In John's telling of the story, Palm Sunday begins with a dinner the night before. (Verses 1-11). Just a couple of miles from Jerusalem, in the village called Bethany, six days before the Passover, Jesus turned up. And some people put on a dinner in his honour. (Probably a guy called Simon the Leper – who obviously had his owns story to tell – it seems that Matthew 26 and Mark 14 are telling the same story). Bethany was significant as the place where the Lazarus family lived: Martha, the one who got things done, Mary, the thinker, and Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
And in the more intimate setting of a dinner, what people were comes to the surface. Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Simon the Leper, Judas, Jesus. We need to meet closely with people, to be real with them, in order to grow. We need the small group as well as the larger one.
Jesus loves a good meal with friends – time to share food and relax, celebrate, laugh, talk deeply. In fact his public ministry had started at a dinner – a wedding feast at which he had turned water into wine – the “First Sign” in John's Gospel. That was a joyful celebration.
And even ahead of then, before Jesus had started his public work, out in the desert, Satan had tempted him... about food: “Turn these stones into bread if you are the Son of God”. The temptation in a fairly poor, rural environment, to provide bread for the hungry, was about being a popular, cheap-grace Messiah who could buy his way into people's hearts and then whip them up into a mob that would proclaim him king (rather in the way Donald Trump is taking America by storm by capitalising on people's frustrations today). That was the danger Jesus faced when he fed the five thousand and probably why he took time, with his disciples away from the situation, to send the crowd away. Once when the disciples urged Jesus to have something to eat, he answered “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4. 34)
So when Jesus turned up at Bethany, he was after the real food – doing the Father’s will. Not getting a quick fix. Not pulling a crowd; but being in the centre of Father’s will. He knew about the dangers. He knew people were plotting against him. But he was there, doing the father's will. His mind was clearly settled on this. As a result, this meal was a bit more quiet, reflective and thoughtful. The passover was coming. Everyone was getting into the frame of mind of mind for a solemn religious feast; and people could see the clouds gathering, could sense the danger for Jesus.
And at the dinner were Martha, serving as she always seemed to do. And Lazarus himself. Just by being there alive, he pointed to Jesus being the Messiah. (That was why some of the powers that be were out to kill not only Jesus but Lazarus as well!) It was in the practical things – wine at a wedding, food for hungry crowds, healing the sick and raising the dead, that Jesus the King, demonstrated what his Kingdom was going to be like and showed himself to be the King.
So, at the end of his earthly ministry they put on a dinner in his honour – friends, people who had reason to thank him for his ministry. Marys and Marthas and Lazaruses and Simons: those whose lives had been changed by his teaching; people whose lives had been changed by the power of God at work in him. They could all recognise him as Messiah, Son of God.
And Mary came and did her bit, too: that involved a bottle of perfume, Nard, from a plant that grows in the Himalayas, worth a year's wages. This wasn’t' something Mary had picked up cheap from the Avon lady! Judas starts to get picky and say “What a waste – all that money could have gone to the poor” (as he looked after Jesus' poor relief fund it would have gone to him). So Jesus said that in advance, Mary had anointed him for his burial. And in anointing him for his burial, she was in a way anointing him as victorious King.
She may not have fully understood all of this; she simply wanted to say “thank you” – but Jesus says “it was intended” by God. Sometimes our actions have bigger, deeper significance, than we are aware of. We want to say “thank you” but how we say it does something in the heavenlies.
So much comes together here, at this meal: Jesus' sense of purpose and surrender. His identity as Lord, God and Messiah; his Kingship and the Kingdom he came to bring; and his sufferings as the pathway to glory. The King is going to be enthroned. The Son is going to be glorified.... It's all been said, quietly, reverently at the dinner table. The anointing at Bethany expresses the royal dignity of Jesus in preparation for his triumphal entry. It is as king that he enters (not merely a pretender). John knows that Jesus, at a meal, with friends, is anointed King.
So the next day, the King, anointed as David was by Samuel, steps out, heads for Jerusalem – and is immediately recognised by the crowds. It's Jesus, the miracle worker; the guy who raises the dead. Jerusalem was full of people. There could have been up to two million people in the city at Passover. They grabbed palm branches – which were symbols of the Jewish nation – and began waving them like flags – exactly like flags. The begin to sing and shout “Hosanna – O God, save! Blessed is he who comes I the name of the Lord” They were quoting from Psalm 118. 25-27. For many of them is was just a reminder of their history and a hope of a King who would set them free from the Romans. But the Psalm is about a person who struggles and is victorious over death itself. Good words for Jesus, who came to bring a Kingdom that was bigger the the Jewish nation, that was for the nations; Good words for Jesus whose Kingdom was going to triumph through is humiliation and death. Good words for Jesus who would be able to say “The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. (Ps 118. 18)
Jesus fulfils the OT promises. HE knows he is heading from his anointign to his coronation... he is going to be glorified.
For John, what happens on the road into Jerusalem is the public celebration of what had already been sealed in the house in Bethany. So John misses out some for the detail that the synoptic gospels describe. Instead he talks about the way the disciples (himself included) didn't get it at that point. After he has been glorified, the disciples will understand. Describing things after the event, John talks about Jesus being glorified. He knows that glory is where all this difficult path leads to. Palm Sunday brings together Jesus' surrender and suffering; his divinity , Kingship and Kingdom; his suffering and his glory.
At the end of the story, as at the end of the anointing story, John reminds us of Lazarus, the living evidence of who Jesus is. The Lazarus story is spreading around the city, even as the Pharisees, the priests and powerful people are plotting to get rid of Jesus. It looks like they can't win. The Pharisees say to one another “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” John, with the benefit of hindsight, drops that in. Palm Sunday, the last supper, the cross, are going to lead to glory. People are going to be drawn to Jesus. Lifted up from the earth, people from every nation are going to be drawn to him. The enemy can’t win. He is defeated. Jesus is the victor. He is glorified. He becomes King through this process of emptying himself, dying on a cross and rising again. Golgotha is his Westminster Abbey. Holy Week is his coronation.
And John, in the context of a suffering church, drops that in. After the resurrection and yet living through the struggles of the early Church, Jesus is the victor. The enemy can't win.
And still the Church goes through its struggles, makes its mistakes; it loses the heart of the Western world, (church attendance n Scotland fell by 13.5% in the last decade: half a million people gave up on church); it experiences persecution (More people were martyred for their faith in the twentieth century than in any other century since the Church began. The figure is 200 million.) But like John, we need to say “The enemy can't win. He is defeated. Jesus is the victor.”
© Gilmour Lilly March 2016
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