I rise to confess to you today that I am something of a parade grinch. The experiences of parades saved in my file of memories aren’t all that great. When I was still on a tricycle, my brother and I entered a holiday bike parade. He wore a pirate suit and his two-wheeler was decorated as a Pittsburgh Pirate Ship. With chicken wire and tissue paper wrapped around my bike, I was the “green weenie”, a good luck charm for the Pirates back in the day. We won first prize. But what I remember most is the chicken wire that cut up my legs as I pedaled my tricycle. I once said a prayer of invocation at the start of a Fireman’s Parade, standing on a ladder, holding a bull horn, “dear God.” There was the Christmas Parade one year in Blackwood where the Youth Group decided to work hard on a float. They created a manger scene on a flat bed trailer complete with a Christmas Tree and several younger kids dressed as angels. It was a cold blustery night and by the time the parade passed the church where many in the congregation had gathered, the tree had blown down. The lights run by a generator had gone out. The angels were all sitting in the cab of the truck because they were cold, and Mary and Joseph were clearly having something of spat up there for all the town to see.
      I stood along the street in Disney World with one of my kids in my arms waiting for that “Parade of Lights” to begin. The family right next to us had clearly had enough in what must have been a very long day. The dad turned to the mom as the children were crying and tensions were a bit high, and he said “I knew it would be bad, I didn’t think it would be this bad!” And one summer up in the Endless Mountains of Central Pennsylvania we sat on the curb for a 4th of July Parade. It was a short parade for a small town and we didn’t have to line up early or save our space there along the way. We thought it had finished, after the mayor and a fire truck or two, a float with the Dairy Princess, and some folks playing a bit of Sousa. There was something of a lull so we started to pick up our blanket and chairs. But then there was another decorated car coming. The same decorated car that carried the mayor and the major was still in it. The parade was coming around for a second lap. Everyone there on the curb cheered and clapped just like the first time around. The parade was going in circles.
      A parade grinch may be a bit harsh. But when it comes to parades, I am bit of a skeptic. A cynic. A nudge, even. So, with full disclosure, there may be a whole lot of projection going on for this preacher on this Palm Sunday with this gospel reading, but I think Luke is a bit of a parade skeptic too. A bit of wet blanket on the parade thing, especially when compared to Matthew, Mark and John. Here in Luke’s account of the Triumphal Entry, there aren’t any palm branches being waved. There aren’t any “Hosannas” being shouted. There’s no sense of a gathering crowd running to line the streets, throngs of nameless folks pressing in, people running before and running after. There’s no telling of a buzz running through the city, like the one John describes; the crowds coming out to see the one who raised Lazarus from the dead. For Luke its not the gawkers and bottle neckers. It’s not a gaper delay caused by the interested but uninformed. The crowd surrounding Jesus, that crowd is the whole multitude of disciples who are praising God with loud voices for all the deeds of power that they had seen.
      A multitude of disciples who had watched Jesus invite himself to the home of Zacchaeus the chief tax collector. A multitude who had heard him pronounce salvation in that house. This was the multitude, the ones who were with him when he healed the blind man by the side of the road. The ones who listened as he predicted his own suffering and as he taught in parables and as he made some things very clear, like serving the poor, and not judging, and loving your enemies. The whole multitude of disciples, at least some of whom must have been with him there in the boat when he calmed the storm, there at the waters edge when he healed the Gerasene demonic, there on the doorstep of the house of Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, as Jesus saved his daughter from death, there in the crowd when that woman with a hemorrhage touched Jesus so that she might be healed. These disciples were the ones now joyfully offering shouts of praise for all the deeds of power they had seen. This shout out, for Luke, it wasn’t a “you’re the man, Jesus” kind of thing. It wasn’t a line the streets and yell out stupid stuff kind of day, making best friends with the stranger next to you because they have better refreshments. It wasn’t a join the crowd and suddenly start to sing “I love a parade” just to get the party started. For Luke, the shout out came from the disciples and they were thanking God for what they had seen and heard and experienced. It was more than just a parade.
