“Bring Home the Festal Lamb”
Original sermon given November 27, 2022, written and delivered by Pastor Gregg Ramirez at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church
Watch the sermon live here
“Bring Home the Festal Lamb”
Matthew 21:1-11
Matthew 21:1-11
We are in the first days of Advent. Advent signals the arrival of something momentous, and to illustrate an event of such proportion my memory takes me back to 2012 when the hugely successful movie The Hunger Games came out to theaters. It’s a dystopian film as it portrays our future world in grim terms as the inhabitants are governed by oppressive forces. The setting is in the ruins of what was once North America where the nation called Panem rules with ruthless power over its subjects who live in poverty. Their plight resembles a depressed West Virginia coal mining community of the 1950s. The Panem’s elite class, with all the comforts and sophisticated technology in their possession, live in what is known as the Capitol. Moreover, to exert their authority, every year the Capitol forces each of the 12 geographical districts to send a boy and girl tribute to compete in the Hunger Games. You could well describe these youth as sheep being led to the slaughter, but with a twist. In the nationally televised event, the tributes must fight each other to the death until only the champion, the one survivor remains. From this point the narrative takes on a more personal tone when the timid Primrose Everdeen is reaped, chosen by lot, to become one of the contestants. However, she would be helpless – no match for the opponents—so her older sister, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, volunteers to take her place. Katniss would have to rely on her talent with the bow and arrow to survive. Of course, the tensions run high for these youth in the Capitol, and just prior to the combat, the scene switches to resemble the gladiatorial fights in the Roman colosseum of old. Each team of two nobly dressed combatants enters the stadium on a horse drawn chariot. The festive crowds cheer them on and get the opportunity to choose who they favor and would bet on to become the new champion, but there’s also an underlying tension amidst the suspense because death is in the air.
Why do I share this with you? I couldn’t help but see elements from the movie – the 12 districts like the twelve tribes of Israel. And besides, the motifs of the oppressed and the oppressor, the slaughter of the lambs, the willing substitute, the Champion, and the scene of the Roman-like festal parade – all of these themes are played out in today’s Gospel with its emphasis on Palm Sunday.
Now, for a moment, if you would picture in your mind what that first Palm Sunday must have looked like to a Roman soldier who knew what the parades were like in Rome. I imagine a Roman officer hearing word get out that the King of the Jews is marching in triumphal procession towards the gate of Jerusalem. I picture him galloping to check up on the disturbance. Again, he has attended processions in Rome where they do it right. The conquering general sits in a chariot of gold with stallions straining at the reins and wheel spikes flashing in the sunlight. Behind him, officers in polished armor display the banners captured from vanquished armies. Then, at the rear comes a ragtag procession of slaves and prisoners in chains, living proof of what happens to those who defy Rome.
However, in today’s triumphal entry, the ragtag procession is the adoring crowd. It’s composed of the once lame and blind, the peasants from Galilee, and gawking Passover pilgrims with their children who had heard stories of miraculous signs and healings. Then when the officer looks for the object of their attention, he spies a forlorn figure, weeping, riding on not a stallion or chariot but on the back of a baby donkey. It’s a makeshift display of pomp as borrowed coats of onlookers draped across its backbone serve as His saddle. Yes, He’s weeping. St. Luke reports that as He approached the city Jesus broke into tears. How was the Roman officer to view all of this? How could he not but write it off as a slapstick comedy? Nothing to impress Rome nor a threat to its power.
Yet, despite the seeming harmlessness of it all, there was a huge undercurrent of tension hanging in the air among the Jewish religious establishment. The man riding on the donkey had crossed the point of no return when it came to challenging their authority. As Jesus was entering the city, the crowds shouted “Hosanna!” and declared Him King. Spreading tree branches along the road to show their adoration, they cried out: “Blessed is the King Who comes in the name of the Lord!” Though Jesus usually recoiled from such displays of fanaticizing, this time He let them yell. No longer did He cloak His identity in parables or hidden messages. To the indignant Pharisees He explained, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Boldly, Jesus declared Himself to be the Messiah. Every miracle performed and every message preached had been in preparation for the climactic moment and it pushed His religious opponents over the top. “Look how the whole world has gone after Him,” exclaimed the Pharisees. They could not overlook His daring move to claim His throne as the King of the Jews. It would ensure that His death would come soon.
