Well, today is Palm Sunday, and there’s a awful lot going on when Jesus enters Jerusalem. Palms are waving, crowds are shouting, the religious elite are plotting, and there is Jesus, riding humbling on the back of a donkey. But one of the things that amazes me is how Jesus heads right into the belly of the beast. He knows what he’s getting into. There is no wavering, there is no detour. And Jesus isn’t just heading towards those who are plotting his death. I suppose you could easily imagine him valiantly and bravely staring down the forces of darkness. No, he’s not just coming to reckon with Pilate and the religious elite. Jesus is also going to Jerusalem to disappoint his followers.
Jerusalem is an occupied city, bent over backwards by the Romans. There is constant threat to life and liberty. The people of Jerusalem weren’t just hungry for freedom and victory.
They ached for it. Yearned for it.
And so, when the Messiah came into Jerusalem that day riding on a donkey they knew this was big.
They just didn’t know how big.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem the crowds didn’t sing their hosannas and wave their palm branches because they were so incredibly captivated by Jesus’ message of love and grace. For them, the Messiah was coming to raise up an army, and with the help of God, Rome would be sent running with their pagan tails between their legs.
The crowd was ready for an uprising and a military/ political victory. Jesus, on the other hand, was ready to take up his cross. And die.
And so to Jerusalem, and to the cross, he went.
Christ moved towards conflict and pain, and the reality that he would end up being a great disappointment to others who had laid so many expectations upon him. But he went anyway.
Living fully and creatively requires vulnerability. If we’re going to do great things, then we need to be willing to dare to do great things. This demands us to bear risk: risk of failure, risk of disappointing others, the risk of disappointing ourselves.
It’s the risk to believe that the little tape inside us which whispers over and over again “you aren’t clever, or brave, or pretty or young or rich enough” is wrong.
We are enough.
Jesus is the icon of many great things, but he is the perfect image of a life lived without shame. Jesus does not begin with the sick assumption that he is not enough. That he needs more friends, more “likes” on Facebook, more people to tell him that he’s right.
Jesus could brave the risk of rejection and pain, because he knew what he was doing was right. To brave that takes a huge heart. To brave that and still love those who reject him — and be willing to die for them? … Well, that’s just amazing.
Five days after Jesus entered Jerusalem he was nailed to a cross in brutal and humiliating fashion. And if the story of Jesus ended there, we’d say that he was an absolute failure. Worthless.
Oh…he had so much potential…he could have done so many things and changed the world…but he had to go and be…a great disappointment.
But, Jesus shows us that disappointment doesn’t have to have the last word. In fact, disappointment can walk out of a tomb and shatter the powers of this world. The world was changed, forever, on that day.
Traditionally we've just entered the season of reflecting on the past year -or at least we would be if we were allowed to hold AGMs! However, I've still been thinking about what I/we have achieved in the last twelve months, and what sort of church, and society, we're likely to have after this Corona Crisis is over. And it can be a temptation to become a bit down. To become fatalistic, to think that we’re not doing enough, to think that it’s all going to come crashing down around our ears.
But that does not have to be our story. We are an Easter people – resurrection is in our blood. There is a great future for this church, and for each one of us here today.
Jesus changed the world. With faith, we can, too.
With him, we are enough.