Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Palm Sunday 2025
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Luke 23:1-49

Types and shadows have their ending, for the newer rite is here
– Tantum Ergo Sacramentum, St Thomas Aquinas

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It was the week before Passover, and so the Jewish people were making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  During the time of the Temple, the focus of the Passover festival was the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, eaten during the Passover Seder.  Every family large enough to completely consume a young lamb or wild goat was required to offer one for sacrifice at the Temple and eat it that night in the ritual meal which looks back to the Exodus.  It is, in a real sense, the story that makes the people Israel. It is both the occasion of their creation and their deliverance. The Passover remembers this.  It is the reason behind the procession of the people to Jerusalem. 

Another procession is coming to the city as well.  Too many of the restive Jewish people in one place often led to riots, and to political instability, and so Pontius Pilate is coming up from Caesarea Maritania. The soldiers of Imperial Rome are coming up with all of their Roman standards and weapons and might to just let everybody in Israel know that whatever their God did in the past, that was then and this is now. Rome is in charge- don’t mess with us.

And then there is Jesus. He, too, is going up to Jerusalem. He is perhaps unconcerned with the festival- and with Rome- for his time has come.   On the Mount of Transfiguration, he had spoken with Moses and Elijah about “ton exodon” – his exodus.  The point of their discussion is now made clear:  though Moses led a great exodus of the children of Israel out of sin and bondage, out of the house of slavery in Egypt, Jesus will lead a greater exodus in Jerusalem by means of the new covenant sealed by his blood. This exodus will liberate from sin and misery and death. This will be the climax of his vocation. Jesus knows well enough what lays ahead, and he has set his face towards Jersualem, to go and meet it head on. His announcement of the coming kingdom must now be embodied in his very flesh. The living God is at work to heal and save, and the forces of evil and death are also gathering in Jerusalem to oppose him, like Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt trying to prevent the Israelites from leaving. But this was to be the moment of God’s new Exodus, God’s great Passover, and nothing could stop Jesus from going ahead to celebrate it.

When he gets near Bethany, which is a little village about two miles from Jerusalem, Jesus climbs upon the mount his disciples have brought him.  Unlike Pilate, he rides no high horse, just a lowly colt.  There are branches of leaves instead of swords.  Strewn garments instead of shields.  He chooses to enter a deadly situation without force or protection. He gives himself freely and without reservation.  Though he is God, he empties himself, taking the form of a servant.  This is a prophetic act, a sign of God’s vulnerable love, which risks everything and promises to gain all. In Jesus, God will create peace.  The true might in the story lies not in the armies of Caesar, but with the simple Son of Man.  Political and military might will ultimately fail.  True holiness lies no longer in the Law, true sacrifice will no longer take place in the Temple, rather this itinerant rabbi is the center-point of both: the last remnant of Israel becoming the means by which the whole world shall be saved.  In Holy Week, we move beyond the promises, types, and shadows of the Old Testament, and are now instead in the fulfillment and substance of the New Testament.  In Christ, God is reconciling the world to himself. Jesus is making all things new. Now, mix Empire with religion, populism, and fallen human will, and you have a volatile situation.  A showdown is, by this point, inevitable.  The powers that be will not give in without a fight.  Making all things new will prove costly to God.

The week is busy. Pilate and his legions are trying to keep a lid on things.  The Jews are busy with their preparations for remembrance: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday would have been consumed with finding accommodation, familial reunions and above all with selecting, procuring and preparing the sacrificial lambs.

Jesus is busy, too. However, he is consumed, not so much with preparations for remembrance as with what is to come.  He cleanses the Temple first off- and this is not simply mounting an angry protest about the commercialization of Temple business. Jeremiah and others have proclaimed that if the Temple becomes a hide-out for brigands, either literally or metaphorically, it will come under God’s judgment. Jesus the prophet now renders that judgment.  His teaching and arguments with both the Temple hierarchy and the Pharisees over these days drive home his point: in a blunt and confrontational style, Jesus takes on the temple, the Jewish authorities, and the practice of the Law to make the truth of how things are abundantly clear.  He adds in a discussion of the end times for good measure.  No longer will God tolerate an exclusive covenant, managed by a compromised ethnic elite.  Neither will he tolerate the ways of the lords of the Gentiles. Israel- embodied in Jesus- will be a light for all nations, whether they like it or not.  As the mission of God is made plain, the mood begins to shift.  On Wednesday, he is anointed for his burial in the home of an unclean leper, even as the plot to kill him takes shape.

On the day preceding the first Passover seder, firstborn Jewish sons are commanded to celebrate the Fast of the Firstborn, which   commemorates the salvation of the Hebrew firstborns. Jesus, himself a firstborn, instead of fasting, institutes the rite we celebrate even today.  His body and blood, soon to be offered at Golgotha, are offered to his faithful in advance- a sign not merely of what is to come, but of what is now and ever shall be: God, with man, is pleased to dwell. Jesus, our Emmanuel.  Jesus the priest offers us the sacrament of His Body and Blood.

The lambs are killed at the Temple for the Passover feast. The scapegoat- the one who bears the sins of the people- dies outside the city.  So it is with Christ the victim. During this week, he has become so much of a problem for Empire that Pilate orders his execution, all the while wondering about his innocence.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Strangely and wonderfully, something else is taking place within this tragedy, something that Pilate’s sign on the cross makes clear: the King of Glory begins to reign from his gory throne.  Bearing our griefs, carrying our sorrows, pierced for our transgressions, he is high, lifted up, and exalted.   And soon, the world takes notice: centurions and Sanhedrin members convert, the Holy of Holies is opened to all, the dead are raised. Types and shadows- political and religious-  have their ending. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Jesus’ royalty- and the nature of his kingdom- shines out in his prayer and his promise from the cross, both recorded only in Luke. Unlike traditional martyrs, who died with a curse against their torturers, Jesus prays for their forgiveness. He then promises a place of honor and bliss to one who requests it- paradise for Dismas the thief. By his wounds, humanity is healed.

The Jews were not wrong to look back to the Exodus at Passover. In some sense, that’s what we are doing in Holy Week too. Yet this week also invites us to be looking forward- to what is already,  but also not fully yet realized- not just for Dismas but for all who are baptized into Christ: forgiveness and paradise.

The Roman Christian poet Prudentius, captured the idea this way:

We believe in thy words,
O Redeemer,
Which, when triumphing over death’s darkness,
Thou didst speak to thy robber companion,
Bidding him in thy footprints to follow.
Lo, now to the faithful is opened
The bright road to paradise leading;
Man again is permitted to enter
The garden he lost to the Serpent.

Beloved, as we enter with joy upon the contemplation of these mighty acts, the lesson of this week is this: in Christ, because of Christ, we all get to come home.  Let us walk with Jesus this week, for that is where he leads us.