Suffering Servant and Prince of Peace

Palm Sunday
Ezekiel 22.4a, 7-13, 23-26, 28-29; Ephesians 6.10-12;
Colossians 2.8-15; Luke 19.28-46

Rev Diane Vorster

Minister in the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa and pastor in Dundee and Dannhauser, South Africa. In September 2000, she became the first woman moderator of the general assembly of her church.

On Palm Sunday we celebrate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, an event often described as Jesus' moment of triumph before the events which culminated in his death. Today we are being called to consider what there is implicit in this action that may lead to life in fullness, and we are invited to find the answer in the apparent paradox of Jesus' death.

As this event unfolded, it was rich in symbolism. Jesus rode down the Mount of Olives on a donkey. The meaning of this was immediately understood from the words of Zechariah 9.9: "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey..." He was making a statement, a claim that the religious and political establishments could not accept. Here was their king, coming in peace. Here was the one designated by the prophet Isaiah (9.6) as the Prince of Peace.

This same Prince of Peace, as he drew closer to the city of peace and looked at it, wept over it and spoke those arresting words, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!" (Lk 19.42). Jerusalem did not know what made for its peace, and the human race in 2003 still does not know what makes for its peace! That peace, so comprehensively described by the Hebrew word, shalom, embraces the following concepts: completeness, welfare, safety, soundness in body, health, prosperity, tranquillity and contentment, friendship, peace with God, being in submission to God, keeping covenant relationship with God, peace of mind, being requited, no war or strife.

Peace, then, means comprehensive wellbeing, not just an absence of war or, in today's world, an absence of terror attacks, violence, crime, murder, rape, abuse of the poor and vulnerable of society, and violation of human life.

God has revealed what makes for individual and national peace, wellbeing, or "life in fullness". The latter is not something strange or exceptional. It is God's original and intended gift to every creature under heaven. It includes lush, productive, well-watered land; pure, unpolluted air; food available from plants as well as an abundance of fish, fowl and meat for food; plus ample uncontaminated water to drink.

It also includes God's revelation and teaching, torah, for humanity on how to live in all the relationships of life so as to be healthy, happy, fulfilled and productive, having respect for one another, being accountable to one another, living and acting with integrity, exercising restraint and self-control with regard to sexuality, and exercising respect within marriage. In addition, each person should have a place and function in the religious, economic, and political systems that God has ordained for the wellbeing of God's people.

Why was Jesus entering Jerusalem?

Quite simply, Jesus was coming to die, to offer up his life as a ransom for all, to redress the wrongs that were breaking down the ethical and moral values of society and with that, the very fibre of society. Jesus was coming to call all people back to obedience to their God, to initiate life in fullness for all people.

People everywhere seek life in fullness, yet, sadly, seek it in all the wrong places - such as entertainment, with its corrupt values; politics, with its value systems and emphases related to power; economics, with a value system based on the accumulation of wealth; human relationships, with a value system that puts personal gratification as first priority regardless of the consequences of broken relationships or parent-less, unwanted children, and disease. People use alcohol or substance abuse to seek oblivion or power through which to intimidate others or to act in lawlessness and with a sense of invincibility: they seek wealth, more money, more and better material possessions, but this search is often associated with a false sense of security or self-worth and the addiction to gambling through love of money.

But as Jesus rode down the Mount of Olives to the expectant city on that day, he came to impart life in fullness to every human being, in the only way this was possible. He came to die and in his death to destroy the power of evil, to absorb the powers of destruction, deception, and human failure that hold people back from realizing God's desire for every person, which is God's gift of life in fullness.

Only in God is life in fullness attainable.

Only as each person lives his/her life in God's world by God's laws is life in fullness possible, and only as the meaning and power of Jesus' death is perceived and received can that life begin to dawn. This death cost Jesus anguish and agony, suffering and humiliation, an unjust trial and sentence of death, because Jesus had to stand in the place of every person who had broken God's covenant law and take God's judgment on their sin (Gen 2.16,17; Rom 6.23; Mk 10.45). Jesus did this for every human being, and each one was delivered from the guilt and power of sin, its strongholds and destructiveness, and saved from eternal death.