But in truth Jesus’ destiny had been sealed a long time before that. Yet only the mature in faith would be able to recognize it because its greater significance is hidden in the other name for Palm Sunday. Does the date – the tenth of Nisan mean much to you? Nevertheless, it possesses a high status as one of the most important biblical holy days long before it was called Palm Sunday. Regarding its original designation, the Lord said to Moses: “On the tenth day of this month, each one shall take for himself a lamb … a lamb for a house.”
So, the 10th of Nisan is the day of the Lamb – the day of its choosing, of its being taken, of its being identified with the house that would sacrifice it. In Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, the Lamb of God, thousands of lambs were raised each year to provide the sacrifice for the Passover worshippers. Like The Hunger Games with its 12 districts, sacrificial lambs were provided for the 12 tribes of Israel. It would always take place on the one specified day – the tenth of Nisan.
Yet, how many back then possessed the eyes of faith to recognize the most significant tenth day of Nisan of all? This is where those Hunger Games themes of the festal parade, the oppressed and the oppressor, the willing substitute, the champion point to the greater reality. For it was on that tenth of Nisan, the first Palm Sunday, that the Man on the donkey was the designated champion of His people, the Messiah. But little did the onlookers conceive that He was chosen before time, as God’s willing substitutionary sacrifice - and the One designated to lead His people in victory over the forces of oppression – forces even greater than Jewish authorities and the Roman oppressor – the forces of sin, death, and the devil with all of his minions.
Yes, on that most significant tenth of Nisan which we call Palm Sunday, as the people of Jerusalem were leading the Passover lambs to their homes, Jesus, the chosen Lamb, was being led from the Mount of Olives to the city gates. Taking the Romans unaware, the King of the Jews was coming to take His throne though at first it would be a cross. By God’s decree the Passover lamb was to be brought to the house – the house of God - to Jerusalem, the place of His dwelling. And just as the lambs of the tenth of Nisan had to be sacrificed on Passover by those who dwelt in Jerusalem, so too the Lamb of God would be sacrificed on Passover by those who dwelt in Jerusalem.
On this first Sunday of Advent what is this passage saying to us personally? In The Hunger Games terms, Jesus hungered for our salvation and would give His all that we might attain it. The Lamb of God had to come to the House of God to give of His very being that the blessings of salvation would come. As at the first Passover when the lamb had to be brought home to give blood to be put on the doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over and had to be eaten to sustain the life of God’s chosen people, so it is for us. In the same way, if you would know the blessings of God you must bring the Lamb of God home. You must receive Him into the place where you live into your being – every room, every closet, every crevice. Isn’t that what Jesus was trying to get across when He said:
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last. For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in Him.
What is this receiving of Him all about? He’s speaking of our faith in Him being appropriated into our lives. I think about the Mary and Martha story with the busy Martha while her sister, Mary, the one sitting at the Lord’s feet, is inwardly digesting His Word – receiving it deeply into the nooks and crannies of her heart and soul. It’s about receiving His total person, and I will never forget the words from the closing collect of the old page 5 service in The Lutheran Hymnal:
Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them … and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of eternal life.
Isn’t that what we proclaim through the great hymn:
At the Lamb’s high feast we sing. Praise to Him whose love divine
gives His sacred blood for wine. Gives His body for the feast,
Christ the Victim, Christ the Priest. Alleluia.
Yes, through Word and Sacrament, bring the festal lamb home – receive the Christ of Christmas and be enriched with the true Holiday Spirit.