Luke 19: 28-40 (NRSV)
"This Could Be the Colt's Year!"
Have you ever seen a baby horse, or a colt, be born?
I’ve seen it, on t.v., I mean. I’ve never helped birth one—(though one of my best friends is a vet and he’s lived it!)
Its...it's... explosive! People might wait all night for the blessed event, go get a cup of coffee, come back and its over! Though maybe with a little mess to clean up, there’s the colt--ready to go!
It’s the craziest site—there’s the obvious physical struggle, the birth pangs I guess, and then finally out slips this bloody, wet, wobbly little thing feeble, gangly, awkward, confused...
But then it eventually—quickly, actually, begins to look and act like a horse.
For the last 2 years, people [who pay attention to the NFL] have been saying, ‘this could be the year of the Colts!'
They had this great coach in Tony Dungy, they once had Edgerin James (a killer running back), Marvin Harrison one of the top receivers…and oh yes, there was this one other, this guy from the University of Tennessee, Peyton Manning.
The Colts have a storied history, think the golden age of football, and you’ll think of football Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. (many people—true football fans perhaps—believe they should have always stayed in Baltimore). But all this talk about the Colts, for football fans, has been exiting.
Even still, last year, no perfect season, no Super Bowl.
But what really lay at the heart of this enthusiasm? It wasn’t Edgerin James. He’s gone now anyway. It wasn’t Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, or even their unique, uber-sharp offensive line…it was Peyton Manning—this prodigy, this phenom—
Was he, or could he be, what everyone said he might be? Or...was he the next Dan Marino--one of the greatest quarterbacks ever…to never win a Super Bowl.
Or was he, Peyton Manning, the one? The one that would take them there…all the way there.
The world would tune in to the biggest media blitz of the year to see what Peyton would do. People would drop everything.
We watched. And we saw what happened. The Colts were exciting—worth a lot of the hype…
But we found out what lay at the heart of the enthusiasm.
It was Peyton’s game.
2000 years or so ago, the world was watching, and waiting, and speculating…is this one the one? Can he get us all the way? There was even a buzz, an early stage of media blitz.
Though first, Luke really seems interested in this colt!—
“Go get a colt. Who has a colt? They do, tell them it’s for…Jesus. Tell them it’s for the Lord. Find the colt, put a cloak on the colt! Let’s go colts!”
And then, when we listen to the story, when we really get down to it, its not so much about the colt at all—its not so much about the cloaks either. And its sure not about palms! (Luke says nothing about palms for this Palm Sunday, by the way)
It’s about the rider—the rider of a never before ridden colt, which is amazing (most would say impossible) in itself!
It was Jesus’ game.
All this build up! All this pre-game—we want to see what this one person will do. Is he just going to be the next Moses, or Elijah? Or is he going to be the One?
The world was watching, and the world is still watching today…sort of…
It’s not so much about the special worship experiences, the rare off days. Sorry to say, it’s not even about the rabbits and the eggs—not even the candy!
Most of your neighbors won’t recognize your liturgical colors, beautiful and sacred though they are. They don’t know what ‘maundy’ is, or even Good Friday, probably.
We have to tell them the story. Because if we don’t, then the stones will cry it out!
We are just getting started into one of the most bizarre, passionate, holy weeks that the world has ever seen. Hence the name, Holy Week.
In fact, this is the holiest of weeks—it is the story of the passion, suffering, death and the resurrection of the King of the Universe and we are here to relieve it, to tell it—to live it.
What has been started here, cannot be stopped. Jesus knows this. We can stop. Shiloh can stop telling the story, but if we do, someone else will. And then if no one else will, then the rocks will--because its here. It's real. It's now!
This Palm Sunday—this Gospel passage (and this sermon) isn’t about palms. It isn’t about cloaks tossed about on the ground like so many fine red carpets. It’s not even about colts—of any kind.
It’s about the rider. It’s Jesus’ game. Game on! Amen.
