Psalm 68 selections

 

I.        Traditionally in churches Palm Sunday is a delightful day.

A.       Children waving palm branches process down the aisle with the choir...if the palm branches are not mildewed, as they were last year.

1.       Sometimes churches will get really brave and rent a donkey and stage an outdoor parade.

2.       The church I was in did that one year. We were promised the female donkey was tame, would follow you anywhere if you fed it peanut butter cookies.  But she bolted when the congregation in the church yard started singing, “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”  Have ever chased a frightened, fleeing donkey down the street!?

 

B.       The triumphal entry of Jesus is joined by large crowds of people. From where do they suddenly materialize? I suspect some of it is exaggerated.

1.       They spread their garments on the street for the donkey to walk on,

a.       waving “leafy branches” they had cut off from nearby trees,

(1)      Mark does not say they used palm branches.

b.       “‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!    Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming!      Hosanna in the highest.’”

c.       The last line of this quote is from Psalm 118:26; it addresses one who is about to enter the Temple.

2.       How do you imagine that the colt of a donkey, “on which no one had ever sat,” did not spook and run away, throwing Jesus to the ground!

3.       This parade ends with Jesus causing a riot in the temple, right after he curses a fig tree that he sees in the distance.

a.       Springtime is not the season for figs, the tree is just now breaking out in leaf.

4.       Something is not right here in Jerusalem, something is missing!

a.       As a child I always wondered why Palm Sunday is such a happy day, and the rest of the week is so sad.

 

C.       In Giuseppi Verdi’s opera, “Aida,” in the Second Act there is also a triumphal entry.

1.       Radames, the captain of the Egyptian guard, returns victorious with his troops from battle with the Ethiopians. They enter the gates of the capital city of Thebes, heralded by a magnificent proclamation of trumpets, and joyful song from a chorus of hundreds. 

a.       “Glory to Egypt, to Isis!”

b.       It is suggestive of Mark 11's triumphal entry.

2.       A pitiful group of prisoners is led through the gate.  Radames declares that the King of the Ethiopians has been slain, yet one of the pathetic prisoners is the unrecognized Amonasro, the king of the Ethiopians. 

3.       Aida is in the background watching.  She is the Ethiopian princess, who is to marry Radames, and she is a traitor to her people, like Judas. Her heart is broken. She pleads for her peoples’ lives, but the crowds and the Egyptian high priest demand the death penalty.

a.       Prayers are said to the god Isis for deliverance,

b.       Aida and Radames end up dying in each others’ arms.

 

D.       Protestant theologian Marcus Borg and Jesuit scholar John Dominic Crossan in their book “The Last Week” of Jesus examine what happens on Palm Sunday from the perspective of Mark’s Gospel.

1.       The two authors compare the entry of Jesus to that of a Roman war hero, and the governor Pontius Pilate, at the head of a Roman legion, accompanied by captured slaves or prisoners in chains.

a.       The Romans enter through the main gate of Jerusalem, sitting atop elegant white horses,  and put on a display of power designed to strike terror and fear in the lowly Jews.

2.       Jesus’ procession, by comparison, is at the other end of the city, through a minor gate and it is small, surrounded only by peasants.

a.       Their joyful shouts were misplaced,

b.       of an unrealistic fantasy that here was their liberator hero messiah, who would restore Jerusalem to the glory of David.

c.       They could not get their minds out of a past that was dead and would never come back to life.

 

E.       And yet, this Palm Sunday parade of Jesus was an irony, a warning sign to the corrupt domination scheme that Jerusalem and everything it now stood for had been rejected by God.

a.       the corrupt temple worship and priesthood, for they have turned God’s house of prayer into a den of thieves;

b.       the political mess;

c.       the merchants who take advantage of the poor.

d.       The lives of all the ruling, religious, and business class have become totally barren and fruitless, just like the fig tree.

2.       That is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem before Palm Sunday as he drew near to the city, “‘If only you would know the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.’”

a.       This is mentioned by John (11:35) and Luke (19:41);

b.       Mark and Matthew waste no tears over this city.

3.       This Palm Sunday parade is a peace demonstration, 1960's style!

a.       Jesus rides on the beast of burden, the symbol of a burdoned down Israel, and a peace symbol, a common donkey.

b.       Jesus’ way is not the way of Jerusalem.

4.       In all that Holy Week entails, and most particularly in the horrifying crucifixion, in the earthquake, the rending of the temple veil, the people experience the horribleness of God, his judgment.

5.      A commentary on Verdi’s 1871 opera “Aida,” says that the libretto, the dialogue, written by Italian Antonio Ghislanzoni despite “conflicting emotions, the “charm, passion and dramatic stress,” is dominated by the sorrowful language of warfare, of plotting,  subterfuge and betrayal. It is in reality not a heroic opera but a tragedy.

a.       Verdi’s opera serves as a social commentary on Italy and its capitol Rome which was invaded several times in the years immediately preceding 1870, by Napoleon, the Austrians and

 Garibaldi. 1870 marked the year of the Franco-Prussian War, and the ravaging of Rome. So the citizens had to focus on recovering from being an occupied state, dealing with a corrupt Catholic Church, and a bad economy. 

