I Kings 1:
Luke 19:28-44
This past week astronomers gave us that awe-inspiring photograph of a black hole—what has been called “a bottomless pit in the fabric of the universe from which not even light can escape.” This particular black hole is some 6.5 billion times bigger than our sun and 55 million light year away. But you don’t have to travel that far—we have a black hole right in the center of our own galaxy.
You probably heard that surrounding each black hole, meanwhile, is an invisible boundary known as the "event horizon" that essentially marks the point of no return. Nothing escapes. It’s over.
On a more human level, we know that, as the title of the biography of Jim Morrison puts it: No One Here Gets Out Alive.
So the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth wrote of the word “buried” in the Apostles' Creed that the “future toward which all human present is running is just this: to be buried, to be accessible only to memory.”
Many would say that—even while we hear songs of gladness and shouts of joy—Palm Sunday is shadowed with doom and death. We’re approaching an “event horizon.”
It is the beginning of the end.
Because of this, many would advise us on Palm Sunday: Curb your enthusiasm. Go easy with those palm branches. Remember what is coming.
In order to do just that, some congregations—and entire denominations—have taken to marking this day not only as “Palm Sunday” but also as “Passion Sunday”—getting the Hosannas out of the way early on so that the story of betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion can be heard in all its fullness by everyone—even by those who would avoid the worship services of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
Palm Sunday, they tell us, is the beginning of the end.
Maybe so.
After all, physicists tell us of “the world's general tendency toward decay.”
Iron rusts.
Fallen logs rot.
Bathwater cools to the temperature of its surroundings.
This tendency is codified as the second law of thermodynamics, which can be paraphrased as “You can’t unscramble an egg.” The Second Law tells us that, left to themselves, atoms will mix and randomize themselves as much as possible.
Iron rusts because atoms in the iron are forever trying to mingle with oxygen in the air to form iron oxide.
Bathwater cools because fast-moving molecules on the surface of the water collide with slower-moving molecules in the air, and gradually transfer their energy.
We see the tendency of things to decay all around us.
We see it in relationships that fall apart.
We see it in organizations that were once strong and are now struggling.
We see it in the wear and tear that comes with growing older.
We see it in the betrayal and death of this week.
Ultimately we see it in our own death.
Left to themselves, there is a general tendency for things to decay, to fall apart.
The beginning of the end.
But look once more. Look closely. Things are not over yet.
They are not anywhere near being over.
Yes, there is betrayal and death this week—and we do not avoid it.
There is betrayal and death—and we do not forget it.
This approaching death, however, tells us something other than the familiar and credible message that the world is a hard and brutal place. We do not need the death of Jesus to convince of that that.
This death announces life—new life in Christ.
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, we stand at the beginning of the new beginning.
New beginnings often happen at those times that seem least likely—when people hit bottom, when no good options appear possible.
It’s like the woman I once heard. She was talking about her life, which had not gone well. Bad circumstances combined with bad choices for bad results. She said that people told her, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” But she decided that life didn’t have to be like that. She made new choices, took new actions, created new circumstances.
“Not only do you not have to lie in the bed you’ve made,” she said, “You can go out and get a whole new bed if you want!”
What a wonderful way to live!
People and organizations reshape themselves; they find new energy and purpose. People renew relationships after sinking into hatred or, worse, apathy.
This is, after all, something going on the world that is not explained by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Fallen logs rot, but trees grow.
You know about promises not kept. But you also know of lasting commitments.
People betray one another, yet we find the ability to love.
So what's going on?
There is a clue in the phrase “left to themselves. . .”[i]
In the real world atoms and molecules are never entirely left to themselves. They are almost always exposed to a certain amount of energy and material flowing in from the outside. And if that flow of energy and material is enough, then the steady decay and degradation demanded by the second law of thermodynamics can be partially reversed.
When outside energy and material enters an atom or a molecule, a life, an organization, a people, a new quality of being alive develops.
This insight from the world of physics can help us grasp the meaning of this day and the week ahead.
In the real world, we too are not left to ourselves.
In the midst of a despairing and hopeless situation, we hear again the good news that there is a power at work doing something unexpected, something undeserved. There is a power at work in the world that brings new life where we might expect no life.
This is, we say in faith, nothing less than the power of the living God.
When it seems as though we have reached the beginning of the end, we are instead be near the beginning of the new beginning.
What was regarded as the certain end is not seen that way by God. We are not left to ourselves. This is the new beginning. Religious people might call it “new life in Christ,” or the “power of the resurrection.” It’s the energy that makes new life possible.
Here’s the thing: We can’t skip over the hard parts in this coming week. We can’t skip over the hard parts in our own lives or in the world. Illness must be walked through in all its pain and uncertainty and treatment and healing day by day. The sorrow of grief is with us when we wake each morning. The anxiety about tomorrow keeps us awake in the night. And we know quite well that we will not suddenly arrive on the pleasant shores of racial harmony, interfaith understanding, or international peace. The perilous journeys to such lands are long and need our best efforts each day.
We are familiar with suffering and sorrow. And at the same time, we know that we are not alone in these days—and in all our days.
We have one another in this this church—and that is our glorious advantage. Ask anyone who has been through a difficult time and they will tell you that they made it through in part because of the other members here—because people whom you are sitting next to, maybe even because of yourself. We bear one another’s burdens. We support one another in our efforts toward a just world.
We also have the sustaining presence of God, the One who in Jesus Christ suffers with us. This is not an unmoved, impassible god, but the One who responds to human pain. God in Christ enters into the very heart of our suffering and the suffering of the world. In Jesus, God takes on human suffering, bearing it fully on the cross. That is our wholeness, our well-being, our salvation.
Love releases a tremendous amount of energy. Everything that was being used for resentment, for anger, hatred, or self-loathing is now available for something more positive. So, as we heard a couple of weeks ago, Jesus tells us love God and love your neighbor.
The season of Lent is drawing to a close. As the daylight hours continue to lengthen, we begin to see the yearly signs of new life around us: the grass turns green, flowers break through the hard earth now softened by the rain. This world is not left to itself. There is a power that is constantly bringing new life, new energy into it.
This is the ultimate message of Lent: that we, too, are not left on our own. God’s resurrection power comes to renew our lives, not just for a season, but with each new day.
Our hope is in God’s power to begin again, in God’s power to renew destroyed lives. Our hope is still found in the continual springtime of God’s mercy.
We will not curb our enthusiasm. We will not go easy. If we did the very stones would shout.
Remember what is coming. This day—every day—we stand at the beginning of the new beginning.
[i]Complexity, pg. 32.