Everyone Loves a Parade
A
Sermon in Two Parts,
Mark 15:1-39, Mark 11:1-11
Randy L Quinn
Part 1.
The basement at our house is our
storage area. It’s a huge unfinished room with boxes along all the
walls and stacked in corners.
·
Downstairs
is where we put those things that we only use once a year – like
Christmas decorations.
·
Downstairs
is where we put canning jars – whether they’re full and ready to be
eaten or empty and ready to be filled.
·
It’s also
where we keep our family pictures.
But unlike most of the other things
in our basement – and the rest of our house, for that matter – our
family pictures are not very well organized. There are envelopes
with pictures in them. There are a few photo albums with pictures
in them. There is a shoebox with miscellaneous pictures in it.
There are sacks full of pictures.
There are even a few videotapes
among them.
Some of the pictures are from my
family, depicting my years as a child. Some are from Ronda’s
family, depicting her years as a child. Some are of Tonya and Jason
as they were growing up, some are of foster children we’ve had, and
some are of Melissa. Still others are snapshots taken of scenic
sights we’ve seen while traveling.
But whenever I look through them the
number of pictures showing children in parades strikes me. There
are foster children in the local parade in Saint John. There are
pictures of me as a Cub Scout in a Memorial Day parade in New
Jersey.
A few years ago we put all of
Ronda’s home movies onto videotape for her folks. And there must
have been miles of movie film showing parades in Kansas – parades at
Halloween, at Christmas, and on the Fourth of July.
In small towns all across the
country there are hometown parades like those. In big cities there
are ticker tape parades. We even have them here in Spokane – though
I haven’t watched one since moving here last summer.
I suspect that each of you has at
least one picture of a parade in your own picture collection –
whether your collection is in a box somewhere or in a neatly laid
out album.
That’s because at some level we all
love parades. We love to watch them. Or we love to watch people we
know march in them.
Children seem to especially love
them.
·
Some love
the clowns.
·
Some love
the floats.
·
Some of them
love the balloons.
·
Melissa
loves the loud music of the marching bands.
In the small towns where we have
lived, the children loved to join in them. Some rode their
bicycles. Some dressed up. Some rode on the fire trucks. Some
rode on horses or ponies. Some walked their dogs or cats. Some
just walked.
I suspect children were no different
in Jesus’ day. I suspect adults were no different, either. So when
Jesus comes into Jerusalem, they respond to the parade the same way
we would. They stand on the sides and cheer. They spread confetti
on the ‘hero’ being honored. And they join in and become a part of
the grand procession.
-
But this isn’t just any parade.
-
This isn’t just any hero.
-
At least not in the eyes and ears of
the crowds that day.
They saw Jesus as the coming
Messiah; the one who would take the throne of David and throw out
the Romans. We would have had the victory parade after the battle,
but true to the Hebrew understanding of prophecy, they proclaim the
victory even before the battle is begun – it is an act of faith on
their part that God will grant them their wish.
The palm branches
are just one indication of their misunderstanding of Jesus. For the
palm branches are a reminder of the story of the Maccabean revolt
nearly two hundred years earlier. That revolt began when the ruler
desecrated the temple. After a stunning and surprising victory, the
temple was rededicated. In the temple rededication, palm branches
were used, thus giving the palm branches a new symbolic meaning.
(See 1 Macc 13:51 and 2 Macc 10:7.)
Clearly the crowd thinks Jesus is
coming to begin a revolution.
Even their cry, “Hosanna!” betrays
their misunderstanding. For “Hosanna!” means “Save us,” or more
emphatically, “Save us, Now!”
But the crowd has misunderstood.
When the king comes on a colt,
according to Zechariah, he comes to bring peace (Zech 9:9-10).
Jesus is clearly choosing the image of one who disarms people rather
than one who stirs them up.
That is made even more clear when
the parades is over. Jesus goes to Jerusalem, and just looks
around. There is no huge confrontation. There are no swords
drawn. There are no elaborate campaign speeches.
No, Jesus looks at the temple in the
city and leaves (Mk 11:11).
