Mark 11:1-11
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”’ 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
This is another story that we have heard so many times, it is easy to miss its importance in the Passion Story. In many Bibles, these verses follow the heading: “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem”. Relying on Zechariah’s prophesy found in Matthew’s version:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Or the verses in Psalm 118:25-26 found in this passage:
‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
Both quotations anticipate the restoration of the Davidic Monarchy. They reflect the yearning for ‘better days’ and a time when it seemed that God favored his people. This was a yearning that was never to be realized. And Jesus knew it. He was not, nor did he ever intend to be, what the people expected in a Messiah.
Most of us are aware that Jesus was not the Messiah the people expected but each year, we wave palm fronds imitating the expectations of the first century Jews. But do we really know what we are celebrating? Don’t jump ahead to Easter. Betrayal and crucifixion come first. Palm Sunday marks a choice Jesus made to prophetically put on the mantle of the people’s expectations—in the full knowledge he would disappoint.
Why do such a thing? We are soon to learn that even the Son of God can be betrayed, mistreated and killed. That is quite the buzz kill following the ‘Triumphal Entry’ into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday starts us down the path of facing real life, Good Friday cements the knowledge that ‘goodness’ does not protect us from suffering. Suffering, pain and loss are part of life. None of us get a free pass. Easter Sunday then promises that a life of love matters no matter what happens to us. We will talk more about the alleluias next week. For today we begin to learn what we all hate to know—all of us will experience disappointment and all of us will disappoint. Neither our best intentions, our faithful service or our devotion to God will protect us.
Our expectations for our God flow naturally in ordinary real life. Ideally, the big people take care us. They feed us. They comfort us. They are reservoirs of experience to help guide us. The idea that parents or authorities should be able to supply help and guidance is embedded in childhood. It is a very short step to imagine God as a super parent. Parents expect as much from themselves and children almost need to believe such perfect parents exist—even if their own do not fit the bill. Life, as a little person, is too frightening to manage alone. These expectations are easily and organically passed to a parent God. But at some point, we meet our parents as ordinary people. They are flawed, sometimes petulant, and sometimes self-centered. They can love us AND fail us. That moment is filled with disappointment. We do not welcome this knowledge. But it is required reading if we are to grow up.
Both parents and children struggle with life as it really is. Parents are often as committed to unreasonable expectations of themselves as their children. Rather than deal with what they can actually do, some parents demand respect and refuse to be questioned or doubted. Some parents list their efforts and tell their children that even if they failed, ‘they did the ‘best that they could.’ But those, and virtually any other ‘explanation’, are a function of the parents hating the idea that their children expected more than the parents could give. Most of hate the knowledge that we can do our best and still disappoint. On the child side of the equation, some children can only see the ‘good’ side and idolize their parents. Some can only see the harm that has come their way and blame their parents for the hardship of their lives. We cannot explain why some of us are born into supportive families and others into families where incompetence is a good grade (especially when compared to the malice of abuse and neglect). Those questions are more likely to burn up a life rather than help live one.
In real life, the test of a good parent is when our children tell us we failed them; we simply say: “Yes, I hope you can cope.” We have to give up the idea that there is an answer. We have to give up the idea that we should have the answer. We have to face the fact we are all doing the best we can do—and all too often, that is not enough. When we are ‘caught’, when our shortcomings are exposed, we need to stop pretending there is a way around being a limited creature—even though limited creatures can make terrible mistakes.
Likewise, I tell angry resentful people who are stuck in their disappoint that: “The statute of limitations for blaming our parents has expired.” Finally, we have to face that it is up to us to make the best we can out of the life we have been given.
This is a long way of saying that expectations and disappointments are ordinary parts of life most of us would rather avoid. Jesus, however, did not. He knew better than anyone else that the Messiah he was and is, was not the Messiah that was expected. He told his disciples countless times who he was but they too held on to the version of a savior that was more like the incarnation of David rather than the incarnation of God.
In real life, we cannot control how we are seen. Rather than fight those expectations, Jesus embraced them. He chose the symbols of the triumphal king. Even though embracing them heightened the people’s disappointment when they saw him crucified.
I’m not sure any of us can be told ‘parents are people’. It is a lesson that is usually learned through disappointment. But when it is learned, new relationships and freedom are possible. For me, Christianity works because it reflects what is not what we wish. Palm Sunday serves to expose our misplaced expectations of God. And though some of us never forgive God for disappointing our expectations, if we can meet God on God’s terms instead of on our own, we discover a God who joins us rather than a God who fixes us. That discovery leads to new life.
It is a lesson begun with the disappointment of Palm Sunday. We are called to engage the problems of this world (and more personally, the problems in our families) with limited knowledge and limited resources. That is hard enough without the unrealistic expectations we have of ourselves and others. Those expectations lead to feeling chronically inadequate.
Jesus chose to disappoint. In doing so, he exposes our misplaced expectations. That is the beginning of a new relationship. It is then we can discover a God who loves us but loves us in ways we did not expect and could not imagine. . That is salvation of a very different sort than expecting to be freed from Rome or expecting to be freed of cancer. Let it be so.
