The Anticipatory Grief of Jesus - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 21:1-11 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.”  This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

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This sermon was preach by me, Pastor Sarah Locke in a specific context for a specific people, but I think it can speak in different times to different folks as well. You can read the sermon below, or listen to it at this link.

You can also watch the worship video below:

Let us pray. 

God of mercy and consolation, you have felt our every grief and desperation in your own son Jesus Christ. Let us take comfort in his presence and in your saving power on this day and always. Amen. 

This is an odd time to be a campus chaplain. Along with almost every other profession and vocation, we are having to adapt to a new normal and I’m figuring out what ministry looks like when I can’t be present with any of my students. So every week we gather together for Food for Thought… over video conferencing. 

This past week we were checking in with one another and one of our students mentioned having a hard time planning anything. She said, “it feels like the worst is still yet to come and it’s hard to believe there is anything that will be worth planning after this. I think I have forgotten how to hope.” 

We’ve had a lot of plans cancelled and a lot of our normal life upended in the past several weeks and I’ve felt similar to this student in the past week. How do we continue to live our lives and plan for the future when things feel so immediate and dangerous and futile? I started to do some reading about this feeling of hopelessness. It turns out that a LOT of people are feeling this way. And this odd discomfort about the future is actually a form of grief. 

David Kessler, an expert on grief, describes what we are feeling as two different kinds of grief. We are feeling regular grief— the grief of things lost, people dying, normal live changing, and plans being cancelled. But we are also feeling another kind of grief called anticipatory grief.

When I hear this story about Jesus on Palm Sunday, that is what comes to mind— grief. We know this story well. We hear a version of it every year on Palm Sunday. So it might not make complete sense that I find grief in this story. After all, it seems like one of the few times Jesus is celebrated for who he is— the Lord and Savior of God’s people. 

But Jesus has been on this journey from the very beginning. He knows that it will only end one way. So I can only imagine that he has some really complicated feelings as he gave these instructions to his disciples and rode into the city among the crowd shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

On the one hand, I am sure that he feels a certain amount of pride and happiness in being among his people, in being welcomed into the city by crowds who are calling out to him. 

But what these people are shouting is “Hosanna” which means, “Help us now!” They were shouting to God for assistance in their plight, their oppression under the Roman Empire. They were asking for a political revolution, not a spiritual one. Jesus knew this and knew that that is not what he would offer them. 

So I can only imagine that Jesus also felt an immense amount of grief. Because with every step that colt took into the city, Jesus got closer and closer to what would seem like unbearable disappointment and abandonment to his friends, family, and followers. With every step, Jesus got further and further away from people’s expectations of the Messiah. As he made his way into the city, he got closer and closer to losing his dignity and insecurity. He got closer to the unknown and maybe even feelings of anger and fear and anxiety. And as he made his way into that city, he got closer and closer to death.

What grief Jesus must be feeling in the midst of this grand parade, not only for himself but for everyone around him. 

The grief expert I mentioned earlier, David Kessler, says that: 

“Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. 

“Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”

In the same way that Jesus is walking into a future that is largely unknown to the entire world and one that will change everything forever, we are doing the same thing. 

I’ve heard so many people lamenting this week, saying that this is the first year that they can remember when they won’t be in the church for Holy Week. And we don’t know what to do. We are being faced with a big question mark in our lives right now. We don’t know what the next week will entail and there is a lot of stress and grief being held in our bodies right now. We, too, are walking through the city gates into the unknown of of a dangerous Jerusalem. 

Perhaps it is an odd thing to admit, but it does bring me a bit of comfort to imagine that Jesus experienced similar anxiety, fear, and grief as he made his way into the city. And yet he continued. He continued on his journey toward the cross because of his love for the people shouting to him, waving palm branches, and laying their cloaks on the ground for him. He continued because of his love for the people who had followed him for many years and provided for him, loved him, and did ministry with him. He continued knowing that love is often uncomfortable, unbearable, and undignified in the face of real crisis. He continued into Jerusalem and eventually to his death on a cross because he knew that that is the cost of love. He knew that is was the only way to save us all. 

So as we remember that day when he went into the city amid shouts of “Hosanna!” We too are shouting, or perhaps sighing in grief, the same sentiment: “Save us now, God.” And we continue into the unknown in grief, anxiety, and fear for the love of our neighbors, trusting in the knowledge that God has saved us in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen. 

Getting it Right - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 19:28-40

²⁸After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.²⁹When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰saying, “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. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”³⁴They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷As he was now 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, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” ³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

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To listen to this sermon (with the Spirit's infusions), click on this link.

