The Road To Jerusalem                                                       4/2/44

 

Scripture:  Matthew 21: 1-11

 

Among the many greetings I received last Christmas, there came one from a young man who is serving as a member of a bomber crew in the North African area.  It had been my privilege to marry him to a young woman from our congregation.  At that time he was in training for his duties with the army air force.  His name is on the roll of those in service - Max E. Christensen.

 

The picture on his greeting card was a map of the Mediterranean area - the sea in blue and the surrounding land left in white with country names labeled in black.  Around the shore, and across it, was traced, in a guilded line, a sort of imaginary highway between Bethlehem in Palestine, and Rome in Italy.

 

Of course it was fanciful, but it was also a terribly real highway-of-the-air thus mapped out - a highway over which air men, and ground forces, have battled across Egypt, the Libyan desert, Tunisia, over the water to Sicily, and then on to the coast and up the peninsula of Italy in the direction of Rome.

 

The greeting card frankly spoke of “good will” as “only a vision” in these embattled times.  But, with all of its difficulties, that gilded line represented a route of hope that was growing steadily brighter for all of those engaged with the allied forces in the present struggle.

 

History is full of important highways.  Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic to make Europe’s discovery that the Americas existed, the Inca Indians of Peru had perfected a system of highways which we are told are still in existence, and in use.

 

The old Romans had a highly developed system of highways extending from Great Britain through France to Italy and Rome - and out from Rome to every part of the empire which the Caesars ruled.  Some of those highways went through the lands of the Bible, and were trod upon by Jesus himself, by his early disciples and by Paul.  Some of those roads are still in use.

 

There are other roads, there and elsewhere, that are no longer used, but which can be seen and identified by the traveler of today.  When we lived in Hawaii, I used to drive, monthly, over a well-engineered mountain road to the other end of the island of Maui.  At places along that road one might look higher up the steep slopes and see the zigzagging old trails, paved with hard rocks like cobble stones.  The old foot trails had been used by early Hawaiian travelers and soldiers.  So well-laid were these trails that they still resisted the steady determination of tropical growth to engulf and obliterate them.

 

Highways make, or break, military conquests.  Highways supply great populations with food and other necessities.  Lack of highways leaves other great populations to starve when flood or drought comes.

 

One of the thrills of travel is to look ahead over a long stretch of straight highway leading off into the inviting distance.  Haven’t you also stood on a road and wondered where it led?  The wife of a home missionary among the backwaters of the Mississippi said that a bayou is a wonderful thing.  “From a bayou, you can go into a creek, and from a creek into the river, and from the river into a bigger river, and then into the ocean.  Why, from a bayou you can go everywhere!” she said.

 

On a highway you can go just about anywhere.  But if the road doesn’t go where you want to go - be it dirt, gravel, concrete, water lane, or air line, it just isn’t the road you want to take.

 

There are three great highways of the world of history that stand out just now before our attention as Christian folk.  They are the Jerusalem Road, the Jericho Road, and the Emmaus Road.  I propose to discuss them briefly during this Holy week - the first one today, the second one on Thursday (at Communion), and the third a week from today on Easter.

 

Today, the Road to Jerusalem.  The great Roman road system went through Jerusalem’s land, but for the Hebrew people of Galilee and Judea the really important road led to Jerusalem - the seat of their government, the pride of their patriotism, the center of their spiritual devotion - where the sacred temple had been erected in importance above every other structure in the city, and where they endeavored to worship truly.

 

Joseph and Mary brought Jesus over a road to Jerusalem and dedicated him to God.  Each year after that, Jesus was brought to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration.  So when in later years, during his mature ministry, Jesus turned toward Jerusalem, it was over a highway that was familiar to him.  Luke tells us that some of his greatest teaching occurred on this last journey.  It was while on this trip, or one-way tour, that he commissioned seventy of his followers and sent them forth with his great commandment: “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole strength, with your whole mind.  Also your neighbor as yourself.”  [Luke 10: 1, 27].  On that way also he instructed his disciples on prayer, and taught them to pray after this manner:  “Our Father, who art in Heaven ...”  [Luke 11: 2-4].  After a tour which began with his steadfast determination to go to Jerusalem he approached the city.  It was again near time for the Passover.

 

The city of Jerusalem is located, it seems, on a high, flat plateau.  The city is 2,500 feet above sea level.  That is a somewhat higher elevation than Rib Mountain, or any other point in our State of Wisconsin.  The plateau on which the city is located is divided by a deep valley.

 

If we had been standing on the city wall facing eastward on that day when Jesus approached the city we would first have seen him and his party as they came up over the top of the Mount of Olives.  They stop at the top, but we are too far away to see what they are doing.

