“If Stones Could Shout” (Luke 19:28-40)

For the next few moments I want you to try to imagine what it must have been like to be among those who stood on the streets of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. (I’ll even let you close your eyes if you like, as long as you promise not to go to sleep!)

The city would have been bustling with people, as worshippers from all over Palestine and many from considerably farther afield—from as far away as the distant corners of the vast Roman Empire—had begun to gather in preparation for the annual Passover celebration.

For centuries there had been a tradition that, as they made their way towards the holy city, travellers would recite what are known as the Psalms of Ascents, the fifteen psalms beginning with Psalm 120. Many of those psalms remain familiar to us today, as they have become entrenched in our Christian worship: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go the house of the Lord.’” “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved…” “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream…” “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain…”

So it was that there was literally music in the air as Jesus and his followers made their way towards Jerusalem. Our Bible reading this morning opens with them looking across at the city from the top of the slope that separates it from the Mount of Olives—and I find myself hearing the distant echoes of those psalms being sung in the background.

As they made their way along the twisting road that led down into the valley and then up towards the city, Jesus knew what awaited him there. Indeed, he had been warning his followers about it for some months: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” (Luke 19:31-33)

The Disciples

In fact, Jesus had warned them on at least three separate occasions what was going to happen to him. However, the disciples, really hadn’t paid very much attention at the time. Plus, I suspect that by this time they were so caught up in the excitement of the coming Passover celebration that those words of foreboding had faded almost entirely from their minds. They would have had no idea of the darkness that was to engulf them over the coming days.

It was in that context that Jesus came to them with a request: “Go into the village ahead of you. There on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”

The instructions seem strange to me—almost like something out of a James Bond movie. However, the disciples seemed to think nothing of it and went on their way unquestioningly, following Jesus’ directions to the letter. And as it turned out, everything was exactly as he had told them. Little did they know that they were embarking on a trajectory that would lead to treachery, betrayal, torture and execution.

Now they were happy to obey Jesus and to carry out his instructions. But in a few days’ time they would see this same Jesus, whom they had come to love and adore, roughly arrested, unjustly tried, brutally tortured, and nailed to a cross to die a slow, agonizing death. And they would find themselves cowering behind locked doors in fear for their lives. Piece by piece, everything that they had come to believe in and to hold dear over the previous three years would be turned on its head.

The Multitude

The next scene takes us to the gates of Jerusalem. Located atop Mount Zion and surrounded by thick stone walls, the city would have made an impressive site, especially for those who came from the towns and villages of the countryside.

I am reminded of one of my visits to New York City. I was with a friend and we were walking through the streets of Manhattan, when a stranger came up to us and said, “You’re visitors here, aren’t you?” When we asked him what gave us away, he replied, “It’s because you’re looking up, not ahead.” All our attention had been riveted on the enormous skyscrapers that towered above us, to the point where we weren’t paying any attention to where we were going!

I can imagine a similar dynamic taking place with many of the pilgrims from the tiny hamlets of Palestine—among them Jesus’ disciples. There were the more than a quarter of a million of them jostling along through its narrow streets. And everything about the city would have prompted oohs and ahs.

At the centre of it all was the magnificent Temple occupying thirty-six acres of land. Its fifty-foot-high gates flanked by enormous columns, its gold glistening in the hot Near Eastern sun, it would have been an impressive sight even to modern eyes. Already more than forty-six years in the making, it would not be fully completed for another four decades.

