Sermons

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And Their Voices Prevailed
March 20, 2005
Sermon Series on the Gospel of Luke
Passion/Palm Sunday
Rev. Dan Baumgartner
Luke 22:28-40; Luke 23:13ff

This is an uneasy Sunday. If it wasn’t before, it is now. Uneasy.

When I was a young boy growing up in Seattle, the Seafair celebration was a huge event each year. The arrival of tall ships, the hydroplane races on Lake Washington…big deal. But to a little boy, nothing could hold a candle to the main event: The Torchlight Parade, on the streets of downtown Seattle.

Imagine if you were a small, small child. Hundreds of thousands of people, warm summer day, cotton candy for sale, colorful floats, police motorcycle drill team, marching bands.

The whole thing was just amazing, a delight to a child. Until. This uneasy feeling would slowly begin to settle over the youngest children. Heads would begin looking up the street. Waiting. Waiting.

Until finally, you heard it: metal scraping on cement. It was…the Pirates. Down the street would come the skull and crossbones, with what looked like real-live pirates, with real-live beards and real-live patches on their eyes, roaring and shooting guns and cackling. “Ay, me-hearties, there be monsters out there!”

We tried not to look scared. We were petrified. The Pirates would race towards the crowd, scraping their huge swords on the ground. And sometimes they would grab a child from the curb and carry him or her off!

Kids screamed, cried, cowered…the Pirates would probably be sued today for psychologically damaging children. But back then it was part of the deal.

For years, when parade time came, we didn’t know just how to feel about it. We were excited…but not sure we wanted to go. Was it a celebration….or a nightmare? It was a very conflicted feeling.

A little like the feeling of this day. Palm Sunday, more often called Passion Sunday by the church.

• The kids, so cute and fresh, the triumphant song, “Hosanna! Save us!”
• The parade of the palms, Jesus’ happy entry into Jerusalem with adoring crowds, Easter just around the corner.

And then before we’re barely settled in our seats,

• Jesus under trial and shouted away: “Barabbas!” and “Crucify him!”

It’s a long way ‘til Easter. How are we supposed to feel?

The Jesus’ parade into Jerusalem is pretty easy to get warm fuzzies over. It’s a picture of soft humility. Jesus rides in on the peaceful, lowly, blue-collar donkey. A donkey was a symbol of coming in peace. William Barclay, “It was upon the ass of peace and not upon the horse of war that Jesus came.”

When Jesus came, it was not with trumpets or fanfare, no chariots, no diplomats, no entourage of powerful people, no soldiers, no prancing stallion, no running horse hurrying him by people, (Henry) “but [he comes] on a quiet ass, that the poorest of his subjects may not be discouraged in their access to him.”

People sing, they shout. Some in that multitude of the crowd have seen some amazing things happening around Jesus, and they just want to be near him.

Hosanna!

Last week, a friend was in town. While he was here, I was getting pretty sick with the creeping Seattle cold that’s made the rounds. When I got up on Monday morning, I felt terrible. Just terrible. Barely had the energy to stop at Starbucks on the way to the airport!

So as we started driving, I said, “I’ll drive…I need you to pray for me. I feel terrible. He said “Okay, Pastor Dan.”

You may not have ever prayed with anyone like him. This man prays like a slow-brewing storm. He prays so intimately with Jesus, begins sort of quietly. But before long he gets loud, real loud and animated.

It’s still intimate, in fact so intimate you start feeling like Jesus is right there in the car with you. And pretty soon, this man is reminding Jesus of things he has said and promised, and then he’s asking God for things, and pretty soon the storm is unleashed and he’s shouting and you’re sure the car is just going to take off the ground!

But Jesus is right there, so approachable and so near. If the people didn’t worship, the stones themselves would cry out…

Hosanna!

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

It’s a nice picture. But we have to know that it was an unusual picture, and for many people a dissatisfying one. People were tired of the Romans. Tired of people occupying their country. Tired of other people controlling things. And they were looking around for a way to change them. One way was, at that moment, locked in prison. Barabbas.

Barabbas was aggressive. He was going to counter force with force, violence with violence. Luke tells us he was already in prison for staffing an uprising, and for murder. The Romans used armies, Barabbas and nationalists like him would use guerilla warfare.

Barabbas was comfortable on the “horse of war.” He knew that was the only language the Romans would understand. They only understood raw power. Barabbas needed to get out of prison. If it took crucifying Jesus…so be it. Crucify him!

This Jesus was different than they thought he’d be. He was accessible, personal. When we look at Jesus, we see a god whom we can approach. In the 1960’s, a Brooklyn man named Paddy Chayefsky wrote a play called Gideon:

“Gideon is out in the desert in his tent a thousand miles from nowhere, feeling deserted and rejected by God. One night, God breaks into the tent and Gideon is seduced, over-come, burnt by the wild fire of God’s love. He is up all night, pacing back and forth in his tent.

