Sermon:
April 8, 2001
Palm Sunday
All Services

Scripture:
Revelation 7

Those of you who have been here for a while know that I am something of a "Palm Sunday junkie." I get up for the day, in to the day, and high on the day. Some of the best stuff I preach grows out of the day. But you have heard it all before. After all, how many themes are there? You can only come at Palm Sunday from so many angles.

One way to preach Palm Sunday is to talk about spiritual ecstasy and enthusiasm ... the spontaneity of the parade ... the stripping of the branches ... the singing of the children. Which I have done twice in sermons entitled, "Jesus, Did you See Me Wave?" and "Honk If You Love Jesus."

A more serious slant is to talk about the resolute steadfastness of Jesus who brought, to this final journey, a highly-focused sense of destiny. And I preached that ... three times ... in sermons entitled, "On Setting One's Face Toward Jerusalem," "A Matter of Necessity," and "On Spending Palm Sunday at Some Nice Little Place in the North."

Or one can come at the story from the fair-weather fickleness of the Palm Sunday crowd ... that group of coat-throwing, branch-waving "Hosanna" chanters, who love it, but never quite get it. But I've done that, too. That sermon was entitled, "He's Not At All Like I Expected."

Which leaves the subject of royalty and the tension between the king the people wanted versus the king that Jesus was willing to be. To which I can also say: "Been there, preached that." The year was 1995 and the sermon was entitled, "Clubs Are No Longer Trump."

Meaning that I've covered the bases, don't you see. There's not much to the story. Jesus says: "We're going to Jerusalem." Friends say: "Don't." Jesus says: "Gotta." Friends say: "Whatever." So they go ... down the hill ... over the river ... through the gate ... into the city. Friends walking. Jesus riding. Children singing. Pilgrims cheering. Authorities fretting. This is not new stuff here. But it's good stuff ... captivating stuff ... engaging and energizing stuff. It's the story of Jesus, the country boy, riding into the "Big Apple" of his day, as if to say: "Here I am. Make of me what you will. Do with me as you will. There is no longer any point in keeping my ministry closeted and tucked away in Alpena."

Well, it looked so promising, don't you know. Right man. Right message. Right place. Right time. Things could have taken off from there. Except they didn't, given that by Friday he was dead ... and doesn't that suck more than a little wind out of our Palm Sunday sails? We're talking five days, here. I mean, there wasn't even time for Jesus to make the cover of Time. Which means that the one unpreached Palm Sunday theme is its utter lack of sustainability (in terms of how quickly the day darkened, the mood soured, the cheering stopped and the king fell). Everything that came packaged in so much promise, failed to deliver on that promise. Or so it seemed. But so is life.

When John Claypool was here, many of us were drawn to him, the better to ride piggyback on the hope that was in him. Not that he came by it easily. For there were days in his life (and still are) when either the sun didn't shine, or he lacked the strength to open the curtains and let it in. But I loved John's stories, not only because they were true, but because he was able to lift from them truths that were bigger than they seemed at the time. One such story was shared on the Friday night of his visit, but it came with 49 years of age dripping from it. The year was 1952. John had just graduated from Baylor University, when he was invited to the wedding of a couple of his classmates ... a wedding that felt like one "last hurrah" for friends who had spent four wonderful years together, but would soon see each other no more. The wedding was at the First Methodist Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, with a reception following at the Wichita Falls Country Club.

The bride's father was a wealthy oil man who had spared no expense for his only daughter's wedding. Food, drink, décor, music ... all was abundant to the point of elegant. It turned out, however, that the groom was one of those fellows who, at previous weddings, had played a lot of pranks on his friends. Meaning that this was payback time. So when the party was well into the evening ... and the guests were well into whatever ... the friends of the groom tracked him down, picked him up, carried him off, and threw him (fully dressed) into the Country Club pool ... an act in which the groom failed to find much humor.

