John 12:12-19 (Palm Sunday)

John 12:12-19 (Palm Sunday)                        
St. John, Galveston 4/20/25
“The World has gone after Him”
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    Today is both Palm Sunday and the Sunday of the Passion. You’ll note that there were two different Gospel readings this morning. The first was verses 12-19 of John 12, the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is the traditional Palm Sunday reading. The second was also from John 12, but it was from a bit later in the chapter. It was the account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. In this morning’s message, I would like to address the first of those readings, the Palm Sunday narrative, and specifically the verse, where the Pharisees said, ”You see that you are gaining nothing. Look,  the world has gone after him.”

Indeed, the world has gone after Jesus, as have we, and so, we sing… 

“Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die.
Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, Thy power and reign.”

    It was about 100 years before Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem that Cicero, the great Roman philosopher, referred to a man who was honored with many victories as, “a man of many palms.” It was in that vein that Jesus made His way through the crowds that first Palm Sunday. The people waved their palms, and shouted,“Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The King of Israel!” Jesus great victory, of course, was yet to come in the cross and the empty tomb.  

    With the frenzied shout of the crowds, the Pharisees greatest fear had come to pass. “The World has gone after Him.” People were listening to Jesus, and they were following Him. They were welcoming Him and praising Him as their King. On that first Palm Sunday, the palms were waving, but for some, it was a mockery of the vaunted rite lauded by Cicero. This King, after-all, was lowly. He was humble. He was riding on a colt, the foal of donkey. The Pharisees watched the spectacle in disgust, wondering, no doubt, how they could turn the tide, how they could sway the fickle masses from praising Jesus to cursing Him.  

    Of course, you know the rest of the story. In a week’s time the Pharisees would accomplish their mission. The crowds joyous shouts of “Hosanna,” turned to a angry cry of “Crucify Him, Crucify Him.” Jesus was arrested, tried, beaten and crucified. His battered body, swooning on the cross, served as an example to others of what would happen were they to try to take power and authority away from the Pharisees and the rest of the religious establishment.      

    And now, here we are, some 2,000 years later, and things haven’t changed a great deal. The quest for power and control still drive the hearts of many. Ruthless dictators hold onto power as their countrymen are slaughtered in the streets. Politicians broker deals that shore up their base more than they provide for the common good. Businessmen climb the ladder of success, hoping one day to reach the top, the pinnacle of their profession, where their word will be gospel and when they say to jump, the only question will be, “how high?”

    Even within the church, factions develop. Those who disagree with the leaders of the church, or, with the pastor, form alliances with like minded individuals in order to force change. Change is, of course, a euphemism for a factions agenda. In the church at large, one side calls themselves conservative, or, orthodox. Everyone else is liberal, or, unorthodox. Liberals call themselves progressive and everyone else is viewed as “dead orthodox” or “parochial.” While there is every reason to stand for the orthodox teachings of the church, the effort should never simply be for the sake of attaining power and control.          

    When the Pharisees said, “look, the whole world has gone after Him,”  they were mainly concerned about losing their own power, but they also unknowingly spoke a prophetic word about the power of God’s grace to call people away from themselves and their quest for power to the wonderfully freeing Lordship of Jesus Christ.    

    To “go after Jesus,” to follow Him, is to give up a personal quest for power and control. “If anyone would come after Me (Jesus said), let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” The truth is, we simply cannot be Jesus’ disciples and a master of our own destinies at the same time. Consequently, some of the most blessed and liberating words in the Christian vocabulary are the words, “I cannot.” As we have come to learn and confess regarding faith itself, “I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or, come to Him. But, the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.” “I cannot save my soul from death and hell.” “I cannot keep God’s Law perfectly.” “I cannot love my neighbor as myself, nor can I love God with my whole heart, mind, body and soul.”

    And the good news is that, God meets all of those “cannots” that we utter with a resounding “but, I can,  I have, and I will!”  I will bring you to Me by the power of My Word and the Gospel. I will save your soul from sin and death. I have kept the Law perfectly for you. And I have loved all people unto death, even death on a cross.

    All these years after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, people have continued to go after Him. Beyond the effect of God’s Word on our own lives, it is wonderfully comforting to see the world, even the world beyond our borders, continue to go after Him. In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, for the first time in 74 years, the bells pealed in Red Square in the Kremlin in honor of the holy day of the Orthodox Easter. Muscovites crowded into their candle-lit Orthodox churches to celebrate. At midnight Saturday, April 25, bells rang in Ivan the Great’s belfry in the Kremlin for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution, and the bells in the Orthodox churches across the city chimed in. Billboards declaring, “Christ has risen” abounded in the center of Moscow, whose past leaders had vaunted the city as the world center of communism and atheism.

    “Look, the world has gone after Him.” Children sit in a little hut type building in a remote part of Cambodian jungle. The building was once used by the infamous, Phol Pot, to house detainees before they were sent off to the killing fields to be put to death. That little hut is now a Lutheran church. The children there read from “A child’s garden of Bible stories,” translated into the Khmer language for them by Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

    In northern Sumatra, an island of Indonesia, Lutheran Christians gather around the Word and Sacraments, though the majority of their countrymen worship Allah, following the Muslim tradition. When they want to plant a new church they often have to select an alternative site because radical Islamists block their entry into the community. They “go after Jesus” because, they too, have been called by the Gospel and enlightened with the gifts of Christ.

    How prophetic those words of the Pharisees have proven to be. The Gospel of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection bears fruit around the world.  And the world will continue to go after Jesus as the Gospel is preached and God’s hand of grace is extended to hapless souls everywhere. There are roughly 8 billion people in the world, and only slightly more than 2 billion of them are Christians. For sure, some have heard of God’s grace in Christ and rejected it, but, others have never heard. No doubt there are other little children sitting in huts in remote places around the world who are not reading “A child’s garden of Bible stories” because they don’t have it.  

    Cicero was right.  The man with many victories is “a man of many palms.”  Jesus rode into Jerusalem to the waving of those palms. Jerusalem would be the place of His greatest victory. Holy week would be His finest hour, for, at its terminus, He would defeat sin, death and the devil himself.                  

So…

“Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die.
Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, Thy power and reign.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +