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This was my text from Palm Sunday; I thought it would be appropriate still, given the season. All over the world today, preachers will be speaking about the paradox of Palm Sunday. On the first day of this week, the people of ancient Jerusalem cheered and wept as Jesus came into town, riding on a donkey. By the end of the week, the same people were calling for his death. This is of course, an example of the fickle nature of crowds and of political opinion. But surely there is more to it than that! Unless some things happened in that week that we do not know about, the crowd’s rapid move from exaltation to rage seems jarringly disjointed. Perhaps that’s why the story continues to intrigue us. I was thinking about all of that this week as I began to prepare for this message. I reflected on the social conditions of that era, trying to gain some new understanding of the context within which the events of Palm Sunday and Holy week occurred. As I did, I began to realize that Jesus had become an intolerable threat to many powerful people. His existence had become the source of considerable anxiety for those at the top. Of course, the human beings who were so disturbed at Jesus had no idea that they were really small-time players in a cosmic drama. The real powers behind the events of Holy Week, the real source of the anxiety that gripped the kings, priests and finally the mob, were invisible to human beings. The invisible powers were, however, the ones really calling the shots. I want to talk about them in a moment. First though, let’s talk about the human side of this story. Let’s ask ourselves why the leaders of first century Judea wanted to kill Jesus Christ. Jesus Was a Political Threat Jesus was not a political threat because he cared about politics. Actually, he had become threatening because he viewed the political system under which he lived as irrelevant. He preached that the kingdom of God was coming; that the joys and fortunes of the masses would no longer be dependent upon states and kings. Because of this message, Jesus is often depicted as a revolutionary by those who want to make our Lord look like Che Guevara, plotting against governments out in the jungle somewhere. The truth is, Jesus was nothing like Che Guevara. He was much more radical than that. The greatest insult to people in power is not opposition or insurrection. Powerful people usually love a fight, especially with people they view as punks and trouble makers. What really upsets powerful people is when portions of the populace they believe they are entitled to rule, begin to view their power and their structures with indifference. That kind of attitude, that doesn’t even view conflict as necessary, signals the imminent shift of authority and privilege. However, when history is moving in this way, even great armies can do little to restrain it. When the mighty Soviet State finally came to an end, Michael Gorbachev’s rule extended to about thirty feet down the hall from his office in the Kremlin. Outside the Kremlin, the Russian people had already turned their faces toward the Russian Republic and its flamboyant new leader, Boris Yeltsin. The premier of the Soviet State kept signing papers and issuing proclamations but his time and the time of the government he represented had run out. Soon the hammer and the sickle came down for the last time. Jesus came to announce that the history of the entire world was about to turn. So He wasn’t concerned about Rome. He wasn’t even concerned about the religious elite in Jerusalem. Jesus and His followers were already turning their faces toward a new government and toward a new King. They were already proclaiming the good news: that God is as interested in servants as He is in emperors and that the long night of oppression was coming to an end. Jesus was not attacking the government or society; he was merely telling people that the current structures were no longer relevant. So the rulers couldn’t figure out his angle, couldn’t decide what it was that He wanted. Jesus could not be pigeon-holed. He was not a member of the left and He was not a member of the right. The Sadducees were the liberals of the day; Greek-speaking, philosophically-trained folks who were completely out-of-touch with merchants and farmers. The Pharisees meanwhile were proscribing clichés and laws, worshipping the past, ignoring the pain of the people and entirely missing the movement of history. Each side gave Jesus a chance to make His choice because each side believed that the right and the left were the only two choices available. But Jesus chose neither the left nor the right. After all, why should One squabble about which side of the bus He is going to sit on if He knows that the entire bus is about to go over a cliff? No, Jesus was looking to neither the right nor the left for salvation and deliverance; Jesus was looking up! He knew that salvation was not about either overthrowing Rome or voting righteous people into the Roman senate; salvation was about confessing loyalty to the kingdom of God and placing one’s trust in God alone. Now, talk like that always gets a person in trouble and it certainly got Jesus into trouble. That’s how he brought the wrath of both the right and the left upon himself – by treating politics as largely irrelevant.
