Over the past several months we have gotten used to seeing powerful leaders in our world looking anything but powerful. The President of Ukraine, a former TV comedy star, is smiling and laughing a lot less these days, as he presides over a country being overrun and destroyed by his Russian neighbors. The President of Russia perhaps thought he could swoop in with his armies and claim Ukraine in a matter of days, but six weeks later his forces are bogged down and pulling back from Kyiv, leaving a trail of mangled tanks and dead troops. European leaders, dependent on Russian oil, are cowed into inaction, unable to respond to Russia’s immoral invasion. Even here in our own country polls have confirmed that our own president is at his lowest popularity levels ever, with few people believing he can actually provide leadership for our country in this world-wide crisis. Some are wondering whether his party can survive the mid-term elections later this year, and whether he can be re-elected in 2024. To see so many powerful people around the world looking anything but powerful is very unexpected.
On the Sunday before Passover in the spring of 30 A.D. crowds of people outside the city of Jerusalem clustered around a lone figure traveling toward the city. They cut down palm branches and laid them in his path, they placed their coats down on the road for him, and they sang songs of praise acclaiming him to be the King of the Jewish people and the savior of the world. Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem that day proclaimed by crowds of people to be a king who comes in the name of the Lord. But Jesus didn’t look much like a king. He wore ordinary clothes. He rode on a humble donkey. He had no army, no staff, no entourage. He came into the city with none of the trappings you would expect a king to have. Still, nearly 2000 years later, you and I, along with hundreds of millions of people all over the world, are willing to call Jesus our king. That, too, is very unexpected. On this Palm Sunday let’s review the events of the first Palm Sunday as we direct our attention to
Jesus—Our Unexpected King
He came not to rule us but to save us. He came not to command us, but to invite us. He came not to demand anything from us but to give everything for us.
1.
St. Luke reports the events of the original Palm Sunday in chapter 19 of his Gospel: Then the disciples brought the colt to Jesus. They threw their robes on the colt and set Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their robes on the road. As he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began to praise God joyfully, with a loud voice, for all the miracles they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
See how the great King comes to his city and to his temple! And then try to put that picture into perspective. Can you imagine seeing, for example, the president of the United States riding into Washington on a donkey? No, he rides in a presidential limousine. When he travels he flies on the biggest and best jet there is, Air Force One. At a moment’s notice he can command the world’s most impressive armed forces from anywhere he happens to be in the world. Yet Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey had more power. Think of it—he could have come with all the power and glory that belonged to him as the Son of God. He could have ridden a thunderstorm as his chariot with legions of angels striding beside him and all creation singing the praises of its Maker. But look how he comes: Not on the storm, but on a donkey. Not accompanied by heavenly warriors, but by fishermen with a spotty record of faith. Not to the sound of creation singing, but to the shouts of fickle pilgrims who cheered him on Sunday but would desert him by Friday. Why did Jesus come into Jerusalem so humbly, so unexpectedly?
Because King Jesus came not to rule us, but to save us. As St. Paul wrote in our Second Lesson, “Though he was by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When he was born in human likeness, and his appearance was like that of any other man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” Jesus had—no, he has—all the power in the world, but he doesn’t use it like an earthly potentate. The President of Russia is using his totalitarian powers right now to bomb and butcher innocent Ukrainian civilians who are getting in the way of his expansion plans. Jesus gave up all his godly powers to take our place, not to kill but to be killed, for crimes he never committed. He did it to put an end, once and for all, to death’s power to scare us. The one thing every human being by nature is frightened of is dying. Jesus came to die in our place, and to give us life in return, so that we never have to be afraid of death again. He came to serve us, to load up the sins of the world on his own sinless shoulders and carry that load to the cross where he destroyed it forever. It cost him his own life to destroy our sin, but he was willing to pay that price. He loves us that much. That kind of love—that kind of king—is totally unexpected.
