Turning Toward the Cross -- Luke 19:28-40, 23:26-45 (Palm/Passion Sunday)

Photo credit: Karl Muscat, used with permission via Unsplash

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

As a kid, I always felt that there was something a bit “off” about Palm Sunday. In the church where I grew up, we celebrated Palm Sunday much the same way we do here. They would line up the kids, with our palms, and we’d march in with the choir. It was a smaller sanctuary so we’d process all around it– everyone singing, waving palms. Here, we sing “Hosanna! Loud Hosanna! the little children sing.” Back then, we sang, “Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear/ Things I would ask him to tell me if he were here.” It was super fun. The adults loved it too.

And at the same time – even as a kid – it felt like there was something more going on in the room – something off. The words and the songs were joyful, but there was something more serious going on too. Kids know. The week would go on, and Maundy Thursday communion was downright somber. Good Friday was so serious that schools were closed. But then by Easter we were back to celebrating. The whole Holy Week story seemed a bit off. We’ve heard of cognitive dissonance – maybe this was emotional dissonance.

As a child, I could sense that something was off, but I didn’t have the words to describe it That’s likely because I didn’t yet have the word for “irony.” Irony is “the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of their literal meaning.”[1] Saying words but meaning something different. Did you know that, age-and-stage wise, we can sense the tone of irony as early as 4 or 5 years old (something is off), but we don’t start to grasp the meaning of ironic language until about 11 or 12?[2]

What I could sense as a child, but not yet say or grasp, is that what we say and do on Palm Sunday is full of irony:

We celebrate a King who is heading to the cross.

All of the gospels tell the Palm Sunday story – each in its own way. In Luke, Jesus rides in on a colt – likely the colt of a donkey – a humble mount for a king.[3]

Did you notice what was missing in Luke’s Palm Sunday story, though? Palms. In Luke, no one is waving branches of any kind. In other gospels, that’s one way that the writers emphasize that this celebration is like those where the people welcome a conquering king. Luke is a bit more toned-down. In Luke, the people don’t wave branches in triumph; instead, they offer their cloaks – lay them in the dusty street before Jesus – “they cushion his ride with their own clothing.”[4]

And listen to the words they shout in Luke, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heavens!” This king comes to conquer the powers... with peace.[5] Luke is already signaling – as Luke has from the very beginning of the Gospel – that this is a very different kind of king. In Luke, this is the king of sinners and tax collectors, of the poor and the hurting, of the prisoner and the oppressed.[6] And this is their moment. “Glory to God in the highest, and to those on earth: Peace. Good news for all people.”

We’ve been travelling with Jesus throughout this season of Lent – as we have been Turning Toward the Way – turning toward The Way of Jesus. Let’s remember the path – the Way – that has brought us to this moment. 

·      At the beginning of Lent – on Ash Wednesday – we noted that turning toward the way of Jesus – was actually a returning – a returning to God. Every time we turn toward God, we find God already turning toward us.

·      We named that the Way of Jesus has a rhythm of turning from, and turning to – turning from the ways that do us and the world harm, and turning toward the ways that lead toward life.

·      The Way of Jesus leads us through a world of too much turning – a world swirling with power over. The Way of Jesus calls us to turn and face our fear – to lament where there is hurt – and to live together in the midst of all this.

·      And just last week, as we followed the Way of Jesus, we paused with Jesus – just before Holy Week – and we turned toward tender mercy – with Martha deaconing a feast, Lazarus back from the dead, and Mary anointing Jesus’ feet – preparing him for death – with fragrant perfume and extravagant love. We turned toward the world that God is re-creating even now – a world of mutuality, generosity, and sharing.

And, now, the Way of Jesus has brought us here – to Palm Sunday , to the threshold of Holy Week. In the first Scripture, we joined the festive procession into Jerusalem. The second Scripture brings us – just 5 days later –  to a very different procession.

By the second Scripture, we’ve entered into the fullness of Holy Week. Jesus has been teaching and provoking the authorities. He has gathered his disciples for the Last Supper, prayed in the Garden. Judas has betrayed him. Jesus has been arrested, tried, and convicted.

And now we join this second procession... to the cross. Notice just a couple things. Again, there are a large number of people. But this time instead of shouts of “Hosanna!,” there are shouts of sorrow. The women have moved front and center, mourning and wailing as the powers move Jesus to the cross. The women will accompany Jesus to the cross; remain at the cross; and be the first to return to the tomb. Simon of Cyrene – an African passing through the city – is conscripted (enslaved) to carry the cross.[7] The women weep as the procession moves forward – weeping as Jesus has already wept for Jerusalem – Jesus says, with compassion, “Don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves and your children.” There is so much suffering here.

