The Parade

Luke 19.28-40

 

 

“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out!”

 Everybody loves a parade.  Don’t you?  I certainly do.  I can remember, growing up in Fort Smith, going to two parades every year:  the Christmas Parade, and the Rodeo Parade.

You may not know this, but Fort Smith has one of the largest rodeos on the professional rodeo circuit.  I don’t know if it’s still true, but for years the Barrel Race associated with the “Old Fort Days” rodeo was billed as the “World’s Richest Barrel Race” – the barrel race with the largest amount of prize money in the world.

The rodeo in Fort Smith is a big deal, and every year the rodeo parade is held on Garrison Avenue in downtown Fort Smith.  All the different riding clubs from western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma ride in the parade; the local high school bands always march – if they’re lucky, ahead of the horses of the riding clubs!

I haven’t been in years, but I remember that all the rodeo clowns would be in the parade.  Usually a few trick riders or fancy ropers would be performing stunts along the parade rote.  Local dignitaries and beauty queens would ride in fancy automobiles.  And then there would be the Grand Marshal of the parade.

Today I think it’s usually a country music star, but when I was a kid, Westerns reigned on television.  The Grand Marshals of my childhood included Ken Curtis, who played Festus on Gunsmoke, Dan Blocker:  Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza, and a host of others who probably were important to me at the time, but whom I’ve now forgotten.

In my life I’ve seen all kinds of parades, big and small.  I’ve seen the homecoming parade in Bearden, I’ve ridden in Christmas parades in Lavaca and here in Camden.  Once, I just happened to be driving through Mena at the wrong time, and got held up while their Christmas parade crossed Highway 71.

If you drop by the parsonage some time I’ll show you the pictures I took of the 1977 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.  Although I didn’t notice it at the time, it turns out I was right across the street from the “Pussycat Club” – XXX! – whose marquee is in nearly every picture I took.  There’s nothing like seeing the Snoopy balloon with the words “Girls, girls, girls!” underneath.  New York, New York, the town so nice they named it twice.

Anyway, my point is, parades are fun, and Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem was quite a parade.  Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Cindy Morgan describes it in her song, “The March”:

“It was a march of a revolution … it was a march for the thirst of freedom … it was a march for the thief and harlot, humble and holy, oh what a story, oh what a march!”

This was no ordinary parade.  This parade stirred emotions.  It was a march filled with possibility.  The thought of what might be was in the minds of all Jesus’ followers that day.

Might this be the king who would deliver them from the Romans?  Might this be the Messiah who would usher in the blessings of the age to come, and the return of all the children of God who had been scattered throughout the world?  Might this be?  This was a parade filled with hope and expectation.

A little history:  entrance processions were a familiar ceremony in Jesus’ day.  Any number of kings and conquering generals had entered Jerusalem over the years.  Still, the people of Jerusalem had never seen a parade quite like this one.  The Triumphal Entry, staged on a donkey, was a prophetic sign, an acted-out parable.

Have you ever notice how, in the Gospels, something is often out of place?  The rich fool who is storing up goods for the future, dies; the good neighbor is a Samaritan; the tax collector is the one who leaves the temple justified.  And now, the king enters the city, riding on a borrowed donkey!

Jesus was a king, but Jesus was no ordinary king.  Jesus was the king of fishermen, the king of tax collectors, the king of Samaritans, harlots, those who were blind or crippled.  Jesus’ subjects were a ragtag bunch, completely unfit for the thoughts, the hopes, that danced in their imaginations that day.

There were women – women, of all people! – who leapt for joy!  There was a Samaritan leper with a heart full of gratitude, a crippled woman who had been unable to stand up straight for 18 years, and a blind man who had followed Jesus all the way from Jericho!  All of them marching in this parade.

The cloaks thrown on the road that day were not expensive garments.  They were tattered shawls, dusty, sweat-stained rags.  Jesus was the king of the oppressed, the king of the suffering.  Jesus was the king who shared the hardships of his followers, the king who accepted them when others considered them unclean.  Jesus was the king who gave them hope, the king who showed them how much God loved them.

And now they all came to march with Jesus, a grand parade into the holy city of Jerusalem.  “As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice.”

Jesus’ parade into Jerusalem was a moment filled with possibilities.  Jesus’ followers must have believed that their last hope was riding on that borrowed donkey.  Oh, what might have been!

Everything was just right.  If only Jesus had seized this moment; if only the people of Jerusalem had responded as they should have; if only God had fulfilled the dreams of so many of those who followed Jesus.

Life is filled with moments that might have been – moments when everything seems right, but somehow things don’t work out just the way we hoped.  It can be so hard to go on believing in God when life doesn’t give us what matters so dearly to us.  But there is always a risk when we attempt to chart the course for God – when we decide what God ought to be doing.

God was about to do something powerful and wonderful in Jerusalem, but that day, during that parade, the disciples weren’t thinking about what God had planned.  In their minds they anticipated a far more limited kind of kingdom.

It’s so easy to project false images of the God we worship, to make for ourselves a king we can worship rather than worshiping Christ as our King.  We manufacture a god who is always on our side, who looks after our interests and ours alone, who thinks the way we think, who shares our likes and dislikes, our prejudices, our hopes and dreams.

Too many people want – desire – a god who promises health and prosperity, a god who is just like them.  These people join the parade of those whose worship is false because they don’t understand that the kingdom of God belongs to a different kind of King.

What about us?  Do we yearn, deep in our souls, for a different kind of King?  The King of sinners and outcasts, the King of the poor and the oppressed?  What about you?

It is this different kind of King who is calling to us – calling us to join the parade, the worship, of the one who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly … filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

The King who is calling us to join the God who “has looked favorably upon his people and redeemed them,” the God who gives “light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” the God who will “guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Do we long for the day when this different kind of kingdom comes?  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?”  If so, then here is the Messiah who gives hope to all who serve him, no matter how lowly they might be.  If so, then this is a parade at which all of us should cheer and shout for joy!  The Messiah is coming!  Don’t let the parade pass you by.  Cast your cloaks before him.

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

To quote Cindy Morgan again, “When it all comes down to you and me, will we walk away or march on with the One who made the march?”

Will we shout for joy, or will we sit silent, and let the stones speak in our place?  I’m not much for praise and worship songs, but here’s one I like:  “Ain’t no rock gonna cry in my place; gonna lift my voice and glorify his holy name!”

Don’t be silent.  Join the march of the revolution.  Shout with joy!  March in the parade of this very different king of King!