Jesus doesn’t work the crowd into a
frenzy and then abandon them. They work themselves into a frenzy
only to have their hopes dashed.
Jesus has been clear about his
purpose all along (Mk 8:31; 9:31-32; 10:33-34).
It was the people who misunderstood.
Their love of a parade – and our
love of a parade – stands as a stark reminder that sometimes things
aren’t what they seem. Sometimes what we want is not what God
wants. And always we need to seek God’s purpose rather than our own
agenda.
The misunderstanding of the people
who joined the parade reminds us to take stock of our own
expectations and decide if we still want to join the parade.
I, for one, still intend to join
it. But I know I must let God decide what kind of a parade it is.
I know I must let Jesus lead me on the course ahead. I cannot
presume to know where it will lead or where it will end.
I can only join in and proclaim,
“Hosanna!” “Lord, save me.” And I invite you to join me. (Wave
Palm Branch.) “Hosanna!”
(I will invite people who are waving
palm branches to join me in singing the chorus of a song we sang
earlier)
From every corner a thousand voices
sing
praises to him who comes in the name of God.
With one great shout of acclamation loud
triumphant song breaks forth:
Hosanna, hosanna to the King!
Hosanna, hosanna to the King!
Part 2.
As I’ve thought about parades this
week, I realized there is another form of parades that I hate – and
yet I find myself joining them. They’re the kind of parades I try
to avoid, the kind I complain about, and yet, I find myself caught
up in them anyway.
These are the parades of cars that
slow down to look at the scene of an accident. People in those
parades slow traffic down while craning their necks to see how badly
a person was hurt.
What makes us look at the scene of
an accident, anyway?
-
Is it a sense of empathy that makes us
want to see so we can pray?
-
Or is it a sense of awe that says,
‘there but for the grace of God go I’?
-
Or is it that morbid sense of sin that
delights in the wrongs of others that makes us look to see who did
wrong?
-
Or is it that tension we all feel
between being the bystander and being an agent of healing? Do we
look out of a sense of guilt for not being able to help?
I don’t know. But I do know that I
find myself watching as I go by, too.
Whenever I read through the Gospel
of Mark I am captivated by Mark’s writing style. In many ways, he
writes like a modern mystery writer. A character like Columbo would
fit nicely into the story.
From the very beginning of the
gospel, Mark has been clear about who Jesus is (Mk 1:1). And it
seems that Jesus knows who he is (Mk 1:11). On occasion, there are
others who seem to know who he is – mostly demons – but Jesus tells
them to be quiet (Mk 1:24-25; 5:7).
In the meantime, the disciples don’t
get it. The crowds don’t see it, either.
Mark uses irony to make specific
points along the way. My favorite example is when a blind man is
healed immediately before Jesus predicts his own death. After
predicting his death two more times, another blind man is healed.
It’s as if to say that his predictions could not be seen by those
with sight (Mk 8:22 – 10:52).
Another example of irony is that
while Jesus is on trial before the Council, Peter faces questions
outside the gates. Jesus is punished for being honest; Peter
escapes by being dishonest (Mk 14:53-72).
And then there is the irony of the
rending of cloth. When the chief priest hears Jesus’ claims he
tears his clothing and cries, “Blasphemy!” When Jesus dies, God
tears the veil in the temple (Mk 14:63 & 15:38).
But before that happens, we have
this last parade. Here Jesus is walking up the hill to Golgotha.
No one wants to follow him. Yet people line the streets to watch.
Simon is pressed into service and forced to join in the parade (Mk
15:21).
No more shouts of “Hosanna!” No
more cheering. Now there is only sober silence – or unbridled
disdain and taunting (Mk 15:16-19, 29-32).
And then there is one last example
of irony. When no one else in the Gospel can see who Jesus is, it’s
the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross that says it best.
“Truly, this was the son of God” (Mk 15:39).
His example is the one to follow.
He sees and proclaims what he knows to be true. If he were to lead
a parade, I know I would follow.
Would you? Will you?