 

Then they come on, down the slope into that dividing valley of Kidron.  There is a bridge in the valley, but the little stream is beginning to dry up.  Then they start the winding trek up the nearer side of the valley toward the city walls where we are standing.  Coming up the steep slope, they draw near enough so that we can hear what they are saying.  Bits of conversation and shouts of praise reach our ears.  Others turn out to meet him at the gate in the wall.  In a word of enthusiastic praise which was familiar, and commonly used by them, they cry “Hosanna!”  All three of those who tell the story (Matthew, Mark and Luke) say that people spread their garments on the way where Jesus rode.  It was a welcome more genuine than turning over the key of the city, more enthusiastic and hopeful than the loyalty shown a monarch.

 

Matthew adds that others “cut branches from the trees and spread them in the way,” and Mark says that others spread branches “which they had cut from the fields.”  Luke does not mention that detail.  I do not find that the accounts say “palm” branches, but I suppose that scholars believe the branches came from palm trees if those were what grew nearby.  Certainly a palm branch is more graceful to wave from the hand or lay across a path than the branches of many other trees.

 

People are bowing before the Master; they welcome him to the city shouting his praises.  It is really a glorious sight - devoid, of course, of pomp or circumstance, but thrilling to hopeful people.

 

What a triumphal entry into that city!  And yet there is something strange about it.  When a king or a general makes a triumphal entry into a city, there is usually a parade - coaches or chariots, fine horses, rich colors and fine fabrics and impressive martial music.  But this King comes into the city riding on the back of a long-eared donkey.

 

As we get down from the wall and press near, we start asking questions.  And we find out what happened over there on the Mount of Olives when the party stopped while still out of our ear- shot.  While they stopped, Jesus had gazed at the city and actually wept over the sinfulness of the people of that great city.  “If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”  [Luke 19: 41,42].   And he had gone on to predict that enemies would besiege the city, throw down its walls, destroy its children and bring desolation, “because,” he said, “thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”  [Luke 19: 43, 44]].  Amid all that acclaim for him, he wept for Jerusalem.

 

The passing glory of that ride by no means blinded Jesus to the evils around him.  Jerusalem had stoned and destroyed the prophets.  It couldn’t stand criticism!  Jerusalem did not stand for the things Jesus was teaching; it stood for living that had grown selfish and corrupt.  There was bound to be trouble, and it was likely that another prophet, the greatest one this time, would be put out of the way.

 

But neither was Jesus’ head turned by the “Hosannas,” nor did he turn aside from the evil and danger.  He did not weaken his message to gain public favor, nor was he confused by expedience.

 

A dramatic incident occurred when an important socially minded Christian leader of the Methodist Church, Henry Ward, was under fire.  He was accused of being a “red.”  The man who was conducting the investigation handed a pamphlet to Ward and asked, “Here, did you write this?”  Evidently he was trying to set a trap.  “No” was Ward’s calm reply.  “You believe what it says though.”  “Yes.”  “Well, if you didn’t write it, who did?” came out the demand.  “You did,” replied Ward.  “What?”  “You wrote that pamphlet yourself.”  And it proved to be the truth.

 

The investigator had formerly been a co-worker with Henry Ward in the attempt, not always popular, to obtain a better chance for all kinds of people on God’s earth.  He had become popular.  Popularity went to his head.  His character softened.  Instead of appealing to, or directing, public opinion, he was now being directed by it.  He had changed colors.  In the atmosphere of his new quisling estate, he didn’t even recognized the earlier work of his own pen in the pamphlet by which he was trying to condemn another man.

 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that slayest the prophets!”  Jesus was not blinded.  It was with mixed emotions that he approached the city.  Amid triumph, he wept over the city that must hear, but would not heed.  But he went on in to duty and a high mission.

 

The donkey is a sturdy little animal.  As we see Jesus ride in on the donkey’s back, we can’t help observing that that is the way of Jesus.  He is humble even amid the moment’s triumph.  He handles glory by declining to appropriate it for himself but by giving it to the Father.  His sturdy, sure-footed, long-eared mount symbolized His humility.

 

Jesus - perfect love - vaunts not self, is not puffed up.

 

The Jerusalem road is a highway of God because Jesus traveled it, and because it is a way of simple, sacrificing, redeeming truth.

 

The Palm Sunday triumph is not that of the gladiators - one of physical strength and skill alone - but is the triumph of what is right at the cost of everything except what is right.  Its road has parallel highways for us, today.

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 2, 1944  (Palm Sunday).