Palm Sunday
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Zechariah 9:9-12; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40
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I.
Silence in the face of lies or evil is an age-old problem.
In today’s reading from Luke 19, the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, on Palm Sunday, the Pharisees try to do the opposite: they try to silence the truth.
“Teacher, rebuke your disciples,” they say.
Rebuke them for what?
Rebuke them for telling the truth about Jesus, for saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
On Palm Sunday, the multitude of the disciples could not be silenced. But too many disciples down through the ages since then have submitted to the Pharisees’ rebuke.
The Church has fallen strangely silent about proclaiming who Jesus is.
The other day I found myself praying, “Lord, if they won’t preach, remove them.”
I was referring to my fellow preachers. An empty pulpit is better than one that won’t preach the gospel.
But why do so many pulpits go silent, or simply preach gibberish?
That is the problem I would like to examine in today’s sermon: Why won’t people speak up in the face of lies or evil?
II.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem signaled that the dramatic finale to His ministry was at hand.
Up until now in Luke, Jesus has avoided Jerusalem. He’s even avoided public recognition of who He is.
Compare these public accolades from the disciples which ends the season of Lent with the story of the Transfiguration, which ended the Epiphany season.
After seeing Jesus’ appearance altered to appear in dazzling white, and hearing the voice from heaven declare Jesus to be God’s beloved Son, Peter, James, and John were at a loss for words.
Luke 9:36, says, “And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silence and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”
Now on Palm Sunday, Luke makes it clear that the time has come to proclaim the truth about Jesus, and furthermore, that the truth about Jesus cannot be suppressed.
Luke describes how Jesus enters Jerusalem to the accolades of His disciples: “At the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.”
The Pharisees rebuke Jesus for not keeping His disciples under control.
Jerusalem is already full of pilgrims, who have come to celebrate Passover. Things could get out of hand.
“Teacher, rebuke your disciples,” some of the Pharisees say to Jesus.
To which Jesus responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
From this it should be clear to the Pharisees that if the stones would hail Jesus as the Christ, then the multitude is certainly right to do so as well.
What this means is that we live in a world where nature tells the truth, even if we do not.
Since the Pharisees represented the religious authority of the day, we can be even more blunt in drawing out the meaning: we live in a world where nature tells the truth, even if the Church does not.
Human beings have a deep need for the truth.
Specifically, they have a deep need to hear the truth spoken out loud, by men whose job it is to tell the truth.
This is why an empty pulpit is better than one that won’t preach the gospel.
A preacher is a watchman, but what good is a watchman who is silent?
Isaiah says this in 50:10, “His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.”
Such are the Pharisees, dogs who won’t bark. Their slumber is disturbed by these barking disciples and so they tell Jesus to rebuke them, to make them shut up.
But they won’t shut up, not today at least, and besides, if they did, Jesus tells us that the very stones of Jerusalem would cry out, to tell the truth about who He is.
Now, we must ask, are we crying out too, or have we allowed ourselves to be rebuked into silence by the Pharisees?
III.
If you ask me, too often the Church allows herself to be rebuked into silence by the Pharisees of this day and age.
Or, at least, challenged to hold her peace.
Jesus even anticipated such challenges to His Church and gave us the words to use.
In Luke 19:31, Jesus says, “If any one asks you, ‘Why are you untying [this colt]?’ you shall say this, ‘The Lord has need of it.’”
Well, the Lord has need of preachers who will preach and of disciples who will shout the truth about Him.
The Lord has need of a Church who will get organized to speak up and speak out about the corruption she sees all around her, and to correct the lies that are being spread about God and the purposes of His creation.
But I see a Church that is too often afraid to do so because of fear, fear combined with a heavy dose of laziness and of being distracted by life’s worries.
Do you ever wonder where all these crowds come from in the gospels? It’s a little like they are extras on a Hollywood set, just waiting for their part to play.
But that can’t be. Everyday people in Galilee or Judea had things to do, lives to live. And Jesus often seems to interrupt people while they’re at work.
