"Hey sanna, ho sanna, sanna, sanna, hey sanna, ho sanna
sanna sanna, ho sanna, hey sanna..." Remember that? From "Jesus
Christ, Superstar?" Catchy. A perfect counterpoint to a parade.
There is something about parades that attracts us. Last
Sunday, when Christie and I were stranded in Philly, we were
struck by the fact that on an absolutely frigid afternoon, a
parade was going on - Philadelphia's 238th annual St. Patrick's
Day parade (since 1771 they have been doing this). Why last
Sunday? That was eight days too early - TOMORROW is St.
Patrick's Day. It was explained to us that this was a BIG event,
and it has always been held on a Sunday, and since today (the
Sunday closest to St. Patrick's Day) is also Palm Sunday, it was
decided to have it last week. The marchers were FREEZING, but no
matter. A parade is a parade. The show must go on.
As we encounter our text, we find another parade. It was
Passover time and the Holy City was jammed. It was like the mob
at Times Square on New Year's Eve or Mardi Gras in New Orleans
prior to Katrina. Jammed. A mad house. Pilgrims from all over
the known world. Roman chariots and Roman charioteers riding
back and forth. And the kids? You know they loved all the
commotion.
The reputation of Jesus had already spread. Just before
this, Jesus had produced the mightiest miracle ever - he had
raised Lazarus from the dead. Then, on the way into town, he had
healed two more men, blind men, and they were now able to see.
Word about such things travels fast, so everyone wanted to see
what trick was next. The crowd wanted to see more miracles.
They wanted to see the healer in action, this mighty wonder
worker. "Hey sanna, ho sanna, sanna, sanna, hey sanna, ho sanna
sanna sanna, ho sanna, hey sanna..."
I am sure it was exciting. As you Bible scholars know, and
as you who listened carefully to the reading from Matthew's
gospel are aware, there is no mention of palms here. Matthew
along with Mark simply say that people cut leafy branches from
trees and put their garments in the road. (1) Luke just talks about
the clothes (2) - an ancient version of rolling out the red carpet.
Actually, only John's Gospel mentions palms in connection with
Jesus' arrival. (3)
Whether or not palms would have been involved would have
been a big deal for that first century parade crowd. The palms
would have brought to mind a story from their heritage - the
Maccabees - and for many there that day, this would have been
even more of a draw than the opportunity to see a miracle-worker.
Judea was a political hotbed at the time of Jesus, just as it is
today. There were serious people in that crowd. They were
looking for a revolution.
If you want a modern counterpart to that ancient day,
remember the television pictures from Pakistan last fall. The
exiled leader was on her way back to the homeland after years
away in England. There was a mob at the airport; there were
thousands more along the route into Islamabad. People had been
warned to stay away - too dangerous. The government could not
guarantee protection (as if they had any intention of giving it
anyway). Benazir Bhutto was coming home. Musharraf would be put
in his place, democracy would take hold and the nation would be
saved. That is the way it was on that first Palm Sunday.
There was a mass nationalistic fervor stirring. People
thought back to 200 years before, during the reign of the brutal
Antiochus Epiphanes, the Pervez Musharraf or Saddam Hussein of
his day. In 167 B.C. Antiochus precipitated a full-scale revolt
when, having already forbidden the practice of Judaism on pain of
death, he set up, right smack in the middle of the Jewish temple,
an altar to Zeus and sacrificed a pig on it. Hard to imagine a
greater slap in the religious face to good Jews.
Stinging from this outrage, an old priest named Mattathias
rounded up his five sons, all the weapons he could find, and a
guerrilla war was launched. Old Mattathias soon died, but his
son Judas, called Maccabeus (which means "hammer"), kept on, and
within three years was able to cleanse and to rededicate the
desecrated temple.
But the fighting was not over. It would be a full 20 years
more, after Judas and a successor brother, Jonathan, had died in
battle, that a third brother, Simon, took over, and through his
diplomacy achieved Judean independence. That would begin a full
century of Jewish sovereignty.
Of course there was great celebration. "On the twenty-third
day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first
year, the Jews entered Jerusalem with praise and PALM BRANCHES,
and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with
hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and
removed from Israel." (4) So says the account in I Maccabees - a
story as well known to the crowd in Jerusalem that day as George
Washington and the defeat of the British is known to you and me.
During the period of self-government that followed, the
Maccabeans minted a victory coin, with palm branches on it.
On this day of Jesus' arrival into town, there had already
been thirty-two political riots in the past five years, an
average of six per year. Jerusalem was a partisan tinderbox
ready to go up in flames at any moment. With hundreds of
thousands of faithful pilgrims in town who ALL hated Rome, you
get a sense of the situation.
