Can You Hear the Stones?

Luke doesn’t use the word but all the other gospels do. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people sang out “Hosanna,” just like we did in our opening hymn this morning. Hosanna is an Aramaic word that literally means “please save us.” But it had come to be used as a one-word prayer of praise.[1] Hosanna! The people were praising God and singing, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” That is a quotation from Psalm 118, one of the psalms pilgrims sang while coming to Jerusalem for the great festivals.[2] Remember that it was Passover time when Jesus entered Jerusalem when as many as 125,000 pilgrims would crowd into the holy city.[3] Psalm 118 would already have been on their lips as they came to the temple to worship.

We usually speak of Jesus entering Jerusalem as his Triumphal Entry and imagine that the huge Passover crowds were the ones singing hosanna. But that’s not quite the way Luke tells the story. In his version there are neither palm branches nor hosannas. The crowds are small. In fact, Luke doesn’t speak of a crowd but only of a multitude of disciples. The word translated “multitude” might in this instance be better translated “majority.”[4] Most of those who followed Jesus are there. Disciples place him on a colt, disciples lay down their coats before him, and disciples sing Jesus’ praise. Luke reports the entry into Jerusalem as something for disciples, not the general public.

But along with the majority of disciples there were some Pharisees. For some reason they objected to what the disciples were doing. Luke doesn’t tell us why they objected, only that they did. And Jesus responds that if disciples did not sing praise, then the very stones themselves would. Though every mouth be stopped, God will provide a witness of praise. Let’s read it in Luke 19.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Over the years some preachers and churches and composers have turned Palm Sunday into a mini-Easter. The music is glorious, the sermonic themes uplifting, and the mood decidedly joyous. How could that be wrong given that the traditions of Palm Sunday are based on the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem to the praise of the people? Well, it’s not wrong exactly except it can be unhelpful. For often the same churches that turn Palm Sunday into a mini-Easter jump to Easter Sunday with barely a glance at Holy Week and Good Friday. We need always to remember that Jesus was not raised from the dead until he had suffered the unspeakable agonies of dying on the cross, a death so horrible that even the Lord asked that he might not have to drink that cup of suffering. If Jesus cannot get to Easter except by way of Good Friday, neither can we. Therefore, we must be cautious of our praise on Palm Sunday.

But still we need to praise because, as Jesus told the Pharisees, if disciples don’t praise, then the stones themselves will. So we praise God today, despite Good Friday, despite death including someday our own.

Some time ago I read a sad story of death. Somewhere in the Midwest a church like ours had gathered in its sanctuary for a memorial service for a man named Howard Iverson. Mrs. Iverson was with her son and daughter-in-law in the front pew. She sat passively throughout the whole service, displaying no emotion at all. But after the benediction, as she was walking down the aisle on the arm of her son, Mrs. Iverson collapsed.

A nurse in the congregation pushed past the frightened onlookers. The pastor ran to his office and called 9-1-1. The emergency crew arrived in few moments and the ambulance, siren crying, sped to the hospital, which was just four blocks away. It seemed only a few more minutes when the phone call from the hospital confirmed everyone’s worst fears. Elsie Iverson had died instantly.

The pastor, who had followed the ambulance to the hospital, came back to the church where a few women were eating potato salad and meat sandwiches in the church basement. Unable to talk, he went to his office and stared at the walls. Later in the day he found himself at the home of the Iversons’ son and daughter-in-law. He tried in vain to think of something to say — a word of comfort, a word of hope. Everything he thought of seemed trivial. He didn’t even invite the family to pray, fearing he wouldn’t know what to say.

What can be said in the face of death? What can be said when people gather at a man’s funeral and then see his wife die? Perhaps it was said best by the Iversons’ son a few days later when the pastor apologized for being so overcome with his own grief that he couldn’t help the family. The son quoted the words of Jesus when he said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And the son went on: “That is hope. The hope isn’t in humans, it is in God. God can bring life in the midst of death. God weeps over the death of his creation, just as Jesus wept, and just as [we weep]. But … God is not willing to let death be the last word. My mother and father are in the hands of God. That is a very great comfort.”[5]

And so it is. It’s a comfort because Jesus died. In a way we can never understand, God experienced death when Jesus died. God understands our loss and our fear and promises to be with us. So we praise God, despite death.

We also praise because God will not be stopped. What God was doing through Jesus Christ could not be hindered nor halted. Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem so that, in death and resurrection, God might bring life to the whole world. God will not be stopped in this and, therefore, it is necessary for us to praise.

A few weeks ago I was browsing through my journal — a diary I keep all too sporadically. I ran across some notes about a funeral I did at my previous church for one its most beloved members. Mrs. Sherwin had been a faithful member of that church for more than sixty years. The graveside was at Pines Cemetery, where the earthly remains of many church members were laid to their final resting places. After the brief service I was standing with several family members looking at some of the headstones, many of which marked the graves of others in Mrs. Sherwin’s family. I also recognized the names of several former members of that congregation.