So he climbed out and toweled off. Then he took off after the perpetrators (who had done nothing more than give back a dose of the medicine he had previously given them). Upon reaching them, there were words ... followed by fists. First one fight broke out. Then a second. Then several. Whereupon the violence spread from the outside in ... at times, reaching riot-like proportions. When all the damage was totaled up, the bill submitted by the Club was $25,000. And the groom, with his gashed forehead and broken arm, spent the first night of his honeymoon, not in the arms of his bride, but in the emergency room of the local hospital.

When order was finally restored, John Claypool found himself (quite by accident) standing but a few feet away from a visibly shaken father of the bride. Tears were streaming down his face. And John listened as the father said (to no one in particular): "When I think of the dreams I had for this night from the day my little girl was born, to think that it all has come down to this ... I simply cannot bear it."

I know, without even asking, that some of you cannot hear that without also feeling that. For you, too, have seen long-held hopes both dashed and smashed. You get a picture in your head of how it is going to be someday. But then the picture doesn't turn out. Or half of it is blurry. Or half the people in it are blurry. Or someone who should have been in it, wouldn't pose for it. Or smile for it.

Remember the two strangers walking toward Emmaus on the evening of Easter? Except they do not know it is the evening of Easter. Because they do not know that things have happened earlier that morning that would make this "the evening of Easter." They fall into step with a stranger who turns out to be Jesus. Except they do not know the stranger is Jesus. So they talk about Jesus as if he were still dead. Meaning they talk about him in the past tense. They talk about the things Jesus had done ... the things Jesus had said ... the expectations Jesus had raised ... before adding: "And we had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel."

Do you hear the sadness in that? Of course you do. Just like John Claypool heard it at the Wichita Falls Country Club ("When I think of the dreams I had for this night, from the day my little girl was born ... "). And just as we might hear something similar from the lips of God (could we but listen carefully), when God holds his dream for us in one hand, and the mess we are making of it in the other.

Pictures don't always turn out. And people don't always turn out. Which is why Palm Sunday never quite turns out. But does that mean there is nothing to celebrate? If that be so, then this is a downer of a day, a bummer of a sermon, and I ought to be shuffled prematurely out to pasture, wrapped in the same wet blanket I am draping over you.

No, we need to let this day be what it is ... quite apart from whether we can make it last. In part, because Palm Sunday keeps coming at us, just as Jesus keeps coming at us ... riding into our cities ... riding into our hearts ... calling us out of ourselves ... and calling into question all of the kingdoms that can't work, the better to show us a kingdom that can.

But more than this, we need to remember that God is not done with any of this business yet ... not done with any of us yet ... and (in truth) not done with Palm Sunday yet. Let me explain.

Sitting in a Wendy's Restaurant last May, thumbing through a book I had just purchased, I happened upon something I had never seen before. I was reading a commentary on the book of Revelation. More to the point, I was reading about the wild and crazy vision of the man who we only know by the name of John. Fearing for his life while hiding out on an island, he was writing from political exile during a period of intense persecution at the end of the first century. What kept him going was a vision ... an incredible vision ... an occasionally violent and bloody vision. But listen:

I see a great multitude that no one can count ... from all nations ... from all tribes ... from all peoples ... from all languages ... standing before the throne and the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

And when the question is raised as to who these people are and where these people come from, the answer is given that "these are they who have come out of the great tribulation." Well, which of us hasn't ... come out of the great tribulation, I mean? As tribulations go, what could be worse than dreaming it one way, only to see it turn out a different way ... a depressing way ... a disappointing way ... occasionally, even a disastrous way?

It is clear that the author has a particular "tribulation" in mind, believing (from his limited historical perspective) that it couldn't ... or wouldn't ... get any worse. Except it did. And probably will again, given that neither life nor faith come with foolproof guarantees.

If you have listened to me before, you know I do not believe that the book of Revelation offers a blueprint of history's end, nor do I believe that the book of Revelation contains a secret code which, if cracked, will reveal the timetable for history's end. But I believe that, in its own allegorically bloody way, it is a letter of hope offered to people who have none ... built on the notion that God plays on a bigger stage than Earth and operates in a bigger arena than history.

