“Conflicting Expectations”

Zechariah 9:9-10

Mark 11:1-11

April 9, 2006

Passion/Palm Sunday

With only six more days to go our journey through Lent us nearly complete. Over the course of our journey we have asked tough questions of ourselves, we have been pushed and prodded, and we have reflected on the quality of our faith and obedience. That is after all the purpose of Lent, for Lent is more than just the time of preparation for Easter; it is the time of preparation for how we will live as Easter people on the great journey we call faith.

With the journey of Lent nearly complete the shadow of the cross is growing larger by the minute. The life and ministry of Jesus is coming to an end, and the purpose of his incarnation will soon be revealed in just a few short days. Jesus knows the course he must take, for it is the course his Father in heaven has ordained for him. It is the path he must walk and he alone. He came to save to the people from their sins. He came to save the world. Everything he has done through the course of his three-year ministry has been leading up to this moment, and everything he will do from now until Good Friday is for one purpose, and one purpose alone, to fulfill his Father’s will for him.

And so with his course firmly set toward the hill of Golgotha, Jesus makes his way toward Jerusalem, to the great city of David, to the place where the hopes of a people eagerly await God’s anointed one, the coming king who will usher in God’s kingdom. Jesus not only knows the history of Israel, he is counting on it. He knows the Jewish people and the roots of their nationalistic dreams and religious beliefs. He knows the iconic figures of their history, the great fathers of their faith – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. And he also knows the Scriptures and how the prophets proclaimed the coming of the Messiah who will bring victory to Israel.

He knows the people are awaiting the coming king, and he knows how kings ride into cities on their great, white horses making a grand entrance under pomp and circumstance. He knows the fan-fair that accompanies such a grand entrance, with the shouts of praise coming from the emotionally charged crowd, who line the streets for a glimpse of their king and hero. But the king arriving into Jerusalem on this day will be a very different king than the people expect. Oh, he will bring peace and justice, he will usher in God’s kingdom, but he will not do it through military might, or through power and prestige. He will do it through humility, suffering, and death. Jesus will not meet the peoples’ expectations, and in a few short days, they will turn on him and call for his death.

On this last Sunday before Easter, we find ourselves in an interesting position, one might even say an awkward position, caught between conflicting expectations. Even the name of this Sunday, Palm and Passion Sunday, highlights just how conflicted our expectations are as we begin Holy Week.

We all have expectations. Expectations are nothing more than the ways in which we anticipate or presume an outcome to an event or a behavior of a person. Sometimes our expectations are rooted in our hopes and sometimes in our fears, sometimes in our wants and sometimes in our needs. Sometimes our expectations are met and there are no surprises. But, sometimes our expectations are not met. Sometimes they can be too high and sometimes they can be too low. We see a picture of a menu item and we have high expectations on the quality and quantity of the food, only to have our expectations not met when the food arrives on our table and we see that it is not like the picture. Or we read the review of a movie and we have low expectations of it only to discover that the movie is better than what we expected. But sometimes our expectations become conflicted, conflicted between what we hope will be, and what we fear might be, between what we really want, and what we desperately need.

There were certainly conflicting expectations of the disciples as they walked next to Jesus into Jerusalem that day. They had already heard his predictions three times before today that the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him and spit upon him, and flog him and kill him and after three days he will rise again. Oh yes, the disciples had heard Jesus’ predictions, but were they really listening? Did they fully grasp what would soon take place here in the city of David? One can only speculate. But even if they did understand, how tempting it must have been to abandon the course that Jesus was on. How tempting it must have been for them to respond to their expectations of fear from what they had been told would happen, with their expectations of hope for what they wanted to happen. How tempting it must have been for them to get caught up in the euphoria of the crowd with the arrival of the Messiah, the long awaited Messiah, the Messiah of their hopes and dreams, the Messiah who was prophesized to lead a military uprising and liberate the city, the Messiah who would come and destroy the enemies of God, command peace and justice to the nations, and re-establish the throne of David.

Like the disciples, we too come to this day with conflicting expectations. We cannot read this story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem without also thinking about what will happen to him on Good Friday. We cannot read this story detached from the knowledge of the events that will soon play out. We already know the plot of the story. We already know what will become of Jesus. We cannot read this story and not see the sheer irony of it. We cannot read this story and not remember that the same ones who follow Jesus in this triumphal procession and sing out with a loud voice, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” will be the same ones who will run away and desert him in his darkest hour.

But maybe that is the point of this Sunday. Being a disciple means living in the tension between Palm and Passion, living in the tension between conflicting expectations, between the outcome we hope for and the outcome we fear, between the Jesus we want and the Jesus we need, between the Jesus, who comes as the king of peace and justice and the Jesus, who comes already wearing the crown of thrones upon his head.

If last week asked us whether we are willing to follow Jesus, this week asks us whether we are able to follow Jesus, whether we are able to walk with Jesus as he rides the colt from the Mount of Olives east of the city, down into the Kedron Valley, and up through the royal gate of David, whether we are able to stay with him on the course he is destined for even as he emerges triumphant in the Temple courtyard with the shouts of Hosanna ringing in the air, whether we are able to remain sure footed and not get caught up in the middle of the conflicting expectations presented to us today.

Palm or Passion, celebration or suffering, military might or servanthood, power or humility, the Jesus we want or the Jesus we need. These conflicting expectations put in clear contrast how imperative it is for us to remember the way of discipleship, to confront those ways in which our conflicting expectations get the better of us, and to make sure that we do not fall into the temptation of taking a step off the path of our journey or make Jesus take a step off the path of his journey.

If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that this is not the way of discipleship. We know that in avoiding the events of Holy week, we are only avoiding the truth about ourselves, only avoiding the truth about our own brokenness and sinfulness, only avoiding our own culpability in the cross of Jesus Christ, and in doing so, we end up missing the message of his Gospel.

Jesus is the humble king, not because he rode into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, but because he willingly humbled himself to the point of death – even death on the cross, as the atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, and in doing so perfectly revealed the love of God for the world. This is what Holy Week is all about. It’s about what happens when shouts of praise turn to shouts of condemnation. It’s about what happens when the weight of the world comes crashing down upon Jesus’ shoulders. It’s about the depths of human pain that Jesus suffered, so that we may be set free from the bondage of sin and it’s consequence of death.

On this day of celebration of Palm Sunday, let us always remember the good news of Passion Sunday, for Jesus did not come as Mighty God to meet us in our strength, but as the Crucified God to meet us in our weakness, to meet us in the depths of our human suffering, to be with us as we confront the conflicting expectations we have not only in our life and society, but also in our church and faith, in our own hopes and fears, wants and needs, so that we might walk with him forever in the light of eternal life.

As the forty days of Lent draw to a close for us as we move into Holy Week, let us not overlook the events of this week and their importance for our lives of faith. Let us join together at the Lord’s table on Thursday and share in the bread of life and the cup of salvation, let us gather at the foot of the cross on Friday and once again witness God’s love for the world, and as we do, let us not forget that Jesus is our Lord and King, not because of his grand entrance that day in Jerusalem, but because God raised Jesus from the dead, for there is no path to the resurrection for eternal life except by the way of the cross for the forgiveness of sins. Amen.