We have joked over the last two weeks about the length of the scripture readings.  Forty-five verses last week seemed like the equivalent of a three hour movie, but it is good sometimes to read through an entire story.  To hear and imagine the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story instead of just some truncated part.  We got to hear over the last two weeks not just that Jesus gave sight to the blind man or that Lazarus was raised from the dead, but also where Jesus was before, what he was doing, why was here there, what was the response of the crowd, what happened next and so on.  By reading the full story, we got to see how the story built on itself and how all the details of the story fit together.  Fast forward to the week.  The Matthew 21 passage Dick just read was only eleven verses.  This is a short passage compared to the last two weeks, but hidden in those eleven verses is a great richness.  A richness that shows us not only why the crowds were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”, but why we shouted it this morning and why we should shout it every day.

          One of the great challenges of reading the bible is the distance between us today here in the United States and those people that wrote the bible and lived these stories so many years ago.  People and places and actions that meant so much to them are lost on us.  We just live in different contexts.  Bethpage, Mount of Olives are just places names to us.  Some recollection of those places rattles around in our minds from perhaps some other story, but their significance is lost on us.  I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a bible study or preaching a sermon and I wished I could just lift us up and place us Israel or Jerusalem in 33AD.  Just so I could point to the Mount of Olives over there or Bethpage or Jerusalem or the temple and we could see them and might also know all the meaning behind them.  That is actually what the youth are going to help me with today.  Unbeknownst to you all, I have turned our sanctuary into a living map of the story.  Interactive church this morning.  To my right over here, we will have the hilly region where the Mount of Olives, Bethpage, and Bethany are located.  The center aisle here is the Kidron Valley.  And to my left we have Jerusalem and the Temple 

          Pastor Tim, why are you making such a big deal of all these places?  Well often times in the bible the story or some action that Jesus takes is not as simple as it appears.  We could characterize this story as Jesus taking a trip from Bethpage to Jerusalem.  More often then not though, Jesus’ actions or the locations where he is, are inexplicably linked to the larger meaning of the passage. That is to say, that it is no coincidence that Jesus is traveling from Bethany to the village of Bethpage in the shadow of the Mount of Olives through the Kidron Valley through the gate into Jerusalem.

          Bethany (please stand) was the site of Jesus’ final miracle.  Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was raised from the dead there.  This marked the height of his ministry.  He had shown in every way possible that he was God here with us.  That he had come here to change and save the world.  That he was going to bless all of creation by conquering sin and death.  After all the individual cases where he did just that, Jesus was now on his way towards Jerusalem towards death and the cross to do it once and for all time. 

          The village of Bethpage (please stand) was at the foot of the Mount of Olives (please stand).  It was from this vantage point that you could look down in the Kidron Valley and then see the Temple mount rising across the way.  A mere two miles separating Jesus from his destination.  There was also thousands of years of history between this point and that.  In Jewish tradition, the olive branch that the dove takes back to Noah to announce the drying of the land was from the Mount of Olives.  When David escaped from his son Absalom, he escaped by way of the Mount of Olives.  When some of Solomon’s seven hundred wives needed a place to worship their foreign gods, the Mount of Olive was the scene of their worship.  Ezekiel saw God there.  In the Book of Zechariah, the Mount of Olives is cited as the place where the dead will be resurrected in the days of the Messiah.  So much of Jewish history for better or for worse has happened or will happen on this little mountain.

          This mountain is also the mountain about which Jesus tells the disciples outside of Bethpage “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done.”  So much of Israel’s faith and faithlessness happens here on this mountain that overlooks Jerusalem…. and overlooks the Kidron Valley.

          The Kidron Valley (point to the aisle) from the early days of the Holy City was the final resting place of Jerusalem’s dead.  It was from there the dead awaited the resurrection.  On their grave stones are inscribed the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, tav.  The last letter pointing to the last days.  Across the Kidron Valley Jesus must go and then finally entering into the city.

          This trek from Bethany to Bethpage past the Mount of Olives through the Kidron Valley and into Jerusalem was a path Jesus would have made before and one that he would make several times in the week prior to his arrest and trial.  On this Palm Sunday, we celebrate a triumphal entrance.  An entrance into Jerusalem that was different that every time before and every time after.  With all of Jesus’ miracles and teaching literally behind him on this path into Jerusalem and with all the history of Israel surrounding him, all the sin and faithfulness, all the failures and expectation, with his future trial, crucifixion, and resurrection just days in front of him, a recognition took place.  A recognition of the significance of these events.  So often, the disciples and the crowds missed the significance of the moment, missed the gravity of the situation, but here they recognized. 

          As Jesus rode into the city garments were thrown into the streets, palm branches were laid in his path.  Shouts of “Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” ring out.  This moment is not missed.  This moment is savored as the turning point.  The history of Israel written in the landscape and the people all around Jesus propel him forward into the city.  I love the way this scene is depicted in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Crowds gathered around Jesus.  Singing joyfully to the Lord. And as the authorities try quiet the crowds, Jesus retorts “Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?/ Nothing can be done to stop the shouting/ If ev'ry tongue was still the noise would still continue/ The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing.”  And Jesus triumphantly enters the city with all the hope of the redemption of Israel following closely behind. 

          Every Sunday as we enter this church and sit in these pews, we are surround by a history of hope and expectation.  We see the landscape around here cry out a history of praise and worship.  I even found slides of the first two summers of ministry in this location.  Of Sunday schools and socials and building projects and worship. Many of you have the memories of the sixty-five years of ministry rolling around in your minds.  We remember good moments and bad. And we are motivated by our history and by our faith.  This Sunday, we have come full circle.  We are the ones shouting, “Hosanna in the highest.”  Unlike Jesus though our triumphal entry is not a entry into Jerusalem or even into this building, but an entry out of the doors of this church, an entry into the world.  An entry into the world where we not only say “Hosanna in the highest”, but where we now spread the good news: that we are saved through faith., that God loves us, that the world has been changed, and that your life to can be changed by God.