BEPRAYAL BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
’ MATTHEW 27:1-113; 26:47-50 LAFAYETTE, INDIAWA
APRIL 7, 1974 PALM SUNDAY JOHN M. BUCHANAN

Palm Sunday is an enigma; a day that began grandly but ended in a
fiasco: a ticker-tape parade for a conquering hero that turned, in an
astonishingly brief period of time, into a mob scene screaming for his
death: a party that turned into a Tynching party. There is tnspiring
grandeur in the event this day celebrates - Jesus Christ making his
entrance fo the capital city of his nation: a grandeur expressed in the
favorite Palm Sunday hymn:

Ride on! Ride on in Majesty!

In lowly pomp, ride on to die;

Bow thy meek head to mortal pain

Then take, 0 God, Thy power, and reign.

But there is also about this day a lot that is human and petty and
ambiguous. There is a cloud over it all: we know how it wilt end. For
this was the event in his life that set in motion a complex of forces thet
would, in five days, result in his crucifixion.

It is not a particularly simple day. William Stringfellow observes
that Palm Sunday is the occasion on which Christians go to Church for the
Wrong reasons: that we keep returning to Palm Sunday with nastatgia for
the parade. And indeed, that is how the church - all too often - observes
it. A day of triumph: a kingly day when for once Jesus received the kind
of treatment he deserved. There is an inherent romanticism in the image
of people laying Palm branches and the coats from their backs in his path.
It conjures up visions of the American troops liberating Paris - or John
Glenn on Wall Street. But tis more complex than that; more énigmatic....

Consider ~ the planned intentionality of what happened. He chose to
ride on the back of a donkey, for instance: something he had never done
before. [It was a short distance from Bethany to Jerusalem, and it was to-
tally out of character forhim to ride instead of walk. Except for the

fact that the prophet Zechariah had promised that it would happen that way:

BETRAYAL ~2- APRIL 7, 1974

"Shout aloud, 0 daughter of Jerusalem!

Lo, your King cones to You;
Triumphant and Victorious is he
humble and riding on an ass...."

He knew that when the pele who were in the city saw him they would
immediately remember that prophetic promise. He knew that they would see
in him the promised Messiah. That is what he wanted them to see. It was
an announcement: clear-without equivocation: "Tf am the one for whom you
have been waiting: I am the fulfillment of God's promise to your fathers."

Consider the reaction of the people. It is far too simple to regard
1% as a "welcome to the city party." in the first place the ones who
welcomed him were not residents of the city at all. They were, in alj
probability, Galileans who knew him, or who had heard about him, common,
country folk who were in the naly city to celebrate the Passover. That
is to say they had come to treir capital - the city that symbolized the
identity and past and existence of Israel as God's paople - to celebrate
and remember the event that had established them as a nation - namely their
liberation from Slavery in Egypt. Tt was a passionately patriotic occasion:
made more intense by the Simple fact that they were not free: that they
were still oppressed by Foreigners. And so when a man had the audacity anc
courage to ride into that tinder-box in the precise way the Messiah | =he
tiberator - Was supposed to come, they went wild.

Consider the reaction of the authorities. One has to assume that
they were reacting ta the crowd more than they were to him. After al} they
asked, "Who is this?" The city people didn't know him. The authorities,
that is - the Tewiple Priests, the Scribes, Pharisees and Saducees - may hayo
heard rumors about some of tne things he had said and done back in Galijee,
but that's all. There is no reason to believe that the Romans had any
Opinion about him at all. But the Jewish authorities knew trouble when

they saw it. And a crowd of ruffians from the country, organizing a

BETRAYAL , 1a. SPRIL F, bay
parade to waicome somecne who Souked suspiciously like a séif-styied
revolutionary - spelled "trouble" in capital letters. The la thing thev
needed was a revolution - or wen a riot.

And so it was a complex, not a simple, day. A Tot of forces were set
in motion. And in and through 4% all there was a nivotal rote piayed
by @ man named Judas, one of the twelve. 2 have an idea that it was thic
day - the dangerous complexity of what transpired on this day - that forced
Judas into making a fateful decision.