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Amen. 

Thus begins Holy Week. 

Interestingly enough, this year, Holy Week is also the last week of school for many college students. 

As I was chatting with our campus ministry students this past week, I was struck by how much pressure they are under as they begin exam week. I’m sure parents feel it, too, as their children begin testing in school. But there is something to be said about the pressure to perform, feeling like your own self-worth depends on it.  Young people are constantly inundated with the narrative that they are not good enough.

We fall right into step with it, too. It seems that it is so much easier for us to focus on the negative aspects of ourselves and our work. In my first interview for seminary, I was asked about my weaknesses and was able to rattle off a half a dozen of my character flaws in rapid succession. Then they asked about my strengths and we sat in silence for what felt like minutes while I tried to think of anything to say. And I don’t believe that it is totally about humility, either. I think we are conditioned to focus more on the things we get wrong so that we can constantly be improving ourselves, working harder, getting better. 

That’s why I want to focus on the processional reading instead of the passion narrative this morning. We have spent much of the Lenten season being reflective, penitent, and focusing on things that need to be pruned in our lives and ministry. Most preachers around town this morning will probably be preaching about how fickle we are as God’s followers. How we are just like the disciples who shout “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord” today and “crucify him” in less than a week. And that is true. There is no denying that. But what I don’t want to ignore is that the DO shout “blessed is the king!” The disciples, for this brief moment, seem to get things right. And we do too. 

The reading opens up with Jesus telling two disciples to go into the village, steal a colt, and bring it to him. And they do. They do exactly as Jesus tells them to without asking any questions or coming up with any excuses. Then they threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. And as Jesus rode the colt into Jerusalem, it says that the whole multitude of disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen. They praise Jesus as king. The king who comes in the name of the Lord. The king who was prophesied about in scripture. 

The crowds were finally praising God for all the miracles they had seen instead of accusing Jesus of being possessed by a demon. The disciples cried out loudly for all to hear— yelling what was considered heretical to the Pharisees— and even when the Pharisees told Jesus to silence them, they continued to shout. 

The people who had been following Jesus for years, who had seen these wonderful miracles firsthand— they were finally getting it right and praising Jesus as king and Lord as he so rightly deserved. 

There are many other times when the disciples really get things wrong. If you’ve ever read even on of the gospel accounts, you can point to several occasions in which the disciples— those closest to Jesus— just had no idea what was going on. We’ll have several opportunities to hear about those times during the next week— on Wednesday, Thursday, and twice on Friday. Including, like I said, less than a week from now when the cries of “blessed is the king” turn into the crowds screaming “crucify him!” 

But this morning, just for this brief time, I hope we can celebrate the times when they get it right and when we get it right. Even if we don’t get it right very often— maybe one day every few years for a few minutes each day. As people 2000 years removed from this passage, as people who maybe never experience Jesus’ healing touch or had our eyes physically opened by the Son of God— don’t you think we should celebrate when we get it right? When our faithfulness is pure and holy? When we look to God and to one another instead of ourselves? 

I see that here. I see glimpses of the Kingdom of God here in this community. 

Food pantry - feeds hundreds of people every month 

Our commitment to campus ministry 

Willingness to reach beyond the walls of this sanctuary 

Stephen Ministry - being a presence for those in need, truly being the body of Christ 

Even in the short time I have been here, I have had the privilege of witnessing the Spirit stir in this community. And it seems by some miracle, every once in a while, we get it right. And it beautiful. 

In this world, in a society, that focuses so much on our flaws and all the things we do wrong— it’s almost provocative, even divisive, to lift up one another’s gifts and our own gifts. It’s sort of revolutionary to say, “yes, today, with this ministry, with our hearts in this moment, we got it right.” 

And God celebrates with us. It pleases God when we get it right, even if it’s not very often. 

But even on the days that we get things so horribly wrong, when we refuse to listening to the calling of the Spirit, when we turn away from God and our neighbor, God is with us in that too. Unlike us, God does not have a fickle heart. God never wavers and is always faithful. God is always calling after us, chasing after us with arms wide open. As a shepherd looking for one lost sheep, as a father waiting for his son to return home, as a woman searching for a lost coin. God is calling out to us as God’s beloved children.

So let us not forget, that as our fickle and sinful hearts move so rapidly from screaming, “blessed is the king” to “crucify him,” God is loving and faithful— even to the point of death. Amen.

This sermon was preached by me Sarah Locke at Redeemer Episcopal Church on April 14, 2019. 

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