Jesus Was a Social Threat In Jesus’ day, everyone knew their place. The Romans were the rulers, the Greeks were the artists and teachers and the priests were the religious authorities. Little by little, these groups had formed an uneasy alliance in order to protect the interests of the other. Each group knew that they all needed the peons at the bottom of the pile to keep things going and that maintaining this system required the peons to keep understanding that they were peons. Peons didn’t need a lot of money. Peons didn’t need a lot of education. Peons needed to work hard, accept their lot in life, “party hardy” from time to time and above all, to remain satisfied with their place at the bottom of society. The problem was, Jesus gathered masses of those peons and told them that they were made in the image and likeness of God. He appointed fishermen to become teachers of the scripture. He told the peons to pay their taxes to Caesar but to give their allegiance to God alone. Jesus invited publicans, whores and farmers to step out of their appointed places in the culture and to step into places of authority and influence. Of course, this sort of thing had to be stopped. To maintain the structures of society, people had to keep their appointed place. Often ones place in society was determined by ethnicity. The greatest battles of the early church were about ethnicity, by the way. The people of God had to figure out how they would carry out in practice what they confessed in theory – that in Christ there is no distinction of class, race, or language. We have never completely mastered this part of the gospel. For this reason, one of the most difficult things a church faces even today is becoming a real community that includes people from all backgrounds. I have experienced this dilemma most of my life. The most striking thing about the early Pentecostal movement, you see, was neither tongue-speaking, healing nor the other spectacular features of our movement; it was the fact that the different races of the nation and the world were worshipping together. The Azusa street revival, that launched the Pentecostal movement into the world, was led by the son of a slave but it soon attracted Whites, Hispanics and even Jews. It took an entire generation to dismantle the interracial structure of the various Pentecostal groups because it “was not practical” in a country oppressed by segregation. It’s taken Pentecostals several generations to heal from the rupture that resulted from pulling back from the unity that characterized the early revival. One wonders what would have happened had the early Pentecostal leaders stood their ground against a sinful and bigoted culture to maintain their original vision. Thankfully, we have another chance in our times. Churches all over the globe are deciding that racial reconciliation really is an essential part of the gospel. To return to my point though: it is jarring to those in power when a people begin to ignore the social protocols that determine those who are “in” from who are “out.” When a people begin ignoring the social barriers, not because they want to be trouble-makers but simply because they want to obey Jesus, it causes people to think about the injustices that are often otherwise invisible to the top half of the social order. When our family moved to Ecuador, we had a decision to make. We were told that Ecuadorians with a European heritage would not worship in a church full of Indians. We were advised to create separate churches to accommodate this cultural reality. We decided against it though because it seemed inconsistent with the gospel. So the going was rough for many years. We won mostly poor, uneducated and socially marginal people at first. However, as the years went by, the gospel began lifting our people. The children and grandchildren of the early converts became professional, educated and even wealthy folk. Today, the Ecuadorian evangelicals are a prosperous new middle class. Many missionary strategists in seminaries theorize that a nation is easier to win from the top down. I think that history does not bear that out. Most of the time, it is those in need that first receive the gospel. Gradually, because of what God does to transform those converts, the upper classes slowly come around. Jesus had some upper class converts but most of His people were in great need. So Jesus preached to them: “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Jesus told His disciples: “go into the highways and byways and find the lame, the halt and the blind and bring them in that my house may be full.” Furthermore, He was not just speaking about Jews; the prophet had said of Jesus, “He will speak peace to the heathen.” This was unthinkable. Who did Jesus, a carpenter’s son, think He was! Well, that depended upon who you asked! The apostle Peter said about Him, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief of the corner; this is a marvelous thing in our eyes.” The scribes and Pharisees, on the other hand, said, “This man receives sinners.” Or, “What good thing ever came out of Nazareth?” One thing for sure, the established social order was not happy watching this break down of the barriers and walls that protected their privilege and class. Understand now that Jesus was not a communist! He was not against the upper class and He was not against the lower class; He simply ignored class distinctions all together. That is what had become intolerable.
