Sermon on Palm Sunday (April 5, 2026)
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.
That last miracle pushed them over the edge. They had been observing Him from a distance, sometimes engaging Him with questions, trying to catch Him in some fallacy, but He always had the right response. And even when He uttered a seeming blasphemy, claiming that He and the Father are One (John 10:30), and the people tried to stone Him, He still slipped away. They could not even arrest Him.
But raising Lazarus, who was dead and buried and decomposing for four days, sent people into a frenzy. Resurrection of the dead was nothing new. Both the prophet Elijah and his disciple Elisha had resurrected a dead child on two separate occasions (1 Kings 17:1724, 2 Kings 4:18-37). Even Elisha’s bones once revived a dead man when his corpse touched the prophet’s remains (2 Kings 13:20-21).
And how can we forget Jesus raising the poor widow’s son in Nain (Luke 7:11-17) and Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:40-56) from the dead? Lazarus was not the first resurrection Christ did, nor would it be the last. But one stark difference between all these resurrections of the Old and New Testaments is that the dead person wasn’t dead for as long as Lazarus was.
To put it simply, Lazarus was dead dead. He was dead and buried and lamented. Even though he was Jesus’ friend, the Lord wanted it this way, “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). He was glad that He was not there when Lazarus died because He wanted His disciples may believe (John 11:15).
Believe what? That He is both God and man. As man, the Church reminds us in the hymns for Lazarus Saturday, He wondered where His friend was buried, and showed genuine grief when He came to the tomb. But as God, He disclosed the fullness of His divine power by terrorizing Hell and bringing Lazarus back to life.
The resurrection of Lazarus was the first-fruits of general resurrection and a major foreshadowing of the events to come. Hell was so shaken by God’s command to return Lazarus, that it begged Lazarus to leave as quickly as possible because it was better for Hell “to lament the loss of one, instead of losing all those whom it had swallowed in its hunger” (Canon of Raising of Lazarus).
This miracle sent people into a frenzy. They had seen a lot, but not this. They heard Him heal all sorts of ailments, but resurrecting a decomposing flesh? This was new. Many believed in Him on the spot, but some ran away to tell the Pharisees (John 11:45-46).
Were the religious authorities jealous of Jesus? Maybe. But for the most part they refused to accept Him as the Messiah for the simple reason that He did not fit into theirconception of Who the Messiah is. The Pharisees dedicated their life to bringing about the coming of the Messiah, but a lot of them failed to prepare their hearts to meet and accept Him when He finally came.
In their council, they came to a similar conclusion that Hell did – “it is better for us that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50). It was better for Hell to spit back Lazarus, instead of losing everyone it had taken; it was better for the Pharisees to condemn one man to death, instead of the Romans taking their place and their nation (John 11:48).
The religious authorities behaved like most adults do – they worried about things way out of their control. They were afraid that through all the miracles Jesus was performing, all people would believe in Him, which would trigger the Romans into thinking that this was a revolt.
The Pharisees feared losing their place in power, becoming blind to the fact that their Savior was standing before them, waiting for their repentance and their softened hearts. And they also missed the point that Jesus did come to bring rebellion, but not the kind they expected.
Guess whose hearts were not hardened? Who saw Christ’s miracles and rejoiced in them? Who ran ahead of Him, as He was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, not as a warring general, but as a meek King? Who cried out with loud voices, “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” (John 12:13)?
The children!
Our iconography and hymnography make a point that the children, full of joy and purity of heart, welcomed the Messiah, while the adults, full of worries and fears over things they couldn’t control (like what would civil authorities do), pondered what exactly should be the right response to this Man on the donkey.
In the ancient world, children were often dismissed as not having the ability to reason or think clearly. In other words, they were not the adults and, therefore, were dumb. So it’s surprising to see children realize something that educated and reasonable adults did not – they recognized the Messiah and rejoiced, as one should.
But the Teacher warned them, didn’t He? He told His disciples of the importance of children. At first, they prevented children to be brought to Him because they are a nuisance. Why waste Master’s precious time on them? But the Lord called them out on it, “Do not hinder the children coming to Me,” He said. “Because to such as them belongs the Kingdom of God.” And more than that, “Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” (Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17)
The King was entering His city on a donkey, and who was receiving Him? He told them to be like children, instead they were childish adults, worrying about what others would say or do.
How childish? At one point they wanted to know who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. In response Jesus again told them that unless they became like children, they will never enter the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:1-3). Be like children.
When do we stop being children and become childish impostors? When do we lose the wonder of God’s creation and become cynical grumps? When do we lose joy and settle for the ordinary?
Is it when we start paying taxes? Or maybe when we realize that the so-called news, that we are basically addicted to, are just lies being fed to us by people we so desperately want to believe? Or when we would rather, much like the Pharisees, sacrifice one God for the comfort of other gods that we’ve built in our lives?
“What would the Romans think if people start following this Jesus? What if they come and take away our place in this society because we dared to welcome the Messiah? What if they think we are part of a rebellion?”
This is the revolt, though! We are part of the rebellion! No, Jesus is not the general Who came to destroy our enemies because they pose a threat to us. He is a meek King, Who came to die for us so that we would take the fight … to our hearts, so that we would root out the sin that’s festering there.
The only violence we are allowed to do is against the evil things that rule us, not the evil things that we think we see in others. We can’t be humble like children while we allow our addictions and our insecurities and our fears control us.
But we do want to be like children who celebrate the King’s coming, and not the childish adults who in their panic and timidity yell, “Crucify Him!” mere five days after He is received by the children (John 19:6). And curse themselves and their children in the process, “His blood is on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25).
We will take up our palms and willow branches today and receive our King because He is entering, riding on the donkey, to go up on the Cross to save us from death and sin. He has begun the revolution and has granted authority to His followers to continue revolting against every evil desire in us, so that one day we may be humble like children, who enter the Kingdom of God, and who shout, as loud as they can, from the fullness of their pure hearts, “Hosanna to our God! Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Amen.
This sermon was inspired by episode #174 of Be the Bee.
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Intro and outro melody:
Rule of Life
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/brock-hewitt-stories-in-sound/rule-of-life
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