Palm Sunday

Matthew 21:1-9 - Palm Sunday - March 29, 2015
Come Thou in Mercy as the King of Kings

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“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Hosanna in the highest!”

The grateful children of Israel sang the praises of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Hosanna, they cried.  Hosanna means “Oh save us now.”  Jesus came to them in the name of the Lord.  He came to do what only God could do for them – save them.  He was the long awaited Son of David who would rescue them not from political enemies like Babylon or Rome, but from sin, death, and the power of the evil one.  These worshippers sang praises to their King because he came to them in mercy.  Where did they get the words they sang?  Well, they didn’t just make them up.  They inherited them. 

These words came from Psalm 118, one of the Songs of Ascent in their divinely inspired hymnal.  The children of Israel would have heard these words sung every year as they made their annual journey to Jerusalem to offer their firstfruits of harvest to the Lord.  As they approached the Temple with their loaves of grain and new wine and lambs, the priests, while singing these words, would receive them from the people to offer them in their place before the Lord in the Temple.  But this day it wasn’t the priests singing the Psalm.  And it wasn’t the priests waving wheat or barley before the Lord.  It was the people who waved palm branches before their King while singing to him who came in the name of the Lord. 

It was a fitting Psalm to sing.  This Psalm speaks of the long awaited Messiah coming into his Temple.  “It is better to trust in the Lord,” the Psalm proclaims, “than to put confidence in princes.”  These worshipers put their trust in Christ who is the Lord and also the Prince of Peace.  He is the true Solomon, whose name means Peace; he is the true Son of King David as they rightly sang.  But Jesus was crucified by those who wanted an earthly king instead – one more like the earthly son of David, the earthly Solomon.  This is ironic.  They trusted in the wrong prince instead of in the Lord.  In humility, Jesus accepted the praise of his children.  And in humility he rode in on a donkey to be sacrificed at the hands of the unbelieving priests. 

Psalm 118 also sings of how the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  This is also ironic … and prophetic.  For it was to this cornerstone that their Hosannas were sung.  And so the rejected stone who came riding in on a beast of burden would also soon become the true sacrifice that God was pleased to receive.  He would thereby answer their plea for salvation, Save us now!  Hosanna in the highest, by becoming the Rock of their salvation. 

In their desire to receive Jesus in true faith, these believing children of Israel searched the Scriptures to offer the sweetest worship they could.  And in so doing, God fulfilled the prophecy they sang.  “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!” the Psalm concludes, “For His mercy endures forever.”  And so it does. 

Therefore, as long as his mercy endures, we also desire to receive Jesus in true faith just as those first Palm Sunday worshipers.  And as long as God’s word is true, we also search the Scriptures to offer the sweetest worship we can.  But notice the order of things.  First, we receive Jesus.  Then we offer praise.  Praise is a fruit of faith.  We bring our firstfruits as a sacrifice to God only after we have received what our faith needs to live.  This is important.  This is the hallmark of Lutheran Worship.  Jesus comes to us.  Only then can we sing his praises. 

When the Lutheran Church first came to America, she brought with her her own customs and way of speaking.  She had her own liturgy and stuck to it because her liturgy reflected the doctrine that she had been taught from the Bible.  It was much the same the liturgy that had been faithfully used for over a thousand years.  This liturgy had been refined by the Lutheran Reformers who freed it from all the superstition and works righteousness that had been added by the papacy.  She had her own hymns because they are the most didactic – that means they teach the faith.  And they are the most gospel-centered hymns that Christianity has yet known.  Just like the children of Israel who sang Christ’s praises on that first Palm Sunday, we also don’t just make up the praises we sing.  We get our praises from the Bible.  We don’t just shout out what comes to mind, we have orderly services that are designed to focus our attention on him who comes to serve us in humility. 

America is the land of freedom.  And for this we thank God.  But where there is freedom to worship God as anyone chooses, we must put up with a lot of poor choices and beware of them.  The climate of American Christianity when the first Lutherans came to this country is in many ways the same as it is now.  In one particular regard it is identical.  And we can examine this by looking at the word we use for what goes on in church.  The Lutherans would use a German word – Gottesdienst.  This word literally means God’s service.  But as German and Norwegian and other native languages gave way to English, a new word crept in and took its place: worship.  It’s a fine word.  It literally means worth-ship.  It refers to the worth or value that we ascribe to God with our praises.  But this is a limited word.  It refers exclusively to our speaking to God. 

The problem arises when this becomes the chief thing that takes place when Christians gather, which is the prevailing perspective in this country.  Do we gather mainly to sing praises to God and celebrate his goodness?  Or do we gather first and foremost to benefit from him?  The word Gottesdienst or Divine Service answers this question for us.  It can mean both the service that God gives us and the service we give to God.  But as we can see from this first Palm Sunday, this has been the nature of Christian praise since the beginning:  that is, we gather chiefly to be served by him who comes to us in the name of the Lord.  Only then are we able to offer him our praise.  Divine Service is first God’s work toward us – and then it becomes our response back to him. 