                                                          b.       ...so like Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. [PAUSE]

 

II.        In our morning Psalm we have a Triumphal entry of God.              

   

A.       Psalm 86 opens with a note of joy and jubilation.

1.       But it is for the righteous alone who exult before God.

2.       God enters the scene, riding not on a donkey, but on the clouds,

a.       the sign of his judgment,

b.       of his defense of the fatherless and widows

c.       God gives to the desolate a home,

d.       and he leads out the prisoners.

3.       An earthquake is likewise present in verse 8 and 9.

4.       But here it is the women who divide the spoil as the soldiers flee–just the opposite from what transpired at the cross.

5.       The wings of the dove are covered with silver and gold, a sign of God’s reign and his peace;

a.       as “those who lust after tribute” are trampled, and “the peoples who delight in war” now scatter.

6.       The psalmist ends with words which describe God as “terrible”:             “Sing to O God, O kingdoms of the earth;                                                 

sing praises to the Lord.                                                                      

...Ascribe power to God,                                                                         

whose majesty is over Israel.                                                                 

Terrible is God in his sanctuary,                                                                

...he gives power and strength to his people.”   

7.       Psalm 68 is a difficult psalm to figure out.

a.       Some see it as a victory hymn as well as a communal song of thanksgiving that celebrate God’s reign from Jerusalem.

b.       But this victory is not a political one, but rather a cosmic one celebrated in the heavens.

c.       And the celebration spills down to the earth.

8.       Psalm 68 proclaims the ancient Near Eastern ideal of the king as protector and provider of the poor, as one who ensures that righteousness prevails. 

a.       The kings of Israel all forgot or ignored this sacred trust.

b.       And this celebration is a liturgical one. This is worship as God enters the sanctuary with the people. 

 

B.       This psalm in one sense betters portrays the true sentiments of Mark and Jesus on the back of the virgin donkey.

1.       The terribleness of God is not terrible for the righteous, or for those who ensure righteousness, while he poor and the widow are vindicated and protected.

a.       These are the ones who know the things which make for peace, even though they may weep.

b.       In Luke’s rendering of the Beatitudes, “‘Blessed are you that weep now, for you  shall laugh....Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.’” But,

c.       “‘Woe to you who are rich...who laugh... are full now...for you have your consolation...you shall mourn and weep.’” (5:21-25)

2.       God’s terribleness is juxtaposed by God’s gentleness in the Bible.

a.       God’s terrible anger and vengeance, as over against his loving kindness and infinite compassion

b.       God’s demand for absolute justice juxtaposed with God’s mercy; 

c.       God as a warrior and avenger, and God as a peace lover and one who comes to us as a dove in the Holy Spirit. 

d.       The 4^th century church leader Marcion, who was also a heretic, said the God of the Old Testament Jews could never be the same God of Jesus and the God Christians worship because of these great disparencies. 

 

III.      And yet the historical church affirms still today He is One and the same, a God of mystery and awesome beyond our comprehension.

A.       He is the God whose only Son he abandoned totally, who condescended to die on the Cross, the most evil and terrible form of execution for the worst kind of people.  

1.       Because Jesus died between two thieves, we celebrate the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.

2.       Because Jesus sat at a table and broke bread and shared the cup of wine with liars and thieves, tax collectors and prostitutes, we wave palm branches on Palm Sunday.

3.       For Palm Sunday in the final analysis, because Jesus riding on the back of a young donkey, broke the back of the entrenched Jerusalem system, in peaceful non-resistance, we rejoice today,.

4.       Today is also Passion Sunday, which acknowledges fulfillment of God’s great plan of salvation in Jesus’ own passion.

a.       For others it is most terrible and a deadly stumbling block.

 

B.       This terribleness is a description that separates our condition from that of God in his majesty and divine otherness.

1.       What is most terrible to God is our sin, which then requires judgment.

2.       The word comes from the root word “terror,” in which fear is our immediate reaction at the presence of God, or the angels, our fear because we are mortal and unclean,

a.       For humans “terror,” “terrible” means something bad in us, not necessarily God’s holiness or awesome character.

b.       In Daniel’s frightening dreams he focuses on the events of history, but Michael wants his instead to focus on God’s holiness.

3.       In Joel 2, after the people see the terribleness of their God in the Day of the Lord, as the earth quakes and people languish, then                 

“it shall come to pass that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

                                    your sons and daughters shall prophesy,

                                    your old men shall dream dreams;

                                    and your young men shall see visions.”

 

                                                          a.       Those words prophesied the birth of the church.

 

                   4.       Hebrews 12 talks about Moses’ sight of the immortal God on Mount Sinai being “so terrible” and “terrifying.”

                                                          a.       Hebrews immediately contrasts that with Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. The terror has been replaced by his sacrifice.

                                                          b.       So you and I gather in the heavenly Jerusalem, and with innumerable angels in festal gathering, in reverence and awe!

         

                   C.       The risen saints are God’s righteous to whom the victorious Lord issues the invitation to the parade into his kingdom: “‘Come.’”

                                      1.       He likewise promises one more triumphal entry (Revelation 22:20) “‘Surely I am coming soon.’

                                                                        a.         to which our response is,  Come, Lord Jesus!”