The ‘C’ of lent, Christ Crucified
This is the last week of the series, next Sunday is Easter, today is Palm Sunday. Take off our wrong image of Christ become captivated by Christ Crucified.
OS trips,
Arrival at a different city.
Nicole and me have a special ritual...
Palm Sunday is about a certain arrival into a city which is nothing like the welcome Nicole and I had in Europe!
Let me set the scene.
The time is about 30AD, the place is Jerusalem in the Middle East. Jerusalem is the big capital of Israel, the country of the Jews. Its the political, the spiritual and the cultural capital for the Jews. Their entire history as a nation, as a peoples is tied up in this city and the big focus is the Temple of this city. This is where the God of the Jews, the foundation of the Jews is worshipped and the temple is where its all at.
For the Past 3 years there has been this guy from the hillbilly North who has been wondering around with a bunch of followers doing stacks of remarkable things like healings, miracles to do with food and wine!, driving out deamons, and controlling the weather. He apparently has this amazing gift of the gab. Saying things with a boldness and cutting edge truth that no-one has ever done before. His followers seem to increase everyday and just a few days back it has been reported that this guy has actually raised someone back from the dead by merely going into his tomb and shouting ‘Wake up dude’ (‘Lazarus, get up”).
And right now this guy, with all his followers and a great crowd of people supremely interested in seeing this man they call Jesus Christ, are about enter the big capital Jerusalem. The air is thick with sweat and excitement. Anticipation of something/anything worth writing home about is in the air.
Jesus gets closer,
He orders a donkey from nearby.
The disciple put their cloaks on the beast for Jesus to ride in on.
The crowd and the noise start to swell. People are pulling of their cloaks and spreading them out in front for Jesus to walk on. Some people get the bright idea of pulling trees down and waving them about and putting them over the cloaks. Suddenly a whole stack of palm branches appear and are being waved about. The noise begins to turn from a soccer match rabble to an audible chorus of sound. The people are shouting verses from an old Psalm: “
Hosanna “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest ”. Hosanna. (God save us)
Picture of ‘Triumphant Entry”. What’s wrong with this picture?
Palms and the Maccabean Rebellion
Selucid Dynasty (Greek/Syrian) Antiochus IV in 169 and 168 BC looted the temple to finance war campaigns, and outlawed Jewish practices like circumcision and not eating bacon. Then made the temple a temple for Zeus and sacrificed a pig on the altar!
Rebellion started, guerilla warfare, laser skirmish style.
164 BCs Judas Maccabeus entered temple took it back and rededicated temple, put in some palms. Palms became an icon of the revolution. Palms were held high when they eventually took over the citadel of Jesusalem. The coins that the Jews printed after this had palms fronds.
About 100 yrs later. The Jews lost power of their city again to the romans in 63BC. Now made a Roman province and Rome (big foreign occupying power) put in their own king to look after Jerusalem. The Jews not happy again. (Eventually led to a Revolt in 66 AD which they lost badly and Rome kicked out most of the Jews and completely destroyed the temple, as predicted by Jesus).
Waving palms when Jesus entered was like saying ‘Yeah we have our next warrior King who is going to wage war against these oppressive Romans and give us back our city by force’. Waving palms was Jewish code for rattling their swords and pickaxes! Or shooting off their rifles!
So what’s wrong with this picture? The crowds have got Jesus sooo wrong! Jesus was not going to be their champion superhero to save the day and sweep out all the baddies with firebolts from his fingers. No!
Jesus was there to be crucified, to be killed without a fight as a common criminal. In just 5 days this same crowd will be calling for Jesus to be crucified. Then Jesus, the great Messiah will be killed by his own people like a common criminal, tortured to death, for the sake of the worlds sins. 3 days later, its Easter Sunday, he will conquer death and appear to his disciples, feeding them fish and teaching them about what has happened.
