Loving God, just as there cannot be joy without sorrow or pleasure without pain, so there is both celebration and weeping today.  Draw us into the events of this holy week with a sure sense of your love and the power of your Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    What a mixture of emotion we have today, as Jesus enters Jerusalem for the final time.  The procession in with the palms - the procession down from the Mount of Olives - the crowd of disciples shouting praises to God - all of that is the fun part, the joyful part.  We can only imagine who would have been there: perhaps Zacchaeus, who had only recently dined with Jesus; perhaps the woman from Simon’s dinner party who had washed Jesus’ feet with her tears; perhaps the widow and her son who had been raised from the dead at Nain; perhaps the centurion whose slave had been healed.  They’re all there in the crowd, along with the women who had been traveling with Jesus and the blind and the lame and the demon-possessed, all of whom had been healed by Jesus.

    It is a marvelous procession as they all come toward Jerusalem, a procession that includes the broken who have been made whole and the outcasts who now have a community through Jesus.  And they shout out the words of the Psalm that welcomes the Messiah, and they echo the song of the angels who hailed Jesus’ birth, and some of the Pharisees hear all this, and they simply can’t stand it.  “Tell them to stop, Jesus,” they say.  But if they were to be silenced, even “the stones would shout out” (Lk. 19:40).

    (Sigh)...when the stones start shouting, it usually isn’t good.  After all, how many places are there in this world where the people have been silenced, but the stones are still shouting about the shedding of innocent blood?  What would the stones in Aleppo say if you were to ask them?  What about the stones in the concentration camps, or the stones in the Tower of London?  There are places in this world where the stones that are hundreds and even thousands of years old have witnessed so much.

    In Jerusalem there is a place in the Church of the Resurrection where you can stand and touch the rocks that would have been at Golgotha at the time of Jesus.  Even though a lot of people might say, “it’s just a rock,” it is powerful to be there and to get a sense of the events to which these rocks were witness.  In spite of the fact that almost 2000 years have passed, the stones in Jerusalem continue to shout.

    The stones in Erfurt also shout.  At the Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther took his vows as a monk, there was a basement bomb shelter during the second world war.  Over 280 people died there in an air raid, as one of the buildings was destroyed.  Today, you can descend a set of stairs to a memorial, where the stones continue to bear witness to those who died there.  Yet, at the same time there are the stones in front of the altar that bear witness to the people of faith who lay on those stones as they took their vows to serve Jesus as monks.

    These are just two places in the world where the stones continue to shout.  For the stones remain long after the people have been silenced, and they hold the truth of the things that have happened there.  All things considered, are we really ready for the stones to cry out?  For the things that the stones have witnessed all over this world are in most cases not the things that make for peace, and it is easy to be overwhelmed when we become aware of all of those things.

    In fact, these are the same things that move Jesus to tears.  In the gospel, he weeps over Jerusalem.  He is aware of how the people there still do not recognize the things that make for peace, and he weeps.  He is aware of all of the battles and bloodshed that have taken place there, and he weeps.  He knows that Jerusalem will continue to be a battleground for many years to come, and he weeps.  Jesus is also aware that God has visited his people through Jesus, who has made God’s love and God’s healing power and God’s kingdom known.  Jesus is right there as God Incarnate - God with them, and he knows that by the end of the week, they will not recognize him and will respond in hatred to his love.  Jesus knows this, and weeps.

    Surely Jesus continues to weep today over the things that people still do to one another.  Jesus weeps, and he continues to come to us in love, and he enters with us into our times of trial.  While some of us would much rather that God would simply put an end to everything in this world that causes pain and suffering, our God has always refrained from wiping out humanity.  Instead, God came among us in the person of Jesus Christ in order to redeem humanity, as well as to continue to be with us in good times and in bad.

    As C. S. Lewis once put it, God was not afraid to take his own medicine by becoming human.  Jesus shared in all that we experience as humans, except for sin, and we get a really good sense of what Jesus is all about when we follow the events of the coming week.  In fact, I would encourage you to start reading where today’s gospel ends and to read the rest of the Gospel of Luke this week.  You will find there what Jesus did and taught during the last week of his earthly life - at least, as Luke tells the story.

    You will find him in the temple every day, continuing to teach about God’s love.  You will find him continuing to butt heads with the temple authorities and with the scribes and the Pharisees.  You will find him continuing to teach and love his disciples, in spite of their failure to understand and the denial and betrayal that are coming.  You will find him sweating bullets in the garden, praying that he might somehow avoid the cross, yet submitting himself to God’s will in the end.  You will find him praying that God would forgive even those who crucify him.

    When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey on that day so many years ago, he knew what likely lay ahead for him.  He entered as a king coming in peace, and yet he knew that the people had not learned the things that make for peace.  He entered with the crowds praising God, and yet he wept.  He entered knowing that even though he continued to share God’s love, he would have jealousy and hatred aimed at him in return.

    He also entered believing that love would triumph in the end.  Through his own life, death and resurrection, he would bring many with him from death to life and from self-centeredness to love.  Amen.  May it be so!  Amen.

Palm Sunday (NL 3)                            Luke 19:29-44
April 9, 2017
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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