Here Comes the Bridegroom

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29, and Mark 11: 1-11 Sermon title: Here Comes the Bridegroom Preached on March 25, 2018 In the early service we sang, “What wondrous love is this”, as the hymn to prepare us for those Palm Sunday Scripture Lessons that I just read. We sang: What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul. What wondrous love is this, O my soul. What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul. I hope you know that hymn. It’s a good one, and it’s about the saddest love song that you could ever sing. But sometimes it’s the sad ones that get love right. And rarely is it the movies that get love right. When Sara and I were first married we watched a lot of love movies that she picked out. It seemed like they all starred the same blond robot actors and followed the same plot line. You’ve seen these movies where boy falls in love with girl, boy chases girl, finally girl realizes she’s in love with boy, but by then boy has moved on, so something dramatic has to happen, and then everything ends happily ever after. In these movies there’s not a lot of compromising or arguing about money. No one really sacrifices very much, so I want to tell you that if you are looking for an example of real love, look not to the romantic comedies of this present evil age, but to the husbands who suffer through those movies because they love their wives that much. Real love. Wondrous love – it’s not like what you see in the movies, and if you want a glimpse of the kind of love that I’m talking about this morning, at the next wedding you attend don’t just watch the groom to see if he cries as the bride walks down the aisle. Look at the father of the bride who is definitely crying and has been for weeks. Real love, wondrous love, if full of this kind of sacrifice. The kind of sacrifice where you love her so much that you can give her away even though it tears your heart in two. But that’s not what we make movies about. In movies we invent these fantasies where two people complete each other without any work. Where dreams get fulfilled and where women are like genies who say to men, “Your wish is my command.” You think that’s love? It’s not, nor should it be – here’s love: When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down. When I was sinking down, sinking down. When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, for my soul. Christ laid aside his crown for my soul. That’s wondrous love. The kind with sacrifice. And that’s what our world needs today. A few more people who are willing to lay aside their crown, their privilege, their power, their ego, for the ones they love. If you want an example of what that looks like, don’t look to Hollywood, don’t look to Washington DC, and definitely don’t try to find it on the internet. The place you’ll find wondrous love is in the Lord who comes to us this day with a steadfast love that endures forever, riding on a colt that has never been ridden. Now, to slightly change the subject: Did you notice how he got that colt? We read in our Gospel lesson from Mark that “when they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.” To me, this is the funny part, because this is a weird request, but if you love someone sometimes you’ll do just about anything for them, be it sitting through a romantic comedy or becoming a horse thief, so, the disciples go, and he tells them, “If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” I wonder what those disciples said to that. “Yea, that will probably work Jesus. And why don’t we stop by the bank to “borrow” some money while we’re at it?” But if you love someone you’ll do things like this. You do things that you wouldn’t normally do, because sometimes love is both joyful and humiliating. It’s not all a walk in the park. Even a son’s love for his mother requires a little bit of sacrifice. Let me tell you what I mean. I’ve have always loved my mother. So much that I’d even go with her to the grocery store. But you know what she would do to me? First thing she would do is drive around the parking lot looking for a good spot, for as long as it took to find one. Up and down we’d go. Then if someone was walking towards their car parked in a good spot we’d wait until they’d unloaded their cart, closed the trunk, buckled their seat belt. All the while I’m banging my head against the window. I know the memories of that torture are still with me, because when I go to the grocery store today I always park in the first spot that I see. Back then, I couldn’t stand how she’d walk with her friend Cindy Dean for hours around our neighborhood going nowhere in particular, but she couldn’t walk an extra 40 feet to get into the store? It drove me crazy. Then, once we got in there things were good again. She’d let me pick out whatever I wanted, within reason. No sugar cereal, but if I wanted to pick out a frozen dinner to have as a snack when I got home from school I could. And we’d talk walking down the aisles. How was school? How was I doing? And what she