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Sermon for Palm Sunday
Matthew 21:1-9 + Philippians 2:5-11 + Matthew 26-27
It’s something to behold, to see the devil’s handiwork. First he sends a virus to plague our race. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, he stirs up government officials to fight with one another over how the other is handling it. Then he stirs up the government against the community, to increase fear, to take more power to itself, to take away jobs, and maybe worst of all, to protect themselves from being blamed by placing the blame for the spread of the virus on the community which can never seem to do enough to stop it. Then the devil stirs up the community, either against the government or against their own community. And through it all, he stirs up both government and community against the Church, to blame those who gather in the presence of Jesus, to silence the Gospel, and to keep Christians away from the body and blood of Christ. That’s all the devil’s handiwork. And none of us would choose to see it, if we had a choice.
But none of this that we’re living through at the moment compares to the devil’s handiwork we witnessed in the readings we heard today. We see it throughout Holy Week as the devil stirred up the Jewish government against Jesus, stirred up the church of Israel against Jesus, stirred up Judas against Jesus, stirred up Pilate and the Roman soldiers against Jesus, stirred up the Good Friday crowds against Jesus, stirred up the disciples to trust too much in themselves, to become so afraid that they fled from Jesus and hid from the government. And look what the devil was able to accomplish: the crucifixion of God.
And yet, for all the devil’s many successes during Holy Week, we see how God was there behind it all, guiding all things, using all things to carry out His unstoppable plan to have His Son led as a lamb to the slaughter. It’s not that God wanted all those bad actors in the story to act as they did. They weren’t doing what He wanted them to do. But He took the devil’s handiwork in them and incorporated it into His grand design and made it serve His plan of salvation, to make atonement for the sins of mankind through the death of His Son, so that all might repent and believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. The whole time, Jesus was in control of everything.
On Palm Sunday, He placed that donkey and its colt at just the right place and moment for His disciples to find them and bring them to Him. Yes, He had planned their placement from eternity and announced it over 500 years earlier through the prophet Zechariah. He planned for the crowds, too, and a thousand years earlier inspired the Psalmist to record in Psalm 118 the words they cried, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” He planned for Judas’ betrayal and announced it ahead of time. He planned the New Testament in His blood, and the disciples’ abandonment, and the condemnation, and the scourging, and the ridicule, and the nails, and the cross, and the death, and even the tomb where He was laid. He planned it all, He took it all, even those parts that were most obviously the devil’s handiwork, and He turned it all into a masterpiece of salvation.
So rejoice today, O Church of God, because that’s what God always does. He takes the good, and He takes the evil of mankind and of the devil, and turns it all into part of His grand design to build His Church and to bring the elect safely through this life. It isn’t always pleasant. On the contrary, there is always a cross to bear for those who follow Christ, the true Cross-bearer. But never imagine for a moment that God has failed to number even a single hair of your head. Your King was in control when He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and He remains in control still. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and He did, and He will. Amen.
