Today is a day about kings. It’s a day that we celebrate that Jesus Christ was heralded as the king of Israel, and also the truth that he would later be crowned as a king upon a cross.
We started ever so briefly this morning with Palm Sunday. We acted out that blessed moment when the disciples and people of Israel rightly proclaimed that Christ was their king. Some were even acknowledging that he is their Messiah! They shouted out “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” This is almost the exact same thing that the angels proclaimed to the shepherds at the birth of Jesus. In this moment, heaven and earth are rejoicing together that Christ has come to Jerusalem.
Jesus enters Jerusalem, triumphant! A king! And then he sets about the work of a king. Matthew records quite a bit of teaching that Jesus shared in the last few days he had. Jesus also drove out the money changers from the temple, cleansing that holy place from greed for a time, at least. He set things to right.
He pronounced woes over those who held onto their own understanding of religion – those that refused to follow the way, the truth, and the life. He told parable after parable. He shared the Passover meal with his disciples, he spent time in prayer…he was a model king by earthly standards. A man of the people, and yet also wise, and powerful! He bore authority that set him apart, even though he was close and personal.
And then, almost like flipping off a light switch, the atmosphere changes. We all know what happens next. We focus on Palms in one moment, rejoicing and happy…and now we cannot take our eyes away from the passion. The pure malevolence on display. Pilate trying desperately not to bear the guilt for what he’s about to allow, a guilt he cannot escape. The crowds, whipped up by the chief priests and Pharisees, willing to say anything that they must in order for this man to die. The soldiers looking at this beaten and bruised man – the same man that they had been warned to keep an eye out for, indeed there were rumours that he might start a rebellion! Any hint of anxiety or worry they might have had is gone now. They jeer, they mock, they dress him ironically as a king complete with a brutal thorn encrusted crown.
At the centre of this whirlwind of the worst parts of our human existence we see our king. And we can’t look away. Because this king isn’t powerless. He mighty! He’s a king the likes of which this world had never known before! The very foundations of this world tremble at the thought of him coming again.
There is power and authority in that broken frame! If we had been there…if we had but an inkling of the power that Jesus Christ has…that story would have gone very differently. It would have been like an over the top action movie, where the main character easily dispatches all the bad guys, doing amazing kung fu moves, never getting winded, never taking and hits, never needing to
reload…we would have fought our way out! If we had just the power contained in Christ’s pinky finger, we would have decimated all those arrogant priests and Pharisees, let alone the crowds that turned to betrayal so quickly. Pilate, and those lackey soldiers would be forced to their knees, to bow down before the king and creator of the universe!
Thank God that we’re not Christ. Thank God that he could do what we could not. He remained humble and obedient to God. He didn’t lift a finger to defend himself. He let himself be arrested. He let himself be flogged. He let himself be spit on. He let his body be mistreated to the point that he could no longer even carry his own cross. He let them drive nails into his body. As he hung there dying, as the blood and strength drained from his body, his ears were open. He heard every mocking statement. He heard them twist his own words against him. He was reminded again and again that if he but lifted a finger, if he but said the word, this cup would be taken from him. His death would be stayed, and the wicked would be punished.
We should never look away from this king. Fix your eyes on his cross! He could have come down from it! Part of him wanted to! But your king loved his people so much, that he desired far more to punish wickedness than wicked people.
We are sinners, we are wicked people. In the ‘action movie’ version of Christ’s passion, we would be in one of those groups: the leaders trying to abdicate responsibility, the crowds condemning him, the soldiers beating him, the people twisting his words against him…we would be punished! But that’s not what our king wants for us. That’s not why he went there!
Christ went to the cross to rid this world of wickedness – of sin. He’s not done this to remove sinful people from the world – we’re clearly still here. Christ stayed his hand, he held back his power in order that we might be clean. His only goal was to remove the claim that sin and death…that Satan had over us. And he’s achieved that goal. Yes, us sinners are still around, but now – in Christ, in the cross, in our king – we are saints as well.
In the passion of Christ we find unimaginable, world creating and world shaking power…held fast. We don’t find a passive and submissive king, except of course that Christ was submitting to God’s will. We find a man, the incarnate God, actively bearing every blow both physical and mental. We find a man holding fast to one goal. I can almost hear him reciting it in his mind, a private prayer.
‘When I do this, when I bear this blow, this mocking, this pain, this death…my people will be saved.’ My people will be saved. My people will be saved. Maybe the prayer was far simpler: just the meaning of his own name: Jesus. ‘God saves. God saves. God saves.’
Next Sunday we will celebrate that God saved Christ, that death could not hold him. Today we celebrate that Christ, our king, came to his people, and that he saved them. He saved you.
Amen.
