Christ Is...
Our Homecoming King
Rev. Jeff Jaynes
March 28, 2010--Palm Sunday
Southern Hills UMC, Tulsa, OK
Homecoming
--everyone loves a homecoming, especially when those coming home are
victors
--take the New Orleans Saints, for example, winners of this year's Super
Bowl
--when they returned home from Miami, an estimated 800,000 people
came to celebrate
--10,000 people met them at the airport!
--for contrast, you might note that 11 Indianapolis Colts fans met their
team at the airport
--though I personally think that's a crying shame
--we like to welcome home victors, those who have achieved great things
--when the Wright brothers came back to Dayton after flying for the first
time, parade
--when the Apollo 11 astronauts came home from landing on the moon,
parade
--everyone loves when the victorious come home to celebrate
Get the Colt Ready
--what Jesus encounters when he enters Jerusalem is this kind of
celebration
--and he knows it's coming
--that's why, in this passage, he asks the disciples to get a colt for him to
ride in on
--now, why, you might ask, does he ride a colt?
--some people say it is for humility--after all, an incoming king would ride a
stallion, right?
--well, maybe...but that's our image of a king, not the image of Hebrew
people
--Jesus riding a colt, may actually be more king-like than even the stallion
--if anyone in Jerusalem knew their bible well, they'd see this as fulfillment
of prophecy
--Zechariah 9:9--"Behold, your king is coming to you...humble and
mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
--this prophecy was written in a time when the Hebrew people were
desperate for a king
--desperate to rejoice again
Story of Messiahs
--it may actually help us to understand that earlier time when it comes to
Palm Sunday
--Zechariah 9 was probably written in what's called the "Hellenistic Period"
--a time when the Hebrew people were under the oppresive Greek
regime
--but it wasn't the first oppresive regime the Hebrew people suffered
under
--first, of course, we remember the Egyptians, people saved by God
through Moses
--then, there were the Assyrians, who wiped out the Northern tribes of
Israel
--Assyrians were conquered by the Babylonians, but that wasn't good for
Israel
--in 587 BC the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, exiled its people
--less than 50 years later, King Cyrus of Persia overwhelmed Babylon and
freed Israel
--Isaiah 45 calls Cyrus a key word, our translation is "anointed" but word
is meshiach
--what does that sound like? Messiah...same word as "Christ"
--from then on, "Messiah" was associated with overcoming oppression
--so, when the Greeks under Alexander came in and began oppressing
Hebrew people
--natural that people started calling for a Messiah, an anointed one to
overthrow them
--in came the family called the Maccabees (you may remember them from
Hannukah stories)
--Maccabees overthrew Greeks (Seleucid Dysnasty) in 166 BC
--when they defeated the Greeks, the people called them Meshiach
--and brought back one more tradition: welcoming messiahs with palms
Palms for Messiahs
--when Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, Hebrew people returned to
rebuild Jerusalem
--they were led by Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the governor
--while rebuilding the temple, they found a copy of the law--the Torah
--read that they were to celebrate the festival of booths in the seventh
month
--so they sent people out to cut palm branches to make "booths," little
tents for people to live
--people rejoiced because they were no longer in captivity, no longer
under oppression
--so when Maccabees freed Hebrew people from Greeks, people
remembered this celebration
--brought out palm branches to welcome Simon Maccabee into Jerusalem
Jesus welcomed with Palms
--fast forward nearly 200 years as Jesus enters Jerusalem
--Hebrew people are again under oppression, this time under Rome
--they are desperate for another Meshiach--Messiah, or, in Greek,
Christos--Christ
--so as Jesus comes in, having gained great popularity, the people hope
he's the Messiah
--after all, he's riding on a colt, the leaders of the time are afraid of him,
he might be "the one"!
--so they bring out the palm branches, lay their cloaks in front of him
--and recite that old Messianic psalm, "Blessed is the one who comes in
the name of the Lord"
--make a "festal procession" with palm branches and welcome Jesus like a
homecoming king
Different Story Later
--of course, later that week, the crowd yelled something quite different at
Jesus
--instead of "Hosanna" they began to cry "Crucify Him!"
--instead of seeing him as a Messiah, they basically considered him a
traitor
--the palms were discarded by the side of the road as Jesus carried his
cross to Calvary
--they no longer saw the king riding on the colt, they treated him like Indy
treated the Colts
--abandoned, rejected, and unheralded
Our Nature
--that's our nature, isn't it?
--we love the winners, the victors coming home, the champs
--anyone we associate with losing? "they're fine on their own..."
--tens of thousands welcomed the Colts in 2007 when they won the
Superbowl
--11 when they lost...they were the second best team in the NFL and 11
fans came out
--think about yourself...when life is good, it's easy to thank God, praise
God for fortune
--when times get tough, "why God? where did you go?"
God's Nature
--but that's not God's nature...God, as Isaiah said, has set his face like flint
--in good times, God is there...in bad times, God is there
--if the crowds didn't praise Jesus, the stones would have
--God is constant, God is steady, Christ is heading to the cross despite the
hosannas
Home Again
--and the good news? our king is coming home again
--coming again to save us from oppression
--coming again to set us free from slavery to sin and death
--he's coming again to take his rightful throne in our hearts
--that every knee shall bow and tongue confess that he is Lord
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.