Jesus Was a Generational Threat Our Lord was 33 years old. He was much too young to have enough experience to instruct anyone – let alone to reform the entire society. Where had He gone to school? What office had He held? Who did He think He was? The older we get, the younger people seem! The other day, Trish and I were coming out of the hospital as a group of doctors in white coats were coming in. After we passed them, I asked Trish, “Do you think that last doctor was out of high school yet?” The truth is though; the man who saved Trish’s life didn’t look much older. Sometimes it seems the kindergarten is taking over the world and it is upsetting! Each generation has it’s unique rhythms and ways of doing things. The generation before us seems too stodgy and set in its ways; the generation below us seems unruly and inexperienced. Furthermore, our opinions tend not to change as we get older. I’m fifty-five now; people thirty-five look very young to me. So what would I do with a thirty-three year old who wants to tell me that he is about to overthrow the order that sustains my livelihood and my purpose in life? First, I’ll laugh. Then, if he doesn’t go away, I’ll try to find a way to get rid of him! That’s our natural tendency. Actually, many thirty-three year olds are saying these sorts of things about church. We are not any more disposed to listen to them than past generations. When they tell us that they want to sing different songs, or to dress differently, or to organize differently, we tend to tell them to go elsewhere. So they do. They start new churches that meet the needs of their own generation. That’s why, all over America, churches are segregating – not by race this time, but by generation! It is a very troubling and hurtful situation. We who are older tend to blame the young people for not having respect. But don’t you think that is probably what the elders in the Sanhedrin said about the Lord and his young disciples? The fact is, every revival in history has been a youth revival. The Pentecostal revival, where I found the Lord and was raised, was started by twenty and thirty year olds. They were still living when I was a kid, urging us to maintain the traditions that they had started in the early part of the century! They left their denominations when they were young but they thought it would be a sin if we left the ones they founded when they were young! It is worth asking ourselves this morning what our church plans to do to ensure that a new generation of Christ Church leaders will have the freedom to reach this city and this nation? What are we doing to support, train and encourage our young believers? Will we make it easy to be a Christian here or will we make it easier for our young adults to go elsewhere to serve the Lord and to grow a church? The elders of Jesus’ day made their decision: they would not listen to a young man call their traditions and their ways of doing things into question. They decided that He had to die so their old order could go on its way undisturbed – all the way to oblivion.
Jesus Was a Religious Threat The way that Jesus interpreted the Bible and lived out His faith undermined the authority of the scribes, the priests and the rabbis. What were the priests to think when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan? I mean, the thieves in His story beat up a man and left him for dead while the priest passed by without even stopping to help. Or, what about the time the Pharisee went to temple and prayed beside the publican and Jesus remarked that God had heard the Publicans prayer but did not hear the Pharisee’s prayer? This was really rough stuff! It wreaked havoc with the religious structure and culture. Jesus was not starting a new religion. He was as committed to the authority of scripture and to the message of the prophets as any Pharisee. What he rejected was the tendency of the religious leaders to make idols out of the cultural wrappings that surrounded the faith. Jesus honored the Sabbath; He did not honor the layers of rules surrounding the observance of Sabbath. Jesus respected the temple; He did not respect the merchandising and political shenanigans of the temple guard. Jesus quoted Moses with love and devotion; He did not quote Moses to frighten or to attack unbelievers and seekers. It may surprise you to know that in matters of doctrine, Jesus was a Pharisee. He never objected to one thing that the Pharisees taught. What he despised was the attitude of the Pharisees. He thought that their attitude destroyed the faith they professed. He did not even believe the heathen would be better off by converting to their way of thinking. Once He said, “You encompass land and sea to make a convert and when you convert him, you make him twice the son of Hell as yourself.” These are not words designed to soothe religious leaders. To say that one can be correct doctrinally and yet miss the entire point – that one can quote scripture and become a missionary to spread the faith and yet not really know God – how harsh! You can be sure that some of the most faithful and knowledgeable Jewish leaders were behind the decision to assassinate the Lord. Isn’t that something, that a spiritual leader could feel so defensive about his faith that he becomes willing to influence a government to kill people? No doubt about it, Jesus brought the wrath of the religious leaders – both liberal and conservative – upon His head. His teachings rebuked the ideas of the left and the spirit of the right and He simply could not be allowed to live.
