"Make Way"
So…
What is the best celebration or party you’ve ever been to?
I’ve been to a couple of wonderful events!
I was at a wedding in the chapel at Yellowstone National Park. And a wedding in a hot air balloon. I was at a wedding where the guys dressed up as knights including swords and the bride rode in side saddle dressed like maid Marian of Robinhood fame.
And I’ve been to a couple of birthday parties with bounce houses, a couple with downhill slip-n-slides, and one where the birthday boy invited all his friends to a restaurant for dessert and coffee and paid for everyone’s dessert!
Celebration come in all kinds and sizes.
And Jesus and the disciples were on their way to a celebration, not a wedding or a birthday party, but a huge religious celebration, where the whole nation of Israel gathered in Jerusalem, the capital city.
While the numbers from 2000 years ago are a bit sketchy, one estimate I saw this week was that Jerusalem, a city of about 50,000 people, swelled up to 180,000 people.
It was the celebration of the Passover, one of the three great festivals of the Jewish people that swelled the city’s numbers.
Passover was the biggest because of course it was the one that remembered the story of the Israelites escape from captivity in Egypt!
The Israelites had special food, a crazy run into the desert, an escape through the middle of a body of water, the Red Sea, that the Israelites got through but the Egyptian army got stuck in and drowned.
It was a night when all the Israelites all gathered together in family groups to eat a lamb dinner with the blood of the lamb drained and then brushed on the sides and top of the door so that the angel of death that brought destruction to the Egyptian families, would “passover” the Israelites.
Yes, it’s a crazy story, and a huge one for the Jewish people, and one for which all Jews who could gather in Jerusalem, made sure they were there, including Jesus and his disciples!
They had all been there before, but this time was different.
Why? Because, Jesus knew this would be his last time.
Have you ever done something for the last time? Like rode your tricycle for the last time? Went to nursery school for the last time? Stuck your last tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy?
For us older folks, what about going to your high school for the last time, or to work for the last time?
It’s bitter-sweet! It means having to say goodbye.
But it also means being able to hang out with your friends in a special way for the last time.
And so it was for Jesus. It was huge!
Into the city of God’s chosen people Jesus headed knowing when he did the people of Jerusalem needed see him for who he was, their king, the Messiah, God’s chosen one!
But he also wanted them to see a really, really, powerful truth!
That unlike a conquering king, unlike typical earthly rulers, unlike those Roman occupiers of Jerusalem, he would not come on a huge stallion dressed in the clothes of a king accompanied by warriors in the finest military garb.
No, he would come dressed as always, astride a donkey, accompanied by his ragtag group of disciples.
He even sent his disciples ahead to go get a donkey, perhaps a mommy donkey along with her new colt. He got on a rode into towards the gate of the city.
And as he approached and they got to the great gate in Jerusalem that the pilgrims entered, the people started to lay down coats and jackets for Jesus to ride over like royalty.
They cut branches and waved them like flags, because, well, the Romans wouldn’t have allowed Israelite flags. Which is why we call this Sunday, Palm Sunday.
And into the city bustling with 10’s of thousands of people came Jesus.
Few that day understood. But we do.
That the Messiah, the Son of God was present.
And that in a few days’ time, he would be dead, having been arrested, tried, crucified, and then buried.
And there is something else we know, that on Easter Sunday, he would be alive once more.
Today he rides on a donkey. And palm branches wave.
But there is so much more to the story.
Because Easter is coming.
Amen.