10^th April 2012

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 1 April 2012

Lessons -- Psalm 118:19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 11:1-11

'Hosanna in the highest heaven to the One who comes in the name of
the Lord.' (Mark 11:9,10)

If you are a celebrity then you have arrived. Celebrated stars of sport
and entertainment are widely admired and envied. News and magazines are
full of their activities, every move reported on Facebook and Twitter.
Celebrities sell products and promote causes. They are treated as experts
on issues unrelated to their talents: climate change, euthanasia, same-sex
'marriage', reproductive rights and much else. Their glitzy lifestyles and
libertarian values are held up as models to be copied. They help us escape
our anonymity -- the drama of their lives giving us importance beyond our
own small concerns.

When public figures are so celebrated then image, style and charisma
triumph over reality and substance. We are likely to mistake opinion for
truth, triviality for profundity, instant gratification for lasting
fulfilment.

The Church is not immune from the temptations of 'celebrity culture'. Most
famous religious figures -- evangelical, liberal or new-age -- cultivate
their celebrity status. They use simple, punchy slogans and a slick,
polished style to attract media attention to themselves and make people
feel self-important at participating in their fame.

These considerations are important as we come to Palm-and-Passion Sunday.
It is not simply a familiar story from the past. It is an account of a
celebrity who, being unlike any other, transforms our ideas about what it
means to participate in and celebrate a way of life that is bigger than
our small worlds.

Clearly, Jesus was a 'celebrity'. But he did not seek 'celebrity status'.
He certainly had a presence about him, but he did not appeal to or
manipulate people's base instincts. When he enters Jerusalem (Mark 11:1ff)
a large crowd is attracted. Understandably, they want to share in his
aura, particularly as they believe him to be the One who will deliver them
from suffering, vindicate their faith and forcefully establish the
'Kingdom of God' on earth.

Mark downplays Jesus' 'celebrity status'. He tells us that the crowds
were spell-bound by Jesus. But he also urges caution. If they want to see
who Jesus really is -- the embodiment of God's presence in the world --
then they must wait to see the betrayal, denial, ridicule and scepticism
that accompanied his crucifixion and resurrection.

Mark wants us to see Jesus as 'the celebrity' who brings hope to the
world. He also warns us to look below the surface to see the celebrity who
shuns false publicity! He does this in a number of ways:

1. He insists that, although Jesus forgives, heals and teaches with
unprecedented authority, people must not get carried away! They must not
tell anybody what they have seen and heard until events have unfolded!

2. He is also more reserved than Matthew and Luke in how he tells the
story:

* He does not specifically quote Zechariah in relation to the donkeys but
simply states it as part of the entry into Jerusalem. He wants people to
see who Jesus is without forcing belief by 'proof texts'.

* Unlike Matthew, he does not inflate public reaction. Jesus is not
acclaimed universally. Fewer people lead the ovation.

3. Mark also deliberately places this episode immediately after the
healing of blind Bartimaeus (10:46-52). Bartimaeus symbolises those who
'see' who Jesus really is, in stark contrast with those like James and
John (vv 35-45) who should see but are blind to God's costly love in him.

4. Also Mark deliberately places it just before the parable of the fig
tree (11: 12-14) and the cleansing of the temple (vv 15-19) to indicate
that this 'celebrity' will be rejected by many of those who should have
welcomed him, including his own disciples (14:17-31).

In these ways, Mark encourages us to see who this celebrity really is.
Unlike celebrity publicists, he does not whip up mass hysteria. Instead,
he invites us to see what is 'hidden' from uncritical eyes when Jesus
enters Jerusalem!

Mark is writing with the benefit of hindsight -- after the resurrection of
the crucified Jesus. So he prepares us to see a most unexpected and
unpopular 'victory'. The one who is given 'celebrity status' by the masses
is the bearer of hope which takes place in a way unthinkable for a
'charismatic' public figure: through suffering, rejection, crucifixion and
resurrection.

Nobody thought that 'he who comes in the name of the Lord' (v9) would
suffer such a fate. He would be welcomed, not rejected, by the faithful.
He would reward the faithful for their courage under fire, not challenge
them. He would establish the kingdom of David (v10) and vindicate the Jews
before the nations, not extend it to all nations.

The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem thus anticipates a paradoxical victory.
It is not the triumph of a celebrity who succeeds by meeting people's
expectations and making them feel self-important by attaching themselves
to his cause. It is the triumph of the one celebrity in history who
embodies God's costly and redemptive love for humanity and unexpectedly
welcomes the sinful and broken-hearted.

The full force of this unexpected fulfilment of God's promise is not
visible when Jesus enters the holy city in 'royal humility'. It is
'hidden' beneath traditional hopes and the unfinished work of costly love
through the cross and resurrection.

This paradoxical triumph is wonderfully expressed in the words of the
familiar Palm-Passion Sunday hymn Australian Hymn Book (AHB) 264:

Ride on, ride on in majesty,
in lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ your triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.

The hymn expresses the fact that the loving, reconciling power of God,
glimpsed when this messianic celebrity enters Jerusalem, will be clearly
seen only with the resurrection of the crucified Christ. There Jesus'
humble, self-giving death for all will be shown to be victorious.

This paradoxical triumph is magnificently expressed by Paul in Philippians
2:5- 11. Here is the mark of the true celebrity: the One rightly
celebrated because 'though he was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself (of all but
love {AHB 138 v3}), taking the form of a servant, being born in human
likeness, . . . and humbled himself and became obedient to death on a
cross . . . and was (therefore) highly exalted by God'.

This is wonderful news in an age when the lifestyles and values of
celebrities are held up as models to be copied and desperate people attach
themselves to the famous in order to try to escape their own anonymity. It
is liberating to find in Jesus Christ the only celebrity who exuded the
presence of God and showed his divinity, not by appealing to or
manipulating people's baser instincts, but by bearing the marks of
crucifixion.

Here then is one worthy of following -- not on Facebook or Twitter but in
the whole of life. His life-death-and-resurrection is worthy to be
celebrated because there we see God's self-giving love for flawed people,
like you and me, and our strife-torn world. On Palm-Passion Sunday then,
let us -- as Charles Wesley said -- 'celebrate . . . the Saviour of
mankind' (AHB 145) and, in the words of our communion liturgy, unite 'with
the faithful of every time and place' in singing Hosanna in the highest to
the One who comes in the name of the Lord.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt
Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of
Confessing Congregations within the UCA.