Palm/Passion 2025 + 4/13/25

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M. Campbell-Langdell

Luke 19:28-40

 

Praise the Lord! Amen?

A pastor at our Lenten Caravan last week said this and got what to him was an unsatisfactory response. You see one of the joys of our Lenten Caravan – and there is one left on Wednesday if you have been missing this- is the variety of worship styles in each congregation to which we travel. One congregation has sedate but lovely hymns, emotive but calm preaching and purple lighting. Another has gospel tunes and loud engaging preaching that strays back and forth from the text but brings it home eventually and others are a mix, but we all gather together, week after week during Lent. For soup or fish or chili. For brownies- a decadence in the midst of fasting, and mostly to be together and also raise funds for a local organization, Community Action.
But back to the pastor. He said Praise the Lord! And folks quietly said Amen or Praise the Lord, but he pushed back- he said no, you can do better than that! Praise the Lord! And we said Praise the Lord! And here he said, if we have been blessed, we need to praise the Lord. Amen?

Well, here in today’s passage, Jesus is breaking in a colt. Now this isn’t my area of expertise, but I understand that breaking in a colt is not for the faint of heart. And yet we do not have any apparent rodeo ride. Jesus seems to be calmly riding this animal that has never been ridden as if it’s no big deal. Only he, the Lord of heaven and earth, is able to ride it without apparent trouble. Cloaks are laid across its back in a poor man’s version of a saddle. And the disciples, honoring him for the King that he is, are laying cloaks on the ground. We wave palms today but no palms are in this version- that is from John’s gospel. Instead, his own disciples are leading the crowd in vociferous praise!

"Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!"

They are praising even though they have heard that bad things are on the horizon. They are praising because God is good and they have been blessed. Bad things may be on the horizon, they seem to say to us, but praise anyway.
Notice that there are those in the crowd who would silence the disciples, or ask Jesus to do so. And he says no. He says:  "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."

Amen. How can we praise like this?
Praise the Lord!
In difficult times, praise anyway! It can be an act of resistance. This whole procession is an act of resistance by the way. Because we know that in a different part of town, Pilate was entering Jerusalem with imperial finery and impressive troops. And in yet another area, Herod was entering town in a royal procession, trying to reinforce his role as the King of the Jews and convince the Romans to give him back the power his father had. Jesus’ parade was an act of resistance. It reminded the powers that be that God was in charge, and not just earthly rulers. That, humble as he was, Jesus was Lord.[1] And he keeps being Lord.

Praise the Lord!

Let us wave palms today and rejoice in what God has done for us. Let us resist where we need to resist. Let us praise God when things are going well, but even more let us praise God when things are challenging. Because it is an act of trust.
God is with us, God will carry us through. As we journey with Jesus through this Holy Week, during this Passion-tide, let us not forget that God is good! That God is great! And that God will bless us.

A last word before we continue with the palms and procession and into church to hear the Passion reading. Let us remember the context of Jesus’s words here. Just before this text he has shared the parable of the talents, which in Luke is about having faith and being loyal even when the odds don’t look good. At the end of that passage, he says, speaking as the king: “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away (Luke 19:26 NIV).” We praise not because we have much, but because we believe much.
We praise not because we are already blessed, and we are, but because of the blessings we are about to receive.
We praise because when we praise, we will be given more. If we hold back our praise, even what we have may be stripped from us, because that is what we call the loss of hope.

We praise as an act of resistance. Reminding the world and the Caesars of this age that there is only one God and that our God is good!

Praise the Lord!
Amen.

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