WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET
(Preached on Sunday, April 5, 2009)
Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” -Mark 11:9
Since being a pastor, I have always loved Palm Sunday. It is probably my favorite Sunday of the year, even over Easter and Christmas Eve. After all, who doesn’t love a parade?!! And Palm Sunday, we get to act out the biblical version of a ticker-tape parade. Of course, there is a bittersweet flavor to this day, as well. There is an ephemeral quality to parades and stardom. I love to watch the Macy’s parade at Thanksgiving and the Tournament of Roses parade on New Years Day. I look forward to them with great anticipation every year. And yet, when they are completed, there is always a sense of let down, a sense of melancholy that comes over me, a sort of, “What do I do with the rest of the day now?” feeling.
Of course, that feeling definitely hangs over Palm Sunday. This is just the beginning of our celebrations this week. And by the end of the week, the note of joy will be lost and the foreboding melancholy will have turned to true horror and sadness as we stand at the foot of the cross and look up at Jesus hanging there in agony. We will stand there and wonder once more, how did we get there? How did we go from Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem today with shouts of Hosanna ringing in the air to his bloody body hanging on a cross and the shouts of “crucify him” still echoing across the city?
Of course we would be surprised. There is an old saying: “What you see is what you get.” But in this celebration today, there are all sorts of signs that “what you see is not what you get.” First, the symbol of the palms. Even though this Sunday is commonly known as “Palm Sunday” biblical scholars point out, (and my own observation from when I visited Jerusalem 3 years ago) is that no palm trees grew in Jerusalem. Mark’s gospel does not mention palm trees, but rather “leafy branches” and “cloaks” being spread out on the road in front of Jesus. But palms are a symbol of royalty and the story is suggesting that Jesus is being viewed by the crowd as “royalty” so over the centuries those “leafy branches” have become visualized as “palms.”
Of course, “royalty” is another questionable symbol here. What sort of “king” is represented here? Again, what we see is not what we get. While the crowds hail Jesus as though he were royalty, Jesus is nothing like any earthly ruler known then, or anytime since. A Roman leader would have ridden in a chariot pulled by magnificent stallions. Jesus entered the city on a colt, a young, small, humble ride. And a borrowed one, at that! A political leader would have been surrounded by security guards to keep the crowds at bay, allowing no close physical contact and possible harm. Jesus was surrounded by his disciples representing many walks of life and rode in the midst of the people. A military leader would have galloped along the road, passing the crowds with perhaps a wave of the hand or a nod of the head if there were any recognition at all. Jesus, on a colt, moved slowly with the people, accompanying them, as well as accompanied by them.
Over and over again, with Jesus we do not get what we want, so we change our vision of what we see. We go ahead and proclaim with a certain smugness that Jesus is king of kings as did the crowds that day and ignore the fact that this is not the entry of a conquering hero. We have developed, over the centuries, and more and more today, the habit of moving over the rest of Holy Week, going right from Palm Sunday to Easter, assuming the rest of the story is just filler. This raises serious questions for our faith when we face the struggles and difficulties, the evil and horror, that confront us in life. We wonder why does not God do something about all these difficulties? Doesn’t God care?
But there are two pieces of this story in Mark that can help us if we don’t overlook them. The first is what Jesus does as he prepares to enter Jerusalem. Mark tells us that Jesus sends two of his disciples to request (not demand) the use of a donkey’s colt, and Jesus has the disciples make this promise: “The Master needs it, but he will send it back here at once.” Who is this Jesus with such control over his personal needs, fears and expectations, that he takes the time to reassure strangers, to calm their fears for the well-being of their borrowed animal? This is not exactly the behavior one expects from a “king” coming in the name of God. Jesus is not going to meet any triumphalistic expectations of his followers or the crowds, but neither is he going to his death as a helpless victim. He is not bound by stereotypes or by other people’s definitions. His presence and promise cannot be predicted, but he was and always will be a mystery.
At this decisive moment in his life he chooses to ride upon a colt, which he borrows and promises to return, taking care not only of his needs, but of the concerns, fears, and needs of the owner’s of the beast. Others had paraded and would continue to parade on fine stallions. They would take on the authorities of their day by force of arms and die, gloriously or ingloriously, to be remembered as heroes and patriots. Others again, many more of them, would fall in with the authorities of their day, lacking the courage or the tenacity to hold out for the restoration of their nation and their rights as a people. Only Jesus confronted the powers with disarming love; only he rode to certain death with no attempt to intimidate, destroy or surprise his enemies.
The second thing he does in Mark’s telling of the story is to simply enter Jerusalem, go into the temple, look around at everything, and then leave and go back to Bethany. Unlike Luke and Matthew who depict him storming into the temple, overthrowing the tables of the moneychangers and the sellers of animals for sacrifices, Mark has him quietly wander into the temple, look around, do a reality check, and then slip away. What is this retreat? Is Jesus running away from the truth? Is he taking a deep breath before the end? Is he recoiling from the reality he’s seen — admitting that the world is not better off than when he first began his ministry years before?
And what about us? What do we see when se stop to look around and do a reality check in the temples and the tension points of our lives? If we have the courage to really look, to admit the way things are, we will see brokenness and evil, sin and disease, greed and injustice. We will see a bruised and scarred and empty world. This honest seeing will leave us sad, scared, hesitant, tired, in need of a time and a place to withdraw. And yet this seeing and this feeling are important. If we cannot see what needs to die in us, if we cannot admit to all the darkness and sadness and needs of our lives that need to be placed on the cross with Jesus, then there cannot be new life.
Jesus didn’t stay in Bethany. It wasn’t that he didn’t do anything; it was that Jesus didn’t do the thing that we wanted. It wasn’t that Jesus did not intervene; it was that Jesus rode in on a colt. He goes back to Jerusalem, where he breaks bread with his disciples, breaks his body for the world, tears the curtain of the temple in two — and irrevocably weds God to the fullness of human pain and suffering. The reality check that Jesus starts in the temple only becomes more real through the passion of the cross. Instead of running away, Jesus embraces the ugly truth, and the energy of that embrace gives birth to new life and hope.
With Jesus we may not get what we see, but we surely get what we need. A Savior, a God, who has been there with us in the worst nights of suffering loneliness, in the darkest days of fearful agony, in the most impotent moments of forgetfulness. Jesus chose a borrowed donkey, a beast of burden, to ride upon as he entered Jerusalem, because he takes our burden on himself. Sometimes what you see is not what you get. Sometimes you get a whole lot more than what you see.