Spinning Jesus on Palm Sunday

John 12:12-19

Albertville

4/5/09

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What a day! If you were there on the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, you couldn’t hardly believe what you were seeing! It was a parade, a circus, a carnival and a political rally all rolled into one. It was like the Minnesota State Fair minus the corndogs. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were packed into the city for passover. It was nearly impossible to move through the narrow streets. You would be hard pressed to find any space in that city that was not occupied.

It was down into this utter madness of a holiday crowd that Jesus rode his donkey on the first Palm Sunday. Holiday crowd: a good way of referring to the people who cheered his approach. They were like the holiday crowds that we encounter at Christmas time for example. If you were to survey all the people who celebrate Christmas and ask them what Christmas means you would get a surprising variety of answers; many of them incorrect. For you see, ever since Jesus first began his ministry among us, people have been putting their own spin on who he is and what he came to do. Today as we watch the parade go buy we are going to ask the question: “How do people spin Jesus?” And more importantly, “Have I been spinning him?”

John tells us that the news of his mightiest miracle to date had spread. He had raised Lazarus from the dead which was the topper, on a career of great miraculous feats. Certainly, many in the crowd were hoping that they too would get to see the show. They wanted to see a lame man walk, a blind man see. They wanted to see some really cool magic tricks. They wanted health and wealth and success. They wanted food and fun and joy. They wanted a little magic in their lives and they were thinking that Jesus would fit the bill. And so with faces glowing and eyes full of excitement they shouted “Hosanna!” “Blessed is the King of Israel!” At the top of their lungs they worshipped him, or at least worshipped what they thought he was.

That was how one segment of the people were spinning him in that crowd on that day. There was another group however, that was, how shall I say, a little more intense and serious. When they shouted “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and “blessed is the king of Jerusalem” They did so with a fire in their eyes that came from a lifetime of anger and resentment. These were the zealots, the patriots of Israel...the original zionists. They grew up in the land when it was dominated by the cruel Romans. They probably knew people who were abused and beaten or even crucified by the Romans. Their simmering rage had boiled over many times before. They were a conquered people and they didn’t like it. And so they spun Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem as a big political rally; a mass demonstration of Jewish nationalism. To them, the Palm branches were like flags or banners with nationalistic slogans written on them. To their minds, this just might be the beginning of the end of the Roman occupation. That was their spin.

So far, we considered two different spins on Jesus: Those that had a hankering for magic in their life and those that wanted to spark a revolution. But there was another group present that was not shouting hosannas because they had discovered that Jesus didn’t fit their spin on who he should be. They were absolutely certain that any Messiah would be exactly like them, dressing like them, eating like them, following all the little man-made sabbath laws like them. But Jesus was not like them, and so these pharisees despised him almost from the beginning of his ministry. They winced as he passed by and the fickle holiday crowd went on and on about him. He was nowhere near the Messiah they thought he should be.

Gradually the shouts of “Hosanna” would die down and be replaced with a new word: “crucify”. All three groups, the magic seekers, the political zealots, and the clergy would deem him worthy of death because he was not who they thought he should be.

As I think about this day that Jesus presented himself to the people in Jerusalem, and the way the people’s preconceived notions dictated how they received him or failed to receive him, I cannot help but conclude that it’s probably the same wherever Jesus presents himself, maybe right here too. Wherever Jesus presents himself, people come to meet him with so many ideas about who he should be and what he should do that they end up missing him because they can’t see past their own preconceived notions.

Do you have any? Preconceived notions? Is there something in your heart or your mind that is blocking your view of him and preventing you from singing spin free Hosannas? Are you a magic seeker? Or maybe you’re past that and you are now a disenchanted magic seeker? You prayed for something once, with all your heart, you prayed for a miracle and the miracle you expected was not given to. Now you privately wonder: “What good is this Jesus If he doesn’t do what I want?!”

Or maybe your a zealot.....you’ve noticed How crummy things are going right now in the world, how goofy the government seems to be behaving. You also notice how there is so many corrupt and evil people in the world. You join the disgruntled zealots of the world saying “If God is a loving God, then why does he allow this?” “Why doesn’t he just come down here and fix their wagon!” Or maybe you’re thinking that God is fixing our wagon now with this economic problem. I’ve heard that said among Christians. Those are the words of a zealot.

So what happens to Jesus as a result of these preconceived notions? Originally, as we noted, it led to his death. They killed him. But now, it leads to people killing off the possibility that they might see him for who he is. Whenever people try to spin Jesus into something that fits their ideas of what he should be, they end up diminishing him and making him so very small. Jesus didn’t come to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem; he didn’t come to fix the United States of America; He came to Fix the World! He came to make all things new! He came to make a new heaven and a new earth! He came to remove the thorns from the ground! I’m sure it was hard for the Jews to imagine that there could possibly be anything greater than Jerusalem without Romans in it. It’s hard for us to imagine there can be anything better than the United States of the America, wealthy and prosperous and respected around the world, but there is! The new world that is coming as a result of his dying and rising again; the return to paradise in the presence of God; the way God intended it to be.

It is also hard for Jews and us to think there’s anything more important than our health and our wealth and our house and our clothes, our cars and our phones and all the the things that support this body and life. But there is! There’s the life to come.....the eternal life that Jesus achieved by his dying and rising again. A life where there will be no more mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. A life where you will never have to say goodbye to anyone ever again. This is the Kingdom that Jesus is ushering in. A kingdom of life in a world made new in the presence of God.

So, as we think about all the possible ways that people might sing their Hosannas, it’s hard not to wonder if we are singing them right. How might one properly sing his Hosannas? Let’s start with what the word Hosanna means. It means “save now” . The zealots thought it meant “save us from the Romans” The magic seekers thought it meant “save us from having to work so hard and save us from our disease, suffering, and poverty”.

That’s what they meant when they sang their Hosannas. How about you? What do you need to be saved from? Remember, it’s bigger than you think! What’s our biggest problem right now? NO, it’s not the economy. It’s Death! One day, maybe tomorrow, your life will come to an end! None of us can escape it. It’s horrible. It constantly breaks up friendships and families The cause of this biggest problem and is also a problem in itself: Sin. As the Bible Says, all have sinned, All will die” And then there’s the enemy of our race, the devil who constantly urges us onward into sin and death. These are the things that Jesus came to save us from. We meet him rightly by admitting that we are sinners in constant need of forgiveness and salvation and when we do, when we meet him with repentant hearts, we see Jesus without any spin. He is the Son of God, come down to earth to die in our place to defeat the enemies of our souls. That’s Jesus. AMEN