I love a Parade!
Mark 1: 1-11
Palm Sunday always reminds me of parades when I was a kid in Douglasville and especially since I have lived here. Personally, I don’t like being in them as much as watching them.
This week I immediately thought of my favorite parade. It was on the Fourth of July about 11 years ago. It was typical for Rome, people started turning out early. People parked on Broad street hours before time just so they would have a good place to watch. It is amazing how many pickup trucks are used as reviewing stands. We have some folks around here that are pro-spectators. They have their Pickup parked in the right place, they have chairs and a cooler. Snacks and they are prepared to hang in there until it is all over.
I guess everyone likes to see friends and their kids go by. The music from the High school Bands. The scouts and to beauty pageant winners sitting on the back of convertibles. But this particular year, this particular parade included our local military reserve folks, the ones that had been deployed in the previous conflict with Iraq.
They were finally back home. Most of them marching down the road in formation, some were riding on a couple of the huge trucks. They had their families with them. The hometown folks were praising and shouting, and the applause was far beyond a polite little sound. Wow, that made me feel good. It was great to be a part of all that excitement.
When Jesus was heading to Jerusalem, I imagine it to be a little something like this. But it was not the same thing.
Jesus did not organize a parade in his honor. It just sort of happened. His followers just started a ruckus. And the people came out to see what was going on. They were in-between football and baseball season and maybe had nothing better to do.
Some of the spectators that day could have been Pro’s, There were often processions come into Jerusalem. Kings , Generals and governors came and went and some of the people probably came out to watch. There are a lot of people that just like a good parade. A good show of splendor, of sharp military people, of important leaders marching in and out of the city.
Jesus and his disciples were on a familiar road, they had all traveled it before, even as a group they have come and gone from the city with people hardly even noticing.
In today’s scripture, most of the people came out to watch and enjoy another parade, but for Jesus it was the last few miles of a journey, His life journey.
I would guess that most of us would agree to the description of our lives as journey. Sometimes it seems more like an adventure, other times when there are problems and trouble I might call it an ordeal. But when I pull back to a map image of my life and the roads I traveled the word Journey is probably a good description. The word journey can cover both good and bad. We all are on our own separate journeys and for a time we walk some of the same roads.
Our life journey is different from a parade. Our journey surely includes some parades. But a parade is generally intense and short lived. We can not live our life at parade level for very long.
Most parades take a lot of scheduling and planning. You have to pick a date and organize the advertising and who is in it. The route, parking and even how it ends had to be planned. Planning is required because we don’t want anything to go wrong or few surprises along the way because surprises mean delays. Normally life is not similar to a parade, it is too intense.
In my case, my life is definitely not a parade, not as planned as I probably should. I don’t even plan vacations, when we take one. We have not had a vacation until we have the adventure of being lost in some industrial section of town on a weekend. I consider that to be a part of Life’s adventure, a part of the journey.
I have heard a rumor that some people like everything in their lives totally planned. They don’t like surprises. They don’t like to shoot off life’s little side trails and see where they go. I guess that is ok, I don’t know how they are able to do it. But I can understand planning to avoid mistakes and bad things I just don’t do it very well.
Often we discuss how Jesus could see into people, read their hearts and true intentions, he prophesied things that would happen.
Do you think Jesus really knew everything that was going to happen? Did he know about the dead end that was just down the road?
I really believe he did. In the previous days he told his disciples the things that would happen, things they did not want to hear. In today’s scripture, there are direct signs that Jesus really knew everything. He even knows the small details. He knows where the colt is, he knows that the disciples will be challenged and tells them exactly what to say. Jesus knows it all.
He knows that this celebration will turn into something else. He knows that nature of the people and that they will loose their excitement. He knows about the coming betrayal, the arrest and the 6 trials.
He knows he will be deserted by his closed friends. He knows about the pain that will come from torture, abuse, the pain that will come from the mocking. He knows about the intensity of pain that will come from a hammer and nails and 6 hours of agony.
The solders on the 4th of July, marching up the road, did not plan the parade I was watching. In a way, they the probably had almost no control over their direction when they were serving our country.
