Palm Sunday/ Sunday of the Passion

Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion (A)

April 2, 2023

Text: Is. 50:4-9a; Phil. 2:5-11; Matt. 26-27

            As disciples go, the Twelve have been pretty miserable failures throughout. 

            Indignant at the woman of Bethany, pouring her expensive ointment on the Savior’s sacred head, a preparation for His burial.  “What a waste!” they say, like good Lutherans at a voters assembly.  “This should have been sold, and the money given to the poor.”

            Then, as they recline with Jesus at the Passover Supper, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me” (Matt. 26:21; ESV).  “Is it I, Lord?” (v. 22), each one asks, with the force of, “Surely, You must not be thinking of me.”  We know, in fact, that it is Judas, selling out His Friend for thirty pieces of silver.  But not so fast, everybody else.  All boasting aside, everyone will desert Him when the swords and clubs come out.  And before the rooster crows, Peter will have denied Him three times.

            The inner circle, our Lord’s three best friends, He takes with Him in the garden, to watch and to pray with Him in His time of great sorrow and trouble.  But they could not stay awake with Him even one short hour.

            When Judas arrives with the band of soldiers, one of the Twelve responds with sword in hand.  From the Gospel of John, we know it is Peter.  It is always the temptation of Christian disciples to live by the sword, isn’t it?  Not to die for Christ, but to save Him.  Not to sacrifice the self, but to preserve the self at all costs.  But we must remember that “all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (v. 52).  And “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (16:25).  I can’t help but think of the head of Covenant School in Nashville, who ran toward the gunshots to save her students.  She got what Peter, at this point, did not.  She was killed for Christ, as were the rest of the victims, and we should regard them as holy martyrs.  In any case, they lost their lives, yet they live.

            Elsewhere in the Gospels, we read more of the disciples’ failures.  Rarely do they really understand what Jesus is saying, and more often than not, they are afraid to ask.  They are constantly dissuading Him from suffering and the cross, and forever arguing among themselves about who is the greatest.  We also know they have a taste for vengeance.  When a Samaritan village rejects Jesus, those sons of thunder, James and John ask, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).  Which, of course, merits the Lord’s rebuke.

            Now, we rehearse these failures, not to pick on the Twelve or sully their reputation.  But there is a reason these very men preached these things and wrote them down for us in the Gospels.  These are written for our learning.  We are to see in the disciples an image of ourselves.  And we are to see in our Lord’s mercy for His disciples an image of His mercy for us.

            Why this waste?  I’ve said things like that.  About things that honor and glorify our Lord, and proclaim His death.  With no real compassion for the poor or zeal for the mission of the Gospel.  And when I hear the Savior prophesy His betrayal, I, also, should ask, “Is it I, Lord?”  And then I should think about the times I deserted Him when the going got tough, the times I denied Him, failed to confess Him, said I didn’t know Him, because that would bring me suffering or pain… or inconvenience.  It is so often true that I fail to watch with Him, and to pray, that I may not enter into temptation.  An hour seems so much to ask when my eyes are so heavy… or full of other things.  On the other hand, I am often filled with righteous zeal over against the Lord’s enemies, or even other Christians I think aren’t faithful like they should be, faithful like I am.  And I don’t like the cross any more than the Twelve.  Let’s have some action, take up the sword, call down fire from heaven, form a political action committee… Do for Christ what He refuses to do for Himself: Enthrone Him as King and exact revenge upon His enemies. 

            When I see these things about myself as I look upon the disciples, my response should be repentance.  Not despair, like that of Judas, but bitter tears, like those of Peter.  And then I should believe, and cling to, the Lord’s merciful forgiveness.  Understand, this is why our Lord came.  Because we are miserable failures throughout.  Because we are not the people God created us to be.  Because we have broken faith.  Because we have broken ourselves.

            But what we are not, Jesus is.  The faithful and obedient Disciple.  The faithful and obedient Son of God.  Isaiah tells us what that looks like in our Old Testament reading (Is. 50:4-9a).  The Faithful Disciple, our Lord Jesus, has “the tongue of those who are taught” (v. 4).  What is that?  Before He speaks, He listens.  He hears.  He takes the Word of the Father into His heart, mind, and spirit.  Now, of course, He IS the Word of God, the eternal Son of the Father, but here He is speaking as the God who is also our flesh and blood.  As a Man, He does not despise preaching and God’s Word, but holds it sacred, and gladly hears and learns it (Small Catechism), as a faithful Son of the Third Commandment.  And then, He speaks it.  The Faithful Disciple speaks the Word He has heard and learned, and with that Word, He sustains the weary.  He’s doing it right now, as we hear His Word.

            Morning by morning God awakens His ear as those who are taught (v. 4).  Every morning, daily, the Faithful Disciple is engaged with God’s Word.  Unlike the disciples who do not understand, and who will not ask.  He is not rebellious.  He does not turn back from what He hears (v. 5).  No desertion of His God.  No rejection of the cross and suffering.  “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:40).  He does not defend Himself with the sword.  He does not call down fire from heaven, or the twelve legions of angels at the ready.  He gives His back to those who strike, and His cheek to those who pull out the beard.  He hides not His face from disgrace and spitting (Is. 50:6).  He takes it for His God.  He suffers in obedience.  He runs toward the cross to save His own.  He is obedient to the point of death, Paul says… even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8).  Relying entirely and alone on the help of God and the vindication to come against His adversary (Is. 50:7-9), when God declares Him just (and all of us along with Him) by raising Him from the dead.

            Jesus comes to be God’s Faithful Disciple for us, and for our salvation.  And His faithfulness, His obedience, does two things for us.  First, it counts for us.  He does it as our stand-in, in our flesh and blood.  Our righteousness before God (our justification) does not consist in our being or doing, but in Jesus’ being and doing in our place.  His righteousness is credited to our account.  Baptism wraps us up in His righteousness and obedience, so that when God looks at us, now, He doesn’t see our disobedience and sin (after all, Jesus did those to death on the cross), but only Christ’s perfect righteousness and obedience.  Second, it opens the way for us to follow the Faithful Disciple in faithful discipleship.  When St. Paul says in our Epistle, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5), that isn’t just some moralistic command to try really hard to be like the Lord.  It is the giving of the gift.  Here is the Model, Christ.  He sets Him before your eyes.  And then, here is the mind to follow Him.  Have it.  It is yours.  God is speaking the new reality so.  The mind that was turned away from God, and curved in on the self, is now turned toward God, and so toward the neighbor.  The Gospel changes your mind.  Paul says it in another way in Romans 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (v. 2).  You are not to have your own mind in you, but the mind of Christ.  And that is what He here gives to you, as a gift, by His Word.

            The Faithful Disciple, Jesus, hews out your stopped-up ears, so that you can hear as those who are taught.  And you can speak what you hear to your family, and to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and so sustain the weary.  And you can not run away, or deny, but confess… confess to the unbelieving world, even when the going gets tough.  Even when it means the death of you.  You can give yourself, your very life for Christ.  You can run toward the cross… relying entirely and alone on God’s help and the coming vindication against your adversaries, when the Lord declares you just by raising you from the dead.

            Now we enter upon Holy Week, and the devil will tempt us to fall in all the ways the disciples fell.  It will be hard for us to wait and watch and pray with Jesus this week.  But keep your eyes and ears on Him, the Faithful Disciple.  Take up your own cross and follow Him.  If you trip, He will not abandon you.  He will take you up on His shoulders and carry you.  He brought the Apostles through, and He’ll bring you.  And the result will be the same for you as it is for the Apostles.  Life.  Life eternal.  The journey through the cross, beloved, ends with an empty tomb.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.