Despite all the references to this psalm, this was no worship service -- it was a political rally. Jesus’ disciples were about 1500 years too early for the printing press, or they might have been handing out buttons like this: [Slide of Jesus for Messiah] or maybe posters like this: [Slide of ROMAN? NO MAN!] It must have been an exciting day for the disciples, because their guy was winning, and winning big. Finally, the Zealot Party had a clear frontrunner -- Barabbas had always had kind of a sketchy record, but the disciples weren’t sure if Jesus was really going to enter the race. He had the talent, clearly, and a strong message, but he’d spent a lot of time healing lepers, eating with tax collectors and women of ill-repute, and praying. Not the kind of stuff that’s going to get you Super Pac donors; in fact, the Jewish establishment was pretty skeptical. But this parade -- it had everything: coming down into town from the Mount of Olives, riding a . . . donkey -- OK a war horse would have been better, but still . . . the crowd was going crazy, tearing down leafy branches, laying their cloaks in the road, shouting “Hosanna, save us! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Each of the gospels has an account of the Triumphal Entry (although only John specifically mentions palms), but they don’t have the same version of what happened afterward. In Matthew, Jesus proceeds to the Temple and overturns the tables of the moneychangers. In Mark, the account which we read this morning, the parade ends late, Jesus goes back to Bethany with the disciples and comes back to the Temple on Monday. In Luke, Jesus stops on the way into Jerusalem and weeps over the city before the processional through the streets and to the Temple where he drives out the sellers and begins to teach. In the gospel of John, Jesus speaks about his death to the disciples -- who don’t understand -- and then Jesus departs and hides from them. What these accounts have in common is a that Jesus understands something that his disciples do not. They are caught up in the excitement of the spectacle, the triumph of this ministry, this campaign, so full of momentum and purpose and energy.

Wouldn’t it be great if the story ended here? We could still celebrate spring with chocolate bunnies and egg hunts, but we could skip over all that anguish, torture, and death that’s coming to Jesus in just a few days. Who wants to go there? The disciples certainly don’t; I don’t either. It’s enough work to organize the parade without having to clean up the street afterward. Couldn’t we just have the triumphant celebration and skip the nasty repercussions that come later? We all want to stay in the happy optimistic fullness of success and empowerment. The only problem is, that to get to Easter, to resurrection, to new life, we have to go through death. If we think otherwise, we’re wrong. Dead wrong.

There is so much packed into these six verses from Philippians: seminary papers and master’s theses have been written on these verses. This passage helps us to understand the meaning of Holy Week and Jesus’ death; what they don’t tell us is the narrative of Jesus’ arrest and execution -- the story of Jesus praying in the garden, Judas’ betrayal, testimony before Pilate, condemnation and crucifixion. This is an important story to tell: every Christian should have the opportunity to hear or read the story of Holy Week. It’s been the subject of countless dramas, plays, and movies. Like most adaptations, I think it’s better to read the book -- at least to read the book first. I’m not going to tell that story this morning because you’ll have the opportunity to hear it on Thursday evening. Following our Love Feast service of feetwashing, agape meal, and communion, we’ll have a chance to experience the narrative of the rest of the week--Thursday night and Friday -- through a reader’s theatre.

This text introduces us to a difficult theme, one which I think is at the crux of Christianity. There’s a Greek word for it: kenosis which is gets translated as self-emptying. This isn’t the same as when depression or despair happens to us, and we have a feeling of emptiness which renders us powerless. Kenosis is an intentional act of self-giving, of allowing ourselves to become empty for the sake of something greater than ourselves. It is rough stuff. It may be the self-emptying we experience when we care for a child who is sick when we desperately need sleep and sanity ourselves. It may be the compassion we feel for an adolescent struggling to find his or her identity, and wondering where they will ever fit in. It is watching an adult child make terrible choices about his or her life and having the strength to say, “I love you, but I can’t rescue you from yourself.” It is taking care of an aging parent or spouse who you know will not recover. All of these are experiences that we would avoid, if we could -- except that the alternatives might be worse. Sometimes loving someone means walking through the valley of the shadow of death, or the valley of addiction, or the valley of rejection. I’m reminded of the African-American spiritual that says, “Jesus walked this lonesome valley, he had to walk it by himself. O, nobody else could walk it for him; he had to walk it by himself.” The only way out of pain may be through.

The line which is vital, but sometimes difficult, to draw is the line between self-emptying and abuse. Compassion, suffering with or for the sake of another person for a greater good, is one thing -- living with verbal, physical, or emotional assault is something else. Simply being miserable is not a sign that we have grasped the essentials of the Christian life. It is Jesus’ obedience to God, not his pain that is the turning point of this passage. This is the death that we have to go through in order to get to Easter Sunday. Not our physical death, not even the death of our sinful inclinations, but the death of having things go the way we want them to, the way we think we deserve. The death of being right, of being in control, of being justified because we’re such darn nice people. Jesus didn’t get to stay in the Palm Sunday triumph of being the people’s choice because that kind of self-acclaim doesn’t last. The crowd on Palm Sunday would have switched their allegiance in a heartbeat -- in fact they did just days later, when they called for Pilate to release Barabbas and kill Jesus instead. Jesus knew what the disciples had yet to grasp: he had to choose a different path, a road far less traveled. Not the fullness of human popularity, but the emptiness of divine obedience. It is this emptiness which Jesus had the courage to embrace when he prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

This is the prayer which we must each consider if we are to experience resurrection. As difficult as this is to accept; there cannot be resurrection without death. Anybody who tells you different is just selling Easter candy. We must go through the lonesome valley of the Garden of Gethsemane before we can get to the garden with Mary Magdalene and the other women to proclaim that Jesus is risen. Philippians says that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross. Therefore -- because Jesus was willing to empty himself -- therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It’s interesting that the apostle Paul presents this dense and difficult theological argument in the form of a hymn. Emptying yourself in order to truly find yourself; having to die in order to be resurrected -- this is complex stuff. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can sing words or find meaning in poetry that I struggle to express any other way. Maybe it’s freeing to use someone else’s words, or to simply acknowledge that this is a mystery too profound for me to explain. I’d like leave you with a poem by Sharlande Sledge, called “Extravagance”:

Extravagant God, who gave all, even your life,
Without calculating the cost, your love is everywhere.
You do not hold your love back to be admired from a distance,
But pour your precious gift out for us at great price.
Like perfume from an overturned bottle, it spills from your heart into ours.
So may we love -- purely, dangerously, wildly, extravagantly,
Creating a scandal of grace.
Let us love for love’s sake, seeing each day as the chance
To do a spontaneous, irrational, risky act of love in Christ’s name
Whose love so amazing, so divine,
Demands our souls, our lives, our all.