A friend of mine told me a story of being in a church one weekday.  An election was happening on this particular day and the church was a voting site.  A man came up from the basement where he had just voted and stood at the back of the church, looking toward the front.  He saw my friend nearby and said jokingly, “I’m looking for God, but I can’t find him!”

You can make of that what you will.  My friend told me he didn’t reply but later on thought, “Are you sure you really want to find God?”  In other words, do we really know what we are asking?  Are we really prepared for what we might find when we find God, or when we are found by God?

This is a serious matter and we want to take this desire seriously.  This is the request that came from a group of Greeks who were in Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  Are we saying the same thing this morning?  If so we are in a good place to look at him.  This is what we have been doing throughout the weeks of Lent.  The light of the world.  The one in whom we have known and know grace upon grace.  The bringer of a new age.  The bringer of new life. The giver of the gift of new life and the gift of the Holy Spirit of God.  The son of God.  The son of man.  The king of Israel.  The lamb of God.  “Look, here is the lamb of God!” we heard from John the Baptist.  Let’s hear some more good news.  “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion.  Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”  Do not be afraid dear followers of Christ.  Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!

So let us look and consider together.  They call this the triumphal entry in our NRSV Bibles, though it was a pretty low-key entry in terms of grand entries or grand parades.  Let us not go from the triumph of Palm Sunday to the triumph of Resurrection Sunday and miss the fact that this story is happening in the shadow of the cross.  Let us not miss Good Friday and why we call it good.  “Ride on ride on in majesty,” we sing, “In lowly pomp ride on to die.” Let us now miss the outpouring of love and mercy at the cross that shows God’s glory.

What kind of king is this Jesus?  A crowd from Jerusalem comes out to meet Jesus, as people would do to greet a visiting ruler.  They take branches of palm trees.  Interestingly, John is the only gospel to specify the types of branches they take.  “Hosanna!” They shout.  Save, we pray! “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!”

We want to see Jesus this morning.  What kind of king?  The thing about palm branches for the 1^st century Jerusalemite – they were a symbol of nationalism.  They’re not now.  They have come for Christians over the years, to mean a symbol of praise and adoration for Jesus with which we mark the beginning of Holy Week.  We hang onto them for a while.  In some traditions, we hang on to them for a year, burn them, and use the ashes for Ash Wednesday the following year.  Palm fronds have taken on a new meaning.  Before all this, palm branches were a symbol of national strength and military victory.  They had been waved by crowds greeting Judas Maccabeus some more than 150 years earlier.  He was the military leader that had thrown off the yoke of Seleucid oppression (celebrated at Channukah).  Judas “The Hammer” as he was known.   

Jesus takes action.  We’re familiar with symbolic action.  We take symbolic action every time we signal our server at a restaurant that we would like the bill.  Prophetic action is a symbolic action that has a spiritual significance.  I like to think there is prophetic action going on every Saturday at Trinity Square through the OOTC season.  Truths are being signified.  Truths like everyone has value and is valued as guests are welcomed.  Truths like no one should have too much and no one should have too little as food and clothing and other goods are shared.  Jesus takes prophetic action by finding a donkey’s colt – a small young donkey – and riding into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey.

This is our King.  I have to say something about riding a donkey.  There is little stately or noble about it.  If you get to know me you get to know that I have an affinity for donkeys (ducks too but they’re not relevant here).  I just really like donkeys for some reason.  Fourteen years ago, Nicole and I had the chance to visit Petra in Jordan.  Near the entrance were the guys on the horses.  Very cool looking.  A little further in were the camels.  You could ride with the horses or ride with the camels.  At the end of the route were the donkeys.  We ended up riding the donkeys.  I was worried that the poor donkey wouldn’t be able to hold me.  I expressed this to the man in charge of the donkey taxi service, at which point he called out “Get this man a mule!”  He was joking (there weren’t any mules around) and the donkey held me well.  The thing about donkeys is, that the cavalry doesn’t come in riding donkeys.  They don’t really gallop.  They hardly even canter.  Walking is more their thing.  Those upon whom we usually look to save us do not come to our rescue riding donkeys.  

Our Prince of Peace comes riding on a donkey. What does nationalism and national interest have to do with the kingdom of God?  In a few days time, Jesus will be saying, “My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  Empires of this world rise and fall.  There’s a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley which illustrates this well called “Ozymandias”:

I met a traveller from an antique land,/ Who said – “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/ Stand in the desert… Near them on the sand,/ Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,/ Tell that its sculptor well those passions read/ Which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things,/ The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;/ And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;/ Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!./ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/ The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Will empire building save us; or national military strength; national economic strength?  His Kingdom is not from this world.  In a world where cross-wearing politicians announce proudly things like “Never forget, we’re steeped in the blood of patriots who overthrew the most powerful empire in the world,” our King comes into town riding on a young donkey.  What does it mean to live in the shadow of the cross? 