He called Simon Peter and Andrew while they were setting out to fish. He interrupted a Samaritan woman who was drawing water at a well.
So, we have to be prepared to let Jesus interrupt us, because there are pressing issues He needs His Church to address.
Now, maybe you’re saying to yourself, “I’m not there yet. I’m just not there, and I don’t know when I will get there.”
Remember: Jesus also healed in body, mind, and soul.
These hosannas shouted in Jerusalem that day testify to “all the mighty works that they had seen” — which means some of those healed by Jesus must have been in the crowd that day.
Jesus has spent His entire ministry so far preparing His disciples to shout the truth about Him, which means that if you find yourself standing silent, go back to Him.
Go back to Him and say, “Lord, I need this healed. I need this demon cast out. I need to be released from this fear that’s holding me back. I need to mortify this sin that is killing me.”
Remember all those “dead branches” I preached about? You have to let Jesus graft you back into the living vine.
Let Him get the sap of the Holy Spirit flowing in you, and then you’ll find that there is no rebuke that will silence you.
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
IV.
Jesus enters Jerusalem to publicly atone for the high-handed sins that could not otherwise be forgiven by the sacrifices in the city’s temple.
This is a truth that the Pharisees want silenced but that the world needs to hear.
The Pharisees wanted it silenced because it meant the end of their political-religious regime.
The temple sacrifices, rooted in the law of Moses, preyed upon human fear. Paul in Hebrews 12:21 writes, “Indeed, so terrifying was the sight [Mt. Sinai, where the law was given on stone tablets] that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’”
But in the following verses, Paul continues:
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,” — an image that evokes Palm Sunday, does it not? — “and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant….”
This is precisely why Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph.
He comes to inaugurate a new covenant, the truth of which cannot be silenced.
V.
We live in a world where nature tells the truth, even if the Church does not.
That is the message of Palm Sunday.
Except that on Palm Sunday, the Church that Jesus gathered around Him, “the whole multitude of the disciples” proclaimed the truth.
This is what the Church must become once again.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey just as the prophet Zechariah said the Messiah would.
He rides into the capital of His nation. He testified against it. He called it to account. He did all of this publicly.
He knew He was on hostile ground. He knew that there was no neutral ground where He and the devil could meet for a mediated discussion, where they could learn to put aside their differences.
He intended to break Satan and topple his kingdom.
He expects His Church to do no less.
He has sent it forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
Everywhere she finds idolatry, she casts those idols down. Everywhere she finds ignorance, she brings knowledge of the true and living God. Everywhere she finds vice and sin, she exhorts the civil authority to stomp them out.
The Church is not neutral because her Lord and Savior is not neutral.
The night before He died Jesus said these words found in John 12:31, “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out.”
That is not a politically neutral statement. It is a declaration of war.
This means that the Church is political by its very constitution. Her work is to complete the task of casting out the ruler of this world, wherever she finds his strongholds.
The Church that proclaims the truth will find that she has many who rally to her.
I said earlier that human beings have a deep need to hear the truth spoken out loud, by men and women whose job it is to tell the truth.
That task is not limited to us preachers, but it begins with us. It is to our shame when others do it and we do not.
Right now, there is a bill pending in Colorado that will define misgendering as child abuse, strip parents of authority, and expose businesses, schools, and churches to legal peril.
My friend, Chase Davis, is the pastor of a church in Boulder, Colorado. He tells me that there is a groundswell of Christians mobilizing to stop this bill.
He also tells me that there are only a few pastors who are willing to lead their flocks in this charge.
I say, and I think Pastor Davis would agree with me, that the pastor who won’t get his hands dirty with his sheep doesn’t deserve his pulpit.
Better to have an empty pulpit than a pulpit that won’t preach the gospel.
Did I say this was happening in Colorado? Because it’s happening here in Connecticut too.
SJ35, a bill the ACLU — without a hint of irony — calls “The Equality Amendment,” proposes to amend the Connecticut State Constitution along much the same lines as what’s being proposed in Colorado.