At one point, Mrs. Sherwin’s son remarked, “Well, I guess we all come here eventually.” He didn’t say this bitterly or sadly, just factually, simply voicing what most of us feel but often don’t say when we visit a cemetery. This is the end for all of us.

That reminded me of a story in a book by the well-known writer, Philip Yancey. In his book called The Jesus I Never Knew he tells how three of his friends died in rather quick succession. The last was his friend Bob, who died scuba diving at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Yancey spoke at all three funerals, and each time, as he struggled with what to say, the ugly word “irreversible” always came to mind. Nothing he could say, nothing he could do, would accomplish what he wanted above all else: to get his friends back.

He wrote, “On the day Bob made his last dive, I was sitting, oblivious, in a cafe at the University of Chicago, reading My Quest for Beauty by Rollo May. In that book, the famous therapist recalls scenes from his lifelong search for beauty, especially a visit to Mt. Athos, a peninsula of monasteries attached to Greece.”

He goes on to tell how Dr. May happened to stumble upon an all-night celebration of the Greek Orthodox Easter. Incense hung heavy in the air and the only light came from candles. At the climax of the service, the priest gave everyone three Easter eggs, splendidly decorated and wrapped in a veil. “Christos Anesi!” he said — “Christ is Risen!” Each person present, including Rollo May, replied according to the custom, “He Is Risen Indeed!”

About that experience, Rollo May wrote: “I was seized then by a moment of spiritual reality: What would it mean for our world if he had truly risen?” And that was the question that kept floating in Yancey’s mind after he heard the news that his friend Bob was dead. “What did it mean for our world that Christ had risen?”

“In the cloud of grief over Bob’s death,” Yancey wrote, “I began to see the meaning of Easter in a new light. Now as an adult, I saw that Easter actually held out the awesome promise of reversibility. Nothing — no, not even death — was final. Even that could be reversed.[6]

Friends, this is why it’s necessary to praise because reversibility is exactly what Jesus rode into Jerusalem to accomplish. That’s the whole point and we cannot stop praising because God will not be stopped. God’s promise, against all odds, is that the irreversible will be reversed! So we can stand in the cemetery unafraid and, as the traditional prayer goes, “look forward to glad heavenly reunion, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The grave is not the end but life with God is. That’s why we build our lives on the rock that is Jesus Christ and why, if we do not praise, then the very stones will shout, “Praise be to God. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

A moment ago I mentioned Pines Cemetery where many of the members of my former church were laid to rest. (Of course, the members were not laid to rest there, only their earthly remains. The real persons were with the Lord.) Our house was just a mile from Pines Cemetery. There were several ways for me to go home but most of them took me past Pines Cemetery. I drove by it many times each week on my way home. When I went jogging I often ran past it on my way home and normally didn’t think anything about it. But I need to think about it because in very truth we all go by way of a cemetery on our journey home. Without the love of God, this world is nothing but a cemetery. We may want it to be only Easter and never Good Friday. We may try to deny death but God never does and because God never forgets that we die, we praise him. We praise God because he says, “Even here in the cemetery — no — especially here, I am with you and I love you.”

So why not just talk about resurrection? The answer, dear friends, is the mystery and wonder and power of this Week we call Holy. For we cannot get to Easter Sunday except by way of Holy Week, by way of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We don’t truly know what God has done until our friend Bob dies or our mother or our beloved, until we stand in the cemetery and wonder is this the end? And at the end of Holy Week, after Good Friday, then and only then do we in faith know Easter and life that shall endless be.

Do you hear the stones? They’re shouting about it. Until Easter day it is a solemn shout. But it is nonetheless a witness of praise. Thanks be to God.

[1] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1966) 457. “[Hosanna] was used as a prayer for help; in particular at Tabernacles it was a prayer for rain. But it was also used as an acclamation or greeting (2 Sam 14.4). The fact that the Gospels do not translate the Hebrew term, as does LXX, probably indicates that in this usage “Hosanna” is not a prayer of petition but a cry of praise. Luke 19.37 correctly speaks of praising God. “Hosanna” probably had already entered into the prayer formulae of the Christian community.”

[2] Psalms 113-118 are the “Egyptian Hallel” and were used for the great pilgrim festivals. Bruce M. Metzger, Roland E. Murphy, eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 774OT.

[3] Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969) 77-84. Jeremias estimates the population of Jerusalem based on the size of the city and the number of Passover participants on how many could be accommodated by the size of the Temple. Jerusalem’s permanent population would have been 25,000-55,000. Passover crowds could have numbered 60,000-125,000, less for the other pilgrim festivals.

[4] Gerhard Friedrich, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. VI (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968) 279.

[5] William R. White, “Two Funerals,” Abingdon Preacher’s Annual, 1993, John K. Bergland, ed., (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992) 109.

[6] Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 210-211.