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Luke 19:28-40 28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.'” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Luke 22:39-46 39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”
Philippians 2:1-11 1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Having the Mind of Christ: Obedience
Today is Palm Sunday. We remember the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. We tell the story again of the humble donkey willingly donated, upon which Jesus rode, of how the people kept spreading their cloaks on the road before him, Luke’s gospel doesn’t mention palms, but the other three gospels tell us the people also cut down palm branches and spread them on the road. We have the triumphal entry of a humble king. From the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem is a descent, the long journey is close to over with the end in sight. The multitude breaks out in song praising God. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven.” Five hundred years earlier, the prophet Zechariah had foretold this when he wrote, “9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
You see, in times of war conquerors would ride in chariots or upon prancing stallions. But in times of peace, the king would ride a donkey to symbolize that peace prevailed. So, for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem upon a donkey is to declare that He is a King proclaiming peace.
Not all are pleased at this entry. The Pharisees are upset and want them to stop. They are afraid any loud outcry could bring the Roman soldiers, always on high alert during Jewish holidays, down on them. Jesus answers, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would cry out.” All of creation is ready to welcome the king, the old is about to pass away and the new to begin.
Today is called both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. It can be a day of triumph if we focus on the crowds or it can mark the beginning of the Passion if we focus on Jesus. Jesus realized, as He listened to their “Hosannas,” that soon the sinister voices would drown out these voices of love; that the cry for Him to be King would soon be the cry, “Crucify Him!” Jesus knew what lay ahead yet He came obediently to Jerusalem to do the will of His Father. That is what we are going to consider today; obedience. But before we discuss obedience though, let us look again at who Jesus is; for this we turn to our passage from Philippians.
As we have looked at this passage from the second chapter of Philippians through all the weeks of Lent we have been following the words of what is believed to be an ancient hymn that Paul pulled out of the worship life of the early church. It begins in the highest reaches of divine glory with the One who is equal with God. The One whom John calls, “the Word”, the One who “was in the beginning with God, the One who “was God”, the One through whom “all things came into being.”
But Paul declares that the One who was equal with God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited or grasped; it was not a prize to be clutched. Instead, Jesus emptied himself, poured himself out for us. He gave up his divine prerogatives and descended into our world as a humble slave, one who had the least power and rights as a human being and he became Emmanuel, God with us. Turning back to John’s gospel we hear, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He tabernacled with us; he pitched his tent with us. In other words, Jesus moved into the neighborhood. He lived our lives with us.
Along the way of that plummeting descent from the heights of his divinity to the depths of our humanity lurks the question, How far will he go? How far will the One who is equal to God descend to be one of us? Jesus came not as a king despite what the Wise Men thought at His birth, not as the expected militant Messiah who would overthrow the Romans as the Jews expected but as one who came without any worldly power of any kind.
How far will Jesus go? How deeply will He dive into the real stuff of our ordinary human existence? The story we proclaim during Holy Week provides the earthshaking, soul-shaping answer. He was “obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” The One of whom this hymn sings did not just skim across the surface of human life. No, Jesus went much further. He descended into the depths of human suffering and pain. Jesus is Emanuel, “God with us” in the darkest depths of our willful rebellion against the will and way of God. He is the One who descends with us into the dark abyss of death. God with us even to death, even to death on a cross.
Have you ever been in the dark, afraid when you were a child; longing for someone to hold your hand? Have you ever felt lost and alone? Have the events of your life ever come crashing down on you, destroying your way of life in an instant? Know, know to the deepest part of your being that you are never alone! Jesus Christ stands ever ready to walk with you though whatever comes your way. He who has already walked the road to crucifixion and death can walk any road with you. He knows your pain and enters it with you. As a single candle shining in the darkness can light the way so can the presence of Christ in your life light your way through. For that is what we are all looking for, a way through the hard times, the difficult times, the times of agony and despair. We need someone stronger than ourselves to hold our hands in these times and this is what Jesus is always willing to do if we but call out his name.
