why not, who is he anyway. Just some wannabe that can’t give me what I want. Crucify him!
Their hopes and dreams of a liberated Israel dashed. We thought he would give us victory but he’s just another loser…crucify him!
Before we become too hard on these people that were so excited that their leader had come – only to turn on him when they discovered that he wasn’t going to fulfill their wishes…let us consider ourselves…
Have you ever become angry with God, as I have, because you prayed for something and it didn’t happen, or things turned out differently than you wanted, or because life just doesn’t seem fair?
We have all gotten angry at God at one time or another. We may have even thought that God has forgotten about us or was angry at us because of the twists and turns our lives have taken. But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son for us. He has taken everything upon himself, even bearing the anger we harbor towards him for not doing what we want him to do. He does this in order to lift it up and draw victory out of every conceivable circumstance.
Revelation 7:9
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
The palm is a symbol of victory because that is exactly what we have received through Jesus Christ. We have victory, maybe not in the way we often look for it, but it is there. We have victory because God took upon himself the worst that life has to offer and the worst that we can do to him and said… I love you. This victory is won at a great price through the Cross, but because of it we have a life of hope standing in a victory that has already been won.
How are you living out this hope?