Also, last week, your Assembly defeated a bill that would have protected houses of worship in the case of an active shooter.
As things stand now in Connecticut, neither I nor any one of you has a right to protect himself should the unthinkable happen here in our sanctuary.
What does that have to do with Palm Sunday and Holy Week and Easter, you ask?
It has to do with Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter, because these visible, public moments in Jesus’ ministry are about telling the truth, publicly.
They’re about telling the truth that Jesus is the King, the Messiah, who comes in the name of the Lord.
They’re about telling the truth that high-handed sins can’t be forgiven by the law, that “sorry” for murder or rape (and most other sins) isn’t good enough, and that we have no hope for reconciliation with God or with each other unless the blood of Christ is shed for our sins.
It’s about telling the truth about the resurrection. That it’s not some archetypal story of nature’s renewal, coinciding with ancient pagan rites of spring, but that it is about how Jesus defeated death, once and for all.
If you can tell the truth about these things of God, then you’ll find that you can tell the truth about the things of man.
That men are men, women are women, and that sex belongs in marriage between one man and one woman.
That the innocence of children is precious and to be protected by the state, by the schools, and by the local public libraries.
That preachers who won’t preach this and politicians who won’t legislate this need to be cast down. They need to be removed.
That, instead of them rebuking us, like the Pharisees they are, the Church needs to rebuke them.
That is why Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was so public and loud, and that is why, by the grace of God, His Church needs to be public and loud, because — God help us — if we’re not, He will cause the very stones of the ground to cry out in our place.
Preached on April 13, 2025 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
What are some modern-day “Pharisees” that try to silence the Church from speaking the truth about Jesus, and how can we respond to them with courage?
Jesus said the stones would cry out if His disciples were silent—where do you see nature or the world testifying to God’s truth today, even when the Church hesitates?
The sermon calls the Church to be “public and loud” like the Palm Sunday crowd—how can we practically live this out in our community, especially when facing issues like those in Colorado or Connecticut?
Download the sermon handout here.
Upcoming Opportunities for Adult Education at the First Congregational Church of Woodbury
Assigned reading for the class is recommended, but not required. Drop-ins are encouraged and welcome.
Christianity and Liberalism. Pastor Dell teaches through J. Gresham Machen’s landmark book Christianity & Liberalism. (Order your copy from Westminster Bookstore here. Download for free here.) We’ll review the fundamentalist-modernist debate that split many mainline Protestant churches in the United States in the 1920s, leaving both impoverished. This is the next step in understanding the Reconquista Pastor Dell preached about earlier this year. Sundays after coffee hour during Eastertide, beginning Sunday, April 27.
The Plan of Salvation. Pastor Dell teaches B.B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation. Warfield masterfully deconstructs three false paths to salvation: self-salvation, salvation through the Church, and salvation for all (universalism), and then demonstrates why the Reformed faith is the faith of the saints of the Bible. Buy a used copy on eBay or download for free here. Sundays after coffee hour June-July.
The Ancient City. Pastor Dell teaches Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges’s classic 19th Century study of The Ancient City. (Order your copy on Amazon here.) Understanding the religion, family, and civic life of ancient Greece and Rome is key to understanding the context of Jesus’ life and ministry, the letters of Paul, and the world of the New Testament church. As our western civilization becomes increasingly post-Christian, we stand in almost the same cultural position as the last pagans of Rome. Sundays after coffee hour in the fall.
Westminster Standards Bible Study. Pastor Dell will lead a Bible study keyed to the biblical texts for each question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Pastor Dell recommends purchasing G. I. Williamson’s The Westminster Shorter Catechism: For Study Classes (available from Christian Books here) and an ESV Study Bible. Pastor has a limited supply of ESV Study Bibles to give away, first come, first served. Wednesday evenings at 6:30 in the parsonage, beginning April 23. N.B., there are 107 questions in the Shorter Catechism, so this Bible Study should last about two years, with periodic breaks. Families with children are welcome.
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