The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on Palm Sunday, 1981. The title is, Friend, Why Are You Here? And the scripture references are Matthew 21, verses 1 through 11, and Matthew chapter 26, verse 47, through chapter 27, verse 10. 

Reviled, thou blessed, defamed, entreated, O Lamb of God. For the last several years, the Episcopal Church and many other of the mainline denominations have combined two kinds of celebration with each other on this particular day. We've always called this Palm Sunday, And we celebrated the triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus into the city of Jerusalem when He was hailed and acclaimed by the crowds and the multitudes as Lord and Christ, as Savior, Redeemer, Messiah, King, Lord.

And we've combined with that the rehearsal of the Passion, The celebration of those terrible and mighty events that took place later the same week. So this is both Palm Sunday and the Sunday of the Passion. I don't know how that strikes you.

It has always seemed to me an enormous adjustment of my emotions. To find myself, first of all, in that crowd, hailing Jesus, welcoming Him, singing His praises, crying Hosanna in the highest, Son of David, King of kings, tearing down branches to put them in His way and provide a covering for the way that His donkey walks. If I can't get near enough a tree, tearing off my own clothes to cushion His way for Him.

Part of a teeming multitude, pushing, trying to get closer, trying to touch Him. This is our leader. This is the one that we've been waiting for for literally a thousand years or more.

And then so abruptly, the scene changes, and there we are in the middle of a garden at night. Torches, soldiers, rattle of sabers, a betrayer, and He's led off to be crucified. And I find myself part of another crowd, and I'm shouting for His destruction.

That's a pretty great adjustment of your emotions. And yet I suggest to you that that is precisely the point, and there's a real spiritual wisdom and logic in putting the service together that way. Because there's something ironic, almost hollow about Palm Sunday if it stands on its own.

they were saying all the right things and yet we see in a matter of five days how very fickle they were in the saying of those things it was you see the same crowd not completely but by and large it was the same crowd who welcomed him as King, Messiah and Lord who turned around and demanded that he be put to death who utterly defected from following Him. How do you understand that? What in the world is going on to change them from a crowd acclaiming Him to a crowd demanding His death?

You may remember at the early part of the story, John the Baptist sends word to Jesus, Are you the one who is to come, Or should we look for somebody else? And Jesus sends back an answer to John. He said, tell John the things that you see.

The blind have their eyes open. The deaf hear. The lame leap for joy.

Lepers are cleansed. The poor have good news preached to them. He's not just saying, yes, I am the one who is to come.

He's saying that, but that's not all. He's giving proof for the claim. and proof in precisely the terms that John would find it easiest to recognize because John has been quoting those very promises from the prophets saying they would be fulfilled when Messiah comes.

Jesus is saying, yes, I am the one who is to come and here's proof. But he adds a very important statement. He says, and blessed is He who takes no offense at me.

Do you understand what's going on? Saying, yes, I am the One who is to come. Yes, I am Messiah.

Yes, I am Lord and Christ. But there are going to be those who call me that who end up being offended because I turn out to be a different kind of Messiah, a different kind of Christ, a different kind of Lord than they expected. Blessed is He who takes no offense at me.

And I suggest to you that the Palm Sunday crowd took offense at Jesus. They were prepared to say the right thing about Him, to acknowledge Him and hail Him and proclaim Him Lord, but when He turned out to be kind of a Lord than they expected, they demanded His death. See, everything was fine, so long as they hoped, thought, believed that He might turn out to be a zealot, that He would lead some kind of an uprising, some kind of an insurrection and overthrow the Roman oppressors, so long as they thought there was a chance that he'd be a zealot, they'll follow him anywhere.

If he turns out to be an Eleazar of Masada, like we've been watching all week, we'll go with him to the death. Even if he turns out to be a Barabbas. Don't know if you ever stopped to ask yourself why did they want Barabbas to be released and demand the death of Jesus Barabbas is a known criminal.

The answer is because they were all in favor of the kind of crime that Barabbas had committed. His crime was insurrection. He was a murderer.

He had killed some of the Romans. They're all in favor of that. If Jesus turns out to be like that, we'll go with Him.

You see. If He turns out not to be like that, then give us Barabbas and get rid of Jesus. Peter said as much remember on the night before the betrayal he said Lord I'm willing to go with you to the death and he meant it that was no empty boast he meant it when the little band of soldiers comes to get Jesus in the garden Peter whips out his sword and takes a hack at the slave of the high priest cuts off his ear lousy swordsman He's a great fisherman.

Don't trust him with a sword. Okay? But he meant what he said.

He put his life on the line. You don't attack the slave of the high priest and expect to get away with it so long as there's going to be a fight. I'll go with you anywhere.

But when he realizes there isn't going to be a fight, I don't even know the man. I don't even know who He is. When He turns out to be a different sort of a Christ than Peter supposed, He completely defects.

We've seen that from the very beginning of Peter's story. It was Peter who was the first to recognize you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He said that back at Caesarea Philippi.

And the minute He said that, all the Gospels record from that moment, He began to teach them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die. And Peter's response is, God forbid, Lord, this will never happen to you. No way.

You cannot be that sort of a Christ. I know what it means to be the Christ. The Christ is the victor.

The Christ is the one who overthrows oppression. Not the one who suffers it. I just called you the Christ.

How can you say you're going to die? And Jesus says, get behind me, you devil. you don't even begin to understand what God is all about.

And yet he maintains that presupposition right up until the very end, and so did all the others. I wonder if you can identify with that. I don't suspect that you want to, and I don't suspect that you'd like to admit it, but I wonder how many of us can find ourselves in that story.