And the reason WAS freedom, just as the crowd wanted on that palm Sunday. But not the Mel Gibson style “freedom” where people can go back to their comfortable way of life. But an inner freedom, freedom from sin, freedom from passing blame, freedom from guilt and freedom to live in the full and wonderful radiance of God. He was bringing peace to the world, an inner peace. Not war and selfish bloodshed. Jesus was calling us to be real and honest with our greatest needs. This was far more confronting for the Jews, even more so, was the fact that this freedom and peace was going to be available for the Roman oppressors AS WELL as the Jewish special people!
Now ultimately this is far more reason to celebrate and cheer than the prospect of another bloody war!
If Jesus was a Superhero, saving us from the baddies, we are never changed by that experience on the inside, Sure our circumstances change but as a person we are the same just waiting for the next superhero to come along to save us from the next baddy. It’s really just an unuals form of running away from the real problems. Just like the Jews who waved the palms, If Jesus came to kick out Romans, how long until the next army comes in to take over? Would anyone be really transformed by that experience?
If we forget about the palms and the Superheros we are left with Christ crucified, who transforms not our circumstances but our inner most being - we are changed (as the song says) from the inside out. So instead of magically solving all our problems Christ Crucified actually forces us to confront ourselves and deal with real issues.
By dying on the cross, then coming back to life the message from Christ crucified is that when you are reborn in Christ you become a child of God. We matter!
So once this transformation begins in us we can confront ourselves honestly and not be disgusted, instead we can be full of joy and thanksgiving. Because God is changing us, transforming us, replacing our worldly attitudes, and our worldly behaviours with kingdom attitudes and kingdom behaviours.
This is what we need to be excited about on palm Sunday.
Christ entering Jerusalem was the final culmination of his exhaustive and wonderful ministry. The next week is rollercoaster ride of emotion, leading upto the eventual death on a cross and glorious resurrection. The point of Jesus entering Jerusalem is ‘Christ crucified’, giving everyone, including you and me now! peace and release. We are no longer captive to our bad choices that lead us further and further away from goodness. Captive to the sorts of Attitudes and Behaviours we wish we didn’t have. We add the ‘D’ of lent turning from captive to captivated.
Captivated by Christ Crucified.
What would it look like for us to be captivated by Christ Crucified?
4 examples:
Mary’s annointing of Jesus. She came in amoungst all these important and powerful men, knowing she’d be hissed at and riducled and called a whore, YET she still emptied her life savings of perfume onto Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair. An act of love and intimacy that Jesus said would be remembered for all time. Mary was Captivated by Christ crucified.
Paul: A man who was transformed from a legalistic arrogant murderer of Christians to become one of the most inspiring lovers of Christ, the world has known. Read this: Phillipians 3:7-10. Paul was captivated by Christ crucified.
Jacob from big week out. One message, and one message only, which he would tell to leaders and kids and anyone else who would listen. That Jesus died on te cross so that my sins could be forgiven and we can live, refreshed in Christ. This guy was not a big emotional pot of tears, and he didn’t consider himself much of a public speaker, but everytime he talked about what Christ had done for us he would almost well up with glorious praise and thanks. Jacob is captivated by Christ crucified.
Tony Eldrige: who lectures on preaching and designing worship services, but who’s favourite part of the service, the part he lives for is the bit at the end of the prayer of confession, Minister says “Through Christ crucified your sins are forgiven, Thanks be to God” “Oh yes, thanks be to God”. Tony is captivated by Christ crucified.
Be Captivated by Christ Crucified.
This is my cry for us this palm Sunday.
To imagine we are right there just outside Jerusalem with Jesus about to enter. Imagine we lay down our cloaks but we don’t grab those palms, instead we take up our crosses and stand in awe, captivated by what Jesus is about to do for us. We have the advantage of hindsight. We know what Jesus is doing. We shout out
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest ”.
So this Palm Sunday as we finish our lent series, lets all cheer Jesus for the right reasons.
posted by The Reverse Apprentice at 4:23 PM
<< Home