This week there is a turning point in Christ’s journey to the cross; a moment of decision. On Maundy Thursday we remember the Last Supper, Jesus’ Passover meal with His disciples. After the meal is ended Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”
While the crowd once shouted in excitement, now the disciples can’t even stay awake. Where there was noise, now there is silence. Where there was celebration, now there is struggle. And yet—this is where the real victory begins.Not in the parade. But in the prayer.
Jesus faced an awful choice at this moment. He had the ability to save himself from the death that was coming. He had to decide how far He would go in obedience to the redemptive love and saving purpose of God. He could choose either to be obedient in the way of self-emptying love, even if it meant going to the cross or He could choose the way of self-protection and self-interest. In that hour, Jesus chose what the World War II martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called “single-minded obedience” to the way of self-giving love, even though it meant going to the cross.
This is a powerful story and one we would perhaps prefer to keep at arm’s length, not have it really get into the stuff of our own lives. Paul tells us though that this is not just Jesus’ story but one we are intended to follow in our own lives. Jesus gave up all personal ambitions, all self-seeking impulses, and surrendered himself without reserve to the will of God.
There is a worship song, “Jesus all for Jesus”. It says in part, “All of my ambitions, hopes and plans I surrender these into your hands.” I love that line and when I sing it I picture myself standing before Jesus with my hands open, giving Him all of my selfish desires and ambitions and surrendering myself to Him in full knowledge and trust that whatever Jesus has in store for me is far better than anything I could ever imagine. Obedience is joyful when we first have trust. Just as Jesus gave His all and surrendered His will to the will of the Father so do we need to do the same.
When we began this Lenten season I said it calls us to transform our lives to be more like Christ, that it requires a radical reorientation of our thinking that will result in a radical transformation of our lives. To have the mind of Christ, to see the world through Christ’s eyes and to have the love of Christ in our heart requires us to first die to self before we can rise to new life in Christ. Over these weeks we have learned that the Christian life is not about a simple rearrangement of the surface of our lives but that it requires us to move down into the depths of our being and radically reorient the way we live. We are working for a mental transplant, a spiritual transplant in which the same mindset with which Jesus came, lived, died, and rose again becomes the mindset in which we live our lives, face our deaths, and hope for resurrection.
We have seen that the mindset of Christ is one of love, specifically the self-giving, self-emptying love of God revealed in Christ. It is a mindset of humility, a way of living in which we learn not to take ourselves too seriously and to treat every other person as if he or she were the guest of honor at the table. It is a mindset of servanthood, a way of living that breaks our addiction to the “me-first” attitude of our culture and teaches us that we, like Christ, are to serve rather than be served. It is a mindset of surrender, a way of living that calls us to let go of our own prerogatives and learn to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. It is a mindset of faithful suffering as a way of sharing the suffering of Christ for the world.
And today, as we move into the drama of Holy week let us turn the question on ourselves. We know how far Jesus went, how far we will go? How far will we go in allowing the mindset of Jesus to become the mindset by which we live: What practical, life-altering step of obedience are we willing to take in order to have the same mind, be of the same love, live with the same attitude as Jesus? How far will we go in following Jesus in the way that led to the cross?
Sooner or later, every follower of Jesus comes to his or her own Garden of Gethsemane, to places where we must choose to follow the way of self-giving love or the way of self-centered addiction, the way of generosity or the way of greed, the way of humility or the way of arrogant pride, the way of servanthood or the way of self-interest, the way of surrender or the way of control, the way of death that leads to life, or a way of life that ultimately leads to death. We come to the cross in the ordinary events of our lives, in those times and places when we decide to follow Jesus even if it means denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him.
Palm Sunday asks us a hard question: Do we only praise Jesus when it’s easy—or do we follow Him into surrender? It’s easy to wave palms: when God answers prayers, when life feels hopeful, when faith is energizing.
But what about Gethsemane moments? when prayers feel unanswered, when obedience is costly, when God’s will is hard to accept?
The road that begins with palm branches leads to a cross. But it doesn’t end there. Jesus’ surrender in the garden makes possible the victory of the resurrection. So today, we praise Him: as the King who comes, as the Savior who suffers, as the Lord who reigns through love. And we pray:“Lord, not my will—but Yours be done.”