"He answered, "I tell you if these were silent, the stones would shout out. -- Luke 19:40

Before your cross, O Jesus, our lives are judged today; the meaning of our eager strife is tested by your way. Across our restless living a light streams from the cross, and by its clear revealing beams we measure gain and loss.  On us let now the healing of your great Spirit fall, and make us brave and full of joy to answer to your call. In the spirit of the one who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

This Sunday, the last Sunday in Lent, is a day of mixed messages.  For many of you the title of this day is, and always will be Palm Sunday.  I looked in the Religious Section of yesterday's Boston Globe where all truth is set out for us to see, and found that almost all churches continue to call this day “Palm Sunday.”  Palm Sunday – with its parade, palm branches and glad shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The liturgical reform movement a few years ago moved Passion Sunday from the fifth Sunday of Lent to Palm Sunday as a forceful reminder that the welcoming shouts of “Hosanna!” before the week was out turned to ugly cries of “Crucify him!  Release unto us Barabbas.”  This Sunday has been designed for those of you who choose to skip over the events of Holy Week, most especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and go directly to Easter.  Palm/Passion Sunday reminds you that the parade leads to the cross; that there is much more involved in the life and ministry, death and resurrection of your Lord than palm branches.  This Sunday is not intended to tell you all you need to know about God – that is the Good News of next Sunday.  This Sunday is designed to tell you all you need to know about yourself, that you might recognize within yourself the tension between good and evil; our complicity with the cross.

It is Palm Sunday morning.  Jesus having made his decision to be faithful, no matter the cost, to what he understands to be the will of God, rides into the city of Jerusalem to appeal to the people for their decision. The crowd recognizes him, wave palm branches, throw their garments into the road for him to ride over.  It is a great moment.  The power structure he has come to challenge is uncomfortable because of the enthusiasm of the crowd.  They say, “Rabbi, rebuke your disciples.  Silence this mob.”  Jesus replies – and the words are full of the beauty and power of poetry:  “I tell you if these were silent the very stones would cry out.”

Jesus could have avoided this day and, most especially, his death on Good Friday.  He could have stayed in Galilee, working in the carpenter shop, perhaps getting married, having children, who knows, maybe grandchildren, doing some preaching from time to time, performing now and then an act of healing, becoming interim rabbi in Capernaum.  It didn't have to come to this!  The death of Jesus on the cross may have been inevitable, given human sinfulness, but it was not necessary.  More about this on Friday.

Jesus said, “No one takes my life away from me.  I lay it down of my own will.”  Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday shows you that faith frequently looks like choice, commitment and courage.  No cross!  No crown!  Isn't it interesting how today everyone is still talking about Jesus. Everybody has something to say about Jesus.  In a recent poll, Jesus of Nazareth was voted the thirteenth most important American of all times.

The author of a new book, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, (Stephen Prothero of Boston University) says, “Americans are fascinated by Jesus almost obsessively and have transformed him to meet the needs of each age.  Protestants alone have portrayed Jesus” the author says, “as a socialist and a capitalist, a pacifist and a warrior, a civil rights activist and a Ku Klux Klansman.  Currently,” he says, “we prefer a Mr. Rogers Jesus, a neighborly fellow one can know and imitate.”

We even want to know what Jesus really looked like.  What we do know is that he did not look like the Jesus in Mel Gibson's film, who the New York Times called “a certifiable Hollywood hunk.”  The average man in Jesus' day was 5 feet 3 ½ inches and weighed 110 pounds.  So CNN commissioned a medical artist to use available archeological evidence and come up with a prototype first century Palestinian Jewish face.  The result, the Times said, was a little like a New York taxi driver.  The first pictures of Jesus were painted more than one hundred years after he lived by those who had never seen him.  A docent in an art gallery was showing a picture of Jesus to a group of school children.  “It's not really a picture of Jesus,” she said, “it's just an artist's conception of him.”  One incredulous young person responded, “Well, it sure looks like him!”

Fascinated by Jesus?  Want to learn more?  There are 17,000 books about him in the Library of Congress, more than twice as many as on the second most popular person, William Shakespeare.

Palm Sunday was a marvelous day. The sun shining, the golden towers of the Temple sparkling in the morning sunlight, banners flapping in the breeze, people cheering “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Beneath it – behind the scene, backstage, off camera – Jesus is caught in crisis.  It is a day of decision, a time of choice.  It goes something like this:  Should he continue to confront and challenge the authorities, or should he work toward a compromise?  Should he sit down and keep quiet, perhaps go into hiding, seek some safe exile, quit and go home to Nazareth, back to the carpenter shop?  Or should he keep on keeping on, struggling to be faithful to what he knows of the will and the purpose of God for his life?

Can you identify with this? Have you ever been in a crisis in your own life?  Of course you have!  Perhaps you are trying to find your way through one even now.  It is noontime on Friday and the job you've had for sixteen years has suddenly come to an end; the results of the X-rays and the blood tests are back and the doctor has called you in for a consultation; a marriage or a partnership is falling apart; or there is a death in the family.  Suddenly, it is crisis time.

The message this Palm Sunday is about the road we walk and the life we live each day.  I suggest to you that there are some helpful things we can learn about handling crisis by watching Jesus, by keeping our eye on Jesus, watching him in the midst of crisis, move through Holy Week, this last week of his life.  Can you imagine all the advice Jesus was receiving?  “Call down legions of angels from heaven.  Let's do battle!  Right on!”  Or – “Maybe, Jesus, you should back off a bit.  You know, those who run away live to fight another day.”  When Jesus spoke earlier of going to Jerusalem and of his death, Peter said, “No way, no how.”  Jesus answered, “Get behind me.  You are blocking what I understand to be the way and the will of God for my life.”  Can you identify with this!  Can you remember a time in your life when in crisis, when passing through a storm, you were besieged with advice?