Knowing the history allows us to read the minds of those who
were waving the branches. The palms were no benign symbol of
rejoicing. They were a political statement. We have no
comparable symbol in our country, but if you can imagine the
United States under the domination of a foreign power, and what
it might mean to display the American flag in such circumstances,
you might have some idea. (5) These folks were going out to meet
Jesus in hopes that he was coming to crush and remove another
great enemy. Welcome, warrior king! Hail, conquering hero!
"Hey sanna, ho sanna, sanna, sanna, hey sanna, ho sanna sanna
sanna, ho sanna, hey sanna..."
But the hosannas would soon halt. The conquering hero that
they thought Jesus would be did not materialize. A leader, yes,
but not the kind they had envisioned.
Some years ago a book was written by a noted American
historian entitled When the cheering stopped; the last years of
Woodrow Wilson. (6) As we might expect, it is the story of
President Wilson and the events leading up to and following World
War I.
When that "war to end all wars" was over, Wilson was an
international hero. There was a great spirit of optimism abroad,
and people actually believed that the earth's last war had been
fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.
On his first visit to Paris after the war, Wilson was
greeted by cheering mobs. No one was more popular. The same
thing was true in England and Italy. In a Vienna hospital a Red
Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no
Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times. The
children did not believe her. They said that President Wilson
was coming and they knew that everything would be alright.
The cheering lasted about a year. Then it gradually began
to stop. It turned out that after the war the political leaders
in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they
were a lasting peace. At home Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition
in the United States Senate, and the League of Nations that he
had supported was not ratified. Under the strain of it all the
President's health began to break. He suffered a stroke and in
the next election his party was defeated. So it was that Woodrow
Wilson, who barely a year earlier had been heralded as a modern
day Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated
man.
It is a sad story, but one that is not altogether
unfamiliar. It sounds strikingly similar to the accounts in the
gospels. Charismatic leader, wildly popular for a time, then
things change. Why? How did the shouts of Hosanna on Sunday
transform into the shouts of crucify him on Friday? Why did the
hosannas halt?
People have their own agendas. Those who lined the parade
route that day looking for more "magic" were disappointed - no
more food for thousands, no more sight for the blind, no restored
limbs for the lame. From this moment on through Calvary, there
were no more miracles.
For those who were looking for a conquering hero, one who
would throw off the oppressive yoke of Rome, they too were
disappointed. With this Jesus there would not be insurrection
but resurrection.
Twenty centuries later is it all that different? We still
want to make Jesus into the Messiah of our agendas. The bumper
sticker says "Christ is the answer," no matter what the question.
If there is cancer or heart disease or illness of any sort,
Christ is the answer. If a marriage on the rocks, Christ is the
answer. If the kids are out of control, Christ is the answer.
If it is difficult making ends meet, "name it and claim it" (the
prosperity gospel) say the TV evangelists - Jesus wants you to be
rich; Christ is the answer. If we are Republicans, Jesus is a
Republican; if we are Democrats, Jesus is a Democrat. If we are
independent, Jesus is too. "I want to serve Jesus...as an advisor."
This weekend, the news has been full of stories about how
Sen. Barak Obama is having to repudiate some things his pastor,
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has said from his pulpit at Trinity
United Church of Christ in suburban Chicago. In a sermon on the
Sunday after 9/11, Wright suggested the United States brought on
the attacks. "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we
nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon,
and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported
state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South
Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done
overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards.
America's chickens are coming home to roost." In a 2003 sermon,
he said blacks should condemn the United States: "The government
gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No,
no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing
innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as
less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like
she is God and she is supreme." (7)
Tough words. Well, of course, Sen. Obama is going to
repudiate such remarks because he knows, as we all do, that
Jesus, in his heart of hearts, was an American, and he would
never criticize anything about this country, or not much anyway. Would he?
We have to admit that we too want a custom-made messiah,
just like those folks along the parade route in Jerusalem, so
many centuries ago. They did not get one then and we do not get
one now. Why did the hosannas halt? Under the circumstances,
who can imagine that they would have continued?
We know what came next. Calvary. Crucifixion. But that
was not the end of the story. As the ancient hymn that the
Apostle Paul quoted in his letter to the church at Philippi has
it, "he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death
on a cross!" We know that. so sad.
But Paul continued: "Therefore God exalted him to the
highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Well, now. "Hey sanna, ho sanna, sanna, sanna, hey sanna,
ho sanna sanna sanna, ho sanna, hey sanna..." There is more to
this story. I guess the hosannas are not halted after all.
Amen!
1. Mark 11:8
2. Luke 19:36
3. John 12:13
4. I Maccabees 13:51
5. The Immediate Word, http://store.sermonsuite.com
6. Gene Smith, (New York : William Morrow, 1964)
7. Nedra Pickler, "Obama denounces pastor's 9/11 comments," Associated Press, 3/14/08
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