Palm Sunday, Apr. 1, 2012
Fr. Anthony Brankin
(Full text of sermon) Did you notice in the Gospel on Palm Sunday that Pontius Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus died in only three hours?
Well, the reason he was surprised was because usually the victim of a crucifixion endured on the cross for eighteen to twenty-four hours. Yes, it was a very slow, tortuous means of execution.
You see, the person who was crucified had his arms placed on the cross at just the correct angle. This was so that when he was raised up, his body would slump forward making it very difficult for him to breathe properly.
He could inhale, but not exhale. When his lungs were then full to bursting, he would pull himself up on his hands and push himself up on his feet. All this so that he could breathe just a little easier.
Now remember, Jesus was in a terribly weakened state. He had been beaten and whipped and bruised for a night and a half. No sleep, no food. No respite. He had lost most of His Blood in the whippings and beatings.
Three hours of hanging
And by the time they nailed his hands to the cross, His poor heart had almost nothing left to pump—just the “serum”—the last watery-bloody bit of bodily fluid. So after three hours, there came the moment when Jesus could not pull Himself up to breathe and He sank down, His lungs filled with air, and He died.
Do you remember how they broke the legs of the two thieves? Well, the soldiers were tired of this desert drama—and so when Jesus, (the star of their show) was already dead, they decided to break the legs of the other two so that they could no longer get up. And they would then die—and immediately.
Yes, Pilate was surprised, but he should not have been. After all, he was the one who condemned Jesus to torture. He should have listened to his wife and had nothing to do with this righteous Man.
We would not have been saved
But then, of course, we would not have been saved. If the Son of God did not die for us and offer His life as a sacrifice for our souls, then we all would have died in our sins and in our misery and in our suffering; and we would know for sure that we were a condemned race if ever there were one.
But Jesus suffered and died for no other reason than that He, God, loved us. He loved us then and He loves us now. And God wants us to be with Him despite our wickedness, despite our filthy sinfulness, despite our poverty and pettiness.
Of course, He will make us good. He will transform us in His grace. He will draw from our souls and bodies right-living and right-thinking and right loving. He will not take us to heaven in our evil, but because He has changed us into images of Himself—into good.
Rejected an earthly kingship
That is why it is so beautiful to see that Jesus rejects the crown they offer Him on Palm Sunday. Hosanna Son of David! They want to make Him king. But He will not be a petty politician like the rest of them. He is the Son of God who has more to do than to be like Herod and Cesar and Pontius Pilate—the Head Corrupter of all the corrupted. He will be for the people a real King—a king who rather than demanding that His people give up their lives for him—will offer his life so that His people can live.
And this King will wear a true crown—and he will sit on a real throne, but not like all the other kings of the world, for the crown Jesus wears will be a crown of thorns and the throne upon which he sits will be a cross of wood, stained with blood.
His subjects will be the little ones
And his subjects will not be the greedy and crafty politicians. His subjects will be the poor and the dispossessed and the ill and the infirm and the sorrowful and afflicted. They are the ones who will salute Him with a kiss and a tear in their eye. And they will come by on Friday, to see their King. They will have their walkers and wheelchairs—their canes and crutches. They will be the hungry families and the starving babies. They will be all the soldiers killed in all the wars for the political kings. Even all the little babies killed in the wombs of mothers who did not want them—they will be there too; for they know that at least King Jesus wants them and He will have a place at His table for them. And all will know on Friday that even if no one else loves them, Jesus loves them and has a place in His kingdom for all of them.
To prove this to themselves, all they have to do is glance up and see Him on His Cross and see how He suffers just as much as they do.