Now add to that the excitement and anticipation over the coming celebration of Passover. Then into this scene there enters a strange sight—a man riding on a donkey, with other men going before him and spreading their cloaks along his path as though he were a king or some kind of royalty. This leads to what seems to have been a spontaneous outburst of excitement, as some join in and spread their garments on the road, while still others cut down palm branches and lay them along the cobblestones. Meanwhile, all of this is accompanied by joyful shouts of “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Of course, we all know that within the space of a few short days the jubilant cheers of the multitude would turn to shouts of “Crucify!” Among them there might even have been some of those who passed by him as he hung naked on the cross, who jeered at him and mocked him with the words, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself…”

The Stones

Then there were the religious authorities, who would have none of this spontaneous celebration. “Teacher,” they snapped, “rebuke your disciples.” To which Jesus replied, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

My suspicion is that the stones that Jesus was referring to may have been the enormous megaliths that formed the base of the Temple. Some of them weighed as much as five hundred tonnes. You may recall that on a previous visit to Jerusalem one of Jesus’ disciples had drawn attention to them. “Look,” he said (and I can imagine the wonderment in his voice). “What massive stones! And what enormous buildings!” (Mark 13:1)

Now let me ask: Can you think of anything more inanimate than a stone—particularly a stone of that magnitude? Yet Jesus says, “If [the human voices] were silent, the very stones would cry out.” What did he mean? Was he just being poetic? Was he using exaggeration to get his point across?

Maybe. But I think there was more. And my reason is this: It is because at the cross everything would change—and I mean everything. It was not just a matter of closing the gap that separates you and me from God on account of our sin. What was happening on the cross would radically affect the whole created order in its entirety—even the rocks! For it was on the cross that Jesus would defeat once and for ever the cosmic powers of sin and evil and death—all that is wrong and sinful and out of step with God’s will in the universe.

We get a glimpse of what was happening in Matthew’s remarkable account of what took place in Jerusalem at the moment when Jesus gave up his spirit:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)

So it is that when we get to the Book of Revelation, we find the aged John peering through his astonished eyes not just to catch a dream of things made better, but to be captured by a vision of the whole of creation transformed. What he gazed upon was a new heaven and a new earth. “For,” he says, “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” (Revelation 21:1)

The apostle Paul expressed the same kind of understanding in his letter to the Romans, when he wrote:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23)

So as we move through this Holy Week towards the observance of Good Friday and Easter, if I leave you with anything, I want to leave you with a cosmic vision of what was taking place as our Lord and his disciples made their way into the holy city.

When Jesus was to utter those words from the cross, “It is finished,” he was not just saying that his life was coming to an end. He was doing away once and for all with sin and evil and death. He was ushering in a whole new creation, made perfect in accordance with the will and pleasure of his Father.

In the words of the apostle Paul, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:19-20)

When New Testament scholar N.T. Wright wrote his book about the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion six years ago, he chose the dramatic title The Day the Revolution Began. In his conclusion to this massive 400-page-plus study, he wrote this (and please forgive me for quoting it at length!):

With all this we lift up our eyes and realize that [we] have been so concerned with getting to heaven, with sin as the problem blocking the way, … that [we have] forgotten that the gospels give us [the atonement] not as a neat little system, but as a powerful, many-sided, richly revelatory narrative in which we are invited to find ourselves, or rather to lose ourselves and to be found again on the other side. We have gone wading in the shallow and stagnant waters of medieval questions and answers … when only a few yards away is the vast and dangerous ocean of the gospel story, inviting us to plunge in and let the waves of dark glory wash over us, wash us through and through, and land us on the shores of God’s new creation.[1]

The obedience of the disciples would quickly turn to fear. The shouts of “Hosanna!” that rang through the streets of Jerusalem would soon be no more than an echo. But the day is coming when even the stones will not be silent, but will resound with the joyful chorus of all the redeemed:

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!
(Revelation 5:12)

Let’s be sure that you and I are part of the crowd!

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[1]       The Day the Revolution Began, 415-416

“Hosanna to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-17)

 

It was a dark, stormy and very windy night when disaster struck the cemetery. As a cold rain hammered against the sodden earth, a howling gale overturned tombstones, blew down branches and sent cobwebs flying into the dank night air.