Most were smiling, probably could not hold it in. As they witnessed the reaction of the crowd for what they had done and been WILLING TO DO. For the relief that it was over after months of having little or no control of their journey. I want to think that they were looking at the people thinking yes, it was worth it. All the stuff we endured, the heat, the sand the bad food, perhaps even combat. We did it for all the folks back home, and it was worth it.
Jesus place on the road was different. He was almost at the end of his journey but at the beginning of the problems. He knew every twist and turn that was to come. As he looked at the crowd, he knew it was going to be worth it. He knew that what he was doing, no matter what the cost to him and his body would be worth the effort of saving the people.
That is why he came.
Personally, I think I would have trouble knowing what Jesus knew. I can honestly tell you that I have never left on a vacation or any trip, if I knew there were going to be bad problems.
I am so grateful that he is a better man than I will ever be.
In our scripture today, in the last verse - 11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
So Jesus enters the city, it sounds to me mike the parade ended sometime before they got to the city. He heads straight to the Temple, He looks around. He does not seem to show a reaction right then. The merchants were probably there, some of the religious officials must have been around. If we read a head we see that tomorrow will bring a change in Jesus.
All the same stuff will be there tomorrow, the vendors selling things. The Religious leaders showing off their positions, the poor in the streets. It was not going to change over night. But there would be a change in Jesus. Tomorrow he will become physical and direct with the things he sees as being wrong.
Jesus heads out of town and back to Bethany where he has a bed and breakfast reserved. The parse “it was getting late”, makes me think maybe it was getting dark. It was getting late is also an indication of where Jesus is on His Journey.
Jesus had a busy week; He ran the merchants and customers out of the temple. He addressed the traps set by the religious leaders. He had a little private time with his disciples on that Thursday. The Passover meal.
***I hope you will decide to come on Thursday to a service where we will discuss that evening and the meal and Holy Communion. 7PM ****
They arrested Jesus at night because of his popularity with the crowds. They tried him in private. They tried to railroad, frame him for anything they could find. Technically 6 trials – 3 religious and 3 secular and none could actually charge him with anything that was not true.
But people are really good at finding loopholes. People can justify anything if it might benefit them. The charge against him, the charge that he would die for was the Jesus was the Son of God.
Where do you stand on that issue? Have you given your verdict? Have you decided for yourself that Jesus was telling the truth?
For all of mankind there are really only 3 answers. The first is, Jesus was a crazy man that may have been nice enough, there is a lot of folklore that say he could heal people but, Son of God, well let’s put him away some place so he won’t hurt anyone. This might have been the response of the professional spectators, the ones on the back of the OX carts with a cooler, waving branches, just being nice to this mixed up fellow.
Another response is: How dare he claim to be God! This man is a radical menace he must be put down! This would be the cry of the religious leaders, the ones that knew the prophecies the ones that Jesus told parables describing their actions.
The last choice, might use the words of the apostle Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” The ones that come to realize that he was telling the truth. The ones that accepted who he really was and what mankind had done.
What is your verdict?
If you have not made a decision already, or if you want to reconsider. Take the next few minutes to look at the defendant, what mankind has done, perhaps take a moment rededicate yourself to him and the fact that he already decided you were worth the horrible end to a short life journey.
The altar is always open and it is not a sign of your weakness to come, it is a sign of His strength and his vision.
On that Friday morning in Jerusalem, there was another parade. This one started inside the city and would be the end of Jesus Earthly Journey, or so the authorities thought.
Song – Watch the Lamb
Holy week is not a week of fun and games. The next week is a time that deserves your direct attention. A time to review the extreme that God went thought to reach each one of us. It is a time of reflection on what you are to do in return.
Normally, our cross is empty. Normally we celebrate the fact that he is risen and that it is not in our fate to take our turn on the cross. Remember that Jesus knew the Journey and how it must end and that this is why he came.
Will you make it worth it.
Focus on the cross, the one with our Lord, the one that makes us remember the bad stuff. The celebration will come soon enough!
All Glory be to God!
