Delivered on Sunday 16 March 2008 in St George's Chapel

Palm Sunday

It's match day and eighty-thousand supporters are making their way to Twickenham. There are men women and children decked out in the lily-white and then there are those sporting the emerald green. A white army and a green army marching on this great stadium with hearts and minds full of expectation. Will Cipriani make a difference at outhalf? Will Horgan get the chance to use his force and speed? Can either hooker manage to throw the ball straight? The air is tight with excitement - for there can only be one winner, and you have to wait a whole year before the opportunity crops up again.

If you recognise anything in this description you will know something of what it must have been like in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago. This was a great national holiday, the two feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread. Whole towns would empty as people streamed up to Jerusalem. The city would be at breaking point with some three hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims trying to find accommodation either in the centre or one of the outlying villages. The drill was straightforward: you had to get there a few days earlier than Passover itself because there was a spot of ritual cleansing to be done. Sacrificing the lamb would come later but first you needed to be sprinkled with the water of purification. And that presumably is what Jesus was on his way to do when he entered into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.

Rather like our rugby match, however, there were two marches happening at once. On the one hand there was this great march of pilgrims but on the other was the arrival of the Roman prefect and his extra troops. Crowd trouble is nothing new and if you're occupying territory you need to be doubly careful. Those Roman troops would have made their way into the city from the West. Jesus, by contrast, began his journey from the Mount of Olives, he arrived from the East. For those who had any understanding of what was going on the symbolism would not have been lost. For this was no mere accident; in the tradition of the prophets, Jesus knew full well that his actions were full of meaning.

Symbolic actions had always been part of the prophet's armoury. Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for a full three years as a sign against Egypt and Ethiopia; Jeremiah broke a pot to show that the Temple would be destroyed; Ezekiel performed extraordinarily complicated actions such as lying for long periods of time, first on one side and then on the other. All of these signs would have needed interpretation. It's all very well wandering around in your birthday suit, but what's the message? Well, in Jesus instance the onlooker would need have thought back to the prophecy in Zechariah:

Daughter of Zion, rejoice with all your heart; shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king is coming to you, his cause won, his victory gained, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
In arriving into Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus understood his action as fulfilling this ancient prophecy. He was announcing: I am the king. [1]

And this was a knowledgeable crowd. They saw Jesus riding in on a donkey and they responded by throwing their clothes on the road and by waving palms, both, in themselves, signs that they knew what was going on. When in the days of Elisha, Jehu was anointed king, the people snatched up their cloaks and spread them under his feet. [2] And when some years later, Simon Maccabeus entered victoriously into Jerusalem he was met with a crowd cheering and waving palms. By throwing down clothes and waving palms the crowd were responding to Jesus' symbolic action by showing that they understood. Or did they?

The crowds lining the streets sing out in one great chant: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the heavens! It might not be 'Swing low, sweet chariot' or 'The fields of Athenry' but it too is a song of expectation. Here comes the King. Here comes the Son of David. Here is the one who comes in power and in glory, the one who will overthrow the Roman authorities and give back to Israel the empire it once enjoyed.

In truth, however, it is unlikely that there were crowds of people welcoming Jesus. Any mention of kings at a mass demonstration would have resulted in a much earlier arrest and execution. I suspect the crowds were smaller in number, and by virtue of the fact that they understood the symbolism I should have thought that they were insiders, people who had perhaps seen some of the miracles, who knew just what Jesus was capable of. And they were in a frenzy of unbridled expectation. What is this Jesus going to do for us?

And I suppose that is a key question on Palm Sunday. What do you think Jesus is going to do for you? As we begin Holy Week that is our starting point, a reflection of what we expect of Jesus.

May the God who said, 'Out of darkness light shall shine,' cause his light to shine in our hearts, the light which is knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. [3]

[1] Zechariah 9:9

[2] 2 Kings 9:13

[3] 2 Corinthians 4:6