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Jesu Juva
“Not Nostalgia, but Anticipation!”
Text: John 12:12-19; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26-27
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Why did we give out palm branches this morning?
Well, the easy answer is that it’s Palm Sunday. As we heard from John at the beginning of the service, the large crowd of pilgrims that welcomed Jesus that day took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him. So I suppose you could say that we are imitating the crowd that welcomed Jesus that first Palm Sunday.
But that’s not really it. From the beginning, the Church has not been about imitation. We baptize, but we don’t try to imitate John the Baptist. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper, but we don’t try to reenact the Upper Room. Even though we’ll be meeting in a house for the services of Holy Week, that is not by choice! We’re not trying to recreate the early church. If we did, that’s called nostalgia - a longing for the past and trying to return to it. The good ol’ days. Or what we think are the good ol’ days.
Well here’s a news flash: the good ol’ days aren’t coming back. The days when the church was the center of the community, when people didn’t work on Good Friday, when most people knew that Easter was the day Jesus rose from the dead, not the day Peeps went on sale. The Church isn’t about trying to reclaim the past, but striving for the future. The past is important and we remember it, but we live for the future. We live in the words and promises of God, fulfilled by Jesus.
Which is what the crowds were doing that first Palm Sunday. The Son of David was coming to the city of David to sit on the throne of David! That’s what the words and promises of God said. The King was coming as Zechariah had prophesied. They called out the words of Psalm 118, a royal psalm. God was fulfilling His Word!
And they were right! It’s just that the way Jesus was doing it was a bit different than they thought. Jesus was not coming to re-establish the old kingdom of Israel (the good ol’ days!), but to raise up a new Israel. He wasn’t coming to fight, but to die. His throne wasn’t going to be a chair of gold, but a cross of wood. For His kingdom was not of this world. So by the end of the week, the Jewish authorities had convinced many of them that if they wanted hosanna, which means save us . . . If they wanted saving, that would best be accomplished not by hailing Jesus as the King, but by crucifying Him as a criminal. Better that one man die to save the nation, than that the nation perish (John 11:50).
Nostalgia doesn’t work. Looking back turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, frozen, unable to move into the future. Looking back to Egypt turned Israel in the wilderness to rebellion. And trying to return to the past doesn’t work for us either. It just makes us frozen and fearful and unable to move into the future. So we’re not imitating the first Palm Sunday.
But actually, maybe you could say we are. But in this sense . . . We’re not reenacting what happened, but we are imitating them by looking to Jesus to come and save; to hosanna us. By looking to the future and Jesus fulfilling the words and promises of God with His second coming. That’s why we give out palm branches.
For consider that there are only two places in the New Testament that mention palms branches. The first is in the Gospel we heard at the beginning of the service from John, which tells us what happened in the past. And the second is in the book of Revelation, which gives us a glimpse of the future . . .
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
That’s the great multitude we are joining today with our palm branches. That great multitude in heaven we will one day be a part of. For just as Jesus entered Jerusalem that day humbly to save, so He comes here today humbly to save. Then it was on a donkey, today it is in water, words, and bread and wine. Then it was to ascend the cross and die, today it is to give the gifts He won for us there in His death and then with His resurrection. But it is the same flesh and blood Jesus coming to us, then and now. Just now He is risen from the dead, never to die again.
And since He comes here to us today, we anticipate the salvation He brings, just as the multitude did that first Palm Sunday. Which is why we sing the words of the crowd that greeted Him that day just before receiving the same Body and Blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper. Hosanna! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! He came to save. He comes to save. To bring us into His kingdom - not the old one, but the new one, the one not of this world. For this world is passing away, but His kingdom will not.
So the palm branch you received today is not to reenact the past, but to practice for the future. To revel in our coming King, and that just as He did then, so He is now fulfilling all His words and promises to us. You are baptized, absolved, and fed. You are a dearly loved child of God. And we’ll hear all this week all He did to make it so. For none of that is what you did or do; it’s all what He has done for you. Your Saviour and your King.
And it’s important to remember that. All that Jesus has done for you. Which is why today is not only Palm Sunday, but the Sunday of the Passion. That as we practice for and anticipate the future, we hear what made it so. That the glory that awaits us is because of the suffering He endured. For my sin. And yours. Yes, your sins really are that bad. The punishment-and-condemnation-of-the-cross bad. For though it has become fashionable these days to belittle and justify some sins by saying, Well, I’m not hurting anyone, that’s a lie. Because you are. For every sin, no matter how little, no matter how big, put Jesus on the cross. Every sin hurt Him. Even more than that - killed Him. Which is a pretty sobering thought next time you want to sin. The next time you want to lash out with your tongue, or disobey your parents, or act selfishly.
But here’s another sobering thought to match that one - the Son of God came to do that, wanted to do that, for you. Jesus agreed with the High Priest: Yes, it was better that HE die to save the WORLD, than that the WORLD perish. As hard as that would be to do. So we’ll hear that story today and all this week, how God so loved the world . . . (John 3:16). And as you hear it, remember the past, what happened. Remember your sins and repent of them. But also look to the future, what will be. Hear your Saviour’s words of Absolution. And what Jesus has promised you: a kingdom that has no end.
And then . . . then the words of the apostle Paul will be true for you. You will have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. This mind: to make yourself nothing. To be a servant. To lay down your life. To be all in for others. Which seems like a pretty big ask! How can you do that? How can you have a mind like that? Only if you know there is a kingdom waiting for you in the end, and that has no end. Only if you know you have a future that is safe and secure. Only if you know that what Jesus has for you is greater than anything this world can give, or that you can accomplish yourself.
But knowing all that, by the Spirit of God given to you (1 Corinthians 2:16), you can think and live differently. With the mind of Christ. I will tell you, it’s easier not to! Safer, too. The world doesn’t like those who live like Christ, and who speak and believe His Word. They put Him on a cross, and it’s why there are more Christian martyrs than any other religion.
But while it’s not easy or safe, it is better. Maybe not better as the world measures better - in greater wealth, greater fame, or greater power. But the pursuit of those things . . . well, how’d that work out for old Israel? Or Rome? Or any other kingdom of this world? They’re all gone. Dead and buried. But the kingdom of the one who humbled Himself, made Himself nothing, served, and died on a cross, His kingdom goes on. And his Church is still here. She may be despised by the world, weak in comparison to the world, and irrelevant to the world - as her Lord was, and is - but there will be only one kingdom standing in the end: the kingdom of the crucified one. The one to whom - whether they like it or not! - every knee [will] 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.
So do that now. Wave your palm branches this day to your King who is coming to you here, humble, to save you. Bend the knee of your heart in repentance. Confess your sin to Him who bore your sin. And then open that same mouth to receive His Body and Blood.
And with all that remember the past, but live for the future.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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