“A Show of Hands”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
March 28, 2010 – Palm Sunday
Matthew 21: 1-11; Matthew 27: 1-26
This Sunday is one day with two themes. On one hand, we have celebration. Our Lenten journey to Holy Week ends in Jerusalem with Jesus’ triumphant arrival and the great parades that welcomed him into the city. We read of how people placed their palm branches on the road to welcome Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!”
On the other hand, we have sorrow. For our Lenten journey to Holy Week ends in Jerusalem with Christ’s passion. The people of Jerusalem turned on Jesus and he was sentenced to be crucified on the cross.
On one hand, we have the palms. On the other hand, the passion. We read about the celebrations of the palms in our first lesson. Let’s look now at what happened five days later when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, and then was handed over to be crucified. Reading from God’s holy word.
The Gospel writer, Matthew, balances the news of the growing enthusiasm for Jesus among the people of Jerusalem with Jesus’ sobering foreshadowing of his own death to come in Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, the energy of those following Jesus into Jerusalem met with the resistance of the local authorities.
The problem for Jesus was that he was bringing his prophetic message into the heart of the establishment. It was one thing for him to give sermons on mounts in the remote north or to feed and preach to several thousand people on the banks of the Galilee. Jesus even argued with Pharisees and scribes in Gennesaret and got the best of them in arguments. He could be a prophet and rebel there without punishment. But on Palm Sunday, Jesus came into the heart of the establishment. He came to the city of David, the political and religious center of the country, during the festival of Passover, with a ministry of repentance and reform. Jesus drove out those who were buying and selling in the temple, he overturned the tables of the money-changers, and the chief priests and the scribes were afraid of him.
Earlier this week, we held a conference here at Bradley Hills on the impact of fear on American public life. We had lectures from thought-leaders and discussions about how fear is reducing civility and bipartisanship in our public dialogue at a time when our national discussions need of consensus and coordination. We talked about how interest groups on all sides of the political spectrum have fanned the fears of Americans anxious about economic and social change.
Fear of change was the underlying emotion in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is a day we associate with people shouting, “Hosanna.” The word, “Hosanna,” in the Hebrew tradition, has its roots in the emotion of fear. The original meaning of “Hosanna,” in Hebrew, is “rescue us.” It is an urgent plea. In Psalm 118, the Psalmist uses the word “Hosanna,” to mean “Save us, Lord.” By Jesus' day, the word “Hosanna” had transformed to a more confident statement that the Lord would in fact bring salvation from the things that caused fear, but still expressed a fear of, and need to be saved from, Roman oppression.
The local authorities in Jerusalem were afraid as well, threatened by the promise and popularity of Jesus. As Matthew records it, the “chief priests and the elders” were able to manipulate the fears of the Jerusalem mobs and convinced them to call for Jesus’ death. As Lucilla said of an ancient crowd in the movie Gladiator, “the mob is fickle,” and that description applied to the mob in Jerusalem. On one hand, they welcomed Jesus and on the other hand they called for his death.
And we? We can be of two minds too. We can follow Christ’s lead in prayer, but become nervous when we aren’t sure we are reaching a spiritual destination. Our morals matter, but what if they conflict with something we really want? We commit to our church, but can we stay with it when it doesn’t all make the judgments we like? We say we love our Lord with all our mind and soul and say the right things, but do we love the Lord with all our strength and action? Or our neighbors as ourselves?
Palm/Passion Sunday. On one hand palms. On the other hand passion.
There is a lot we can learn about a person from their hands. We give and receive a great deal of information through our hands. Shaking hands is often our first point of communication. Reflexologists work with hands because they have so many nerve endings. We say a lot through our hands.
As a result, there is a whole industry of palm readers out there. Their objective is to evaluate a person's character or future by studying the lines on their hand. Palm reading has become a form of spirituality. When I worked in Georgetown, I used to pass Miss Natalie’s palm reading shop on Wisconsin Avenue. I never ventured in, but have to say I was tempted.
Poet Rainer Rilke’s wrote of the spiritual knowledge that comes from palms, “Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk only on feelings. That faces upward and in its mirror receives heavenly roads, which travel along themselves. That has learned to walk upon water when it scoops, that walks upon wells, transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands, changes those that are like it into a landscape: wanders and arrives within them, fills them with arrival.”
