The Rev. Keri T. Aubert    April 5, 2009

Mark 11:1-11 (Liturgy of the Palms)

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm 31:9-16

Philippians 2:5-11

Mark 14:1-15:47

Palm Sunday,, Year B, RCL

This Sunday is both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Essentially, we have two liturgies squished into one service. Unusually, we have two Gospel readings. In these readings, things shift quickly and drastically. We move from palms to tomb, from triumph to tragedy, from celebration to sorrow.

In the first gospel reading, at the blessing of the palms, we heard what is commonly called the “triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” We should call this a “triumphal entry” only with tongue in cheek. After all, Jesus is on a borrowed donkey, and the crowd is not the upper class of the day. The trip to Jerusalem is triumphal in that Jesus is with the people he served, people who recognize that something special is happening. And if their celebration is a bit of a parody, then it’s a good-natured one.

A version of this story is told in all four gospels, though with varying details. In the Gospel of Mark, the triumphal entry takes place at the end of Jesus’ ministry, and it is Jesus’ first trip to Jerusalem. Jesus has been on a long journey, all leading up to this. Though Jesus hasn’t before been to Jerusalem, he has had second-hand contact with it: crowds and authorities from Jerusalem have been going out to see him. Jesus would have known before he got to Jerusalem that things couldn’t go well there, but that didn’t keep anyone else from the party. And yet if Jesus had stayed away from Jerusalem, he might not have been arrested and executed.

But he did go to Jerusalem, and arrested and executed he was. Our second gospel reading of the day is, of course, Mark’s version of the Passion. Notice that we get the Passion and not the Resurrection. Our reading leaves us at the closed door of the tomb with Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses. It’s not a comfortable place to be.

The “Palm” and the “Passion” parts of this Sunday stem from two separate liturgical events. It certainly would have been easier to preach about either the Palm or the Passion part of the day. But I suspect that there is something we can learn from considering each of these events in light of the other. We read the Bible on Sundays in chunks, and so it’s easy to think of every story as separate from all the others. It’s especially easy to think of the cross separately from the entire rest of the life of Jesus. The cross has taken on such theological importance that we can fail to notice that the Passion narratives are a relatively small part of the Gospel texts. If Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was our only source, we’d be led to believe that the Passion narratives are the entire Gospel texts.

They’re most certainly not. But don’t get me wrong: my purpose here is not to downplay the importance of the Passion. Rather, it’s to consider the Passion in light of the events that precede it. But it’s even more to consider the events that precede it in light of the Passion. It seems to me that theologies of the cross tend to account for Jesus’ death mostly separate from any consideration of his life. On the other hand, those of us who aren’t so comfortable with those theologies tend to account for Jesus’ life without fully considering the cross.

Maybe that’s only human. I think we tend to segregate life from death, and to look at them as unrelated conditions. Death especially we tend to put it in a separate place that we don’t have to look at too often or too closely. But the truth is, we can never separate death from life, or life from death. We are all born to die; we are dying every day. We will lose or be lost to everyone we know. This knowledge is a tremendous burden that every human being must carry.

When someone who is important to us dies, it is as if every part of their relationship with us returns to us anew. For better or for worse, our history with that person comes alive again. We begin to examine our other relationships as well. The joys, the pains, the victories, the regrets. We relive the past as if it is happening again, in our thoughts, in our dreams, in our subconscious. We don’t get to control it. These events stir up emotions deep inside us.

Something similar happens when there is an important public death. I am thinking particularly about the Friday murders in Binghamton, New York. As I’m sure you’ve heard, most of the victims were immigrants. On this Sunday, there seems to be obvious parallels between our Gospel readings and their hopeful entry to the United States followed by their tragic deaths. There is no way to explain such violence. And there’s more. Last night I heard about the shooting of police offers in Pittsburg, and on the way in this morning I hear on NPR about five dead children in Washing State. These events too stir up emotions deep inside us.

I don’t mean to be gratuitous about death. But the fact is that times of death, though painful, often lead us to new understanding, and that new understanding often takes us to new places. The end result is, I think, that our experiences of death often result in our strengthened commitment to the living.

And so when we are left at the tomb door with Joseph and the two Marys, we might sit in the shade with them. We might together remember the horrific end of Jesus’ life but not only that. We might also remember the healings and the teachings and the lives he changed through them. We might especially remember the parade into Jerusalem: its recognition that here was someone and something different; its wonderful, joyful celebration of encompassing community; its lifting up of the poor, the sick, the outcast, and the oppressed. Mourning Jesus’ death, we might begin to understand what his life was all about. Mourning Jesus’ death, we might come to see that Jesus’ life was all about subverting the power of death—literally and metaphorically. Mourning Jesus’ death, we might find strengthened commitment to the living.

We sometimes say that “Jesus died for us” or that the death of Jesus “saves” us. We generally take that to mean that Jesus saves us from fiery punishment for sin. I think it might be useful, though, to ask not what Jesus saves us from, but rather to ask what Jesus saves us for. It seems to me that Jesus saves us for the task of joining him in subverting the power of death—literally and metaphorically. As we take on Jesus’ healing work in the world, we subvert the power of death. Our commitment to that task is increased both by celebrating his life and by mourning his passion.

As we sit at the tomb, fingering our palms, we are tempted to take comfort from the fact that we know that Easter is coming. But maybe it’s better to set that aside for now, at least for one week, and to seek our solace and our direction, by looking squarely head-on at both life and death.