Sermon Tone Analysis

Series Introduction

We are in the season of lent.

It is a season of preparation for the good news and the great season of Easter, where we celebrate Jesus conquering death.

But it’s during lent that we follow Jesus to the cross, because that’s where he goes before his resurrection and where he goes we follow.

It is our hope that taking up the cross and following Jesus as we are called to do will be none other than the way of life.

Leithart

So we have been exploring what it means to follow Jesus to the cross during lent.

And Palm Sunday marks the final Sunday in lent and the beginning of a very strange and bewildering week in the life and ministry of Jesus and a strange week for those of us who as Christians follow Jesus to the cross.

Because it is a week that begins with celebration and jubilation, crowds crying Hosanna, laying Palm branches down, welcoming Jesus as king into Jerusalem, putting all of their hopes on him but by Friday Jesus is hanging on a cross, being mocked, left to die all alone between to criminals.

How did we get here?

It is the story the church retells every year during Holy Week and whether this story is new to you or it is very familiar, it is meant both to confront our understanding of who Jesus is, but also to comfort, as we watch him humbly go to the cross.

So we are going to read Mark’s account of Jesus beginning his journey into Jerusalem.

So let’s read

Let’s Pray

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Sermon Intro

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The tale of 2 Parades.

Last Sunday I don’t know how many of you were aware of this but our service was wedged in between two parades of sorts.

I was actually kind of stressed.

Trying to figure out if we were going get in and get out navigating around these two events.

And it turned out to be fine.

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There was the smaller yet certainly not insignificant St. Patrick’s day parade that began not long after we wrapped up here and goes through Park Slope.

And it is fun, I mean I like bagpipes so, I’m into it.

But that was the small parade because just a few hours earlier, another parade a parade of runners came down flatbush ave for the NYC Half Marathon.

25k runners or so running in blisteringly cold and winder weather, it looked miserable.

It’s a race but still the fanfare, streets are closed off.

Now I got to see parts of both parades.

But depending on where you live and what time you arrived and how you got here and when you left, it was possible that you could have missed both parades, maybe be slightly inconvenienced but that’s about it.

I got to see parts of both of the parades.

And as fun and great as the St. Patrick’s Day parade was, it was really dwarfed by the size of this parade of runners.

It went a lot farther, much bigger police presence, more people working on it.

he lead

It also struck me that you could miss one or the other too.

Depending on where you were in the neighborhood the time you got out.

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Palm Sunday is really the story of 2 parades as well.

One of those parades is obvious the other is in the background of Palm Sunday.

And this is what so much of Mark’s gospel has been leading up to.

This moment.

Jesus for a while now has been slowly revealing himself to his disciples but telling them to keep quiet.

The big reveal.

Who is he?

What are his intentions?

This is what Mark has been building up to.

And the way he tells the story of Jesus he wants us to be asking that question because that is so much what has been happening.

So the first parade is the one we read about the triumphal entry of Jesus heading into Jerusalem.

But there was another parade that we often forget about that helps make sense of the triumphal entry of Jesus.

This was the time around Passover, the great Jewish feast when in the first century the Jewish people would make pilgrimmages into Jerusalem.

And the population of Jerusalem would swell from 40,000 to 200,000 people by some estimates.

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And so because of that the Roman governors who occupied Jerusalem at the time would travel in as well.

And around this time it was Pontius Pilate, the roman governor, who with full military procession marched into Jerusalem.

To show military force, coming in on a calvary of horses with soldiers and armor.

And this was designed to prevent outbreaks and uprisings.

He is showing what kind of ruler and leader he is and the empire he represents.

Also entering Jerusalem at Passover, from the west, was the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.

Like the Roman governors of Judea before him, Pilate lived in Caesarea by the sea.

In other words, Pilate spent most of his time at his beach house.

But with crowds of devout Jews flowing into Jerusalem to commemorate their liberation from Egypt, the Roman Governors would put on a display of force, to deter the Jews from getting too exuberant about the possibility of liberation from Rome.

Pilate’s procession was the visible manifestation of Imperial Roman power.

Once a year, during the Passover, the Roman procurator moved his headquarters to Jerusalem in a show of strength designed to prevent any outbreaks of insurgency or violent rebellion against Roman rule.

Such outbreaks were a constant danger, both because Roman rule imposed real hardship economically on their subject nations, and because, no one likes the foot of a foreign power on their necks.

In a show of military force, the second parade included, “cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.”

And so when Jesus makes his triumphal entry it’s in the context of what Pilate has done and what many other throughout the history of Jerusalem had done, announcing their arrival.

And just like Pilate, Jesus’ entry shows what kind of ruler, leader and king you can expect.

But Jesus arrival announces his intensions takes sends his disiples for this colt and

Theme: Mark reveals Jesus as king and we discover his intensions for the world and for our lives.

Jesus is a Confronting King and He is a Conquering King

Jesus is the Confronting King

So Jesus is now ready to reveal his kingship for the world.

And so he begins to carefully prepare for entry into Jerusalem.

Now right off the bat it is important to understand that Jerusalem at this time is a perfect storm of religious and political power that is growing with intensity.

So the very fact that Jesus is on the outside of Jerusalem at the Mount of Olives about to head into Jerusalem means he is heading right into the eye of the storm.

Jerusalem was under the political authority of the Roman empire.

And Rome needed the section of the world to be stable.

But the Jewish people had aspirations and longing for independence and they were ready to do whatever they could to achieve it.

And, of course, their hopes had been shaped by the promises of the OT that God would come provide a messiah to rescue them and deliver them, just like he had done with Moses and Israel in Egypt, centuries before.

So here is Jesus preparing to enter into that heated fray, the eye of the storm.

And so in order to make his arrival he sends to of his disciples to commandeer a donkey.

Which is rather strange at least to our ears.

However, in the ANE a donkey was a method of transportation.

But it also carried with it ot prophesy.

Wright, T. (2012).

Lent for Everyone: Mark, Year B (p. 132).

London: SPCK.Rome is a political power.

Jewish leaders Jeruslaem.

But in the end it looked completely absurd.

Because this is what Jesus

And Jesus is walking Jesus is walking into a perfect storm if you will of religious and political power.

Allwith very careful orchestration he goes to the very place.

His riding on a donkey and taking on humbleness is a confrontation.

It is absurd gesture.

He is riding in to pick a fight.

NT Wright says this is the perfect storm he is riding into.

a remarkable scene really.