Finally dawn comes, and Gideon in his Brooklyn Jewish accent cries out

“God, Oh God, all night long I’ve thought of nuttin’ but You, nuttin’ but You. I’m caught up in the raptures of love. God, I want to take you into my tent, wrap You up, and keep you all to myself. God, hey, God tell me that You love me.”

God answers

“I love you, Gideon.”

“Yeh, tell me again, God.”

“I love you, Gideon.”

Gideon scratches his head.

“I don’t understand. Why? Why do you love?”

And God scratches His head and answers

“I really don’t know. Sometimes My Gideon, passion is unreasonable.”

Jesus is different than they thought he would be. He’s different than I thought he’d be. I spent a lot of my life thinking that Jesus was this God who, if I just prayed for the right things, or held my head the right way, or lived my life well enough, he’d answer my prayers.

Translation: give me what I asked for.

As I got older, I realized that sometimes my prayers were answered the way I wanted…and sometimes they weren’t. It was the times they weren’t that encouraged me to have longer conversations with Jesus.

I began to realize this was way simpler…and way more complicated than I thought. The more conversations I had with Jesus, the more I understood that he loved me. And the more I understood that, the more it became clear that my relationship with Christ was something far beyond just sticking around as long as my prayers were answered or my life was free of pain. That in fact, life without God was neither desirable nor really even possible anymore. Ellen Davis says it like this, that after awhile:

“life, and life with God…are the same thing.”

Jesus was different than I expected.

Hosanna!

Barabbas is no different than people expected. I think that’s why he was a popular choice. We understand the things Barabbas represents. Barabbas is efficient. He’s all about influence and power.

How do I achieve the best results?

Do that.

How can I get more power?

Do that.

What strategy will allow us to out-murder the murderous Romans?

Practice that.

Whatever we need to do to outmaneuver the Romans, let’s do it. The ends will eventually justify the means. Crucify him!

Christian people often are confronted with questions along these lines. Do I play the power and influence game, or dare I be more authentically who I am and let the chips fall where they may? Do I pursue relationships with people who will help me gain advantages because they are people with some kind of power…or do I welcome those I come into contact with? It happens within the church family as well.

Within the body of Christ are those who believe that we worship, we stick close to Jesus, we make good decisions, we invest in people’s lives around us one at a time and we wait for the holy spirit.

Others think that Christians need to be politically sophisticated and savy, that the way to effect change is through money and political influence and power blocks, pursuing power and using it for good ends.

Barabbas is an extreme example of choosing the way of influence. The crowd backs him. Crucify him!

One interesting thing I found as I studied this week was this…many early manuscripts of the Bible supply Barabbas’ first name here. Do you know what it was? It was Jesus! Jesus Barabbas.

His last name can mean several things, but one interesting meaning is this: Son of the Father. “Bar-“ son, and “abba” father. So isn’t it interesting that the choice given to the crowd of people…was between two popular men, both named Jesus, both called son of the father, both interested in freeing people.

And quite frankly, it’s not that big a stretch to see why someone might shout Crucify. Wasn’t Barabbas a more realistic hope to change things, and to change them in a way that people were familiar with?

Believing in Jesus was a big leap. It’s still a big leap. Wouldn’t you rather trust the revolutionary realist, at least for short-term results?

Jesus was something entirely different. The weapons he seemed to have at his disposal were foreign: suffering, forgiveness, compassion. It might have been difficult to imagine that Jesus more than an idealist.

And their voices prevailed. Jesus was to die.

But before we are done we need to think for a moment about who caused Jesus’ death. There has been centuries worth of fingerpointing.

Do you remember the popular film from last year, The Passion of Christ? It was criticized as portraying the Jews as the ones responsible for Jesus’ death. I didn’t think that was the case with the movie.

It’s certainly not the case in this gospel of Luke. Culpability for the death of Jesus seems to be distributed pretty evenly.

• Christians--like Judas, Peter and the others who deserted Jesus.
• Jews--like the Sandhedrin, the religious leaders, and the people of the crowd who shouted “crucify him!”
• Gentiles--like the Roman Pilate, and the soldiers.

Jews, Christians, Gentiles.

But that still leaves out one party. Us. Repeatedly, the gospel shows Jesus fully aware that he is going to die. For a purpose. “For the forgiveness of sins…for all nations.”

We are the ones associated with Jesus’ death. We are the ones who shouted crucify, we are the ones who need him desperately.

This week…Holy Week…we have ample opportunity to ponder our choices and connection to Jesus. Tonight in a Vesper’s service at 5 pm. Each weekday this week at noontime here in the sanctuary. Thursday Night in a Maundy Thursday communion service. Next Saturday in a quiet day of prayer.

It’s an uneasy Sunday. This whole week we will be asked: which Jesus will we choose?

The one called Barabbas, with the kind of power and influence we understand?

Or

Jesus the Christ, who looks different. Acts different. Uses different weapons.

Over and over we are confronted with this question…with this decision. What will we call out?

It’s an uneasy Sunday. Even as we sing “hosanna,” we hear the echo of our own voices shouting “crucify him!”

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