The praise that we heard the worshipers raise in our Gospel lesson is very familiar to us: ““Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”  The reason it’s familiar is twofold.  First, this is the same Gospel lesson appointed for the first Sunday in Advent, when we celebrate Christ’s coming to us in flesh and blood.  And now we use it again for the last Sunday in Lent when this same Christ prepares to offer the same flesh and blood that was born of Mary on the cross.  The second reason we are so familiar with this Palm Sunday praise taken from Psalm 118 is because it is part of our ordinary liturgy just like it was part of the liturgy of Israel.  We sing these words as part of the Sanctus.  The Sanctus is not just a praise song.  It is a confession of what takes place right here in the Divine Service. 

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we are stepping into the very presence of the Almighty God.  This is holy ground.  We sing these words, which the angels sang in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah appeared before God: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Your glory.”  How did it turn out for Isaiah?  He was undone, he said. He was a sinner in the presence of the thrice-holy God.  Who can stand before God and live?  But God sent his angel to touch his lip with a coal from the altar.  “Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged,” the angel said.  So God had mercy on Isaiah.  He approached him and touched his lips with that which took away his sins. 

So also, how are we able to step into the presence of God and live?  And notice on our altar how it designates this place as Holy, Holy, Holy.  Well, the answer to this question is also on our altar.  It is that symbol there XP.  It is Christ.  It is Christ who purges our sin.  It is Christ who takes our iniquity away.  And it is Christ who comes to us and places on our lips his body and blood that bore the burning wrath of God against us on the altar of the cross.  He comes to us and says, “Behold.  This is my body; this is my blood; given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.  Take eat; take drink; behold it has touched your lips.” 

This is why after we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” we sing the song that these Palm Sunday worshipers sang.  “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”  This is how we receive him.  We receive him who comes to us – just as surely as he came to his people the week he died on the cross

They cried out these words to welcome Christ into the holy city to save his people from their sins.  We sing these words to welcome Christ who comes to his holy Church to save his people from their sins.  God in the flesh rode on the donkey into Jerusalem.  God in the flesh comes to us with his body and his blood.  Jesus came to Jerusalem to give his body into death and to shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus comes to his Church and gives her to eat and to drink the body that was given into death for her and the blood that was shed on the cross for her to take away her sins.  This is why the daughter of Jerusalem can rejoice.  He comes to us – lowly.  Christ comes to serve his Bride and make her holy.  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” 

To come in the name of the Lord is to come in the power of the Lord.  He comes with all the strength and authority of the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God.  But he comes lowly.  He comes not to make demands, but to fulfill the demands that God has made on us.  He comes not to demand sacrifice, but to satisfy God’s wrath as our true High Priest who offers himself in our place.  To come in the name of the Lord means that he comes in mercy. 

Jesus is our King.  He is the true Son of David.  He is the King of Kings.  In light of this, that line in the hymn that says, “Come not in terrors as the King of Kings, but kind and good with healing in Thy wings,” is kind of a contradiction in terms. When Christ comes to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, he does come in mercy.  We do not need to pray that he come not in terror.  That is not why he comes.  If you want to see terror, look to the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty apart from Christ your King who comes to you.  If you want to see terror, try to appease him by your own works or win him over by your worship.  There is terror.  There is accountability for your every idle thought and word and your every greedy desire.  There is the God who searches hearts and knows yours better than you know it yourself.  He is the God before whom no one can stand.  He is the God that the unbelieving Jews thought they had peace with, but they were wrong. 

And yet it is precisely to reconcile you to this God that our King of Kings has come.  He who came as a lowly and despised King into his own holy city came to give his life to ransom you.  And he does come lowly.  Doesn’t it seem unbecoming for the King of Kings to come into his own city on a smelly beast?  But his glory was found not in his glorious appearance, but in his glorious mission.  So also, doesn’t it seem unbecoming and ridiculous for the almighty God and maker of heaven and earth to come to us poor sinners in such lowly means of bread and wine?  But do not let this lowliness offend you.  He comes with healing.  He comes as the King of Kings in order to rule your heart and conscience in pure mercy. 

Those whom he offends by his humble coming in the Sacrament do in fact encounter him in terror.  But we who are not offended, we who attend this Holy Supper in repentance, believing that this here is where our greatest need is met, we receive from God the peace that we desire. 

The old Jewish liturgy proved very helpful to God’s people as they welcomed their Savior to Jerusalem to ascend his throne. And our liturgy likewise proves helpful as we welcome our Savior who comes to be enthroned in our hearts.  We worship our Lord.  But before we do, he must serve us.  And he does.  We praise him not to repay him.  How can we?  We praise him because he has paid our debt to God.  We praise him because he makes us rich through the forgiveness of our sins. 

Amen.