I

Notice what Jesus does.  Jesus turns to God. Jesus takes the crisis to God in prayer.  Jesus places the crisis and his life in the hands of God.  Jesus prays.  Prayer was such a vital part of Jesus’ life.  He prayed daily, regularly, constantly.  He did not save prayer for the emergencies of life.  Jesus did not simply know about God; Jesus knew God.

We find him praying on the last evening of his life in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is outside the city of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley.  Della and I have been there, as have many of you.  Today, it is enclosed and protected from the hustle of the tourists and the street vendors.  Some of the olive trees are said to date from the first century. Saint Luke tells us that Jesus went there as was his custom. We prayed where Jesus prayed – one of the most moving spiritual experiences of my life.

Jesus in the midst of crisis goes to God in prayer.

II

Jesus also turns to his friends.  Jesus does not play the Lone Ranger.  Jesus does not try to go it alone.  I know of no more lovely picture of Jesus in all the Gospels than this – Jesus spending the last nights of his life in the home of his dearest friends, Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.

Each morning Jesus and his disciples walk the several dusty miles into the city of Jerusalem where Jesus spends the day teaching and facing a gathering controversy, a growing crisis. Each evening they return to Bethany where Jesus was steadied for the ordeal which lay ahead by the love of his friends.  Then on the last evening of his life, the night we call Maundy Thursday, he gathered his closest friends for a last meal together in an upper room.

Caught in controversy, Jesus turned to God in prayer, and Jesus sought the companionship of his friends.  His friends eventually fell by the wayside, exactly as we often disappoint each other.  “I thought you were going to be there for me.”  Jesus’ friends eventually denied and deserted him.  Jesus walked the lonesome valley – alone.

After Easter his friends regained their faith and courage and laid their lives on the line for their convictions.  But that is another story for another day.

III

Jesus seems to know that often when you are caught in a crisis, no matter how hard you might try you cannot please everyone.  This is a lesson some have yet to learn.  Time and again we are not being transformed by the renewal of our minds:  we are being conformed by our culture, by the prevailing worldviews.  Not “Thus saith the Lord,” but “Thus saith the opinion poll.”

There is a little story which takes place on a windswept Fall morning high in the mountains of Ecuador. An old man, a boy and a donkey set out on a long journey.  As they passed through the first village the old fellow heard the villagers mumbling “What a fool; he has a beast of burden and he is not wise enough to ride it.’  So he climbed on the donkey to please the crowd.

In the next village, the people were angered, accusing the old man of being cruel to the child by making him walk, so he got off and put the child on the donkey.  In the third village people were saying, “The boy is lazy. The old man should be riding.”  So they both rode.  And then they ran into the Ecuadorian Humane Society, whereupon they were charged with overloading the donkey.  The old man was last seen carrying both the boy and the donkey down a twisting mountain road.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could please everyone?  If, when caught in a crisis, we could make a decision all would applaud?

Jesus places his crisis squarely in the hands of God – no evidence he ever polled the people, formed a focus group, gave the disciples each a vote.  He prayed, “O God, let this cup pass from me;[I don't want to die in the morning] nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.’

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. – April 4, 1968 – 36 years ago.  How much more meaningful it might have been if, rather than celebrating King's birth day, we commemorated instead his death date, which usually falls during this sacred season.  A disciple of Jesus Christ who, also in the midst of crisis, chose to be obedient even unto death.  It was the faith of Jesus and the faith of Martin Luther King which gave them both faith in the future.

Now, here you must do some theological work for yourself.  It is my belief that Jesus did not know about Easter.  I believe his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane was real.  I believe Jesus had limited human knowledge.  In the midst of crisis Jesus trusted God.

Jesus is our model, our guide, our brother, friend and Lord.  Keep your eye on Jesus. Center your life in Jesus.  Learn from Jesus. When in crisis follow Jesus’ lead – trust God.  This and this alone will give you faith in the future.  This is vital, for where there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present.  This is one reason why today we so often drift purposeless, powerless, from opinion to opinion, from poll to poll – for we have no faith in the future, no star by which to set our course, no compass by which to steer.  As C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.  It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”  More about this next Sunday.

There's an old Gospel hymn: “I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”  It was this unshakable faith in God’s future which strengthened and sustained Jesus in his time of crisis and will strengthen and sustain you also.  Emerson wrote: “The supreme lesson of life is to learn what the centuries say against the hours.”   Jesus chose the centuries instead of the hours – so these 2,000 years later everyone is still talking about him.

I believe – do you believe? – that whenever we find ourselves in crisis, caught in one of life's storms and we choose to be faithful, it may not mean instant sunshine or a free ride.  It might mean, as it did for Jesus, pain and suffering.  But whenever we are faithful, whenever we choose the centuries against the hours, God is with us on our side; the total weight of the universe is

It is Palm Sunday morning.  Jesus has made his decision.  This morning he is here among us calling for your decision and for mine.  Choose wisely.  Choose well. Choose as if your life depends upon your choice.  Today, right now, today is the day of decision.

“Ride on, ride on in majesty.  In lowly pomp ride on to die.”  It is a great day.  If you refuse to choose, if you choose to remain silent, the very stones will cry out.  Hosanna, blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord.

And to God be the glory in the spirit of our Risen and Reigning Lord.  Amen.
 

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