      Apparently Luke wasn’t so enamored with palm branches and hosannas. The stuff of parades. Instead of “Hosanna in the highest”, the multitude of disciples here in Luke shout out “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” Attentive readers of the gospel ought to recognize the tune. Followers of Jesus who have been leaning into listen along the Way ought to recognize the refrain. Those who have feasted on a bit of grace ought to recognize the riff here on the heavenly host’s song that fell on the shepherds back on the Holy Night. Like a jazz musician who in the midst of a long solo, the sax player who suddenly breaks into a tune that everyone recognizes, Luke’s crowd on Palm Sunday touches on the notes of a familiar tune. Luke’s Palm Sunday choir sounds more than a bit like another multitude, like the multitude of the heavenly host in Bethlehem’s sky praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favors.” The multitude of the heavenly host. The multitude of the disciples. And the shout out of praise that stretches all the back to the Savior’s birth; “for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” It’s more than just a parade.
      According to Luke, “Some of the Pharisees in the crowds said to Jesus, Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” Which could mean stop the parade. Stop the shouting. Stop the disruption here in the street. Disburse the crowd. But remember, I’m suggesting that for Luke, it never was about the parade. “Rebuke your disciples” is how the text reads in most translations. The Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke his disciples. Scold them. Put them in their place. Show them that they are wrong. Teacher, order your disciples to stop this praise-filled testimony of everything that you have done from the moment of your birth until right now here along Jerusalem’s Way. Tell them how wrong they are in piecing all this together, how wrong they are to give witness to such Good News, how mistaken they are in proclaiming salvation’s story. “Teacher order your disciples to stop” (Na, na, na, na! Holding ears as if not wanting to hear anymore.) The Pharisees don’t want to hear it.
      Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” The stones would tell the same story. The stones would praise God joyfully. The stones would tell of all the deeds of power. Creation itself will start to sing. The mountains and the hills....shall burst into song, the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55). The stones themselves will give the shout out! Because this, this inevitable act of praise and testimony that gives witness to the fullness of God’s love and the breadth of the gospel and the sure and certain promise of the coming kingdom of God, it is more than just a parade.
      Early this week in a staff meeting, we were trying to explain to our newest staff member how the palm parade worked here in the sanctuary. I turned to Noel, our Director of Music, and I said, “It’s like this” And I moved each arm rather wildly in a circle. What’s a bit scary, is that Noel knew exactly what I meant and no one had to add another explanatory word about the Palm Sunday parade at Nassau Church. It goes in circles, just like that 4th of July parade in Sullivan County, Pa. That can be a problem when it comes to a parade; when it comes to a liturgical celebration, if the ritual is an accurate reflection of our journey along the Way with Jesus, as you find yourself in the same spot, singing the same song, shouting the same words, year after year after year.
      The last thing Luke wants for the reader of his gospel, is for you to just save your place there at the curb. The multitude of the disciples, with their testimony and with their song, they want you to look back, at all deeds of power, not just in the biblical record, but in your life. And Jesus, well Jesus wants you to look forward. Jesus keeps right on going toward Jerusalem, toward that night of his betrayal, toward his own suffering, toward his own abandonment by all who loved him. Jesus keeps right on going toward the cross, there where with his arms outstretched he reaches to embrace the world in his death, there where having loved his own, he loved them until the end. Jesus keeps right on going and bids you to come. The place for you and for your salvation, it isn’t here at the curb. It is there at the foot of the cross. It was never about the parade.
      Just as you start to head that way, when you’re no longer watching the procession, but when you find yourself in it, somewhere not far down the Way, Jesus stops. Or as told by Luke, “As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” As Jesus came near and saw the city, the world, our humanity, and he wept over it. Jesus came near to us and he wept.
      Most pastors at some point on Palm Sunday put in word for Holy Week services. By far when it comes to the liturgical journey of the next week, the majority of folks won’t come back until Easter Sunday. So you can understand the invitation to stop along the way, a weeknight service, Maundy Thursday Tenebrae, Good Friday at noon. The invitation is to stop along the way so that we together might ponder the suffering and the death of Jesus. That we might ritually speaking, shed tears before coming back to shout again for joy on Easter Day. But I wonder if that’s not the wrong emphasis when it comes to an invitation to Holy Week. Because when you find yourself off the curb and somewhere along the Way, when Jesus bids you to stop along the Way and look around, when you look at the world and our humanity, Holy Week ought to be about his tears, not ours.
      Palm Sunday in Luke. It never was about the parade. It is all about his tears.

Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission