Palm Sunday - Walking into Jerusalem

Rob Atkins

20.3.2005

People tell us it’s a moving experience to walk where Jesus walked. Often someone writes to the Baptist Times saying ‘every Christian should visit the Holy Land.’ There’s usually a rebuke: try telling that to the Christians in Ethiopia or Indonesia or even inner-city Birmingham! Or even parts of Raglan! All the same, it’s a moving experience just to hear someone tell about following the route that Jesus took through Jerusalem carrying his cross. The Via Dolorosa.

This morning we follow a road Jesus knew well – the road into Jerusalem. He’d taken it since he was a boy. Every year his parents went up. In the first few days of his life they took him up from Bethelehem on the road to Jerusalem to dedicate him to God in the Temple as their first born. When they went up from Nazareth one year he got left behind in the excitement of discussing with the religious experts in the temple but that was already at least his twelfth visit. And that was exceptional: most years he’d have just been drinking in the atmosphere. God has come to set his people free. God has come to ransom his people. To set them free to serve him without fear.

Of course between the ages of twelve and about thirty, we don’t know how often he came up to Jerusalem. These are the silent years. But we can assume that he continued to know that road into Jerusalem the same way you know the road into Newport or Cardiff. Why? Two reasons. First, it says in Proverbs – ‘Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ Second, Jesus has that growing understanding of his person and role from his study in the scriptures. First the small beginnings of Galilee of the Gentiles as the people walking in darkness see a  great light. But then the challenge to the city of Jerusalem over which all the prophets weep.  Loved by God yet so hopelessly rebellious.  ‘Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets!’ And he knew how it would end up in a brutal, judicial murder which would put the IRA to shame. But in a resurrection and a worldwide ministry as salvation flows from Jerusalem like a mighty river to water the round earth’s imagined corners as John Donne put it.

Now,  in his ministry we simply don’t know how many times Jesus came up to Jerusalem. You can spend a lot of fulfilling time with the four gospels trying to piece together how many times it was. By and large, Matthew, Mark and Luke have a simple linear view of the ministry of Jesus. First Galilee and the adoring crowds, then Jerusalem with adulation followed by rejection. For John, the whole of Jesus’ ministry revolves around Jerusalem and the surrounding country. The meaning of Jesus’ ministry is bound up with Jerusalem and the Jerusalem festivals.

And now, it’s Palm Sunday. Jesus leaves Bethany. We had a deacons’ meeting in a lovely room last Monday evening. Jesus loved to be in Bethany. He used it as a place of retirement. And now as he rides on in majesty, in lowly pomp rides on to die, he has many many memories of Jerusalem.

Most of them we know, as I’ve suggested from John’s gospel. A clearing of the temple as the start of the ministry – this ought to be a house of prayer! A couple of meetings with Nicodemus – one in the darkest night of spiritual death; one in the dawning light of beginning to wonder if spiritual life is in Jesus. An astonishing healing at the pool of Bethesda of a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. The joy of that and the persecution beginning as the jealousy of the authorities against a man with life in himself first makes itself known.

One memorable feast of Tabernacles – the feast of poured out water in a thirsty land - when Jesus claims to be the meaning of the feast: are you thirsty? Come to me and drink! If he did! He split the crowd. These wanted him to be King; these wanted to string him up.

And now the noose tightens. He’d raised Lazarus from the dead at Bethany. And they even want to kill him for that as well as putting Lazarus back in the tomb – dead men tell no tales. They do! ‘It’s better for us that one man dies rather than the whole nation.’ But they can’t tamp down the mounting speculation about Jesus and once again, as Jesus is anointed in the safe house at Bethany it’s a toss up whether he’ll be anointed as a King or as a dead man. And the genius of John’s gospel is to show us that in Jesus case it will be both. That Jesus reigns from the Cross.

And it’s the next day that Jesus rides into Jerusalem. John 12:12-19. ‘The whole world!’ It must have seemed like that! And not only the Jewish people know something out of the ordinary is happening. Even the Greek tourists know it and they come to find Jesus. And Jesus realizes that this is the time – the true Kairos. The time when Jesus will be lifted up from the earth – and then people of all types and nations will be drawn to the cross on the hill. The whole world has gone after him hasn’t it? Have you gone after him?

And he predicts it: John 12:23-24. His troubled heart in verse 27 foreshadows the agony in the garden – take this cup away from me. But God strengthened him 28. And in between this day of mounting tension and the Day of the Cross, every one of Jesus’ experiences of Jerusalem will be  telescoped into one week of frenzy. Like every week before Christmas you’ve ever known all in one go.

In public, every possible mood from wild acclaim to fierce controversy. Personal abuse of a man thought to be illegitimate. Learned debate but with the death penalty for the loser. The sensation seeking crowd in awe at his answers but then more and more frustrated as it becomes clear he’s not going to take on the Romans. And a final time he comes into Jerusalem from the garden of Gethsemane. Under armed escort. Frogmarched. To be mercilessly tortured, unjustly tried and crucified. And as they pierced his side, blood and water poured forth. 987 ‘On the mount of crucifixion, fountains opened deep and wide . . .’ And that, for John in his gospel is what God meant when he said he’d glorify his name in Jesus. That and the resurrection. He walked around in Jerusalem again, you know.

Oh yes, it’s a moving experience to follow the road that Jesus knew well. But don’t you know that you’re called not only to follow it but to walk it yourself? If anyone would be my disciple, says he in the other gospels let him deny himself, let him take up his cross and come follow me.  But doesn’t he tell it here too? John 12:25-26

Don’t be surprised if your life is a rollercoaster. Acclaim and opprobrium. Boom and bust.  Is the servant going to be treated better than the master? Put it another way, is Ian Paisley a Roman Catholic?

9 All glory, laud and honour

Children’s talk (Paul)

457 Make Way (Offering)

Choice

My Announcements – Anatomy of  a healthy church

Reading – Rosemarie John 12:8-28

679  There’s a light upon the mountains

Sermon

987    Here is love vast as the ocean  1

Communion

     987   Here is love vast as the ocean 2