The Fisher King

Lections: Palm Sunday of the Passion, AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It’s all come to a head now. After some three and a half years of Jesus preaching, teaching, healing the sick, working wonders, and generally upsetting the powers that be, the hopes and fears surrounding His ministry have finally reached critical mass. John tells us that this happens due to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, in a very public and spectacular fashion, before crowds of mourners gathered from Jerusalem.

Now, as He approaches Jerusalem, frenzied crowds come out to greet Him, throwing cloaks and palm branches before Him, hailing Him as King and Son of David, crying out, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us, we pray!” And this of course is all illegal. This could very well get the crowd killed, even the children, who take up the cry in the Temple. Rome will tolerate any number of divinities, but never will they tolerate a king. The Empire can have no king but Caesar.

Jesus has been coming to Jerusalem, at least three times a year, throughout His entire life, since He was 40 days old. But this will be the last of it: the final Passover, His final week. Even so, He has no desire for others to die with Him. He tells His disciples to bring to Him a donkey, on which He rides into the city. And this is rather clever, for in antiquity, if a king approached a city and his intentions were unknown, then he would ride in on a donkey in order to show that he came in peace.

This bit of theater keeps the Romans from bringing the hammer down—preventing them from immediately launching into the crowd with swords unsheathed to crush yet another religious rebellion at the height of a holiday—but it also shows the crowds that they’re correct. The King who comes in peace is still a king; indeed, the only true King.

I’m afraid that His fate has been sealed. Jesus will neither back down, nor lift the sword. The city authorities, seeking to avoid a riot, will not seize Him by day, no matter how aggravating they find His parables to be. What they need is a traitor, a spy, someone to lead them to Jesus by night, in order to snatch Him when no-one is looking. And wouldn’t you know it? They find a volunteer. Not just anybody, either, but one of the Twelve Apostles, one of Jesus’ friends and inner circle.

The traitor has his own motives. Some blame greed, others Satan, and surely both played their parts. But Judas knows who Jesus is, and just what Jesus could do. He believes Him to be the Christ, along with the rest of the crowd. How could he not? But what he couldn’t believe, what he couldn’t accept, was the notion that the Messiah would rather die than fight, rather take the Cross than call down fire upon the Legions of Rome.

Judas wants Jesus to win, but he wants Him to win in a human way, in our way, with fire and steel and the blood of the unrighteous in the streets. He thinks that he can force Jesus to show His hand, force Him to fight back. Everybody loves a little vindicating violence. Isn’t that what we’ve been waiting for, for Jesus to act like the Christ? Surely Jesus will fight back, and surely He will win. That’s what Judas thinks. He believes that he’s doing the right thing, doing what must be done. But he’s wrong, dead wrong.

Jesus isn’t like the other kings, or prophets, or priests. Jesus isn’t like any other man, for He is the only perfect Man, the truly human being. And He hasn’t come to start a war. He hasn’t come to set sinners on fire, or bombard the city into submission. He hasn’t come for power, for power means nothing to Him. He has come to save us all from sin, from death, from Hell. He has come to save us from ourselves. And He knows what it will cost Him. He knows how He must suffer, at our hands and for our sake.

Not because of what God demands of Him, but because of what we demand of God. Jesus will suffer. He will die. He will descend into Hell. And the whole time, He will be praying the Psalms and proclaiming to us our forgiveness—forgiving us even as we murder Him. We will throw everything we have at Him: humiliation, abandonment, agony, mutilation. And none of it will do a bit of good. Our violence cannot stop Him. It’ll barely slow Him down. Because the Blood that we shall shed shall be the Blood that saves us all.

For death has no dominion over love. But now—now Love shall have dominion over death! And every knee shall bend, and every tongue confess, the Passover Lamb who stands as though slain. All of us are Judas. All of us betrayed Him. Yet the Risen Jesus Christ shall save us all.

You shall see. All of us shall see. Soon.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026