Earlier in chapter seven, there is the notation of the 144,000 who have been sealed with the mark of God upon their foreheads. There are some Christian groups who believe that these pre-sealed 144,000 are identical with the white-robed, palm-waving remnants from the great tribulation. And there are other Christian groups who believe that they are separate and distinct.

But all of this is patently irrelevant. For the number 144,000 means nothing, if taken literally. It certainly does not stand for limitation (as in: "Sorry, all seats sold ... no seats left ... too late ... tough luck"). What the number 144,000 stands for is not the seating capacity of heaven, but rather "perfection ... completeness ... wholeness."

The number 144,000 is made up of 12 multiplied by 12 ... the perfect square ... and then rendered even more inclusive and complete by being multiplied by 1,000. In Jewish numerology, the number 144,000 is not there to tell us that the number saved will be exceedingly small, but that the number saved will be exceedingly great ... even to the point of being exceedingly complete.

There will be another Palm Sunday when it will all get worked out, don't you see. When it will all get worked out for God ... for us ... for Jesus ... for people who are still waiting for the redemption of Israel ... for brides who sleep alone ... for grooms who sleep in emergency rooms ... for people who trash life's party ... for people who get trashed at life's party ... for people who clean up the trash at life's party ... and especially for fathers who weep over it all because the things they dream from the day their children are born don't always come to pass. What do I believe? I believe that if there is any power in God ... any love in Jesus ... any justice in creation ... it's all gotta be healed somehow.

Oh, we keep arguing in the church about the beneficiaries of the healing. Some say the healing will be for all of us. Others say it will be for some of us. And there are even people who limit it to a few of us ... or perchance, none of us. But I love what John Claypool said to Martha Piesko when she asked him that question at the close of his lecture.

John said: "I think it is God's intention to save everybody ... heal everybody ... embrace and welcome everybody. I think it may keep God working overtime, even beyond death ... or why would we bother to say (in the Apostle's Creed) that `Jesus descended into hell.' But I think it may be possible to resist God's effort, although (for the life of me) I can't figure out why anyone would." Then John told of his son's sixth birthday, and how he and his wife wanted it to be a very special birthday. So they figured out just the present he might like ... the friends he might like ... the food and favors he might like ... the cake and ice cream he might like. And they even went whole hog and hired a clown with balloons and a magician with a vanishing rabbit. But, for whatever reason that remained locked in the head of a six-year-old boy, his son woke from sleep that morning, wanting nothing to do with anything that sounded like "birthday." What to do?

"Well," John said, "he was only six years old. Meaning that we were a whole lot older. And a whole lot bigger. So we were able to put him (physically) at his party. But there was nothing we could do to make him enjoy it."

If you have ever had your children say to you, "You can't make me," you know that there are limits to your power and authority. Just as God knows there are limits to his. But while there may be limits to God's authority over us, there are no limits to God's desire concerning us ... meaning that this is not the last Sunday we shall ever see the King, nor is this the last palm any of us shall ever wave.

The singing of the "Hallelujah Chorus" may yet be one week removed. But make no mistake about it. No matter how long it takes, Jesus of Nazareth will not quit until he is "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." Take that assurance away from me and I'm out of here tomorrow. For I did not come this far to back a loser.

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The pair of stories borrowed from John Claypool were rescripted from tape recordings of three lectures on the subject of hope, delivered at First United Methodist Church, March 2 and 3, 2001. The discovery of "palm branches" in the seventh chapter of Revelation was provided by J. Elsworth Kalas in his book, New Testament Stories from the Backside. My treatment of the pre-sealed 144,000 was fleshed out in a number of commentaries on the book of Revelation, including Bruce Metzger's Breaking the Code, with specific language borrowed from William Barclay's Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Volume 2.