Sermon for Palm/Passion Sunday – Mark 15:1-47

This is the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. He arrives in Jerusalem and everyone’s ecstatic. Loud hosannas and the waving of palms. But in just a few days we hear the crowd yell for Jesus to be crucified. How does that happen? Scripture says that the priests and scribes rile up the crowd. Inflaming their hate. But are folks really that impressionable? Or is something else going on? What makes people turn so dramatically from love to hate?

I mean, it’s so quick. Just a couple days prior, the Temple priests were still trying to figure out a way to arrest and kill Jesus. Remember when Jesus stormed into the Temple to flip tables and drive out the moneychangers with a whip of cords. Jesus called them a den of robbers. Immediately, they want to kill him, but they’re afraid, “because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.” (11:18) They’re sure there would be a riot if they just dragged Jesus away in front of everyone. And they’re probably right. Every time they confront Jesus, there’s always folks around to hear Jesus challenge the priests with all sorts of questions that just make them look like idiots. He tells parables that make the priests look corrupt. Everything they throw at Jesus, he turns right back at them and they lose. All the while he keeps teaching in the Temple “and the large crowd listened to him with delight.” (12:37)

So the priests keep struggling to figure out how to nab him in secret, until they get a lucky break. Who knew Judas would oblige? He makes a deal to let them know when and where they can find Jesus in private. Classic conspiracy style. They swoop in and drag Jesus off to stand before the whole chain of command in the Temple. It’s scandalous. A kangaroo court of conflicting testimonies. They convict Jesus anyway. Then the guards cart him off to Pilate like a real mafia move.

But right there, that’s when we start to see regular folks turn against Jesus. The apostle Peter’s been waiting outside in the courtyard while this fake court is going on inside, and some servant girl sees him. She starts staring and says, “hey, you were also with Jesus.” He denies and tries to walk away, but the girl points him out to the crowd and they start pointing and accusing him too. Guilty by association. Now, this is the middle of the night. By the next day, the crowd is asking Pilate to release a prisoner as was his tradition each year at the Passover festival. He asks if they want him to release the “King of the Jews”, which is Pilate just goading the priests because he’s not invested and he knows this whole sham is just the priests’ base jealousy. But the priests rile up the crowd to demand that Barabbas be released instead.

Now, we don’t know much about Barabbas. Sunday School taught us that he was a murderer. This is true. But he was also a ringleader in riots against the Roman authorities, and we know how they treated Jewish folks. Injustice and oppression all day. So, maybe not a stretch for these folks to consider Barabbas a hero. Sure, maybe they don’t like his methods, but he totally knows how to take action. It’s not a stretch. Think about how we argue about what happened at the US Capitol on January 6th. So maybe it’s not so hard for the priests to rile up the crowd against Jesus. Because Jesus just wants to talk about forgiveness. And not just any forgiveness, but radical forgiveness. Forgiveness for everyone, even the Romans. Even the folks everyone loves to hate, and don’t we know Jesus makes some controversial friends. Maybe that’s just too repulsive? Unpatriotic? What happens to unpatriotic folks? Death threats? Promises? So when Pilate asks “what should I do with Jesus,” the crowd shouts “Crucify him!”

How did we get here, from hosannas and palms to thirsting for Jesus’ blood? Maybe easier than we think. You know, we have strong convictions about what we think justice means. We want to see heinous folks get their due. Maybe folks like the Atlanta spa shooter who killed 8 or the Boulder shooter who killed 10. Now, regardless what you think of the death penalty, how offensive would it be for us to call for forgiveness for these murderers right this very moment? Too soon? Too easy? But would Jesus bound it like us? Yet we know better than to say such a thing to others for fear of what would happen to us. Look at what happened to Jesus. Stricken, stripped, derided, and nailed to a cross to die. He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And he breathes his last.

How do we find gospel in the injustice of Jesus’ death? By the holy curtain of the temple torn in two. Not from bottom to top as we humans would do, but top to bottom as only the power of God can do. And we find gospel in the empty tomb that Jesus’ friends will discover in three days. By Jesus’ death and resurrection, he removed the barrier that separated us from God. Though we rejected him, he didn’t reject us, but even calls us friends. And though we bound our forgiveness between each other, he doesn’t bound his forgiveness to us or anyone.

See, Jesus knows that we live in an epidemic of hatred and injustice. So by his Holy Spirit he grants us his own Word of forgiveness and calls us to use it, because when we can’t find it in ourselves to forgive, we always have his Word to give. Jesus is so determined to have forgiveness in the world, because it’s the only thing that can truly dismantle the kind of hatred and injustice that we see killing innocent and not-so-innocent people every day. Of course, who among us could truly call ourselves innocent anyway? But because of Jesus, with confidence we can call ourselves forgiven forgivers who forgive. And we will.

But forgiveness isn’t a wishy-washy thing. It names names. It doesn’t just stand in the crowd and let hatred and injustice go unchecked. It shines the light of truth for everyone to see. Of course, it’s risky. Some folks won’t like it. They might even want to nail us to a cross like Jesus. But we won’t be alone. Jesus will always be with us as he promised. He’ll never forsake us, and that really will be enough. But this will wait for us, because it’s going to be a somber week. The walk to the cross is strewn with thorns and suffering. Even so, we know it’s the only way to get to Easter resurrection.