Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

What should it mean to us – to us who no longer believe the earth is flat, to us who are not so sure people really have hearts and souls (as opposed to “chemical imbalances in the brain”), to us who are jaded with the miracles of science, who can sit home and watch a war being fought half-a-world away (with bombs and missiles that can hit a gnat’s eye from five miles up), to us who can take a telephone out of our pocket and call Aunt Martha in Johannesburg or permit a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic to listen to our heart -- what should it mean to us (enlightened and modern as we are) that this troubled, penniless man so long ago road a donkey, down a long hill from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem and was hailed there, ever so briefly, as “king?”

The Gospel writers know that the story of our salvation is in Holy Week. Jesus’ ministry lasted three full years, but each Gospel writer devotes at least one third of his account to the last week. And Palm Sunday is the opening act. The disciples (who represent us in this story) begin the week clapping and singing for Jesus (as we sometimes do). But, as the days pass, he picks fights, gets in trouble, falls from favor. His followers become fearful, as we sometimes do when we understand where Jesus is going, and where he wants to take us. On Thursday night he awkwardly washes their feet and then sits down to a Passover meal with them, during which he brazenly suggests that the ancient realities of Passover, represented by the various foods on the table, should be changed and should now be seen as symbols of his body and blood. Jesus is our Passover. And then, on Friday afternoon, he dies. And they are heartbroken and hurt and bitter, as we sometimes are. Then, however, on Sunday morning, come the first hints that things might not be as they had thought, that God might have been at work through it all.

These were the fiery trials through which these ordinary men were called to go, and by which they were utterly transformed. (I’m not talking about a movie. These things really happened.) The hope and excitement of Palm Sunday (hearts high), the unspeakable cruelty and grief of Good Friday (hearts low), the mind-boggling miracle of Easter (What do you mean, “The tomb is empty?” What do you mean, you’ve “seen the Lord?”), the hiding, the waiting, and finally the empowering of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. It was in these wrenching, life-changing events (mountain-tops, to valleys, and back to mountain-tops) that the church was born. It was a fiery caldron. The disciples, miraculously went from fishermen to fishers of men. And boy could they fish! In less than a century there would be half a million Christians, and the church (in spite of persecution) would be growing like topsy.

It is not in the happenings of Holy Week that we are saved, but in our faithful understandings of these happenings and in our willingness to paint ourselves into the picture. (It is not enough to tell the stories of Jesus. We need to know and to tell what these stories mean for us and for the world.) Had someone been present with a video camera during Holy Week, and recorded every event, every word, some today would watch that tape and see nothing in it for them. They would simply explain away the miracles, as those who don’t wish to believe have done from the beginning. But others would watch the tape and exclaim, with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” It’s up to us. Was his life taken from him, or did he give it away? Did he just die, or did he die for me? Did he just rise from the dead (which can easily be explained away), or did he rise so that I might rise also? We decide what these stories mean for us.

This part is tough, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t know it applied to me. We decide what these Bible stories mean not (as we would like to think) in some detached, academic way. No, we decide what they mean in such a way as to justify ourselves. We know where the Gospel’s going, and we either want to go there or we don’t. There’s a lot in us that needs to be done, and undone, if we’re to accept and believe. So the question is, “Do you wish to believe, or do you wish not to believe?” John said the condemnation was this: that the light had come into the world, and some preferred darkness.

The earliest Christian monks did not live in monasteries, worshipping, working and eating together, under some disciplinary “rule,” as we think of monks. That’s medieval monasticism. Long before that there were Christian monks who went into the desert, by themselves, and existed there in solitary poverty and devotion. Some became great thinkers, and writers, and inspired the whole church. These we call “The Desert Fathers.” Their movement to the desert began in a strange way. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, in the early 300s AD, most Christians thought it was a wonderful thing. No more persecution, for one thing, and the Emperor could now devote his resources to building great cathedrals, and organizing church conferences, and recruiting members. That is, the Empire could help in the building of the church.

But some Christians realized that making the church “official” was the worst possible disaster. People did flock to the church, they admitted, but only because it was “the in thing.” “If the Emperor believes in Jesus, then so do I!” These so-called “new Christians” were interested in becoming church members, not interested in becoming disciples. And the new, “official” church pandered to them, making it (for the first time) easy to be a Christian. Religion on the cheap. The most sincere of those Christian refusenics, those who saw clearly that (as far as the church was concerned) the Emperor had no clothes, went to the desert. These were they who had accepted the disciplines of Christianity. They had wished to believe, and did believe, that the Bible stories and the teachings of Jesus applied directly to them. They had endured persecution, lived poor, spent long hours in prayer, worked among the downtrodden and powerless. And in all that they had found God. Now they saw their beloved faith being given away. It was too much for them to swallow.

Palm Sunday forces the question. Who do we cheer for, and who do we follow? Church members cheer for Jesus. (“Christ you know I love you. Did you see I waved? I believe in you and God, so tell me that I’m saved.”) Disciples follow Jesus. Church members worship Jesus when it’s “the in thing;” disciples worship him when it’s not, when their love for him drives them into the desert. He came riding down that hill in glory, and how we understand that (and where we put ourselves in that scene) makes all the difference.