“You see, you can do nothing.  Look, the world has gone after him.”  This from some contemptuous Pharisees.  Let us put aside contempt.  Let us ask God to help us put aside contempt for anyone.  There is far too much contempt in the world.  These Pharisees are looking contemptuously at this localized scene as Jesus.  The events which will take place will of course be for the world.  The world will indeed go after Jesus.  It’s wonderful to see this represented in our church, to which we have come from all over the world.

“Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.”  Generally thought of as “God-fearers.”  People who hadn’t gone full convert but were definitely interested in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and would come to Jerusalem for events like Passover.  These Greeks stand in a long line of people in the Gospel of John who make the good and right and fitting and proper response to Jesus.  We’ve heard some of them.  Following.  Asking him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  Taking Jesus up on the invitation to come and see.  Jesus’ mother saying, “Do whatever he tells you.” (2:5)  The woman of Sychar saying, “Sir, give me this water…” (4:15)  A man delivered from blindness saying, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (9:25)   These Greeks make the good and right and fitting and proper response to this King.  May it be ours every day.  “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  They come to Philip (the guy with the Greek name).  Philip tells Andrew and they tell Jesus. We want to pay attention to what Jesus says now.  In ch 12 we have the last words spoken by Jesus publicly before his trial and death.  He will be speaking in chapters 13 to 17 but they will be words to his followers and a prayer (ch. 17).  What do we find out when we wish to see and hear Jesus?  Jesus doesn’t say something like “How great that you were looking for me!” or “Well done on looking for me!” He speaks of death and life.  He speaks of dying to live.  He says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.” (12:24-26)

There’s an expression in the culture, “ride or die.”  It comes from hip-hop and describes someone to whom you are loyal, or who is loyal to you.  “My wife is my ride or die.”  “I’m your ride or die.”  That kind of thing.  “I always ride with mine,” said Angel Reese of the LSU Tigers women’s basketball team in order to express her devotion.  The thing about riding with our King as we profess to ride with Him, it’s not a matter of ride or die.  It’s a matter of ride and die.  Jesus isn’t saying “Hate your life,” the way we might in a bad situation or maybe even despair say “I hate my life.”  Jesus is not saying that we are to take no enjoyment in our lives.  Jesus is describing what is perhaps the biggest paradox of them all in life in him.  Sin and death will be overcome by the death of the sinless one.  Someone has put it like this: “Isn’t death, always, a defeat, rather than a glory? Not always, as Jesus’ dying ‘grain-of wheat’’ picture… illustrates perfectly… What looks like the grain’s demise is in fact its harvest.  So Jesus’ Cross.  What looks like the perfect proof against Jesus’ authenticity  - his capital punishment – proves… to be the supreme argument for, and the major display of, God’s profound love for the world.”

To follow Jesus in the way of the cross is to live with arms outstretched and hands open. It’s one or the other.  Life or death.  Hands open or hands clenched and grasping.  Blessing or cursing.  The shadow of the cross shows the ways of the world for what they are.  Cut-throat competition.  The profit motive as the highest motive. Economic interest above all.  National interest above all.  Self-interest above all.  Grasping and holding onto as much as you can get above all.   Honour from people as the highest goal, and surely the most important thing happening in the world two weeks ago was happening at the Dolby Centre in beautiful downtown Los Angeles.  Right?  The whole world goes after the Oscars.

I’m not saying don’t watch the Oscars.  I watched some of them and have watched “American Fiction” and “Anatomy of a Fall” since.  I’m talking about the voices that would purport to tell us what the most important worthy-of-our-attention/devotion are in this world.  We’re talking right now about the most important thing in the world.  Our King who shows all other empires which would claim our allegiance for what they are, including the empire of the self. 

“Where I am, there will my servant be also,” says Jesus, and may we say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your will.”  Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man (or woman), he bids us come and die.  Death to self for many followers of Christ has meant death.  What does it mean for me and you today?  Death to the myth of self-sufficiency.  Death to bowing down to other gods.  Death to conceit.  Death to selfishness.  Death to self-abasement.  Death to pride.  Death to isolation. 

In so dying we are given the gift of life.  Life lived in communion and fellowship with God now and always.  “Walk while you have the light,” Jesus said.  “If you walk in the darkness you don’t know where you are going.”  Life lived in the light of the world, which even death did not overcome.  We wish to see Jesus.  This is our King.  Thanks be to God, as we follow him to the cross, for his indescribable gift.