“Everyone Loves a Parade”
John 12:12-19
April 13, 2014
First UMC of Paragould
Rev. John Fleming
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Everyone loves a parade. Well, almost everyone. I will admit that I wasn’t a parade fan
until I was appointed as pastor at First UMC in Sheridan where there are three parades every
year.
There is the Grant County Parade, that helps kick-off and I suppose advertise the
county’s fair. Less than two weeks later, there is the Timberfest Parade. Timberfest is an
annual festival that highlights Sheridan’s main industry, timber. The day starts with a 5k run
and ends with a concert. There are lumberjack contests throughout the day and barbeque cookoffs. Around ten, there is a parade that includes monster trucks, fire trucks, horses, beauty
queens, political candidates, and Sheridan High School’s marching band dressed not in their
uniforms, but in flannel shirts and jeans. The third parade is a Christmas parade, held on the
first Saturday of December.
In our four years in Sheridan, we went to eleven and a half parades. Perhaps I should
explain that. Our first year there, 2009, the Christmas parade was held on a bitterly cold day.
By the time we parked our van and walked to the parade route, the last of the parade’s entries
had passed by. I think all the cars in the parade route drove it at full speed. I think those
walking behind the floats, throwing candy to those along the parade route, ran. If the high
school band had marched for that parade, they would have done so in double time. That is the
half of the eleven and a half parades I went to while in Sheridan
Now let me admit this to you, before I began my ministry in Sheridan, I wasn’t a big fan
of parades. My experience in going was limited.
I remember our first parade in Sheridan. Susie and the girls wanted to go. I really
didn’t. Susie looked at me and said that I didn’t have to go. She said, “It’s ok. We will see
you later.” Guilt set-in. So we drove from our house to the church, parked in the lot, and
walked the block up to the parade route. We took our place under the Bradford Pear trees that
lined the street half of our church was standing near us. A police car came around the corner,
with its flashing blue light, followed by girls wearing their crowns, riding in the back of
borrowed convertibles, waving to the crowd and wearing their ribbons. I can’t remember the
order of things. I can’t recall the line-up, but soon there were monster trucks and fire engines
from all the fire departments in Grant County. Marching in their shirt and t-shirts was
Sheridan’s high school marching band. Soon there were antique tractors and eventually people
riding horses. I think the horses going last was strategic! Walking behind them may not have
been the best position in that parade. Somewhere, sometime, along the way, I got to where I
liked these parades.
Are you like me? Do you enjoy a good parade? If you do, then our scripture lesson for
this morning, taken from John’s gospel. The parade in our lesson this morning doesn’t have
fire engines in it. There aren’t marching bands or monster trucks. There is not a beauty contest
winner in it, riding in a convertible. There is a horse, of sorts, in the parade. You might not
want to call what happens in our lesson a parade, because there is only one entry in the parade,
one person in it. You know Him, of course. His name is Jesus.
All four of the gospel writers tell about this parade that we have come to call Palm
Sunday. All four devote a significant part of their gospel, telling about the week that begins
this week, Holy Week. Jesus spent three years, one hundred and fifty-six weeks, roughly a
thousand days walking the streets of Capernaum, Galilee, and Jerusalem. He spent a thousand
days healing those who were sick, talking with those who the world called sinners, and
teaching anyone who would listen.
I need to say this. The world wants to rush past this week. There are few, if any,
Maundy Thursday greeting cards at Wal-Mart. The world has trouble with Jesus’ cross.
I heard of a church in California whose preacher stood up one Sunday morning and
said, “The cross has been a symbol of suffering long enough!” Then he climbed up and pulled
the cross down from the wall behind the church’s altar. Can you imagine that? I cannot!
The gospel writers don’t ignore the cross and neither should we.
Matthew devotes thirty percent of his gospel to Jesus’ last week. Mark gives it forty
percent. Luke is a little different. He starts Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem in chapter nine and it
continues until he enters the city in chapter nineteen. If you count those passages, Luke spend
62% of his gospel on and in Jerusalem. Then there is John. John has what we call a farewell
discourse. It starts in the thirteenth chapter and continues on to chapter eighteen. 47% of
John’s gospel is spent with Jesus giving his closest followers last and lasting instructions. SO
you cannot rush through this week. The love that Jesus had for all of us includes the cross that
the preacher from California pulled down.
