Don’t Believe the Hype
Mark 11:1-11
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
It’s fitting, Church, that for this Palm Sunday the scripture reading is the Marcan story of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. It’s fitting, I think, because Mark’s version of this story, as compared to the other three is much more subdued, much more subtle—it’s overall, not especially triumphant. There are no overt mentions of Jesus being king or savior—even the line “The Lord needs it…” is ambiguous. Jesus never calls himself “the Lord” anywhere else in Mark, so it’s unlikely he’s referring to himself in the third person here.
Now let’s go over what Maggie just read for us: Jesus and his friends are about to get to Jerusalem, the royal city, for Passover— and Jesus tells two of them to go get a colt that he knows will be there waiting for him. The entire middle of the passage, the bulk of this passage, is the two buddies getting the colt, and then there’s only a handful of lines about the actual procession leading to the temple. And once Jesus gets to the temple, he looks around, checks his watch and goes back to Bethany. All that planning with the donkey, all the yelling of Hosannas, for what? For Jesus to take a look around, shrug and leave?
Think about those people following Jesus, walking alongside him shouting their Hosannas. Hosanna sounds like such a jubilant word, especially considering the context of shouting it in a parade. But church, Hosanna means save us. These poor people were yelling save us, thinking that maybe at the end of this procession Jesus would be crowned a literal king, that Jesus would save them from Roman occupation. But “…when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” I’m imagining his followers, this ragtag group of misfits and weirdos amping themselves up for what will happen when Jesus changes everything the second he enters the temple. And you can’t blame them, right? I mean, Jesus organized a royal procession! Had a pure donkey all ready for it and everything! Think about how disappointed and confused they must have been when Jesus got to his destination and immediately said, “welp, it’s late, gotta get back.”
And I don’t mean to put a damper on Palm Sunday, church, I really don’t—but I think it’s also good to be honest. Palm Sunday and Easter just aren’t the same on Zoom. And did we really think we’d be spending a second Palm Sunday, and a second Easter this way? This entire Lenten year has led to… this: one big anti-climax. Seriously, who here thought we’d still be here last Palm Sunday? How naïve we were! Well Jesus’ followers, both his disciples and this group of misfit followers—they were naïve too. Leading up to this point, Jesus had told his friends and followers—he had warned them of what would happen. He warned them that to fulfill his purpose, his mission, he would have to be rejected, suffer, and die. Whether they didn’t trust him enough, or just loved him too much to imagine him dying, they just couldn’t believe it. They just knew that this perfect person, this deity, come to earth in the form of us—they just couldn’t believe the grim future of what lay immediately ahead for their savior.
I remember last year’s Palm Sunday. I was in my sunroom in Philly. I remember having my palm that was mailed to me. I remember my cats wouldn’t stop nibbling it. And I remember when the service was over, and I think this was maybe… three or four services into the pandemic, I remember pressing “leave meeting” and feeling so deflated. Thinking, “this just doesn’t feel right.” And it was no fault of the minister, it was no fault of anyone’s. It just wasn’t what we hope for and expect when it comes to Palm Sunday. I imagine clicking “leave meeting” feels probably strangely similar to how Jesus’ followers felt when he left the temple without being crowned the king of kings. I imagine them feeling so deflated. And remember a few weeks ago, we read a scripture from John in which Jesus hinted at his death and resurrection, and at the end of this passage, it’s written, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered [what he had said]; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” See, once the cycle was complete, once the horrors of the coming weeks were over, once Jesus rose, the lightbulb finally went on, and everyone—his disciples, the rest of his followers, understood what he had been hinting at all this time; they had begun to come to the understanding that Jesus was answering their hosannas, that Jesus was saving them, just not in the way they had anticipated.
And you know, I think Jesus’ whole procession was another way of him showing the world that things were going to be a little different with him. He didn’t ride through the city on some kind of golden war chariot. He didn’t have any kind of royal attendants, he processed into the city on the leaves and branches of farmers and cloaks and cloths of peasants. And when he got the temple, there was no ceremony. There was no fanfare, no pomp and circumstance. He came, he looked around, he left. I believe that he was telling everyone watching, his followers and his persecutors alike that this was the end of an era—the end of worldly kings and shallow ceremonies. It was the end of life as we know it. There was no crowning, no coronation; because Jesus does not need a crown of gold, Jesus does not require riches and people worshipping at his feet. Jesus doesn’t accept praise, accolades, or riches; Jesus requires love and belief in the unexpected and the unprecedented. And sometimes the unexpected and the unprecedented is deceptively anti-climactic and disappointing.
