On Palm Sunday, Christians around the world begin to celebrate the passion narrative: the significance of Jerusalem, the Upper Room, Gethsemane, the crucifixion and resurrection for the salvation of humanity. It is through the experience of this week that we can truly live in thankfulness for the unconditional love of God. Henri Nouwen writes, “You have to celebrate your chosenness constantly. This means saying ‘thank you’ to God for having chosen you, and ‘thank you’ to all who remind you of your chosenness. Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an ‘accident,’ but a divine choice.”[1] It is hard for us to get our minds around God’s unconditional love for humanity. Connecting with Jesus matters.
Luke 19:28-40 demands our attention. On the way into Jerusalem, Jesus reframed the title, “Lord.” He identifies the title rather than it him.[2] The crowds expected Jesus to fulfill their hopes through the use of power. Using power for the people’s benefit was the role of the King in the Jewish people’s history. And now, after hundreds of years of not being a kingdom, the Jews anticipated returning to their promised place of kingdom and power. But that was not and is not the message of kingdom defined by Jesus. Jesus had surrendered his power to the Father in order for the people to see power through obedience to the One who knew them the best and loved them the most.
Psalm 118 is the last in the series of Egyptian Hallel psalms. These psalms retell the narrative of the Exodus. The story of salvation told in this psalm first encounters themes of sorrow, betrayal, and death, before victory over death, the fulfillment of the story of salvation which the empty tomb declares. Without any doubt, Psalm 118 makes the case of God’s unconditional love for humanity. Eric Wall writes, “Along the way will be the washing of feet and the covenant of love. In the clamor of the palm and psalm, we might strain to see this one who comes in God’s name; our cry for salvation might also be plaintive, weak, or whispered.”[3]
Can Christians promote the mission of God’s unconditional love the way Jesus lived it? Loving God and loving others is not easy, particularly when we realize that turning to Jesus to fix things and then turning away from Jesus when he doesn’t do for us what we want is counterproductive to the mission. Jesus’ march to Jerusalem, the Upper Room, the Garden of Gethsemane and the cross was not easy. It was the unconditional love of the Father for him and his for us that kept him faithful. Randy Frazee writes, “Christianity has a long history of overcoming obstacles and swimming against the current…They [Christians] have the power within them through Jesus Christ to make it happen.”[4] Connections with one another and others matters.
On the scenic foothills of the Alatoo Range in northern Kyrgyzstan there is a spot that looks up to the peaks of the towering Celestial Mountains, and down across the valley to the city of Bishkek. Built there is a great monument complex in honor of the Kyrgyz people. Its name is Ata-Beyit.Most monuments of such a grand scale are built to commemorate national victories and grand achievements. This place, however, was built specifically as a monument to magnificent defeat. There are three heartbreaking defeats that the Kyrgyz people remember together on that scenic hill.
There is a soaring monument to the defeat of 1916 when the Tsar Nicholas II decreed that all Kyrgyz men be conscripted into the Russian army to fight in the First World War. On that mountaintop some 100,000 died, either massacred by soldiers or lost in the brutal winter. The second monument on that hill remembers 1938 when at the personal instruction of Joseph Stalin, 137 leading citizens—writers, teachers, artists, and politicians—were rounded up and led up those hills to be murdered. The third monument remembers 2010, when eighty-four young people were lost in a single day, murdered for protesting against yet another brutal regime, standing in the way of freedom.
Nothing but tears on that mountain … but the Kyrgyz people believe these must forever be remembered for they are magnificent defeats. Despite the oppression of their worst enemies, and the tears of these most painful tragedies, the Kyrgyz people have not only persevered, but they are today a proud and thriving people.
Sometimes there are defeats so magnificent that they simply must be memorialized—and every Christian understands this. On the foothills, just outside of another great city, there is another site remembered with many tears and a monument to unthinkable injustice. And while it would be impossible to remember that place without being moved by its terrible tragedy, we remember it because of something so magnificent in that tragedy. On that terrible hill—by his wounds, we were healed. On that terrible hill—through his cross, we are saved. On that terrible hill—death may have won the day, but life-everlasting secured an unbreakable victory.
Some people might ask why go to such trouble to memorialize a mountain of such great painful sorrow. We would say that some defeats are worth remembering, precisely because they contrast the magnificence of the final victory that overcame the evil of that place.
The Kyrgyz people have a mountain, and its name is Ata-Beyit. The people of God have such a mountain. Its name is Calvary.[5]
What does being embraced by the unconditional love of God feel like? It is comforting and encouraging…strengthening and empowering. No obstacle is too hard to overcome. No fear has ultimate power over you. The decision to love is yours to make. In the midst of your journey to Jerusalem, the Upper Room, Gethsemane, and the crucifixion, anticipate the tomb being empty on Sunday. Feel your own sorrow, betrayal, and death, yet hear the words of Psalm 118:1, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever.” Amen![6]
This sermon was preached on Palm Sunday, 13 April 2025
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary
at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright © 2025
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]Henri J. Nouwen in “Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World.” Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 13.
[2]Adapted from Hans Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 136.
[3]Eric Wall in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 110.
[4]See Randy Frazee, The Connecting Church 2.0 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2013), 131.
[5]Adapted from Max Fleischmann, “Monument to Defeat,” in Thinking Outside the Box (3-10-17)
[6]In the five paragraphs above, I was challenged by the thinking of Eric Wall, Patrick W. Johnston, and Lucy Lind Hogan in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 108-110, 111-113, and 113-114.
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