Notice how the Way of Jesus moves steadily into the midst of that suffering – as he has throughout the Gospel. Jesus is led away to be put to death. The religious leaders scoff; the soldiers mock; and the first criminal hanging with him derides and blasphemes him. The soldiers nail Jesus to the cross, and divide up his clothing. All that we have seen as we’ve turned toward the Way of Jesus is here: All the ways that lead to suffering and harm; all the powers swirling in a world of too much turning; all the fear and lament.

Notice that tender mercy is here too. As they crucify him, Jesus says, “Forgive them, God, my parent, for they know not what they do.”  Who are the “they”? Just the soldiers? Or does that embrace the people who shouted “Crucify him!”? Or is Jesus even asking forgiveness on behalf of the religious leaders who plotted and planned all this? Or is it everyone?[8] “Forgive them – every one of them – for they know not what they do.”

And here’s something that I noticed for the first time this week. Notice the tender mercy – not just of Jesus – but of the second criminal crucified with Jesus. The first criminal mocks Jesus, but the second one turns to the first and says, “Stop. Just stop. This man has done nothing wrong. Stop.” Did you notice that? The second criminal speaks up for Jesus. In this whole sad story, he is the only one who speaks up on behalf of Jesus. And he says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He sees. This man – this one who suffers and dies alongside Jesus on the cross – defends Jesus; declares Jesus innocent; and recognizes Jesus as king, as they hang together on the cross. And Jesus says to him, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise” which in the Greek is a garden – a garden flourishing with life.

This is how Jesus is king – by entering into the fullness of our humanity – walking into the deep suffering of the world – with steadfast love and tender mercy.

There’s so much suffering in this moment – in their world – or for that matter, in ours. I can’t help but think of all the suffering we have seen along the way, in our day:

·      all the folks who live in the wreckage and daily terror of war, in Sudan; in Israel/Palestine – the families who still long for the return of hostages; the thousands and thousands of families in Gaza whose lives have been destroyed – hospitals, schools, and homes in rubble; as the regimes leading this nation and Israel strive to drive the Gazan people from the land – to decimate them.

·  I can’t help but think of all those living in fear, in these troubled days.

·      those suffering as economic systems teeter, even as those systems continue to oppress – as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer;

·      of those who mourn – the daily losses of those we love, of jobs, of dreams;

·      I think of those who are captive – particularly those our government has sent to the hellscape is that Salvadoran prison – in a pogrom of unspeakable, unrepentant cruelty;

·      I think of those who are being silenced.

So much suffering in these days – and in these stories that come to us from so long ago – and I think, "O, ever was it so."

I have something that’s been on my heart for weeks that I want to share – something I’ve noticed as we have turned toward the Way.

This book – [holds Bible up] – this book is full of suffering – thousands of years of suffering. We find here in Scripture – the suffering

·      of those held in slavery, yearning to be free

·      of those in exile, longing to come home,

·      of those living at the crossroads of empire and power-over, waiting for someone to save them from the next army to sweep in over the hill

We find here the suffering of broken family relationships, fear, anxiety, illness, economic calamity, and natural disaster.

Throughout this book, people who lived thousands of years ago in a land far away tell us of their lives. We hear their pain and their praise, their wailing, their laughter, their rage. Their quiet prayer, and their deep longing for justice, healing, and peace. They wrote all this down – and sent it to those who would follow, as if to say: Maybe you have felt this way too.

This book holds tremendous suffering, and, and, throughout its stories and its songs, this book is suffused and overflowing with God’s abiding presence, steadfast love, and tender mercy. It tells us of the way of God’s own heart, the way of Jesus. Every time we have turned to God, we have found God already turning toward us. God – in God’s great lovingkindness – meets us at every corner

They wrote this down – for those who would follow – so that we might have hope.

It might be that the irony of Palm Sunday is that in a day filled with Hosannas there is yet so much suffering. OR, maybe it is that in a world so full of suffering there is yet hope.

As a practical matter, the irony of Holy Week is that

·      if we rush too quickly by the suffering of their world and our own –

·      if we don’t turn toward the cross

·      if we don’t turn toward and pass through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday –

If we rush by too quickly – and jump right on over to Easter,

we will miss out.

We won’t experience

the fullness of the Way of Jesus –

the full joy of Easter –

the fullness of what it is to be human, and to live.

And so, as we stand here on Palm Sunday,

and turn toward the way of Jesus –

as we turn toward the cross.

I will say what we know by now.

We are never alone. God is near, and we have each other.

As we turn toward the cross,

Come, take my hand. Let’s go there together.

© 2025 Scott Clark

[1] Definition from Merriam-Webster.

[2] See https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/health/12irony.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare ; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19523264/ (NIH study abstract).

[3] For general background on these texts and the Gospel of Luke, see R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ix (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Justo L. González, Luke (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010); Sharon Ringe, Luke (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).

[4] See Ringe, p. 240.

[5] See id.

[6] See Culpepper, p.370.

[7] See González, p.260; Culpepper, p.451.

[8] See Culpepper, p.455 (who answers everyone, and with whom I agree).