The Reverend Mike Riggins 4/2/23

The Big Entry

Psalm 118:19-29
Matthew 21:1-11

In Psalm 118 and Matthew 21 we find two ceremonial entries. Psalm 118 also

contains two verses Jesus quoted to the chief priests and leaders of Israel. They did

not understand what they really meant, but later, with post-resurrection hindsight, his

disciples would. Our passage belongs to a unit, stretching from Psalm 113-118. The

rabbis call them the Hallel Psalms. Hallel means praise in Hebrew, and these six are

among the most joyous, positive and praise-filled of all the psalms. Scholars debate

this, but those to whom I usually turn agree that Psalm 118 served as the liturgy for an

annual worship pageant that re-enacted a king's triumphal return to Jerusalem

following a victory in battle. See if you agree as we work through verses 19-29 from

that perspective.

The king would have spoken verse 19 (“Open to me the gates of righteousness,

that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord”) as he stood outside the

temple gates. Crowds gathered to participate in the ceremony would have massed

behind the king. The priests would have stood inside and opened the gate upon

hearing his voice. They would have replied with the words of verse 20 (“This is the

gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter through it.”) The king would respond with

the next section, which includes verses 21-25. They include a petition for the Lord's
help, thanksgiving for having received it already, and that section Jesus quoted but

nobody understood until later. At this point the king alone would have crossed the

threshold into the inner court of the temple.

And that misunderstood verse? “The stone which the builders rejected has

become the head of the corner,” Jesus said at the end of the very chapter from which

we got today's New Testament lesson, Matthew 21. This is a quote from Psalm 118,

as we learned this morning. As he stood in the Temple courtyard and spoke to the

chief priests and Pharisees, they took him literally. They interpreted his words as

applying to the temple building itself. Earlier in his ministry, standing in nearly the

same spot, he had promised that the Temple would crumble but he would rebuild it in

three days. Again, they had interpreted his words literally and mocked him for

claiming the power to rebuild such a magnificent structure so rapidly. In both cases, of

course, Jesus referred to himself. To his body, to be sure, but to his entire redemptive

work. He would die and come back to life in three days. By so doing he would

complete God's plan for the salvation of all who believe in Jesus as the Christ.

Who can say what the author of Psalm 118 meant by the rejected stone

becoming the cornerstone, the foundation on which everything else depended? Old

Testament scholar Barnard Anderson advanced the novel theory that these Hallel

Psalms were probably written by a committee. They are liturgy, and much liturgy then

and now gets written in collaboration with others. They were used in community. The

parts of Psalm 118 recited by the crowds attending the ceremony were voiced by
hundreds, if not thousands, gathered just outside the Temple. Those masses would

have recited verses 26 and 27. Moving inward, toward the doors to the sanctuary,

they would have chanted blessings on the one who enters in the name of the Lord.

They would say, “We bless you from the house of the Lord!”

Once the priests, the king and those permitted to go inside the sanctuary had

done so, the king would have recited verse 28: “Thou art my God, and I will give

thanks to thee; thou art my God, I will extol thee.” These words, using the formal

second person to address God, manage to combine formal solemnity with an intensely

personal expression of praise. “Thou are my God, and I am your king. I give you all

glory and honor for protecting me.” And at the last, the whole people present would

recite verse 29: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love

endures forever.” With that, the priests would enter the inner sanctum, the most

inward section of the sanctuary save for the Holy of Holies, approach the high altar,

and perform sacrificial offerings.

One of the greatest entrances ever occurred during the Opening Ceremonies of

the 2012 London Olympics. (And before proceeding, allow me to opine those

ceremonies also offered one of the funniest moments in the history of such over-the-

top extravaganzas. Rowan Atkinson, the British comedian who brilliantly mimes the

comic character Mr. Bean, acted out his thrill at getting to play in the pit orchestra. The

only problem was they wanted him to play one note, over and over and over again. It

was the synthesizer for the theme for Chariots of Fire. The part went like this: “nah
nah nah nah nah nah nah.... Go watch a video of it if you have never seen it—or if

you have forgotten it.)

