Meg Peery McLaughlin
Cross Talk: Join the Parade
Theory of Atonement: Christus Victor
March 24, 2024
Mark 11: 1-11
Prayer for Illumination
As the beams of the cross join together at the point of intersection,
meet us here, O God, in the reading of your word.
Meet us here at the crossroads and make yourself known to us,
so that we might see you more clearly, as well as the path you would have us follow. Amen.
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this: ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’ ” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them what Jesus had said, and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
This is the week that defines the world .
This is the week we remember God’s most redemptive act.
The week we remember all the ways we have gotten things wrong,
and the week God continues to show us
how everything might be made right again.
It all begins today.
With a parade.
Actually, with two parades.
The Palm Parade for King Jesus
and a second parade that took place that same day,
that is not mentioned in scripture,
but in several other historical sources.
Two scholars named Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan
describe how while Jesus’ parade enters Jerusalem from the east,
on the opposite side of town, Pontius Pilate enters from the west.
His is a parade not of hope, but of hostility.
Pilate was a Roman-installed prefect who usually stayed in his palace in Caesarea.
But this was the beginning of the week of Passover,
the most sacred week of the Jewish year,
when the faithful celebrated their people’s liberation
from their oppressors in Egypt.
The unleavened bread, the blood on the door lintels, the red sea parting.
Roman rulers always came to town for major festivals like this,
not to worship, but to reinforce who really was in charge.
Pilate certainly didn’t want anyone to get the idea
that it was time to be liberated again, this time from the power of the empire.
The goal was intimidation.
It was a flex of military muscle to make people afraid and therefore easier to control.
It is a time-tested strategy.
It still is practiced today.
Jesus’ parade was decidedly different.
There were no weapons.
There were no soldiers.
There were no threats to your personhood or dignity if you didn’t agree.
In fact, it was quite the opposite:
instead of an armored horse, a donkey
instead of a national anthem, quotes from scripture.
No fear bound subjects, but disciples filled with joy .
Christ the King, riding into Jerusalem on the humblest of creatures
one slow step at a time as the crowd throws coats and branches shouting,
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Their words comes from their finest songbook, the book of Psalms.
Psalm 118 says “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,
but the crowd, knowing full well the proper lyrics makes a change.
They add “Blessed is the coming kingdom.”
For they know the truth.
They know Jesus ushers in a new reign,
a different kind of government,
a radical reversal of how every other kingdom had done it since time immemorial.
Two parades,
coming at each other from opposites sides of the city
one proclaiming the kingdom of God
and the other proclaiming the power of empire.
It stands to reason that eventually they will run into one another.
But their inevitable collision is about so much more than geography.
Their collision—their collision of theology and ideology—
well, that’s what leads to the cross.
When hope is met with hostility,
eventually something’s gotta give,
because the two simply cannot exist together.
My friend the Rev. Jenny McDevitt wisely notes
that Jesus does not stop Pilate’s parade.
He could. But he doesn’t.
Jesus simply offers an alternative.
That was always his way,
and it is still his way today.
I am the way, he says.
His way is never one that counters violence with more of the ugly same.
Jesus instead presents
the way of love,
the power that will always, always rise,
even when it seems otherwise.
If you are new to us, we are so glad you are our guest today,
and I’ll tell you that we’ve been talking a lot about the cross
and how the church over the centuries has tried to make sense of it,
and name how what happens on the cross makes us at one with God.
It is no mistake that today,
our last theory of atonement is Christus Victor.
Latin for Christ the Victor,
which says that the work of Christ is first and foremost
a victory over sin, death, any power which tries to hold humankind down.
Two parades
one looks the more powerful,
but the one with the palms and psalms is ultimately the one we’d be wise to join.
In JK Rowling’s 5th Harry Potter book, the Order of the Phoenix,
Harry and his friends have broken into the Ministry of Magic on a quest,
and they clash with Voldemort and his death-eaters in a horrid way.
It is a low, low moment for the boy with shaggy hair and a big scar.
At one point as Harry and Voldemort are in a mighty struggle,
Harry says to the one who has him writhing on the ground in a death grip,
“You’re the weak one. And you will never know friendship, or love.
And I feel sorry for you.”
That is Christus Victor. Love has already won. Evil is ultimately defeated.
It is almost as if J.K. Rowling stole her lines from the great Desmond Tutu,
who used to say to the apartheid government in South Africa,
“You may have the guns, you may have all this
power, but you have already lost. Come, join the winning side.”
Because love will rise.
The green of palms will always hold more power
than guns or greed or garish displays of ego.
Now, church, you know as well as I do what happens this week.
There will be betrayal.
Denial.
A death sentence.
Crucifixion.
A cold, dark tomb.
And you know as well as I do what we’ve witnessed living
in our own nation of late, when the public gathers in big parade like moments.
In Kansas City, at the Superbowl parade for the Chiefs, gun fire.
In Charlottesville, at a peaceful protest, a white supremacist driving into the crowd.
In DC, at the transfer of power, a symbol of our democracy, insurrection.
It’s all enough to think the Palm Parade was in vain.
But all of that will ultimately fail. It already has.
For church, we live under the banner of Christus Victor.
And I invite you to keep your palm this week, a symbol of this parade.
Keep your palm to remember how Jesus
calmly, intentionally, steps decidedly forward
humbly, peacefully walks smack into the whatever comes from the opposite side.
Take your palm to remember
how Jesus always offers another way,
an alternative way of being for those who are tired of the way things are.
Take your palm to remember
that though we know very well how to form the words:
“crucify him” with our own mouths, we also know the words of the psalms,
they are buried deep within us,
ready to spring forth
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
and blessed is his coming kingdom.”