So long as things are going relatively well, then Jesus has our allegiance. So long as we can say, things are just fine in my life, then I'll say, God is in His heaven. All is right with my world.

But suddenly, your business takes a nosedive, the bottom drops out. Or you're faced with an enormous, unexpected financial expense and no resources to cover it. Or you find out that your kids are in terrible trouble with the law.

Or your doctor tells you you've got six months to live. Or there's a horrific problem middle of your marriage. And what do you do?

You say, Lord, I am really going to trust you now. Lord, there's nowhere else for me to turn. I trust you.

I don't know how you're going to handle it, Lord, but I give it to you and I know you're going to handle it. And what do you do when he doesn't? Or it doesn't look to you like he's handling it.

Or he's not handling it quickly enough. Or he's not handling it the way that you expected him to handle it. That's the real issue, isn't it?

And something in you says, bag it all. I mean, what's the point of following him, of trusting him, of believing in him, of hailing Him, of giving Him my life if it doesn't make any difference. I've always been most intrigued with the figure of Judas.

My thesis is that he's not, in fact, the totally corrupt figure that we've made him out to be. That he is not a thoroughly bad man. my suspicion is that he was simply offended in Jesus he was disappointed in Jesus that something was going on in his mind something like this this is the moment to strike he's got the whole city behind him if he'd make his move now there'd be an uprising we'd overthrow those Romans and bring back in the era of Jewish supremacy and why doesn't he move?

What can I do to make Him move? I've got it. I'll get them to make the first move.

I'll force His hand. He'll have to react when they come to arrest Him. Only He doesn't. See, you can't force Jesus to do anything.

I don't know if you know that. I wonder if you find yourself in that part of the story. Again, you don't want to admit it, and neither do I. But when you're up against it, and you've prayed your prayer, and nothing seems to happen, if there's a way, if there's even a vague hope that you can force Him to do something on your behalf, aren't you going to do it?

I've known people who have tithed not out of gratitude, or even because they simply wanted to be obedient, but in order to force God to bless them. I mean, isn't that what He said? Bring in the tithes and see if I won't open the windows of heaven and pour down a blessing?

So I'm going to force Him to bless me. He'll have to if I tithe. You see.

I know a man who gave up smoking, Drinking, cursing, carousing, and went back to church in order to force God to heal his wife who was dying of cancer. And he didn't. Interesting footnote to the story, the man came to Christ anyway, but she died. Can't force God to do anything.

there was a man who came to see me this week he said I could share this with you he's a leader in several different Christian circles and suddenly the bottom has dropped out of his business and his initial response was to get out of everything quit this committee quit that board get out of it all he said I've done all the right things he said you wouldn't believe what I've given up for Lent. Doesn't work! I don't know Him at all, he said.

Does that sound vaguely familiar? He didn't turn out to be the sort of Christ I expected. I don't know who He is.

And I said, you know, it may just be that God is taking you seriously in your new commitment. It may be that what God is up to is weaning you away a materialism which has been at the very center of your life. It may be.

I don't know. But I do know that you don't force Jesus to do anything. The tragedy of Judas is that he settled for remorse instead of repentance.

See, his sin really wasn't all that much worse than anybody else's. Peter betrayed him just as much as Judas did but Peter was reconciled because out of the midst of his despair he repented and knew the forgiveness that Jesus came to give in fact all of the others betrayed him as much as Judas did with the exception of John John stood there at the foot of the cross publicly identifying himself with Jesus until the very end But all the others slunk away into the darkness, denied they knew Him, participated in the defection in the crowd. That great crowd that welcomed Him as Lord said, crucify Him. Can you imagine Jesus accepting the acclaim of Palm Sunday knowing what the next few days would hold for Him?

and yet you see that is precisely the point he saw right through it he knew how badly they would betray him and yet he knew that in those hollow words was the truth and he accepted it because even if they didn't remain faithful to what they had said he was going to remain faithful to his calling and he accepted the betrayal as well as the acclaim mounted up onto that cross knowing that you and I, having called Him Lord, would defect when He didn't turn out to be the sort of Lord we expected. When we couldn't force Him to champion our cause, and yet He loved us anyway. Judas came to Jesus with a kiss.

He said, Hail, Master. Jesus looked into his face and he said, Friend, why are you here? Jesus knew perfectly well why Judas was there, but he wanted to give Judas one more opportunity to face up to what he was about.

Just maybe, maybe, if he saw what he really was doing, He'd recoil from it and deny either the kiss or the betrayal. The hopeless self-contradiction, but he didn't. And suddenly it was too late. And Judas went out and hanged himself.

I wonder how many of my kisses, how many of my hosannas, how many of my acclamations, how many of my hallelujahs, how many of my promises, Lord, I'll go with You to the death. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.

No turning back. Have within them an element of betrayal. and he knew it and he knows it and he loves me anyway how astonishing see I'm a member of both crowds and so are you will you be a Peter and come back again and again and again and be restored?

Or will you be a Judas and settle for remorse? Somebody said remorse is just disenchanted self-love. Would you be a Judas?

Friend, why are you here? let's bow our heads together what irony this day holds the words we sing crown him with many crowns turn out to foreshadow a crown of thorns and yet Lord you knew that from the beginning and you accepted it and You accept us nonetheless. Lord, we would not be merely the Palm Sunday crowd, but we'd go all the way through this week with You, through Maundy Thursday, through Good, Bad Friday, and we'd be the Easter crowd as well.

Lord, thank You that knowing my defection, my betrayal, You loved me nonetheless. And that in spite of the shallowness of my words, You accept my desire that they be given to You in truth. So I would say to You again this day, Hosanna.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Hallelujah, Lord Christ.

Amen.