Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday

Luke 22: 39-46   Philippians 2: 5-11 - I have cheated and am using Luke rather than Matthew's account of Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane (part of the passion readings), in order to bring out the comparison with the Lord's prayer.

Today is Palm Sunday – we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, on a donkey, surrounded by cheering crowds: and we know that this is the start of Holy Week. We know that the crowd which shouted ‘Hosanna’ on Palm Sunday shouted ‘crucify him’ just 5 days’ later – on Good Friday.

So as we wave or wear our Palm crosses our celebration is tinged with a sense of awe – that the Jesus who was greeted as ‘the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ was prepared to go through suffering and death.

And so today is not only Palm Sunday for us, but also Passion Sunday – and this has led to the choice of readings.

Luke’s account of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest tells us that Jesus went ‘as usual’ or ‘as was his custom’ to pray.

On the last night of his earthly life Jesus does something which is completely consistent with his whole life. He prays. This time of prayer in the garden was extraordinary, and yet is also just a part of the whole direction of Jesus’ life. Jesus prays because that’s what he always does.

And what Luke tells us about the way that Jesus prays has strong associations with what we know as the Lord’s prayer – the model for ‘how to pray’ that Jesus has already given his disciples.

Earlier in Luke’s gospel (chapter 11) his disciples said to him ‘Lord, teach us to pray’, and Jesus replied:

When you pray say

Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone endebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.

I think we can learn a lot from comparing the Lord’s prayer and the garden of Gethsemane prayer.

Luke tells us in chapter 22 that as they come now, after the Last Supper, to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus begins by telling his disciples to pray ‘that you may not come into the time of trial’.

This is where the Lord’s prayer ends ‘do not bring us to the time of trial’.. (we usually add ‘but deliver us from evil’ and the part ‘for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever’.)

Jesus is facing the ultimate time of trial – the time of betrayal and arrest, crucifixion and death. He tells his disciples to pray that they may not come into the time of trial – to pray for strength to face what must be faced and to continue to be faithful followers of Jesus.

Then Jesus goes a little way to begin his own prayer: and as always he comes into God’s presence in the knowledge of the relationship between them as he starts his prayer

‘Father…’

he has taught his disciples to pray ‘Our Father’ – Abba, Daddy – and it is to his Daddy that he now turns.

‘if you are willing, remove this cup from me: yet, not my will but yours be done’.

Just as the Lord’s prayer, after hallowing God’s name, turns to God’s will rather than our own needs, with the words

‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done’ – so here Jesus is acutely aware that whatever the situation (and now it is dire), it is God’s will that must prevail.

Even in the agony of this moment when it seems that his ministry has failed and his life is over, Jesus can trust that God’s will is for good and that somehow God’s purpose of love for the world will be expressed in what Jesus has to face.

In the Lord’s prayer, we next pray for our daily bread. Jesus does not pray for that – he will not eat again in his earthly life. In place of daily bread, Jesus is facing the cup of suffering. But even that cup of suffering he will take, if it is God’s will.

In his daily prayer, Jesus also taught us to pray for forgiveness – for ourselves and for others. He does not pray for forgiveness here in the Garden but of course, later from the cross he will pray ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing’.

Finally in this time of prayer in the garden, Jesus returns to his disciples, and again tells them to pray that they might not come into the time of trial.

While Jesus is still speaking, Judas appears at the head of a crowd to betray Jesus. In this final time of peace and quiet before the onslaught, Jesus has turned to God the Father in prayer.

In his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus dedicated what is about to happen to God just as each day before it has been dedicated to God. What an amazing prayer of trust and obedience this is from Jesus, using so much of the language of his everyday prayer.

And where does all this leave us, who claim to follow Jesus? Our reading from Paul to the Philippians reminds us of our relationship to Jesus:

“let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”.

Following Jesus is not like supporting a sports team, from the touchline, or through TV reports – something we do from a distance, perhaps half-heartedly.

We are to be as Jesus was, to pray as Jesus did, to be prepared to trust God the Father as Jesus did.

The same mind needs to be in us as was in Christ – humble and obedient even to death.

So as we wear our palm crosses today we wear a symbol of our discipleship. A symbol of the cross we are prepared to take up daily. A symbol of all the ways in which we are prepared to follow Jesus. This act of discipleship will be based in prayer, as Jesus’ time in the garden of Gethsemane was. And like Jesus’ prayer in the garden our discipleship and our faithfulness to God will be an extraordinary act and yet will also mark the direction of our whole life.

So pray, follow and like Jesus be ready to be obedient so that God can take your through all that life throws at you – through each time of trial, and be ready as Easter Sunday dawns to receive resurrection and new life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.