Lying in bed, Paul Hopkins heard the savage roar outside and feared the worst. Sure enough, as dawn broke, the Toronto man realized that his collection of carefully wrought Styrofoam grave markers had been devastated by the tempest. The final toll? About $2,000 in damages.

“I set up my cemetery about three weeks before Halloween to set the mood,” Mr Hopkins explains. “This has never happened before.”

He may now have to extend the week’s vacation he takes every year … before Hallowe’en to prepare his haunted house display, but Mr Hopkins, a purchasing agent for an aluminum smelter, vows he’ll repair the battered props before October 31.

Despite the setback, the bulk of his gear remains unscathed. Mr Hopkins estimates that his collection of talking skeletons, animatronic corpses, zombies and ghosts has cost him about $20,000.[1]

That’s an excerpt from an article I came across in the newspaper several years ago.

Hallowe’en is a multimillion-dollar business in Canada. According to one newspaper report, “Canadians have become so wild about Halloween we now spend more per capita on costumes, candy and décor than our U.S. counterparts do, with holiday-related spending that is second only to Christmas.”[2]

Last year October candy and snack food sales topped the $400 million mark. And if covid didn’t manage to put too much of a damper on things, the estimates were that four million kiddies should have been out on the streets last evening to fill their sacks with Hallowe’en goodies. And if your neighbourhood was anything like mine last evening, it was visited by dozens of strange miniature creatures: witches, ghosts, mummies, aliens, zombies—and perhaps a few little princesses and cuddly animals too!

Some people like to trace our Hallowe’en traditions back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. But since the eighth century it has been for Christians All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. So it is that today we celebrate what we affirm with our fellow believers around the world in last two phrases of the Apostles’ Creed: the communion of saints and the life everlasting.

If you have a Bible nearby, I’d like you to turn with me now to the passage that was read a few moments ago: Revelation 7:9-17. I know that for many of us the Book of Revelation is strange, if not uncharted, territory. Its array of multi-headed creatures, stars falling from the sky, plagues and fearsome horsemen, make Hallowe’en seem like the child’s play that it is. Yet I want to affirm that a careful reading of Revelation can lead to untold riches. To do that we need to take into account its historical context. And we need to be careful not to be led astray by the false teachings that have plagued the church in almost every century since it was written. So with that in mind let’s turn to Revelation, chapter 7.

The Crowd

As we begin reading, we find that we are surrounded by an enormous crowd—a multitude, John tells us, greater than anyone could number.

Now to put this in context we need to go back into the earlier chapters of Revelation. And as we do, we find that this multitude has been growing. It begins with just four strange creatures that John describes as “living beings”. Day and night they give thanks to the One who sits on the throne in words that are familiar to many of us:

Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!

The fours are quickly joined by twenty-four others, whom John describes as elders. They too fall down and, laying their crowns before the throne, they cry aloud,

You are worthy, our Lord and God,
 to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things,
 and by your will they were created
and have their being.

No sooner have they completed their refrain than John finds himself surrounded by an enormous chorus of angels, “numbering thousands upon thousands”—no, ten thousand times ten thousand. Now the word John uses here is “myriads”. In its literal sense it means ten thousand. But in fact it was the highest number in Greek and I think we could take it as the equivalent of our word “gazillion”. So we might say that what John witnessed around him was a gazillion gazillion angels chanting in unison,

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!

And if all that were not enough, they are joined by every creature on earth, who join in thunderous chorus singing,

To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!

As I read this I am reminded of Jesus’ parables about God’s reign. So many of them have to do with growth, from something as tiny and insignificant as a mustard seed, to a sizeable bush in which birds could even make their nests.

Now John gives us a picture of God’s reign in its fullness. And we find ourselves with him in the midst of a multinational, multiracial, multilingual crowd, all encircling the throne and crying aloud with a single voice,

Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.

Personally, I find it all overwhelming, as I am sure John did. I can never read these verses without finding myself deeply moved.

