Matthew 21, 1-10 - Worship Service Before Easter: "... And Death Shall Have No Dominion"

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shan't crack; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears Or waves break loud on the seashores; Where blew a flower may a flower no more Lift its head to the blows of the rain; Though they be mad and dead as nails, Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, And death shall have no dominion. /Dylan Thomas/
The Gospel is from Matthew 21, 1-10 :
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.' 4 This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: 5'Say to Daughter Zion, “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” ' 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, 'Hosanna2 to the Son of David!' 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'3 'Hosanna in the highest heaven!' 10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?' 11 The crowds answered, 'This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.'
Sermon
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey. Today we celebrate the entering of Jesus into Jerusalem at the feast of passover. He enters the city as a king, a great crowd awaitung him, singing and prasising him and throwing their cloaks unto the road before Jesus. „Hosanna“ there were shouting – the hebrew word hoscha’ na means „Help us!“ and is part of the passover liturgy. And incidentally the name of Jesus is very related to that, because Jesus, hebrew „Jehoschua“ means „God will help“.
Let us stay a little bit with this hosanna-shouting crowd, because it tells you a lot about God, mankind and expectations.
When after a war the conquering king entered the besieged city, the inhabitants of the place used to gather in the streets and plead for mercy and forgiveness. They also were very smart and tried to flatter the conqueror. So they throw themselves down bevor the victor and shouted loudly: Kyrie eleeison – Lod, have mercy upon us, what also meant: You are the Lord, you are the king, we capitulaze and submit ourselves to you.
Kyrie eleeison – Hosanna. We even nowadays use these phrases in our liturgy to make clear: Jesus is our king. God is our king.
Back to Jerusalem: The crowd hails the entering Jesus like a king, and it is widely agreed that they expected salvation – here and now. Most of them thought of him as the new king to rule over Israel and to liberate their country from the opressors, the Romans. Clearly they connected the entering Jesus with the feast of passover, which is the remembrance of the first great deed of God to his people – when he delivered the hebrews from their state of slavery in Egypt. Could´t this happen again, anew? Couldn´t it happen in Israel now?
But this Jesus came on a donkey. Well, the prophets had predicted that. But the people didn´t seem to have cought the meaning of this little detail.
Not a horse – a donkey.
Not even a week later a similar crowd will gather again in the streets and face Jesus again, but then they will shout diffenrently: crucify him!
And there more differences will occur, differences between people´s expectations and God´s true liberation.
A crown – but made out of thorns.
A throne – but it´s a cross.
Deliverance – but not from the Romans.
We pray in in every service: your kingdom come. But what kind of kingdom we are thinking of?
The kingdom of God is different. It is the opposite of the kind of kingdoms we may know. It doesn´t use force. – but it is still powerful.
The power of God is the power of love and freedom. That´s why it is so difficult to understand. That´s why it is not so obvious.
We may understand a little bit more if we think of the antagonist kingdom or power, which is often seen as the power of evil or the realm of the devil.
But, what is the devil anyway or the evil? I can´t imagine that the evil is a person or living beeing like the devil is often described. That seems to me naive and trivialized, twee. Particulary if the devil is specified as some animal-like beeing with hooves. Ugly, horrifying, disgusting.
A lot more precise I find it to see it as the fallen angel or lucifer. The christian theologian Origen describes lucifer as a spirit, who is the most beautiful and also the most cold being. This devil searches the perfect harmony, which in his opinion had been destroyed when mankind was created. For him, mankind is the great disturbance in the perfection – and this is, why he revolted against God. His ardent furor and hate is directed against us. Therefore he thinks of himself to be just and good. But ke lacks of on important thing: he cannot love.
We have to notice: the evil will not show itself as ugly or horrifying – more often it is beautiful, bright, pleasant and charming. It wants to attract us, to persuade us, to enchant us. It will present itself as a good cause – and the end always justifies the means.
The war to end all wars. The sacrifice that has to be made. The emergency lie.
The inherent necessity.
People voted for Hitler, because he seemed to solve a lot of problems and he gave back a humilated nation their pride and arranged very aesthetic games and parades. The national socialism only showed it´s his ugly face to it´s victims. And even those who committed incredible crimes and cruelties to helpless people: men, women and even children – the murderers alway believed they were doing good to the majority.
The communist regimes committed similar crimes – but all in the name of humanity and progress. But they all served the devil. They all increased and strengthened the dominion of death.
Back to Jesus in Jerusalem. What could he have done to to bring the kingdom of god? – fight the Romans with force and install a new jewish empire? Or even establish a new world order with him on the throne? Kill all the enemies and those who would refuse to submit themselves under the power of god?
Later in history, there were attempts to establish such a theocracy, like Calvin in Geneva or the islamic theocracy in Iran. It always leads to persecution, hate and slavery.
Because God´s kingdom doesn´t bear force and constraint, even if the good guys rule.
There is only one way to the kingdom: love, voluntary love. Lobe is the reason why God became man and shared our lives. Love is the reason why he healed and preached and took a stand for the poor and oppressed. Love is the reason why he continued his way even as they started to threaten and intimidate him. His love brought him into contradiction with the mighty and powerful. But he didn´t retreat. He didn´t flee or renounced. So his love lead him to the cross. And they killed him.
And death shall have no dominion. Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.
The paschal mystery: that death was defeated by life. That soft water wears the stone. That love conquers hate.
The domion of death is visible everywhere. We see wars and hunger, hate, murder, armament, nuclear catastrophies, greenhouse effect, racism and so on. We are in great danger and it doesn´t look to good for us.
But meanwhile there are different powers working, often secretly and unobserved. Those powers don´t use force or pressure, they need volunteers – like us.
Love insted of hate. Forgiveness instead of revenge. Patience insted of haste.
I met people like that, who changed the world in a different way and who build up a piece of the kingdom. The whole history is full of people who chose the other way. This is why we are still here.
When we celebrate the feast of easter next week, we also celebrate the coming and already partly begun kingdom of God. We confess that live conqueres death and love overcomes hate.
And death shall have no dominion.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.