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The text for today’s meditation is from the Palm Sunday Gospel Lesson, with special attention to verses 7-9, which read, “They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Hosanna in the highest!’”

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

In case you haven’t figured it out in the past 16 months that I have been with you, I am a rather structured and logical person. I like to have things in an order or to make sense. I dislike disarray, confusion, and when things don’t seem to make sense. I don’t like it when there is even a slight contradiction or a paradox.

It is because of this that I like the fact that our God is a God of order. He sets down rules and guidelines, He gives us His Word in order that we may know Him better and what He expects of us, and He likes orderly worship. There is only one way to get to Heaven, and that way is Jesus. Our God is a God of order. This has always been a comfort to me.

Yet, while our God is a God of order, He is also a God of paradox too. Or at least it seems that way to us. We have seen quite a few paradoxes in Scripture and in Jesus’ teaching lately. A few weeks ago, back in the season of Epiphany, we looked at how Christians who look like fools in the eyes of men are really wise in the eyes of God. Then more recently we saw how God’s own people rejected Jesus and yet the Samaritan woman at the well received Him as Lord. Then we heard Jesus tell us that He came that the “blind will see and that those who see will become blind.” We heard the Lord tell James and John and all the disciples that in order to be great they must give up everything and become a servant. Jesus often spoke in paradoxes: the first shall be last, and the last shall be first; the poor will be lifted up while the rich are sent away empty; the dead shall be given life. So while God is a God of order, He also seems to like His paradoxes too. Or at least what seems to us like a paradox.

But Jesus didn’t just like to speak in paradoxes, He also lived them. His very life was a paradox. How could one person be both 100% God and also 100% man? How can God be three persons but one God? These are paradoxes coming from a God of order.

In our text for Palm Sunday we see Jesus living yet another paradox. But to see the paradox, let’s look a little closer at the text. First of all we see Jesus approaching Jerusalem for the last time. He is at Bethpage which is very near the town of Bethany which is close to Jerusalem. Bethany is the town of Mary and Martha and Lazerus. In fact, the story that we heard last week of the raising of Lazerus from the dead occurred just before the events on Palm Sunday which we are looking at today. So Jesus tells two of His disciples to go and fetch a young colt and its mother and bring them to Him. And we see in the text the reason why Jesus had them get the donkeys: “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”’”

So the disciples went and did as they were told and they found everything as the Lord had predicted. They went and got the colt and its mother and brought them to Jesus. Then the disciples placed their coats on the donkeys and Jesus sat on the coats. Then we get a picture of a wonderful, triumphant entry into Jerusalem. First we see the crowd that was going with Him from Bethany laying down their coats and palm branches on the ground before Him. These people had seen what He had done in raising Lazerus, and they knew that He was from God. They were honoring Him and praising Him. “The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Hosanna in the Highest.’” They were treating Jesus like a king.

This kind of a triumphant entry into a city was usually reserved for a king who was returning from a success in battle. When a king would enter the city, usually not riding on such a humble animal as a donkey, the people would do just what they are doing to Jesus as they make a path of cloaks and palm branches for Him. The crowds were treating Jesus as a King! And well they should. They may not have realized this because of His humble appearance, but the one that was riding before them, the one who they were praising and honoring and treating like a king, truly was and is the King of the universe. Jesus is the name that is “above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” as it says in our Epistle for today. So Jesus was humbly riding into Jerusalem in Majesty and glory which He deserved.

And while “humbly riding in Majesty” is a true paradox in itself, it only points to the true and main paradox of this text. The main paradox of this text is put into words in the second verse of our Hymn of the Day that we just sang: “Ride on, Ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die. O Christ your triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.” Ride on in majesty...ride on to die. What strange and paradoxical words! But yet, how true those words are.

Here we see Jesus riding into Jerusalem with the crowds praising Him and giving the honor due His name, and yet where is He going? Jesus is going into Jerusalem for the last time in His earthly life. Not even a full week later, He would be before Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Sanhedrin, getting accused of blasphemy and treason. Not a whole week later, He would be spit upon, whipped, mocked, and hit. Not a week later, He would hear the angry crowds shouting to have Him crucified. Not a full week later, He would be hanging on a cross and dying there in front of the all the people. And Jesus knew this on that first Palm Sunday--He knew He was riding in Majesty, riding on to die.

The events on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday seem so contradictory. They seem like they don’t belong in the same week we call Passion Week. Some theologians like to connect the two events by claiming that the crowds that yelled “Crucify Him” on Good Friday were the same crowds that yelled “Hosanna” 6 days earlier on Palm Sunday. But while that very well might be true, that doesn’t make the events seem less contradictory.

Yet that is just what a Paradox is: something that SEEMS to be a contradiction. When someone in our society is going to be executed, we never see them ride Majestically to the death chamber. But while death for everyone else may be the lowest point in their existence, for Jesus, His death was the highest point. On the cross, on that first Good Friday, Jesus cries out, “It is Finished.” It is at the cross that Jesus is victorious over sin. It is at the cross that is God’s finest hour. It is at the cross when we became forgiven of all our sins. So it makes sense that Jesus would ride on to die in Majesty. Instead of being crowned with a jeweled crown and sitting on His throne, He was crowned with thorns and nailed to a tree. But while that looks to all the world like a failure or a low point, we know that it was just the opposite. On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus rode on in Majesty to die for your sins and for mine.

And this Palm Sunday episode was also a foreshadowing of what is yet to come. The people placing their cloaks and palm branches on the ground and praising Him and treating Him like a King, was all a foretaste of what it will be like in Heaven. Again quoting our Epistle: “he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” That is the Paradox of Palm Sunday.

And that paradox of Palm Sunday leads us to see the ultimate paradox of Jesus: Jesus died that we might have life! Again this seems to be a contradiction or a mistake. But Jesus died in our place so that we may inherit eternal life with Him in all glory. In our text we see the crowds proclaiming “Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.” How very significant it is then that at our Baptisms, God placed His name on each and every one of us. We are baptized “IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.” In our baptism we die to sin and are raised with Christ. Jesus rode on to die that we might have life eternally with Him in Heaven.

So, I may not like contradictions. I may not like it when everything is not logical. I may not usually like paradoxes. And maybe you would agree with me in that. But one thing is for sure: these paradoxes of Jesus mean our salvation. So no matter how hard they are to understand, and no matter how strange they sound, these paradoxes are the foundation of our faith and our inherited eternal life. So we can and should praise our God for His wonderful Paradox of Palm Sunday. Thank Him for riding on in Majesty to die. Amen.

Now the Peace of God...