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What’s also unexpected is the way Jesus’ kingdom comes to us. Jesus offers God’s eternal blessings to us freely, as a pure gift, no strings attached. He doesn’t compel us to believe—then it would not be faith at all but merely obedience, merely doing our duty. He doesn’t bargain away the forgiveness of sins to the highest bidder, the person with the best behavior—then it would not be grace at all but a reward for performance. And Jesus doesn’t command us to be a part of his kingdom, like a king might do. He merely invites us to believe that what he tells us is all true. He invites us to receive the free forgiveness of our sins, based not at all on our own track record but purely on the righteous record he earned for us. He tells us, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.
And then he sends his Holy Spirit to work through the spoken Word to convince our hearts that what he’s offering can’t be gotten from any other source, for any amount of money or effort. Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was an invitation to everyone in that crowd to believe the words he had spoken, and to trust that the Father had kept his ancient promises to send his people a Savior. On Palm Sunday Jesus invited all who saw him to join in his journey, a journey that was headed not for a throne in a king’s palace but for a cross on a hill called Golgotha. And two millennia later all who are moved to faith still enter his kingdom that same way. Jesus came not to command us but to invite us into his kingdom of grace, simply by faith. Completely unexpected!
3.
One other observation about Palm Sunday. Jesus was so well-loved by the crowds who swept him into the city that he could have recruited plenty of body guards to protect him. He could have used his followers as human shields against the forces the Sanhedrin would surely be sending against him in the next days. But he didn’t. He fought his battle against the forces of darkness all alone. He let the crowds melt away in fear and confusion. He allowed his closest disciples to run away while he was being arrested. Because Jesus, our Unexpected King, didn’t come to this earth to dictate to us, to tell us what to do, to order us around like some cheap tinhorn dictator. No, he came not to demand anything from us, but to give everything he had and everything he was for us.
During the next week, we will be remembering the sacrifices Jesus made for us. On Maundy Thursday we will remember how, as Jesus’ disciples sat and argued about which of them would be more important in his kingdom, the Lord unexpectedly set aside his good clothes, took a towel and a basin of water and began to do the work of a menial slave, washing the dust from their feet. He was trying to show them that he was a different kind of King, and that in his Kingdom the thing most highly prized is service, given in love and humility. And then Jesus served them, and us, as he gave his very body to eat and his true blood to drink, in a miraculous sacramental way, in order to assure every believer that his blood poured out on the cross has covered each and every sin. On Good Friday we’ll watch as our Savior allowed himself to be nailed to a rough cross of wood, hung on a pole and finally, after he breathed his last, buried in a human grave, even though he did nothing to deserve any of it. He gave every ounce of energy he had to make sure that our sins were paid for, once and for all.
And the most unexpected part is, he demands nothing from us in exchange. He requires no litmus test of worthiness, no minimum standards of decency in order to qualify for his forgiveness. If he did, not a single one of us would stand a chance of being forgiven. But our Unexpected King came, not to demand anything from us, but to give everything for us and for every sinner who ever has or ever will walk this earth.
As Jesus conquered the hearts of the crowd in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, so he makes his way into the hearts of sinners today, not with power but with love. God doesn’t force anybody to accept the forgiveness Jesus died to bring us. He doesn’t prove beyond all doubt that everything the Bible says is true, so that we don’t need to have faith. No, God’s way has always been and will always be to win us by his unconditional love: to conquer our unbelief by showing us his bleeding love for us on the cross, and then to invite us to claim the promises of forgiveness and eternal life he makes. And when we, in turn, love other people unconditionally, we will also find that we can open doors and bring Christ into their lives not with force, but with the power of Christian humility, service and love.
That’s not the kind of approach this world expects. For that matter, everything about God’s Kingdom is different from the kingdoms of this world. But then, we have a different kind of King, a King about whom everything is unexpected. May his unexpected love, that will be so evident to us during the Holy Week ahead, move you to a life of humility, love and service, in his name. Amen.