Date: March 29,2026

Readings: Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 27:11-54

Preacher: Sermon by Fr. Travis O'Brian 

“WHAT SHALL I DO WITH JESUS, CALLED MESSIAH?”

            Today we have set off on a difficult journey, a journey following Jesus through the events of Holy Week.  This journey takes us from the joy of the palms, cheering Jesus through the gates of Jerusalem, celebrating him as the one who will save and free the city – all the way to the foot of the cross.  We have heard his invitation, “follow me;” and this week we will follow him – even into places of pain and truth; places we come face to face with things we’d rather not have to acknowledge.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  That is his question to us all; therein lies our judgment: do you love me, trust me enough to lead you even to confront the truth of your fear, doubt, denial, refusal, rejection of me, who you call Messiah?

            What I want to impress upon you now, as we begin this journey, is that to participate in Holy Week is not merely to follow the plot of an old story.  We are not an audience in a theatre.  As the dramatic reading of the Gospel shows, in truth we are the actors – for the story is our story.  The story is about Jesus, and therefore it is also about us.  We are the crowd welcoming him into the city with cries of Hosanna.  We are the disciples gathering in the Upper Room; it is our feet Jesus washes; it is us he feeds with the bread and wine of his body and blood.  That same night, we go with him to the garden, and it is we who fall asleep at the hour of crisis.  The soldiers who come to arrest him, protecting the world’s interests?  They are also us.  We are the crowd shouting “let him be crucified!”  We are the women following behind Jesus as he drags his cross out of the city and up the dreaded hill.  We are the guards, casting lots for his clothing.  We are the onlookers, watching as our will is done on earth – hearing the hard ring of the hammer; his last cry of loneliness and pain.  We watch him die.  And we do this because if we do not follow him all the way there, if we pull back and refuse to look into the darkness of his tomb, we cannot be his disciples.  If we refuse to let him lead us into all truth – if we turn our eyes away from the truth of our darkness, how will we find the light that shines in it? 

            We’ve begun the journey, welcoming with joy Jesus into the city.  By week’s end, we shall drive him out again – back outside the city walls.  What is the city?  Biblically, the city represents two things.  The city displays the wonders of human ingenuity.  But it is also the symbol of humanity’s rejection of God, for the city is where humanity declares its independence as a self-contained power.  In other words, we build the city to protect ourselves from all that makes us vulnerable: outside its walls is wilderness, the enemy, death, the place of the skull.  The city reveals the spirit of the world which strives to close itself off from all that is not itself, to make itself invulnerable, a perfectly controlled and humanly managed environment; a world wherein no will but our human will is done.[1]

      In the language of symbol, the city is defined by its walls: walls to keep out the enemy – that is, everything not under our own management; walls to keep out the wilderness, all that threatens, all that we do not plan for or provide our self; walls ultimately to keep God at a distance – for it is in the wilderness, on the mountain, even on the desolate hill outside the city walls, that God meets us.  Only there are we vulnerable enough to receive him. 

       In the language of symbol, all cities are walled, though we no longer build our walls of stone.  Gated communities, missile defense systems: these are both kinds of walls, of course.  Likewise the so-called “smart city,” planned by the likes of Google.  The goal of the “smart city” is to construct a digital network to manage every corner of the human environment.  In the smart city, nothing unplanned can touch us, so perfectly self-managed we dream it to be.  The goal of the smart city is to be invulnerable, to eliminate surprise.  But to eliminate surprise means to eliminate God from our life.  For God gives himself to us in ways we can’t control or manage, cannot build a tower to reach.  To eliminate surprise, to strive to be invulnerable to all that is not of our own will: the smart city is the Biblical city par excellence, the sign of a world which eliminates God from its midst.  “What shall I do with Jesus who is called Messiah?” Pilate asks.  And the city insists, “Let him be crucified!”

       Yet, it’s also true that, just a few days prior, we welcomed this same Jesus into the city with shouts of “Hosanna!”  What are we to make of this?  Why would the same city turn so quickly and so vehemently?  Well, what did we hope he would do for us?  Did we not welcome him into the city as the one destined to save the city?  We welcome him as King: the one who will protect the interests of the city and guarantee its greatness!  But Jesus does not come to save the city.  He does not come to restore or vindicate the power and prestige of the city.  He comes rather to confront the power of the city with another power – the power of powerlessness.  He comes to make himself, and us, vulnerable – so that Love might draw near, break down our walls, enter our closed gates.

       It doesn’t take long for the city to realize that this Jesus is not its underwriter but its mortal enemy.  O but we are, even we who love him, we are also citizens of the city!  The crowd’s voice is none other than our voice: “let him be crucified!”  We drive him out; out of the city, out of the world, out of our life.  We drive him out of the city – only to find, in the night, at the Easter Vigil, Holy Saturday – only to find that it was outside the walls he was leading us all along; it was to the very foot of the cross he was leading us all along.  Our thought was to drive him away!  But all along he was leading us: “Follow me.” 

      That, my friends, is the surprise – the surprise, the grace, the miracle, of Holy Week.  If we only bare our feet to him we will find, even as we condemn him to death, that he leads us into life.  We follow Jesus this whole long week so that God might break us down. Break us down that Love himself might lift us up.  Only when we are broken down can love truly surprise us.  So we give our foot for him to wash.  And we bow to the ground, kiss and revere the feet of him who for our sake is so broken, so vulnerable.  Even as the city watches in disbelief, we will do this.  He comes to break down the walls of our hearts, the city that lives in us.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem: so full of fear and violence and rejection of God: may Christ break it down, all its self-enclosing walls, that Love may reign.

                                                            AMEN

[1] Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City (Paternoster Press, 1997).