Of course, neither Atkinson nor the people I am about to name actually did the

things the Olympics people portrayed them as doing. The organizers got Daniel Craig,

then at the height of his run as James Bond, to help make a video. Amazingly, they

also got Queen Elizabeth II to participate. Then 86 years of age, she pretended to

leave Buckingham palace aboard a helicopter with Bond's help. They flew at building-

top level across the City of London, through the Tower Bridge, and on to the stadium.

There the helicopter hovered in the video, as a real helicopter appeared over the real

crowds. In the video, the Queen and Bond parachute down to the field. In real life,

the Queen, wearing exactly the same outfit she wore in the video, walks through a

stadium gateway and down to her seat. The crowds had started cheering when the

real helicopter appeared over their heads and did not slacken in volume for some

minutes until the Queen stood and acknowledged them. What an entrance!

Queen Elizabeth II knew what it meant to play out the script, to perform the

religious as well as the secular duties of her office. She did her duty. And most of her

subjects adored her for it. We have an English sister-in-law. She once claimed she

had seen two polls run at the same time. When asked about their monarchy in the

whole, the Brits gave the royals a very low approval rating. When asked about the

Queen herself, they flipped the numbers to give her one of the highest approval

ratings of any world leader. Our sister-in-law concurs with both results. In Psalm 118
we find an example of kings doing their duty. An earlier king had created the tradition

of using the words of Psalm 118 as the liturgy for an annual religious ceremony. Latter

kings dutifully kept the tradition.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the day we commemorate with Palm

Sunday worship services, he performed one of the toughest duties of all time. He

knowingly, willingly rode to his own death. He entered as a king. He entered as the

king. He acted out, created a performative parable, of a prophecy. That prophecy

made two important points. First, he was the king whom the prophets had foreseen in

their visions hundreds of years before. The prophets “saw” this happening through the

inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord. But they also saw the second important point: this

king would not enter in majesty. He would enter riding on the colt of a donkey. The

Gospel of Luke tells us this animal was so young, no one had ever ridden it before. It

was so short Jesus probably had to lift his feet so they would not drag on the ground.

This is no king riding a mighty charger leading the masses to the gates of the temple.

This is no queen riding in a helicopter. This is the son of God acting out of humility.

Nevertheless, this moment proved to be the height of Jesus' career in the eyes

of his people. Never before and never after would his approval numbers go higher.

The people lining the road on which they have laid their own cloaks, waving palm

branches and singing Hosanna! are bursting with anticipation. Their scholars have

been telling them for years that the signs they find in the law and the prophets seem

likely all to point to now as the time the Messiah will appear. Could Jesus be the
Messiah? Rumors of his miracles have preceded him into town. Word has spread of

his incredible teachings, and of how he has bested the hypocritical scribes and

Pharisees in theological debates. He has power. He has knowledge. Surely he must

be the One who would lead the people in overthrowing the two forces that oppress

them: the Romans and their own leaders.

Well, he would not be the One for whom they look. And he would. He would be

the Messiah but not the kind of Messiah they expected. Overlooking the humble

circumstances of his birth—and of his entry this day into Jerusalem; choosing not to

think about his challenging teaching; forgetting the prophets had warned them it might

be better not to be alive when God finally chose to intervene decisively in human

affairs; the people worked themselves into a frenzy. The king has come! Long live the

king! And then, within five days, they turn on him. He gets nailed to the cross. And

they approve. Of course, with hindsight we can see he had to die. Otherwise he

could not rise from the dead. The stone had to get rejected so it could become the

cornerstone. In a few moments, folks will “strip” this sanctuary. They will remove

almost all ornamentation in preparation for the rejection of Christ that Good Friday

represents. To those who may feel this impinges on what ought to be the joy of Palm

Sunday all we can say is, it really did turn that quickly.

From celebration to rejection...to celebration again. As they say in the black

church, it may be Friday but Sunday's coming. Let us all keep this in mind

throughout this coming week. The rejection had to happen. So did the resurrection.