palms. both leaves and hands.

On Palm Sunday we hear two stories about Jesus. Both involve Palms.  Palm branches strewn in his path and the palms of Jesus’ hands, nailed to a cross.  Two different palms with two different meanings.  

The first of these stories is the story of Jesus triumphal entry into the capital city of Jerusalem for the festival of Passover.  Jesus enters on a donkey with crowds shouting blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna to the son of David.  Jews awaited a Messiah to liberate them from foreign rule and establish true worship of their God Yahweh.  Their God was a deliverer who had delivered them from the Egyptian Pharaoh and from Babylon.  The history of their God Yahweh was that of redemption and freedom from oppressive foreign rule.  What God had done before, God would do again according to God’s covenant promises to Israel.  God would send an anointed King with God’s power.  This King would rule forever and would usher in an age of peace.  Passover, the Jewish memorial celebration of the Exile from Egypt represented the hopes of the Jews.  Passover inspired people to take up the cry for justice and the hope for Messiah to come.  Passover was revolution time and often led to violence and Roman crackdown to quell it.  Already before Jesus of Nazareth one such Messiah had been killed by the Romans.  

The evangelist Matthew has been clear that Jesus is David’s son.  The Jews in the first century lived under Roman occupation and suffered the injustice of that occupation daily.  Few among the Jews benefited from roman rule.  And most of the people expected and longed for a Messiah, a promised King from the family of David, who would oust the Romans, cleanse the temple from foreign influence, and establish God’s justice and peace for the nation of Israel.  Matthew’s Jesus resembles this character.  He is born in the lineage of David, suggesting that the royal bloodline was not to be found within the Jerusalem elites, not among the Herods, but in the Galilee among the peasants it remained hidden until Jesus emerges.  And he emerges as a great Rabbi and wise sage, able to spar with their best teachers of the law. His teachings echo Moses and interpret the law through mercy and compassion.  Jesus is powerful, not only in word, but also in deed. Jesus calms the storm, multiplies bread, and casts out demons; that is, Jesus has dominion over creation, chaos, cruelty, and the threat of death; Jesus feeds the hungry poor; and Jesus can cast off the Roman armed forces.  Jesus words and deeds are consistent with their hopes for a Messiah.  In the mouth of John the Baptist, the evangelist asks the question—are you the one who is to come?  And Jesus asks his own disciples, who do you say that I am; to which Peter responds you are the Christ, the son of God.  Jesus earthly ministry adds up to the Jewish first century expectation of a Messiah, a new King to bring about God’s just reign. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is confirmation of His Messianic identity.

But then we hear the second story.  There was no place in Jewish imagination or understanding  for the Messiah’s death.  The death of any would-be Messiah was confirmation that he was not the messiah.  Death was the end of the story for them.  NT Wright, New Testament scholar wrote, “Where messianic speculations existed, the messiah was supposed to fight God’s victorious battle against the wicked pagans; to rebuild or cleanse the temple; to bring God’s justice to the world.  Jesus, it appeared, had done none of these things. He had suffered the typical injustices of the world; he had mounted a strange and apparently ineffectual demonstration in the temple; and he had died at the hands of the pagans rather than defeating them gloriously inbattle.  No jew with any idea of how the language of Messiahship worked could have possibly imagined, after his crucifixion, that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Lord’s anointed.”  The law stated that anyone hanged from a tree is cursed by God.  Not only, according to his death, was Jesus not the Messiah, Jesus was cursed by God.  There are prophecies in Isaiah associated with a suffering servant that seem to carry that notion of Messiah as sacrificial lamb. As a spiritual redeemer, Messiah was to take away the sin of the world.   In Judaism, this meant sacrifice.  Only by putting an end to the power of sin to rebel against God, can people be saved.  And although Jews did not practice human sacrifice, animal sacrifice was a significant aspect of temple ritual.  Isaiah does attribute this practice to a suffering figure, not necessarily associated with Messiah.  Perhaps the precursor to the messiah.  God would send one like a lamb to the slaughter to cleanse Israel of sin so that the Messiah would come to fully redeem and liberate holy Israel from foreign injustice. 

As we enter holy week, and Passover week, we must learn to dwell in these stories and understand their significance in the world in which they first emerged, for the first century. So take ad read the entire passion according to Matthew.  And return on Thursday and Friday to dig into the details of Jesus’ final hours.  Who was this man, Jesus? What had he done?  Why did he die?   Who is Jesus for us, now?  What does it mean to declare Jesus the Christ, this crucified Jew?  How do we place our future hopes in a story that contradicts itself?  Is he the one?  How can a crucified Messiah save and redeem 21^st century Americans?  In the happenings of the week and in the story that comes after the story of his death we are drawn into circumstances beyond our reason and control, beyond reasonable expectations and the imagination of any people of any age.  In this week, as we follow the story closely detailed by four Jewish Christian writers of 2,000 years ago, the central message of the bible will be heard:  Jesus of Nazareth, his death and resurrection, has everything to do with God's saving work for all humankind.   And next Sunday the inconsistency of the two stories we have heard today, will be given new meaning. And the hope of the world, that one day life and peace and love will reign over all living things on earth, will be found in Jesus.