The Chorus

One of the great privileges of Christian faith is that it unites us with people from every corner of the globe. John was given this great vision that he recounts in the Book of Revelation in the final years of the first century. He was writing from the little island of Patmos off the Turkish coast. In the course of his lifetime he had witnessed the Christian faith fan outwards from Jerusalem to most of the Roman world, and possibly even as far away as India.

In our own day it is estimated that as much as half the world’s population has still to hear the good news of Jesus. At the same time, as the church appears to be in decline throughout much of western society, there is an explosive growth of Christian faith in other parts of the world, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia.

One of the highlights of my years in Minnesota was to welcome more than a hundred refugees from Burma into our congregation. When they arrived, there were no more than a handful who could speak even a few words of English. Yet in spite of our inability to communicate, there was no question that we all shared a deep bond in Christ. Moreover, as we came to know them and to hear their stories, we discovered that they had a faith in Jesus that had sustained them through years of indescribable deprivation and persecution. Theirs was a faith that made ours seem shallow in comparison. And what a thrill it was last Sunday morning to hear from David Kromminga of a Kurdish immigrant inviting people into his Christian community!

Yet this is only one perspective of what the creed describes as “the communion of saints”—and it is a two-dimensional one at best. For our fellowship with other believers is not confined horizontally to the present. Rather, it is three-dimensional in that it also stretches vertically through history.

We must never lose sight of the fact that we share in faith—even more than that, we owe our faith—to women and men who over the course of years past have discovered in Jesus their hope and their salvation: to Bishop Walsham Howe and Edward Perronet and Edward Caswall, who wrote and translated the hymns of this morning’s service; to great Christian leaders and thinkers such as Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, C.S. Lewis, Amy Carmichael, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Gregory the Great, Augustine, Athanasius, Irenaeus and Polycarp (to name but a few); to the millions over the years who chose to surrender their lives rather than surrender their faith in Jesus; and to the countless more whose names we may never know but who are known to Jesus. Indeed, they are engraved on the palm of his hand.

The Cross

Before we leave them, though, we need to take another look at John’s description of this vast, innumerable crowd. John tells us that they were holding palm branches in their hands. Throughout ancient Middle Eastern society palm branches were commonly used as a symbol of victory, joy, peace and eternal life.

But I don’t need to remind you that this is not the first time we see people waving branches of palm. There had been a previous occasion, which John would have remembered with vividness. For he himself had been there, accompanying Jesus as he travelled the road into Jerusalem for what would be the last time. And we all know how the crowds waved their branches of palm, exuberantly shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Now when you translate “Hosanna!” from Hebrew, it means something like “Save us, we pray!” But turn back to our passage from Revelation this morning. Notice that this time the crowd does not cry, “Hosanna!” (“Save us!”) but, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

Do you see the difference? It may seem small, but I think it’s significant. For those white-robed saints standing around the throne salvation is not a hope. It is not a prayer. It is a present reality. For God has accomplished their salvation, and he has done it through the sacrificial blood of the Lamb.

So it is that with them we are brought to the foot of the cross—not as a place of sadness and defeat, but as one of joy and victory. Not as a place of darkness and gloom, but where all the radiance of God’s eternal glory shines forth.

For the Lamb at the centre of the throne
will be our shepherd;
he will lead us to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

What we have read in these verses from the Bible this morning is but a snapshot of the mighty chorus among whom John stood, gathered around the throne of the Lamb. And the victory they shared is what we celebrate as we observe this festival of All Saints. As we do so, we find that our focus is not so much on the “saints” (and I suspect that is the last thing they themselves would want!). Rather, with them we fix our eyes on the one who sits on the throne in their midst—on the Lamb around whom we gather in unending praise. In the words of one of this morning’s hymns,

O that with yonder sacred throng
We at his feet may fall,
Join in the universal song,
And crown him Lord of all!

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[1] National Post, 18 Oct 2003

[2] National Post, 25 Oct 2014