"Betraal" is a nasty word. History's worst epitaphs are reserved for
traitors. Acts of betryal are remembered for canturies. Benedict Arnold
the Rosenbergs, Quizling ~ a man whose name has become synonymous with
treason. Dante placed Judas in the lowest, last circle of hell - alone,
Treason and betrayal have always accompanied the notitical processas so
mankind: but the men who kaye done it haye reaped humanity's ripest
contempt. Plutarcn wrote that "Caesar said he Toved the treason, but
hated tie traitor.”

There are, I would suggest, two kinds & betrayal. One is the prod ct
of cowardice, greed; the work of men who have no principals, no convicvuicnc.
no loyalties. Sut there is another kind of betrayal that vesults from
nigh ideais,great courage, deen convictions. This is the kind sf treason
that happens when a man changes his mind: when he is convinced that truth
lies somewhere ether than the path he is following: when Toyalty to persene
institutions, governments suddenly must be sacrificed because of 2 deeper
loyalty to consctence. Into this category fall men like Patrick Henry,
sam Adams, Robert~E. Lee., Judas? Perhaps. But first, what did he do,
actually?

After Palm Sunday the Jevish authorities had a problem. If they
were to prevent a popular uprising against Rome, they had to get the
instigator out of the wav, quietly ard as quickly as possible. But they

couldn't do it publically because the pecpie - the rough Galileans would

BETRAYAL -4.. APRIL 7, 1974
Surely riot. What they needed was a place to arrast him - a quiet, remote
place, Preferably under the cover of darkness. And they needed some
bositive way to identify him. Remember, they nad never seen nim before,
and to them at] Gatilieans probably looked the same,

And so Judas Provided the Place and the method. He was the treasurer
of the little bang of disciples, by the way. One of nis responsibilities
would have been t6 make the room and board arrangements forthe week. He
knew where they would be eating on Thursday evening. And So, for thirty
pieces of silver he agreed to lead a group of Temple guards to Jesus, and
to identify him by greeting him with e kiss - the traditional method of
greeting between Rabbi and disciple, tt WAS 4S simple as that.

Wnat #8 not so Simple is why he did it. Into what category of betrayal
did he fali? 7 think it is a 9gPOSS aver-simplification to reason that Judas
Was a treacherous liar through anc tnrough. It not only is unfair to him
#t prevents us From learning very much through his experience, [It took
Courage to follow Jesus in the first place: it took commitment and a
willingness to Sacrifice to Say with him: it took integrity to be the
trusted treasurer. This was no unprincipaled coward. Hor am I convinced
tnat greed had much to do with it. The value o thirty pieces of silver
has been estimated at about $25.90. Hot much money, really. Particularly
for the treasurer,

I believe, rather, that Judas's betrayal grew out of his convictions:
that he beceme convinced that it was the right thing to do: that he had
to do it. It could have been that he wanted to avoid the conflict that he
Saw coming. He may have been a "law and Order” man, who knew that an
aroused populace waving patm branches and shouting patriotic Slogans would
bring down the wrath of Rome ana the whole Nation. And so it WOUTd be
better to arranges for his arrest - quietly - to get him out of the way,

Or it could have been that Judas was a revolutionary: that he was

thritted with what he saw developiag: that he actually believed that Jesus

Wh TAT Ate «5- AFRIL F, 1974
would organize the peaple, siecse nalitical power and drive out the Romans.
Tt could have been that Judas wanted to arrange a show down - a situation
in which desus would act aggressively and thus set off the conflict.

Or it could have been thet his revolutionary fervor, his passionate
patriotism was so severly-disappointed that he did it as an act of rage at
having so wasted the prior three yoars.

I am convinced that Judas did not mean for it to end as it did. His
remorse after the crucifixion; his attempt to return the money; his suicide
tell me that this was a tortured man who had seen something he thought was
an act of high courage turn into an unmitigated disaster. He didn't mean
for Jesus to be crucified. Whatever his notives for betraying him he didn't
intend this.

