April 5, 2009 Message

Mark 11:11
“When He Had Looked Around”

Jesus arrives at Jerusalem, the journey is over, and he has reached his destination. It has been a journey of self-giving, a journey in service of God, a journey of obedience. Most importantly, it has been a journey of trust. Jesus has brought healing, peace, light and life, grace and mercy to the lives of people along the way.

He comes into town on a colt, a young donkey. A small crowd is there to greet him, perhaps no more than are here today. They wave their palm branches and shout their “Hozannas!” as they welcome Jesus - in the same way they have numerous times before for other “messiahs” who have freed them from whatever was holding them down. This is how they had cheered Judas Maccabeus when he had defeated the Syrian Greeks from the north almost 200 years before; and how they welcomed his brothers Jonathan and Simon (the last of prince of the Hebrew Hasmonean Dynasty) following their victories to free Israel during the next 20 years. The palm branches and shouts of “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” is how they have welcomed all their liberators - the would-be messiahs - in between then and now.

Marks writes, “Then [Jesus] entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” [Mark 11:11]

“when he had looked around…

” That’s what Nehemiah does in the Old Testament when he returns to Jerusalem to rebuild and restore the City of God. The first thing he does is to check things out. (Nehemiah 2:11-15) The first step in rebuilding anything is to assess the damage. Mark points out that Jesus does the same thing. He looks everything over first before coming back the following day to turn things upside down.

The first step is to listen and look around at what is broken. Before doing anything and certainly before “fixing” things, it’s always a good plan to know what the real problem is. Nehemiah and Jesus both checked things out first. They began by surveying the situation, checking out everything that was going on. Nehemiah surveyed the ruins of the city. Jesus saw the ruins of people’s lives – the crippled, the broken, and the outcast. He saw Jerusalem in ruin and he wept.

He “looked around at everything” going on at the temple, then went away for a while, perhaps to rest or to plan or to do both. He came back the next day though, and he DID SOMETHING. His action was swift, unexpected, and decisive. He upset things, especially the status quo. His action challenged the religious, economic, and political powers of Jerusalem and only served to increase the tension surrounding him. What he did turned peoples expectations of him “on their ear.” He was suppose to drive out the Romans, not his own people! This messiah wasn’t anything like what these people were expecting!

Jesus was looking beyond political or military solutions. He saw what was going on in people’s lives - the brokenness and the injustice, the pain and the hardship - and he offered a better answer. “Love God. Love those who hate you. Love your neighbor as yourself.” He gave them God’s way of doing things. But that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. He said the answer is not an earthly kingdom, but in a heavenly one. Hope for your salvation isn’t placing your trust in a man but rather in trusting God.

The people didn’t need a messiah to bring them freedom from whomever or whatever enslaved them, they needed to free themselves from their “messiahs” of power, manipulation, and control. Their hope was in God, not men. Their shouts should have been to their God: “Hosanna, save us!”

Jesus’ journey brought him into conflict with the powerful of his day, with both the religious establishment, and with the worldly rulers. They didn’t like the way he turned their world upside down –all the things they considered right and proper. They didn’t like the direction he was taking them. What was important in their kingdom - greed, power, self preservation, personal boundaries, pride, self- interests – were not important in his. The way Jesus taught and lived was different from theirs. And they wanted no part of it. But are we any different? How do we feel when our ways are called into question – our protecting our own interests, our hesitation to really put ourselves out there, our fear of giving too much of ourselves, of losing what we’ve got either financially or personally?

Our challenge today, as God’s people, might very well be in what Jesus would do tomorrow when “he had looked around” tonight and saw the way we live our lives, the way we do business, the way our systems - whether sacred or secular - respond to the poor or those who are at risk (the very ones God has a special compassion for). Jesus came and turned things upside down. His upside down way of living still makes little sense. Yet it is the way we are all to live.

Palm Sundays begin with palm branches and parades. Then they leave us here, face to face with a messiah we didn’t expect. The Lenten season nudges us or jars us to think about our fruitfulness. During it, we begin to understand where the Gospel is heading. Perhaps our Palm Crosses can remind us throughout this next week of the things in our lives needing to be turned upside down! Let us pray.