Church, I’ll confess, I had some writer’s block with my sermon this week. I was bouncing ideas off my friends, trying to get some help—I asked my friend Dan, “what’s something that seems disappointing initially, but then you look back on it and it’s actually meaningful?” I was looking for a modern-day example of something similar to Jesus’ followers finally understanding all the strange, mysterious and subtle things leading up to the ultimate glory of Jesus’ triumph over death and evil. My friend and couldn’t come up with anything, but my brain was kind of stuck on this. It seemed like my life, the world should be full of good examples, things that pleasantly surprise us and bring meaning to the world! Then Dan said, “The problem is that everything is over overhyped, things tend to only go in the opposite direction.” That this consumerist culture we live in is filled with so much pomp and circumstance, so much fanfare, that we are destined to be disappointed by whatever they’re trying to throw in our faces. Nothing can live up the hype anymore. We’re constantly disappointed, aren’t we? Politicians make us idealistic promises that they can’t or won’t keep, and we become untrusting. Advertisers promise us a transcendent experience in the form of a new superhero movie that proves to be long, dull, and derivative. We’re always promised the next big thing, it never delivers, and we’re never satisfied. Maybe that’s why I had such a hard time coming up with real world examples this week—I truly couldn’t think of a recent time where I was pleasantly surprised by something, or when I got some real meaning out of something that seemed small and simple. Because nothing is small or simple anymore, church. It seems everything has to be bigger and louder to keep our attention.
So here’s Jesus, subverting the entire idea of a royal procession—he wasn’t trying to trick anyone. He had planned and prepared a humble parade to show people that he would not be the type of king they were expecting. He planned a humble procession that didn’t result in a celebration because he wanted people to know: I am not of this world and I am not the type of king you think I am. And surely at the end of this procession, Jesus’ followers were confused and crestfallen, but this was not the fault of Jesus. And surely, as they watched the events of Jesus’ time in Jerusalem unfold they became frightened, and eventually they grieved the short life of their crucified savior. But when Jesus would rise it would all come together, and they would understand Jesus’ strange ways, his mission, and his sacrifice.
Last year, even a few months ago, I know we were all hoping for a triumphant Palm Sunday and a triumphant Easter back together in church. I know this is disappointing. I wonder if, as a nation, as a world, we had listened more, prepared better, if we would be less disappointed now. I wonder if we, as a world, had accepted the science, if we had accepted the reality, where we would be now. I wonder if Jesus’ disciples, if Jesus’ followers had listened to his predictions, had understood Jesus’ subversion, his joke on a royal procession, if they would have understood better what lay ahead for him—maybe that would have been able to be with him in his hour of need, maybe they would have been able to prepare themselves more for the unthinkable, seemingly impossible events that lay ahead.
Church this world is full of empty celebrations. It is full of people trying to convince us that bigger is better, and we’ve bought into that. We’ve bought into it enough that we are constantly disappointed. We’ve bought into enough that nothing seems to satisfy us. We’ve bought into it enough that it’s hard to recall the last time we were pleasantly surprised by something. We’ve bought into a way of thinking, a world that would never recognize someone as intentionally understated or as humble as Jesus as someone to aspire to, as someone worthy of listening to and following.
Church, let’s listen to Jesus on this Palm Sunday. Let’s try to understand Jesus’ subtle, quiet, and humble actions. Let’s realize that Jesus was never going to be a king of kings the way we thought, he was never going to be a leader on this earthly realm. Jesus never tried to hide this, it just took his death and resurrection for people to really listen to him and understand. I want us to take this second, maybe slightly disappointing remote Palm Sunday to appreciate what Jesus was trying to do, what Mark was trying to convey— that this is not a day to be filled with excessive celebrations, but rather a day that is mean to usher in a quiet, contemplative, and mournful week. Today we will not fall prey to the hype. Today we will celebrate Jesus quietly, with humility, as we prepare for the coming week of sorrow, and later, for the days of real, true, transcendent joy. Amen.
