Palm/Passion March Madness 03.20.05
March madness has begun.
For the men, the first round is over,
the second has begun.
We’ve had to say goodbye to some of the best.
Good bye Gonzaga,
So long
Catch you later
And farewell
It’s madness.
Other than a few crazy alumni who would predicted
or
or little
Bucknell, that beautiful gem in the heart of
(I’m just a little partial to Bucknell.)
It’s the same for the woman,
As North
Madness fills the air particularly in
March madness is not a bad description of our scriptures today.
Our scripture lessons retell Jesus’ entrance
into
We begin with palm fronds and hallelujahs
and we end with hard wood and nails.
We begin singing all glory laud and honor,
and end singing
"My song is love unknown, that for my sake,
my Lord should take frail flesh and die."
Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday are brought together today
and we can not help but feel the madness.
How could the Son of God,
the one who healed so many,
the one who fed 5,000, the one who spoke with authority and compassion,
how could he be sent to the cross?
How would the One full of grace and truth be met with lies and hatred?
How could the one that we describe with words like
hope, healing, mercy and compassion
be met with:
“Crucify, Crucify.”
It seems like madness.
How could a carpenter who traveled with 12 tradesmen be deemed such a threat?
How could they take the One we call Jesus and hang him to a tree?
How could they hang love so pure?
But we understand madness more than we are willing to admit.
Real fans,
fans that have rooted for a team as long as they can remember,
know they are not completely rational.
I remember taking our students on a mission
trip to
somehow ending up at a Phillies game.
One of our kids just happened to be wearing a Yankees cap
(not a good idea at a Phillies game)
and a Phillies fan engaged him in “conversation” that was the type of thing you can’t make up.
The Phillies fan asserted:
The Phillies were the best team in the history of sports.
And look out; because
Well, we know the Phil’s didn’t get Kurt Schilling.
And we know the first couple of propositions of the fan were highly subjective.
To the
Philadelphia Phillies had heart.
To hear the conversation was to witness a thing of beauty.
It was a strange mixture of faith, fantasy, and fiction bordering on madness.
Any
but to an outsider, he sounded, well, “crazy.”
When we tell the story of the Palm Sunday and the Passion next to each other,
in some ways it resembles one home town fan talking to another.
They both get it.
It makes sense.
But to an outsider.
It is crazy.
In preparation for our student’s confirmation retreat, I tried watch Mel Gibson's "The Passion," again.
And again, I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t watch it from beginning to end.
But I’m glad I tried.
For during the movie, they did something beautiful.
When Jesus is being questioned and remains silent, or when he is being flogged, or when he is carrying the cross,
he flashes back to times when he is growing
up and times when he is ministering in
When he is being beaten he remembers his mother Mary, gently caring for him as a child.
When he is being questioned by the authorities, hanging limp from torture,
he remembers teaching the people,
he remembers the way they responded to the sermon on the mount.
When he carries the cross to
It was just one week,
but what a week.
From praise to persecution, in seven short days.
In a way it is madness that we celebrate Palm Sunday,
this day of Hallelujahs
on the same day we celebrate the Passion and the sacrifice.
But in other ways, it is perfect.
Centuries ago, it took a week to go from hallelujahs to hatred.
Today, we remember the Palms and the Passion in under an hour.
Why?
Why do we tell the story?
We tell the story to be honest.
We tell the story to be honest about ourselves and about life.
For we live in a world of upsets and disappointments
and they exist side by side.
Today, we sing hosanna in the beginning,
knowing that we like Peter might reject him as well.
We sing and pray understanding life is unpredictable
but we stay in the game because we know that the cross is not the final score.
We hold fast to hope and believe against all odds,
that the game is not over.
The game begins with “crucify”
but death does not have to be the final score.
If March Madness reminds us of anything,
it anchors us in the mystery of God.
The author of the greatest of games and the king of life’s largest upsets.
As March Madness unfolds
and we are caught up in the madness,
let us remember the one who makes miracles out of madness
and brings life out of death.
We are mindful that creation moans with madness.
We see innocent blood shed in the streets of
We worry as we see nature preserves in
We are set back when we read stories of atrocity in our own streets and neighborhoods.
This past week, I read an article titled “The Gentle People” about the abuse and incest within the Amish community and it nearly broke my heart.
Madness is not limited to basketball court and
madness unfolds everywhere,
it is unveiled on the playground and the state capital,
but we do not lose hope.
Just as great losses for one are great victories for another,
we marvel at the Spring.
Who predicted the spring of possibility in
Who predicted elections in
Just a year ago, who would have predicted a
President in
It is March, anything can happen?
So on this day,
We join a procession, if we didn’t march with the kids,
we at least sang with them as they waved their fronds.
And we sing praises, knowing all the while that madness is ahead.
But we sing
and we pray
and we worship
for we believe that madness does not win the day.
Yes it will be crazy,
yes their will be upsets,
yes our heart may be broken,
and our Lady Huskies may not go as far, but in the end,
we believe in more than the madness.
We believe that behind the madness there is something amazing.
We believe that behind the chaos and the craziness there is something good and true and pure.
And in the end, the madness will not win the day,
but the goodness that beats at the heart of the universe will not be undone.
We sing Hosanna amidst the madness because Spring will come.
The Stone will be rolled back.
The goodness and the grace can be beaten,
it can be tortured,
it can even be hung on a cross,
but it can not be defeated.
So even though it may seem odd, let us sing, let us pray, let us hear the story of God’s grace meeting the world’s madness.
And let us say, Amen.
For God so loved the world,
Amen.
Amidst the madness,
Amen.
Amidst the pain and the heartbreak,
Amen.
For Friday is not far away,
but Sunday is coming,
Amen.
Let the people say:
Amen.