Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Please pray with me,
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
There are moments that the
words don’t reach,
There is suffering too
terrible to name.
You hold your child as
tight as you can
And push away the
unimaginable.
The moments when you’re in
so deep
It feels easier to just
swim down
The Hamiltons move uptown
And learn to live with the
unimaginable…
These are the opening
lyrics to the song It's Quiet Uptown from the musical Hamilton.
In this song, we hear the
voices of Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza as they recoil in grief at the
death of their son who has just died in a duel.
While they struggle to move forward, they are also repairing a broken
marriage after Alexander’s affair became public.
The entire life situation
for the Hamilton family is unimaginable.
A situation no family
would want to find themselves in….and so they push away the unimaginable.
Throughout this Lenten season,
we have been guided by the theme: Unimaginable: I am a beloved child of
God. We have leaned on the word
unimaginable. We have heard this word as
a good thing. That what is unimaginable
is the amazing love and grace of God. Yet,
the unimaginable things we face each day, are maybe not so good. And those things we tend to push away. Pastor Bill touched upon this on Wednesday
night.
Because the unimaginable
is too often bad news like death, illness, broken relationships, lost jobs, and
violence in our world, and we would rather just push it away…we struggle to
live with the unimaginable.
Our gut reaction is to not
want to hear bad news, or think about how broken the world is around us. We push away the unimaginable.
Yet the unimaginable we
need to cling to…comes into our sanctuary week after week. And this week, this unimaginable love comes
in with pomp and palms and shouts of Hosanna!
We are crying out for a savior, just as the people of Jesus’ time
did.
Save us! Hosanna!
Yet this savior knows what
will happen next and enters in pomp to shouts of acclamation…but still walks a
road that is unimaginable.
There is nothing about
Jesus -- his entry into the city, his confrontation with authority, his brutal
and lonely death -- that would inspire anyone to devotion. Think even about his mode of transportation,
he’s not riding a stallion…or a camel for that matter…but a donkey. He comes not in power but in weakness, not in
might but vulnerability, not in judgment but in mercy, not in vengeance but in
love. Nothing about him conforms to the expectations of a world that has come
to believe above all things that might makes right or, at the very least, that
might wins.
Yet he rides in…like a
king…just not the kind of king they were expecting.
Those of us who shout
hosanna today know the end of the story.
We know Jesus is not the king the people were expecting. We know the passion story that unfolds from
this day, one that had been hinted about throughout Jesus’ life and
ministry. We know about the last supper,
the death on the cross and being placed in the tomb and how that is not the end
of the story.
It’s interesting, isn’t
it, that we, too, lift our palms and shout as they did for Jesus’ entry?
Perhaps one of the reasons
we do, is because we, too, still seek a king.
As sinful beings, we still cry out for help, healing, wholeness, for
justice and peace in our community, nation and world today. We want someone here and now to flip this
world upside down and change it for us….to meet our needs and desires here and
now.
We want our lives to be
all resurrection and no cross. (Jung)
Because that would push
away the unimaginable.
We want that superhero
savior…to swoop in and take away the hurting, the pain, the suffering, the
unjust and scary violence in our communities, the struggles we have in our
relationships, life threatening illnesses….take it all away. Please, save us!
And we have a God who does
save us…but in a way that is unimaginable.
God doesn’t swoop in and
pull us out of the trials and tribulations of this life, but joins right
alongside of us for the journey. Sitting
next to us as we mourn, sitting with us as we cry, being present for the hugs
of joy and the laughter that we share.
Let's not miss God’s
presence in these unexpected places….
As we shout Hosanna, wave
our palm branches in the air and join with the crowd as they gathered around
Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, let us see God in all of this.
Let us see that this is
just the beginning, that by joining in today, we are a part of a larger passion
play.
We know that next comes
remembering the last supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples.
We know that that night
will be followed by Jesus’ death on a cross…
And we know, ultimately,
that this week…this Holy Week, will end in the joy and wonder at an empty
tomb. And while it’s so tempting to jump
from the hosannas of today to the alleluias next week, today is an invitation
to journey through this week together: to remember the events of Jesus’ last
week.
It may sound like I’m
trying to get you to come to church more this week, or should I say inviting
you to come to church more this week.
No matter how you say it,
that is what I’m doing, inviting you to come back to church this week again,
and again.
Because within this
community of faith, we are all facing struggles and hardships, joys and
celebrations….and how the heck could we get through all of that without God’s
love and grace in our lives seen in this place and embodied through the people
of this faith community?
Are you with me? We live in a world where we fear the
diagnosis of cancer, where violence in our world seems to be in the news every
week, where we are more and more busy every day that face to face communication
is less and less….the list could (and does) go on and on.
So, I’m dead serious….how
could we get through all of that *stuff* without God’s love and grace in our
lives that we see in this place and embodied through the people of this faith
community?
What happens in this
place, week after week is an expression of hope for change….just like Jesus’
entry into Jerusalem: an expression of hope for change.
There are moments that the
words don’t reach
There is a grace too
powerful to name
We push away what we can
never understand
We push away the
unimaginable….
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
The unimaginable that
comes into the Hamilton family is the grace and forgiveness that Eliza extends
to Alexander, as she reaches out to hold his hand as they walk through the
unimaginable together.
There are moments that the
words don’t reach
There is a grace too
powerful to name.
That grace is
unimaginable.
It embraces us, transforms
our hearts and our souls to see beyond ourselves, to see how God is at work in
our lives and in the life of this community and world.
Let that grace and love
and forgiveness into your hearts and lives and homes.
Let that grace and love
and forgiveness be shared with those around you through words of forgiveness,
and signs of love and grace with those in need.
And may the peace, which
passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and let all
God’s people say, amen.
