The Lord Needs It
Luke 19:28-40
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of theLord!” That is what the crowd shouts from the side of the road leading into Jerusalem. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! If we didn’t already know how the story would end, we might read the Gospel of Luke this morning, we might hear the scripture that lead us into the procession with palms and assume that the crowd following had finally figured it out. We might assume that they were finally with him, that they had finally understood that he was a messenger from God, the One for whom they had been waiting. We might hear this adoration and think that they had learned to let go of fear; that they had begun to believe what he said. We might hear these songs of joy and hope and believe them. If we didn’t already know that Jesus’ friends would betray him, that his disciples would let him down and that the world would watch as he walked to the cross, we might assume that they were with him.
After all as Jesus is preparing for his journey to the heart of things, it appears as if his disciples finally get it. For some reason, on this occasion, they do just what he asks. The scripture tells us how quickly two of them follow his directions, something that is unusual for his disciples. They typically question everything he says and dispute his ideas and push back when he offers them a challenge. He tells them to go ahead of him and search for a colt to bring back and he even tells them what to say when people ask what they are doing. If anyone asks, Jesus says, “Tell them the Lord needs it.” For some reason, this odd response is supposed to suffice, “Tell them the Lord needs it,” and so the two disciples oblige him. They find the colt, bring it to Jesus and then throw their cloaks over its back to soften his ride into the city.
But as Jesus sits on his colt, prepared to ride into Jerusalem, the crowd would have known deeply, something that is lost on all of us. You see, Jerusalem was not just any city. By the first century, Jerusalem had become central to the sacred imagination of the people, but it was also the center of political life…It was both the city of God and the faithless city, the city of hope and the city of oppression, the city of joy and the city of pain. Jerusalem was the center of their life of faith, but also the center of the pain caused by the political leadership. Remember that Jerusalem became the capitol of ancient Israel in the time of King David, around 1000 years before the Common Era. Under David and his son Solomon, Israel experienced the greatest period in its history. The region was united, all twelve tribes under one kin; it was at its largest; it was powerful and thus its people were finally safe from invading neighbors; during this time a glorious temple was built by Solomon … and this period in the life of Jerusalem was remembered as an era of glory.
Because of this, King David became so adored, so revered, that the messiah, the One for whom faithful Jews were waiting, was expected to be a “son of David,” a new David, indeed greater than David. And this new David, this son of glory, this ancestor of the holy, would rule a restored kingdom from Jerusalem. So Jerusalem had come to represent for the faithful, a symbol of glory and a reminder of hope for a different kind of kingdom…
As Jesus waited on one side of the city, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea and Samaria was also preparing to enter Jerusalem, but with a different kind of procession, the kind of procession that was more familiar, the kind of procession that comes with Empires, the kind of procession worthy of a king. The faithful were preparing for the great festival of Passover and so everyone was getting ready to gather near the Temple. Pilate was preparing to ride into Jerusalem too; he was preparing to ride into Jerusalem, but not out of deference to God, not out of a need to be present for the celebration, rather to remind the gathered crowd that Rome was in charge.
So as Jesus sits on his colt, preparing for his entrance into the city, the crowd would have been wondering why. Why is he doing it like this? If he is the new David, where are the lavish robes? If he is the new David, where are all of the horses, all of the men? Where is the army and the military might? If he is the One, why is he doing it like this?
And yet, if the disciples were confused about Jesus’ behavior we wouldn’t know it. They don’t seem somber or sad; they don’t seem worried that he has no sword to protect him, no bodyguard or servant, no army behind him. In fact they almost seem blissfully ignorant, as if they forgot all that he had told them to prepare them for this day, for the days to come and the days where they would find themselves without him. They continue along, singing as he rides, all the while, throwing their cloaks on the road in front of him. The closer he gets, the louder they sing, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” And if we didn’t already know how the story would end we might assume that the crowd following, had finally figured it out, we might assume that they were singing praises because of who he was.
Jesus knew what was coming; he knew that his behavior would land him in jail or get him killed. He knew that telling people that Caesar was not God, he knew that telling people that this kingdom was nothing like the one God had in mind, he knew that telling people that peace is possible without a sword, would be the end of him. He spent his whole life telling his family, his friends, his followers, strangers and outcasts, prostitutes and lepers and anyone who would listen that he knew of another kind of life, that he offered a gift that could not be bought. But he also knew that much of what was about to unfold would be the price he would pay to bring it.
But if the disciples are joyfully clueless, the political leadership is not. “They seem to have better instincts than most folks about these things, and they can smell trouble brewing. They know about Pilate coming in the other gate of the city – and they're not stupid about what can happen if Rome feels threatened even by a ragtag group of religious enthusiasts. Rome has a tendency to stomp on people, brutally, to put them in their place. So the Pharisees fret – and the Gospel of Luke tells us that they ask Jesus to simmer down. "Teacher," they say, "tell your followers to hush. They're going to bring down the heel of Rome on all of our throats. Don't be causing trouble now."
But of course Jesus has no intention of stopping now; he has no need of warnings from leadership, no need of cheers from the crowd following, so he says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” In other words, you can’t stop me, all of creation is pulling me to this day, this moment, this ride on a colt with a cheering crowd in tow. He knows that everything has brought him to this moment: “all the healing, the teaching, the calling of disciples, the fasting and praying, the driving out of demons and the calming of waters, the multiplying of loaves and the blessing and breaking of bread, the time in the wilderness and the time on the road, the words to his disciples and the arguments with the powerful, all of his life, has come to this…”
Everything has come to this, but not because he needed it. Everything has come to this because of us, because of the crowd. We join their cheers; we happily sit with Jesus on the edge of Jerusalem, on the gates of glory, on the cusp of another way. We join the crowd singing out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” But this is the same crowd that wasn’t there at the end. It is easy to follow him when he is telling the world that there is hope. It is easy to follow when he is telling the homeless that there is a home in God. It is easy to follow when everyone is watching and there is no need to leave anything behind.
But this day, this week ahead beckons us beyond where we would rather be. Like the crowd, we would rather wait at the gate before we take one step. We would rather let him go on without us and then invite us to come when everything is okay. If we didn’t already know that Jesus’ friends would betray him, that his disciples would let him down and that the world would watch as he walked to the cross, we might assume that those around him understood what he was doing. We know how the story ends. We know that when things got hard, the crowd slowly departed. We know that when Jesus asks us to not just love in the abstract, but to love all the way to the cross, our cheers slowly fade. We expected an army and he rode in on a colt. We expected a lavish parade and we joined the fickle crowd. We thought that he wanted us to believe he was the One and he did, but what he really wanted, was for us to follow, but not because he needed it, but because he knew that we would need him.
We know how this story ends, this story that begins with palms and ends alone in the dark on a cross. But our story, the story that comes after this one, the one we are writing with God has yet to be finished. It is the story for all of us, the story that with each day unfolds anew. So maybe he walked on without us, maybe he road in on our cloaks with our hollow songs ringing in his ear, so that when he got to the other side, when the sun came up again, we could sing out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of theLord!” and mean it. Amen.
The Last Week: A Day by Day Account of Jesus’ Final Week in Jerusalem by Marcus Borg and J.D. Crossan p. 5.
Kate Huey, http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/march-28-2010.html