The Peace of Palm Sunday

PROPERS: PALM SUNDAY, YEAR B 

TEXT:       MARK 14:1 – 15:47                              

PREACHED AT RESURRECTION, STARKVILLE, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2024 

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The Peace of God transcends the losses of human nature.

 

The story we just heard read so dramatically is inarguably the climax of the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Today we heard Mark’s account of the Last Supper, the Betrayal, the Trial, and the Crucifixion.

 

In spite of the Pascal Celebration we will all enjoy next Sunday (along with the joy which accompanies it), the Resurrection is not the central point of the gospels. Matthew, Luke, and John mention it prominently.  Mark, the earliest of the four gospels, gives it passing reference.

 

It is clear that the four evangelists who compiled the four gospels considered the truth we heard today as the climax of the story. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…”

 

We need to sit with this story.  We need to reflect on it.  We need to recognize the love it represents. And we need to not fast forward to next Sunday.

 

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            My favorite hymn is Hymn 661. Interestingly, it was written by a Mississippian, the Greenville poet, William Alexander Percy.  The hymn is entitled, “They cast their nets in Galilee.”

 

            All of the lyrics are powerful.  The tune is beautiful. But the full theology – so meaningful and so poignant – is in the fourth verse:

 

“The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing – the marvelous peace of God.”

 

            That hymn seems to summarize this week so well. The message from that week so long ago transcends the ages and echoes through two millennia. The message is that nothing can obstruct God’s movement over the arch of history and in our individual lives.

 

            And what that says to us here today is that, like the apostles John and Peter, we may experience the trials and vicissitudes of human existence.  Judas, Pilate, and the cross cannot stop what God is doing, in your life and mine. But there is nothing that is more valuable to us than the peace of God. The marvelous peace of God.