Hands link to spirit and soul and character. The writer of Psalm 90 calls on God to “Prosper the work of our hands.” In Jerusalem during Holy Week, we learn a lot about the character of people from the work of their hands.
The crowds who came to Jerusalem covered Jesus’ path with their palms. Many locals put up their hands in confusion asking, “Who is this,” who is causing all the trouble? The establishment in Jerusalem was angry and raised fists in defiance. Jesus criticized the unequal burdens in Jerusalem saying that the Pharisees and scribes would not “lift of finger” to help those in need. Instead they put thirty pieces of silver in Judas Iscariot’s hands to betray Jesus so they could put him on trial.
There is a great focus these days on keeping our hands clean through the washing of hands. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control, UNICEF, the World Bank and other groups joined together to start Global Handwashing Day. This event focuses on the importance of individuals washing their hands in order to prevent the spread of infection. Global Handwashing Day is part of the Millennial Development Goals challenge of reducing global child mortality.
As a result of the H1N1 influenza awareness of the last year, our nation has had an increased focus on hand washing. You see hand sanitizer everywhere. Going into buildings, at the corners of office desks, we even have it here out in the narthex and throughout our church.
Washing hands should be important in our area. After all, we live in the greater Washington area. There is even a theory that the word, “Washington,” as in George Washington, comes from the Old English meaning “washing Hill,” a place right near a river frequently used for washing clothes.
A central actor in our second lesson today was the Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. As Governor, he had the power to help save or to condemn Jesus. Faced with a trying decision and the fickle but angry mob, Pilate called for some water and washed his palms before the crowd and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” When Pilate had an opportunity to acquit Jesus, he took some water and washed his hands of it. And then as the last verse of our lesson tells it, Pilate “handed Jesus over to be crucified.”
We know that Jesus’ response to the trials of Holy Week would be different. On Maundy Thursday, the night before his death, Jesus poured some water and with his bare hands proceeded to wash the feet of his disciples as an act of service. On Good Friday, Jesus was crucified with nails through his palms and wrists. And a few days later, in the words of the Apostle Creed, Jesus went to be seated at the “right hand” of the God the father Almighty.
As you look at your hands, what do you see as you begin Holy Week? Are you prepared to lift a finger to help those in need? Will you come to our Maundy Thursday service and join in having your hands washed for you, symbolizing the act of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as an act of service, symbolizing that we cannot wash away our own sins, and symbolizing that what we do with our hands matters.
If we try to wash away our sins as Pilate tried, we find that we are stained by it. If we try and wash our hands of the needs and problems of the world, we will find we are bound to it. But if we trust in the one who has the whole world in his hands, then we are saved by it. And the work of our hands will reflect it.
I think of the story of a butcher who was asked what difference it made to him to put his trust in God. He said, “What difference did it make for me to become a Christian? I stopped weighing my thumb.” He said before he started going to church, when he had an order, he would hold meat in his palm and put the meat down on the scales in such a way that his thumb trailed down, affecting the weight by as much as an ounce and increasing the price he charged. He had included that thumb in the weight of beef, pork, and every other item of merchandise. But he said that after becoming a Christian he began to stand away from the scales and gave a full amount of meat. And when he served customers whom he had formerly cheated, he added an ounce to make up for the past.
The great theologian Karl Barth was once asked what the primary job of the preacher is. He said, “Like John the Baptist, it’s to point a finger toward the cross of Jesus.” And that is what this Sunday is about. With our palms and with our passion, let us all point the way to the cross of Jesus. The cross that gives us hope for the future. But to get to that Easter hope, we must go through the passion of Holy Week. This week you can walk the journey with Jesus through the turmoil of life.
As you walk, remember to do good - through our One Great Hour of Sharing and the works of the church find some way to serve - for Jesus served.
Remember to pray often. Whether at Maundy Thursday or our Good Friday services or at moments of reflection each day, pray for understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is the focus of this week to come.
And remember to give thanks to God. For the same question they asked about Jesus when he entered the city of Jerusalem - “who is this?” is the question we must all ask as we enter Holy Week. Who is this? Who is Jesus Christ to us? A guy we study at church? A person who lived long ago? Or our savior, who was raised on a cross in Holy Week so that we might be raised up to our God. For God “will raise us up on eagle’s wings. Bear us on the breadth of dawn. Make us to shine like the sun. And hold us in the palm of his hand.” Thanks be to God. Amen.