I discovered this week that the word for “kiss” used in Matthew and
Hark is not the ordinary word for the traditional greeting between Rabbi
and Disciple. Instead the Greek here means a fond, affectionate kiss.
Which leads me again to conclude that it is just too stmple to explain the
act of betrayal in terms of greed and treachery.

Sometimes life does that ® us. I can remember one time arranging a
fight for my younger brother: I had concluded that he needed to assert
himseif - that fe could do it and should do it. But he lost - and it looked
like betrayal. Jean Paul Sartre wrote a short story, The Wall, in which
a man condemned to die decided to fool his captors one last time. When
given the opportunity to trade his life for revealing the whereabouts of
another man, he fabricated a complex tale about a secret hide-out ina
cometary, and then waited to enjoy the rage of his captors when they dis-
covered how foolish he had made them Took. But when they return he is
reprieved, and learna that by some freak coincidence his friend was hiding
in the cemetary and was sxecuted on the spot. He was a traitor - by accident.
Sometimes life does that kiwd of thing to us.

The betrayal of Judas, Finally, was'a result of his failure to see the

pe TT Te cin 6- APRIL 75,1974

truth about Jesus Christ. And in that failure he was not unlike a lot of
men ever since. Judas followed Jesus as friend, master,teacher, He
committed himself -to following one.he had come to believe was the Son of
God. But when that Son of God confronted the City of Jerusatem in love
instead of night Judas ‘backed off. Why should God's Son have to suffer?
Why in the wortd should God want to disctose himself in humiliation, pain
and death? And that brings us to the question men have alwas asked, and
are still asking.

Why, if there is a God af Ivoe and mercy, is there suffering in the
world? Why cancer? Why birth defects? Why do good tien die? Why tornadoes?
Why Monticello? Why, if God cares and is merciful, are we forced continually
to ask "why"?

What Palm Sunday means, and what Judas tragically misunderstood, is
that God does not use his Power in that way. He-did not use his power to
prevent the suffering and death of his own Son. Instead he values the
Freedom of the world he has created: a freedom that can resylt in crucifixion
and cancer and tornadoes, Palm Sunday means that in desus Christ God sub-
mits to that same freedom: that his greatest gift to us is not some easy
escape from whatever life nands out = but the promise that he experiences
it with us ~ and the assurance that na matter what happens his ilove for us
abiues, —

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carriéd our sorrows" is the way
the prophet put it. Could we ever have known the depth of God's love if
it had been otherwise? Could we have trusted that love to keep us +
ultimately and eternally safe - if Jesus Christ had been some antiseptic
hero? I think not. God nas come closest to us Precisely in the suffering
and death of Jesus Christ -Judas didn't understand that - or rather Judas
learned that after itvas too late. dudas died of a broken heart - when
he realized finally how deeply he was loved.

That, finally, is the unwriteen conclusion to his story. Unlike

BETRAYAL ~f- APRIL 7, 1974
Caesar who loved the treason and hated the traitor; Jesus Christ hated
the treason and loved che betrayer. Judas betrayed himself. dothing he
did could keep God fromioving him. Hot even a cross Stopped God's love.

It is customary in sermons that deal with Judas Iscariot to include
a recital of all the ways we betray our Lord. It is customary on Palm
Sunday to peint how Tike that crowd we are - welcoming him one day and
desserting him the next. It is an ancient custom to burn the palms that
are given out on this day to provide the ashes of penetance. That is all
very muca to the point.

But even more to the péint is that on this day Jesus Christ identified
totally with us: that he came to the city - and there bore pain and
suffering and death. Even more important than our guilt - our petty,
unintentional betrayals - is his Tove for us: a Tove that can help us to
Stand wien life tumbles in: a love big enough to encompass whatever treason
we have committed.

We have it all over that first Palm Sunday crowd. They srouted and
waved at the right man for the wrong reasons. You and 7 know how it ends.
For us. this enigma; this very real day of triumph and betrayal can be a
celebration of God's jove for us.

Hay it be so. AME?!

FATHER, help us this week to know again the power of your love, As we

Sing our hosannas to our Lord, help us to receive him anew in our hearts.
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