One of my mentors as I was preparing for the pastorate was Rev. Steve Eason at Myers Park Presbyterian Church.  As part of my duties there, I participated in worship on Palm Sunday.  Rev. Eason is a great preacher and I was excited to hear the Word he’d share with us.  Amazingly, he announced he’d be giving the same sermon he’d delivered the year before.  He went on to say that it was mostly same sermon he’d preached every Palm Sunday for the last 15 years. 

  I was a bit apprehensive at first.  But then I heard the sermon.  All Rev. Eason did was recount and reflect upon the events of Holy Week.  As I listened to the narrative, I realized it was something FAR MORE than a sermon.  Truth be told, with all the work I’d been doing for the church at the time, had it NOT been for that retelling, I might never have taken the time to hear the entire drama of Holy Week.  And I wonder, how many of us might normally miss hearing the story this year?  We’re such busy people, aren’t we?   We may pick up bits and pieces of Christ’s journey to the Cross, but the chances are we’d overlook most of the story, jumping straight from the Hosannas to “He is Risen.”  And leaping from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunrise leaves us with an absence of Christ’s passion.  Sure, some of us will be here on Thursday night to hear more, I do hope all of us will be here, I can’t really imagine many good reasons why we wouldn’t.  But going from “God Save Us” to “God Saves US” makes it too easy for us to miss the connection between Christ’s suffering and our salvation.  The Cross is the means to our redemption.  And through it we’re reminded that God’s ways aren’t our ways. 

  In order to fulfill his divine purpose, Christ begins his trek to Jerusalem.  Luke’s Gospel records it this way – “Then the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  And so, the Passion begins.  

  Our Gospel reading from Luke this morning shows that Jesus Christ came into Jerusalem on a Sunday.  Great thought was given towards this entry.  He sends two of His disciples ahead of Him with specific instructions.  And that’s just it you see.  He knew what He was doing.  Always did.  Always will. 

  On Sunday, Jesus follows the typical path taken by pilgrims coming towards Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover; but His entrance is anything BUT routine.  He descends from the Mount of Olives into the city.  There were better ways for a conquering King to enter the city.  Coming down a hill would’ve made an attacking army easy prey.  Jesus is coming into Jerusalem as a hero but He sets about doing it in a different way.  Not with swords or slings but with the sacrifice of His own life.  God’s ways aren’t our ways, are they?    

  Gone from Luke’s Gospel are the crowds with the palm leaves.  Matthew noted that point.  Here, as Luke recalls the moment of Christ’s entry into the city, it’s His own disciples who cry out… praising God joyfully with a loud voice.  But notice why they’re doing that.  They cry out jubilantly because of all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  The Scripture here shows us that what had the disciples so filled with energy and excitement were the “deeds of power” Christ had been doing and the expectation of Him becoming King by ridding Israel of the Roman scourge. 

  No wonder they all depart when his life slips away on a Cross made crimson by His blood.  According to the world, dead men tell no tales, and they also do no more work and no more deeds of power – so we understand why all the disciples fled.  By their estimation, there wouldn’t be any power from God to protect them.

  How little they understood.  How little WE understand.  [PAUSE]

  But then, according to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus leaves Jerusalem as quickly as He’s entered it.  I wonder if that’s when the murmuring started.  I wonder if that’s when the people who cried out Hosanna began to be suspicious about this Jesus.  His rapid departure surely wouldn’t have been what they wanted.  The very same people who laud Jesus Christ as He enters to fulfill THEIR expectations, scream out against Him when He fulfills God’s plan, not theirs.  And I wonder – don’t we sometimes become suspicious of the Lord’s power when God doesn’t do things OUR WAY?   But His ways, well, they aren’t our ways, are they?

  On Monday morning, Jesus comes back into the city, returning from Bethany.  It’s on a Monday that Jesus Christ upends the money changers in the Temple, taking aim at a corrupt practice and a hard-hearted people.