Facing the Road

Sunday of the Passion – Palm Sunday
March 23-24, 2013
Luke 23:1-56

“Facing the Cross: Facing the Road”

It’s March Madness and the eyes of sports fans across the nation are watching as the NCAA tournament unfolds. Contenders are being whittled down from the original sixty-eight teams to the Final Four, and then to the national championship game on April 8. People – and lots of us among them – are watching their brackets either fall apart or move forward. Later this week, the Verizon Center in downtown D.C. will be the site of the East Regional tournament, hosted by Georgetown. One of the more interesting upsets and probably the biggest surprise of the NCAA tournament thus far occurred this past week when 14th-seeded Harvard took down No. 3 New Mexico in a 68-62 victory, a first-ever NCAA tournament victory for the Harvard Crimson. Yes, this is Ivy League Harvard – the school of U.S presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Nobel Prize winners – that has now become the very unlikely bracket-buster. Who’d have thought? As the Harvard Lampoon tweeted: “America, we are sorry for messing up your brackets and also your financial system and everything else” (source quoted in (http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/03/harvard-crimson-beat-new-mexico-lobos-68-62-in-ncaa-2nd-round-upset-86556.html). Winners of the tournament games, even unlikely Harvard, face the road ahead.

On this Palm Sunday as we enter the great and Holy Week, we are reminded that Jesus also faced the road that was set before him, the road that would lead to the cross. Our weekend worship series, “Facing the Cross,” continues today. As we face the cross during these Lenten days, we also face certain areas in our lives which are not in alignment with the cross of Christ – things that are crooked, twisted and warped in our lives, things that need to be realigned, reshaped and reformed through repentance. By the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us, we are called to come to terms with these areas not through our own efforts, but through the cross of Christ. Jesus faced the road that was before him – the road of betrayal and rejection, the road of unimaginable suffering and death on the cross. Jesus faced the road that was before him in order to give his life on that cross for us so that we might one day by his grace see him face-to-face. Today as we face the cross, the theme for this message is “Facing the Road.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

The liturgy for Palm Sunday starts off on a rather triumphant note with the waving of palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” We, too, welcome Jesus into our midst as the people of Jerusalem did on that first Palm Sunday. But then the mood of worship shifts from triumphant hosannas to the terrible truth of why Jesus entered into Jerusalem. As the Epistle lesson for today expresses this: “… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Riding on that donkey colt down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem, we may wonder if Jesus fully understood what that road he was facing would be like? Did he know where the road would take him? Did he know all that was before him? The clear witness of Scripture is that Jesus did know and did fully understand the road that was before him (Mark 8:31-32, 9:30-32, 10:32-34). Surely in his human nature, it would have been easy for Jesus who is true God and true man to say no to all of this, to find some other way to do what needed to be done, to stop short of being nailed to the cross and dying there. But he did not do this. Jesus did not back away from what he was called to do. He “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant…” (Philippians 2:6-7) – a suffering servant who bore our iniquities and who carried our sorrows, and by whose stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-6). Facing the road that was before him, Jesus the Servant King paid the penalty once and for all for the evil we have done and the good we have failed to do. He lived that perfect and sinless life we could not and he died the death we deserved. By his death, we are saved.

What is the road you are facing? A difficult decision that needs to be made? A health situation for yourself or a loved one? A personal or family matter for which there seems to be no easy answer? We often wrestle with such things, and stand uncertain on that road that is before us; uncertain how to proceed, uncertain where to go and what to do. On this Palm Sunday as we enter into Holy Week and the highpoint of our Christian faith – Jesus’ passing over from death to life – let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. As we face the road that is before us, whatever that road may be, let us draw strength, courage, hope and confidence from him who faced the road and the cross before him. “Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1b-2). Amen.