Transcript
If I tell you if these were silent, the stones would shout out. We’ll have our passion reading at the end so we won’t do a processional today.
Have you ever taken the time to stack rocks on top of each other? One after another, carefully stacked to create an organized pile? You see it a lot along the edges of hiking trails. I think the last time I saw one quote in nature was last fall on the beach at Grandview. Nowadays, stacking rocks is like a meditative act. Gotta put the last one. The balance, the tactile and kinesthetic. The touch and movement.
Stacking rocks actually goes back pretty much as far as living creatures interacted with rocks. Stacked rocks could mark a burial site or the directions for a hiker. It could be an indication that the water isn’t quite as deep as your boat might need right here, or even simply a way to mark where the food is buried. Whatever the stack could mean, I always find them comforting because no matter how lost we might be literally on a beach when you can’t find the trailhead to get back to the parking lot, or simply in life feeling like we were wandering uncharted territories of grief or confusion or pain or even anger. These stacks of rock show us that someone else has been here, too. Someone else has taken this journey, has felt lost, has decided to indicate that this is the way.
In the reading from Luke’s gospel that we heard earlier in the parish house, read by Bob. Thank you Bob. Jesus mentions rocks. Granted, he wasn’t particularly talking about Cairns. That’s what those rock stacks are called. Officially. It’s a Scottish Gaelic word. Instead, Jesus was talking about all rocks. You see, the reading begins with Jesus approaching Jerusalem and a whole huge crowd gathered, making a ruckus, shouting at Jesus, cheering Jesus on. You know, the usual hoopla and ruckus one would see at a parade celebrating a king.
Real quick, all four gospels have this story included, and yet each one includes different details. For example, if you look at our reading from earlier, you’ll see there’s no actual mention of palms. Only John’s telling of the scene has palms in it. And this passage doesn’t have the word Hosanna, a phrase we commonly connect to Palm Sunday. Hosanna Hebrew meaning save, please or save. We pray. That’s only in Matthew and Mark’s telling. Luke and Mark have a single colt. Matthew has a colt and a donkey, which develops creative images of Jesus riding on both into the city. John doesn’t have any animals at all, but all four tellings have Jesus named as King and a crowd making a ruckus.
In the reading today, at the end, some Pharisees complained that the crowd was too big and too loud and too much of an interruption. And Jesus replied, if these were silent, the stones would shout out. If the people said nothing, the very stones would cry out the very stones that tell us we are not alone. The very stones that show us the way that mark significant spots, historical spots, safe spots, spots of prayer and intention. If people weren’t there, the rocks would show us what to do. Follow Jesus this way. He is who he says he is. What is about to happen is indeed about to happen. The rocks know. Perhaps the crowd doesn’t.
After all, if you think about it, in less than a week, the same people shouting that this is the king, the Messiah, the Savior, this is the one who comes in the name of the Lord promised throughout Scripture. This is the one who the angel sang of on that night many years ago, when a star shined in the sky just over a barn, where a baby was born and wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. This is the one who changed water into wine. Who fed 5000 people. Who told us to love one another. To be the Good Samaritan. To feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and house the homeless in less than one week. The same people shouting all of this will next shout Crucify him! Crucify him! Demanding the blood of the man who they thought was their king.
Jesus’s kingship doesn’t show up the same way as an earthly king. Jesus didn’t ride in on a white stallion surrounded by legions of armies with trumpets heralding his arrival. No, Jesus arrived on a colt, and while the same crowds might have thought he was their king, how quickly they forget.
You know, there’s actually scientific backing to the whole forgetting part. Perhaps this is just me reaching for an excuse for the crowd, but here goes. Scientist believe our brains are more like a house with many rooms. And each room is a memory or a thought. And when we think of something and then walk into the next room and can’t remember why. That’s because our brain literally left the room of that thought. If you ever walk into a room and can’t remember why, well, walk back out. The process of walking back out through a doorway will help you remember will allow your brain to reenter that room in your thoughts.
So perhaps the crowd, after walking through the doorway to the gate and the Great Wall that surrounds Jerusalem, perhaps they forgot. Forgot that this is the Messiah promised throughout Scripture, the kind of a messiah who proclaims that the last shall be first. Who wants the little children to come to him, who insists that what is about to unfold must unfold?
As we sit here in this space, this doorway, so to speak, between Lent and Holy Week, between Jesus defeating Satan in the desert and now arriving in Jerusalem, (remember, the city that kills the prophets), between the joy of shouting Hosanna and waving palm fronds, and also the guilt of shouting Crucify him! We can experience all the pieces and parts. We can be with the crowd shouting, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. We can also be with the crowd who will shout away with him. Release Barabbas for us. We can be with the disciples who excitedly run to untie a colt for their king. And the disciples, who deny having known Jesus at all. We can be Easter people who know that in one week from today we will be celebrating the resurrection, the overcoming of death. And we can be the people who are commanded to love one another as we are loved. To participate in the Lord’s Supper, to witness the cross that will hold the body of God made man as he takes his last breath, and the people who practically hold our own breath waiting, waiting for what comes next.
If these people were silent, the stones would shout out. If we were silent, the rest of God’s creation wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. This is the way. This is where we must go. Enter the city of Jerusalem. Participate in the unfolding of the Passion of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Messiah, our Savior. And know that as we make this journey, we are not alone. Countless throngs have journeyed before us and will continue to journey after us.
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Crucify him!