Pastor’s Correction: in the audio recording of this sermon, you will hear a mistake I made in my delivery on Sunday morning. It was a major error, so I feel the need to correct it here. I should have said “five centuries before Jesus as the Jews returned from Babylon.” Instead, I said “returned to Babylon.” I simply misread my own writing. I apologize if this created any confusion. The Jews returned to Jerusalem after years of a horrible captivity in Babylon. I am quite certain they never wanted to return to Babylon. In the written text below, the sentence is correct. –Pastor Ed.

Luke 19:28-40
28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,
“Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!”
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Palm Sunday: Bittersweet Triumph
We had a lot of mixed rain and snow this week. Here in Maine, spring is long and cold. After the first thaw in March, the ground begins to soften and the water begins to flow in streams and rivers, and the sound is startling after the silence of frozen winter. After the first thaw, for a day or two, it seems like spring has arrived, but then the next day we are plunged back into low temperatures and the ice returns. Rain freezes on the roads and sidewalks, and we slide, insecure and uncertain of our footing. It takes a long time to go from winter to spring.
In his poem, “The Waste Land,” the poet T.S. Eliot captures the mixed feelings we sometimes have about spring when he writes, “April is the cruellest month.”

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Bittersweet Spring
I think T.S. Eliot got it right. We tend to think of spring as a time of wonder and renewal, of bright daffodils and lilacs, of red robins and green hummingbirds returning to our gardens. And it is all of these things. But as the poet reminds us, the transition from winter to spring is slow and complex, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. The poet points out the paradox of spring. Spring is bittersweet.
In our reading from Luke’s gospel this morning, we hear the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Bittersweetness is the overall feeling of Palm Sunday as we begin Holy Week and the journey toward the cross.
Recall in our readings last week that Jesus was visiting the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, to observe the Festival of Passover. Mary anoints Jesus with a costly perfume called “nard,” sometimes called “spikenard.” And then, the day after Mary anoints him, Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, lauded with palm fronds and shouts of “Hosanna!”
Israel’s Triumph and Hope
Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is bittersweet. In the story of Palm Sunday there are layers of meaning. There is a layer of hope for the restoration of Israel. This is the ancient hope found in Jewish scripture, expressed in the book of Zechariah written five centuries before Jesus as the Jews returned from Babylon: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus, riding a donkey into Jerusalem, is seen as the Savior King in David’s line, the King and Messiah who will restore Israel. He is the hope of Israel, as expressed in ancient scripture so many years before.
Israel’s Sorrow.
And yet there is another layer of meaning here, one of sorrow. Jesus is going to his execution. And so mingled with hope, there is bitterness and sorrow. We can imagine that as he rides into Jerusalem, the scent of spikenard on Jesus is still strong. “Spikenard,” the pungent perfume used by the ancients is made by extracting oil from the roots of a flowering plant found in the Himalayas.
I wanted to experience the scent of spikenard, so Shari ordered a small bottle of it for me last week. I wanted to smell it, to experience for myself this rare perfume, so expensive, the oldest known perfume. It was Mary’s gift to Jesus, as she prepared for his death. It was her gift of love and sorrow.
I had never smelled spikenard before, and when the bottle arrived, I was surprised. Spikenard oil is not a pleasant smell. And yet there is something beautiful, too, in a kind of repulsive and haunting way. Can something be compelling and repulsive at the same time? These kinds of contradictions don’t make sense. But that’s poetry, isn’t it?
The smell of spikenard is a complex layering. It is both beautiful, and at the same time, it’s earthy, pungent, and cloying. What is it? Is it death? Is it grief? Is it the smell of dead flowers in a funeral parlor? Is it the smell of human beings, the smell of life and death? Maybe it’s the smell of truth. There is something bright and burning in the dark pungency of nard. Mary wiped nard on Jesus’ feet with her hair. The smell must have stayed in her hair for days. Certainly, it was there, lingering on her head, during the crucifixion.
Jesus enters Jerusalem
Jesus enters Jerusalem in a parade of triumph. This kind of parade was a tradition of Rome called the “Roman Triumph.” In ancient Rome, the Roman Triumph was the highest honor awarded to conquering generals and emperors. An enormous parade through the city of Rome, the Triumph was a tremendous and horrific spectacle of power. But Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is the opposite of a Roman Triumph. There are no armies marching. There are no captured slaves in chains. There are no elephants or lions. Christ’s triumphal entry is downplayed in humility. He rides a donkey. And he knows that he is going to his death.
The celebration on Palm Sunday is bittersweet. It’s a layering of joy and sorrow. Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem is like the scent of spikenard. It’s both ugly and beautiful at the same time. And it’s a layering of complex elements. It’s like we are. We are layers of complex elements, aren’t we? Each person, each one of us, is a combination of layers and layers of experiences: our struggles and traumas, our victories and wounds, our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears. We are all of these things. And so, each moment contains all the moments of our experience. We bring everything that we are and everything we have experienced to this one place and this one time, right now. The good and the bad, the ugly and the exquisite. And once again, and yet in a totally new way, here we are, at the beginning of Holy Week. Hosanna! Amen? Amen.