"The King Has Come"

So…

Have you ever experienced waiting?

Waiting for a big event that is coming, but is far enough away that the anticipation is making you crazy?

Like having your first-born child, or for that matter every child that follows.

Or surgery that is not an emergency and so for some reason they have scheduled a month and a half from now?

It is annoying! You know you somehow need to prepare, but can’t really imagine how to do that!

Last year in January I had my left knee replaced. With that kind of surgery you are waiting, trying to prepare in some way, but because a knee replacement is nothing you have ever experienced before you really have no idea what you are doing and why.

You may even understand intellectually that you have to prepare - but can’t seem to understand emotionally.

In some ways emergency surgery is easier, not because it isn’t scary, it’s terrifying, but you can only have those thoughts for a few hours, maybe a day or two before you are on the other side, looking back!

So, imagine if you will, what is going on in Jesus’ head and heart, and in those of the disciples.

John the Baptist was beheaded well before this. All the disciples knew at some level that all this adventure could go horribly bad!

They also were aware that Lazarus, Jesus wonderful friend had died, but somehow beyond all understanding was now alive. According to John, he was at this meal, and his sister Mary and Martha were providing dinner.

But Lazarus being alive, and John’s death were combining into this all brain busting stuff!

How can you possibly hold those two things together - in tension - while at the same time try to keep going with Jesus who seems to be barreling towards his own death, yet also suggest sthere is something beyond that.

You want to have faith, but…

Then listen to the exchange between Judas Iscariot and Jesus.

A woman John said is named Mary anoints Jesus’ feet at a meal around a table. 

The way people ate in Jesus day you laid on your side with your head towards the food in the center of the group, with your feet out towards the outside.

Presumably all the disciple’s feet had been washed, as was the tradition, and Mary simply pours some very expensive perfume on his feet, a gesture of love, and respect, and total thanksgiving!
You do understand that our giving – even when it is a bit sanitized by church envelopes and Tithely and cash gifts - is very much of the same nature as Mary’s.

It is an action we take to express our love, and respect, and total thanksgiving to the one who has called us his disciples, his followers, his brothers and sisters.

It is a love gift, and as such is a blessing both for us, and for those who receive it!

But Judas, the butt-head of the group, only saw what it wasn’t. Sigh!

He saw money wasted, because being practical, and perhaps the bad apple John saw him as, only noticed that thousands of dollars were being used to do something very, very, impractical.

Jesus, knowing Judas well, and his disciples, and Mary, see what Judas doesn’t. That this action is not only a love offering – but is in fact wildly practical, and total prescient – part of the preparation for Jesus’ burial.

We might say she knew. Perhaps she didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. It is an action that is prophetic, discerning, perceptive, an action that made clear that Jesus knew exactly what was ahead, and …

Was preparing for it.

He understood what we call Palm Sunday as well, a Triumphal Entry that prefigures the glory of the resurrection, but shrouded in imagery that made it easy to confuse the true source of the triumph.

The celebration preceded the victory. 

The rider on the donkey was indeed the King of All come to Jerusalem. But his victory would not be on a battlefield. It would be a victory over far greater forces than a Roman army, our Jewish authorities, or even people who would not could not believe –

But a victory of faith over the forces of doubt, a victory over all that pulls at us to not follow, but to instead substitute our own desires.

For power, for prestige, for fame, for political domination, for security, for an easy life, for exclusiveness, for all the money we could ever image…
 
A total victory over the temptations that the tempter uses to pull us away from being disciples!

Jesus leads, always leads us, to a life of sacrifice

In order care for others!

In order to invite them to follow Jesus just as we are!

In order to see that defeat leads to glory!

And John notes: 
“At first, Jesus' disciples did not understand. But after he had been given his glory, they remembered all this. Everything had happened exactly as the Scriptures said it would.”
Amen.