was asking was, “Joe, how are you really doing?” This was a gift that I treasured. Even when I came home from college I’d go with her to the grocery store. But then we’d finish shopping. We’d unload everything from the cart onto the conveyer belt at the register, and she’d run off leaving me there because she forgot the milk or something. This sounds like a small thing now, because now I have money to pay for things, but back then the beep of each item being scanned felt like a countdown to my own execution. It felt like the clock ticking on a time-bomb. Then the last item would be scanned, the cashier would look at me. I’d tell her that my mom would be right back, and the cashier would just stare at me, and so would all the people in the line behind me. Real love – you want to talk about real love, then you’re talking about accepting some modicum of the inconvenience that she accepted for me. Real love is about making some sacrifices. Laying down your crown every once in a while. But that’s not how it looks in the movies, is it? Real love is different, maybe even jarring. I remember how shocked Sara was the first time I took her to meet my grandparents. Whether they loved each other or hated each other, I didn’t always know, but I had gotten used to it whatever it was. Sara on the other hand. The first time I took Sara to meet my grandparents, they were already in the midst of a disagreement, and my grandmother was so mad at my grandfather that she looked to Sara to say, “He’s just a snake I tell you. A mean old snake.” That was Sara’s introduction to my grandparents. What was Sara thinking in this moment? I don’t know, but it says something that she’s stuck with me this long. She’s perfect of course, but not everyone is, so marriage is hard. Relationships are hard. Friendships are hard, because loving someone means loving the whole of them, so sometimes the person who you love is also the person who drives you crazy. Ruth Graham, who was married to Billy Graham, is famous for saying: “I never considered divorce, though I often considered murder.” That’s love. And as my grandmother was dying in the hospital I flew down to stay with my grandfather. We’d sit at the hospital all day while a ventilator breathed for her. Then at night he’d just break in half, and would say things like, “I don’t know what I’ll do without her. Joe, I just can’t believe this is happening.” That’s love isn’t it? He’s a snake one minute and Romeo the next. But if you want to talk about love, you have to take both parts. The Book of Revelation says that Jesus will ride like a bridegroom to join his bride who is the New Jerusalem. On this Palm Sunday we rejoice for he comes ridding up to be with us, to take humanity as his bride, but consider humanity for a minute. On the one hand, the Gospel of Mark portrays us as an adoring crowd, cheering, waving palm branches, and laying down our cloaks to pave the savior’s path. What’s not to love? But you know he could see beneath the cheers of an adoring crowd. He had already predicted his death three times in the Gospel of Mark, telling his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, be rejected, and be killed. He really knew us. He knew exactly what he was riding towards. This bridegroom knew all that hid beneath our bridal veil, for he could see into our hearts. What then did he hear as we cheered: “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” Could he have smiled knowing that soon enough the scribes, elders, and chief priests would stir us up so that we’d all be calling for his death? And yet he rides on. For us and for our salvation the bridegroom rides on because that’s what Christ’s wondrous love for us is. He accepts the whole of who we are, he knows and understands the whole of who we are, and he rides towards us anyway. That’s wondrous love. And if we are to love that way, we need to make some changes. Maybe like you I read Darrell Huckaby in the Marietta paper, and a couple weeks ago I loved what he wrote so much that I saved the article and recommended it to everyone I saw, but last Thursday morning he made me so mad that I threw the paper on the ground! But that’s what is required. Jesus didn’t ride into Jerusalem, realize that the place was full of Democrats and turn around. Before riding in to the city he didn’t first ask if any inhabitants were members of the NRA. He didn’t even fire the Disciple he knew was going to betray him, so how can we as Christians allow friendships to fall apart over issues that divide us? If we used Facebook as Jesus would have used it, if in political discourse we used him as our model, if we treated our neighbors the way that Christ treats us, then how would this world look? For he knew us, everything about us, and still he rides towards us. Today we remember that the Savior of the world comes to us like a bridegroom to be married to a people who will soon enough turn their back and call for him to be crucified. Why does he do it? Because that’s God’s wondrous love for you and me. Now, we must go and do likewise. Amen.