But this requires each person to hear such good news, have the opportunity to respond to it personally, and then live by the standards that God has laid down for all times:

• in a relationship of union and communion with the Father, through the Son, and by the power of the Holy Spirit;
• through prayer and study of the scriptures, growing in grace and in the understanding of how to live in every aspect of life - personal life, marriage, parenthood, community, social, political, economic and religious life;
• giving leadership and impacting homes, families and communities by the power of the Holy Spirit; acting with wisdom, knowledge, understanding, through prophetic words, healings, and in discipleship;
• applying God's value system to the broader issues of life, eg in opposing legislation which goes against God's revealed will, through people appointed for this specific purpose in key places such as the national and provincial parliaments;
• standing against corruption, lawlessness, and false value systems, especially as regards sexuality and sexual behaviour; constantly speaking out for what is right in God's sight;
• understanding what life in fullness really is! It is not being the richest person materially or being the most important person. Rather it is to have sufficient for one's own needs and enough to help others in their situations of deprivation.
• developing one's God-given gifts and using them in serving where needed, caring for those on God's heart, the vulnerable of society, doing so out of the overflow of what one has, or sacrificially.

In considering the plight of the poor in both the rural and urban areas, the question might arise as to why they should be poor, and how it is that they are unable to break out of their circumstances. However, there is a far more critical analysis that needs to be done in order to address the dysfunctionality that results in poverty and the ills of society mentioned above and prevents many from enjoying life in fullness.

The reading from the prophet Ezekiel highlights the issues, which are summarized by Robert Linthicum as corrupt systems: political (leadership), economic (exploitation) and religious (system which gives structure and values to society).¹ As each system becomes corrupted, the end result is that people who are initially against the system end up turning against one another! Into this type of situation, the true prophetic voice must speak, exposing not only the sin of the systems, but most crucially, the powerlessness of the poor which prevents them from confronting and exposing the corrupt systems and breaking their domination. Over and above the material factors, there is also the need to perceive what the apostle Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6.10-12 and Colossians 2.8, 15, namely the spiritual forces of darkness which influence the life of the systems of the city or rural settlement.

Jesus riding into Jerusalem on this day represented two offices. The first was the king coming in peace. The second was the Suffering Servant entering the city to suffer and die so that each person from then on might have life in the fullness that only he can bring. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5.21). His atoning sacrifice was to break the power of sin and death, to disarm the principalities and powers dominating the structures of life, and to tear down the strongholds through which they bind the lives of God's people, stripping them of their potential and inheritance in Christ.

The human race was not created for poverty and want, to be outcast or alienated from the fullness of life. It was created that each one might share in the whole created order. This cannot happen until each person acknowledges the God who created all things and the Saviour who redeemed a fallen creation and continues to make all things, including our lives, new.

This is a call to repentance, issued to church and nation. It is a call to dedicated commitment to aggressive evangelization to make known God's order for life and wellbeing and to bring God's heart for the suffering as well as God's judgment on those systems which oppress and exploit the vulnerable to the forefront of local, national and international consciousness. It is a call to choose the things that make our peace. These are not found apart from God, apart from the Prince of Peace. Each one of us needs to die to sin, self, and values of this world and to live to the values of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, wept over human recalcitrance, stubborn and rebellious hearts, wilful disobedience, seeking of one's own way and thereby rejecting God's way, so each one of us needs to weep over the sinfulness of humanity of which we, too, are a part. As Jesus wept over the consequences of the wrong choice of the people on that day so long ago, so we need to weep over the consequences of human sinfulness which have robbed millions of the fullness of life and of hope, replaced the generosity and order of the Creator with a human order of domination and greed, and resulted in so much suffering, deprivation, injustice, and sickness. In addition, humanity has begun to play God in scientific interventions such as genetic engineering and cloning, asserting self in blatant defiance of God.

Given the critical spiral into destruction of a world whose value system is derailed, there is an urgency for the church of Jesus Christ to address for change the mindset of the present day, to challenge attitudes, and reestablish the value system that brings life, fullness of life, as God intended and made possible by the gift of his Son, the Beloved.

Notes