Jesus Was a Spiritual Threat In the end, none of the human opposition was important enough for the Lord to notice. He had not come to this world to fight any human being, even the ones who sought his death. He came into the world to save all human beings from a tyranny much greater than any political, social, generational or religious system. He came to deliver us from the power of darkness. As Jesus began His ministry, St. Matthew quoted the words of the prophet, “they that sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Or, as the apostle John put it, “for this cause the Son of God has come; to destroy the works of the Devil.” This is the point that even Christians often miss. Jesus did not view evil as a metaphor or as a human weakness. Jesus saw evil as an intelligent system of spiritual powers that oppress and destroy human life. That was the war Jesus came to fight; this was the revolution Jesus came to lead and the powers of darkness were determined to destroy Him before the word got out. Everywhere He went Jesus cast out evil spirits and shed the light on evil systems. He was as ready to deliver the emperor as He was to deliver the slave. A few years ago, some theologians from Europe and the United States went into Latin America to preach what they called “liberation theology.” They tried to convince our people there that the oppression would not end until the people took to the streets with guns and Molotov cocktails. These arm chair revolutionaries were offering only more misery and sorrow and thankfully, the people realized it. A real revolution was brewing that this handful of do-gooders would have never understood. People were praying for Jesus to show up and destroy the power that oppressed their lives. Soon, nation after nation was turning to the Lord and discovering that freedom from oppression is something that happens in the heart and not from the end of a gun. Jesus told Pilate, the Roman governor, “my kingdom is not of this world, else my servants would fight but my kingdom is not from here.” How much more plain could our Lord be? He is not at all interested forcing people to accept Him; Jesus delivers people who voluntarily cry out to Him. This is a spiritual conflict, not a political, social, religious or military one. The way we conquer is simply to heal, serve and transform the peoples of the world. Perhaps this is a good place to tell you that I believe our church can only succeed in reaching this city if we realize that our struggle is a spiritual one. In the end, no amount of marketing, planning, programming or organizing can accomplish the work we need to do. Only a spiritual transformation that comes from proclaiming the kingdom of God over all human sin and depravity, over all corporate and governmental oppression and neglect, can do the work we must do. So, I really misnamed this sermon. No one really put Jesus to death; Jesus voluntarily laid down His life in order to destroy the works of the Devil. He descended into Hell but on the third day arose and ascended to the right hand of God, the Father almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. That is the good news and that is the revolution for which our Lord and countless martyrs have given their lives. But we don’t blow people up in order to spread our faith; we lay down our lives to proclaim the inevitable victory of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the song writer was talking about this reality when he wrote:
Do you feel the darkness tremble
The people on that first Palm Sunday would get confused later in the week. They would join their human rulers in calling for the Lord’s death. However, a few weeks later, these same people began to join the revolution of the ages and began to lay down their lives in search for a world to come. They will all join their Lord in announcing the dawning of a new day when no one rattles a saber and no one drags a chain. The lion will lay down beside the lamb and men will beat their swords into plowshares and not learn of war anymore. This is why evil angels and evil men plotted together to destroy Jesus. As long as war continues and oppression endures, evil remains, whoever is in power. But someday the last cannon will fire and the last flag will unfurl. On that day, it will not be a few straggling souls in Jerusalem but all the peoples of the earth who will greet the returning king, this time on a great white horse riding. And they will say, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest; blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
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