It all begins today, so let’s look at John’s version of Palm Sunday. We tend to mold
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s stories together into one big story, which means that our Palm
Sunday has children waving palm branches, cloaks being thrown on the path, and a church
singing, “Hosanna, loud Hosanna, the little children sang.” If there are children in John’s story,
he doesn’t mention them. John simply tells us that the crowd that was already in town because
of the Passover celebration, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. His reputation preceded
him. They had heard about what had just happened in Bethany, how Jesus had called back to
life his good friend Lazarus, from his grave.
So the crowd cut palm branches and ran out to meet him. John doesn’t tell us that they
sang. He tells us that they shouted, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of
the Lord! Blessings of the king of Israel!” You see, they were looking for a king. That is what
they expected. That is what they hoped for. That is what they were looking for. That is what
they longed for.
Now, as you know, we are in the mist of our sermon series, The God Story. This is our
next to last sermon, and our first in the New Testament. We will wrap up the series next
Sunday with our Easter Sunday celebration. The creator of this series, Jacob Armstrong, has
asked us to think about our own stories, how our lives are one big story with up and downs in
them. He has also asked us to look at the stories in the Bible not as a bunch of stories, but one
big story. Jacob’s called that story, the God Story.
Like all good stories, there are movements in it. We’ve been looking at those
movements these past five Sundays.
First, there was the introduction and the thread that God wants to have a relationship
with us. Next, there was the idea that every once and a while, in a good story, you have to
suspend your doubt to carry on in the story. In our third week, we looked at what we called the
Rising Action, where we first saw that people needed a savior and how hard it is to walk in the
wilderness without one. In our fourth week, we got to the Inciting Incident, the moment where
everything changes and you can’t go back, a time where calls us to a better life. Last week, we
looked at the soundtrack, the song of God’s love that is sung throughout the story. We are at
the point in the story now where there needs to be a resolution, the story needs to be wrapped
up somehow, in some way.
You see, for centuries now, the people of God have been waiting for their savior.
They’ve wondered when he would come. They’ve wanted to know when they would be set
free. You see, they’re waiting for resolution! By the time Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem
on the donkey, they are ready. There were enough people in the crowd that knew Jesus was the
one, unlikely as he was. By the time Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the whole city had gathered on
the streets to welcome him with a fanfare. Listen again to this line in our lesson, “Look! The
whole world is following him!” That is the goal, of course. The problem is that this crowd
won’t follow Jesus long.
Look with me at what they shout out. It is this, “Hosanna!” Hosanna is usually thought
to be a word of praise and adoration. I have always thought of it that way, but when you dig a
little deeper, when you get to the real root of the word, you will see that it is a call for help, to
be saved not in the future, not when you get around to it. The word really means, “save now”
In other words, we can’t wait any longer. We’ve been waiting a very long time. This is it;
wrap this up! Hosanna – save us now!
Some of us find ourselves here today, waiting for God. We need God. You see, the
crowd in Jerusalem, could be us. They waved palm branches, they cried out to be saved,
Hosanna. The Palm Sunday crowd were excited, to be sure. They were craning their necks to
see this unlikely king riding in on a donkey. They cry out, “Save us. Save us now. We need
you now.”
If you will fast forward two thousand years, we are a people who still make this cry,
though, perhaps without the palm branches. And to us, God comes. He comes to broken
marriages and finances. He comes to broken lives and broken churches. He comes to broken
hopes. He comes to broken nations. And by the end of the week, many are crying something
else. Their cry by Friday is, “Crucify him!”
Still, Jesus comes to save us. Most of our lives are spent in what we might call the
mean time. We wait for a deal to happen, for love to come, for someone to offer us something
better, for someone to come home, for some check to be mailed, for some wrong to be made
right. That is where most of our stories take place. And to that place, God comes. Jesus
comes for you and me. Amen.
During these seven weeks of Lent, our church is using The God Story, written by Jacob
Armstrong, as the basis for our sermons and teachings. The God Story is available through the
United Methodist Publishing House, www.cokesbury.com)