“Peace be With You”
Rev. Stephen Milton
Palm Sunday
April 13 2025
When a child is born, new parents take a lot of pictures and videos. To new parents, every first born child feels like it is the first child who has ever been born. They are amazed at everything the baby does. That first smile, the first burp, the first look of surprise. It’s all magical. Parents study the young child’s face for inheritances - she gets that nose from your father, she gets those cheeks from your grandmother. And as the the child gets older, the game switches from the past to the future. Parents start reading their child like fortunes tellers read tea leaves. Oh, this child is strong, he will be an athlete. Or, this one has a creative streak, she’ll be an artist. So many prophecies are made when children are young about what they will be like when they got older.
But childhood takes a long time, and parents forget about those prophecies. They get on with the business of rearing the child, who sometimes seems to be a different person every few weeks. They go through all the changes of walking, talking, learning their ABCs, making friends, losing friends. There are so many stages. By the time they are a teenager, they are so much themselves, in all their gangly demanding adolescence that they seem quite unlike that bundle of pure potential that they were as an infant.
And yet, as they settle into their 20s, the occasional grandmother or grandfather who remembers their birth may make the connection. “You always did have a temper, even as a baby,” they may say, or “you were always so good natured.” Only a few remember the prophecies from those first days. And as much as grown children show little interest in looking at their own baby pictures, there is some comfort in thinking that their character has not been entirely random. Not entirely created by the world. Perhaps we do enter this world with a disposition, a character, which provides some meaning to why we act the way we do. Not a fate, or a curse, but a leaning, a starting point that makes our life unique, and makes each of us a somebody, rather than a ball of dough the world has shaped entirely.
When Jesus was born, He was born in the shadow of prophecy, too. We all remember that story, we remember it every Christmas. In the Gospel of Luke, shepherds are outside tending their flocks at night when suddenly an angel appears with the good news about Christ’s birth. He’s been born in the City of David, Bethlehem. Then there is suddenly that army of angels all around them, singing out praises. Do you remember what they sing?
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace, goodwill among all people.’
It is such a wonderful chorus. The angels celebrate God for this gift of a Messiah. Then, in the second line, they wish peace and goodwill to all people on Earth. It is the first hint of what the Messiah will bring. Not war, but peace to all people. That’s how the Jesus story begins in the gospel of Luke. With a prophetic statement from on high about this baby. He will be a messiah, and he will bring peace to the people. And the shepherds know that this arrival is itself the fulfillment of many prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures. From prophecy comes more prophecies, this time about a baby.
Jump forward thirty years. In Luke’s gospel, we never see those shepherds again. They are probably long dead, or long gone, it’s hard to know. The people who heard those angels singing the prophecies about this baby are gone. But Jesus is well versed in prophecy. He knows what a Messiah should do when he comes into Jerusalem. So he tells his disciples to go get the colt of a donkey, a young animal that hasn’t been broken in. The Prophecy of Zechariah says that a messiah should ride one of these into Jerusalem. So Jesus intends to make that prophecy, that promise, come true.
Then something happens which is both wonderful and dangerous. Jesus gets on the colt and starts walking down the hill towards the gates of Jerusalem. There is a crowd to cheer him on. We’re told that it is a crowd of disciples, people who are already following him. They know what he has been doing, the great teachings and the miracles. They throw their coats on the ground so that not even the hooves of his colt will get dirty. But then they do something else - they start to chant as He comes:
‘Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!”
This is a line from psalm 118. The praise in that psalm is for a mighty warrior who defeated all of Israel’s enemies. That warrior king was greeted with a parade of people waving palms as he approaches the altar in the temple. This gives us a hint of what the people on this day in Jersualem are expecting from Jesus. That He will bring triumph too to Israel, by defeating the Romans, the enemy of the people.
But then, Luke says that they sang something else, too. They sang out:
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest!’
They sang about peace. And you may find that those lines sound familiar. They sound a lot like what the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth:
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace, goodwill among all people.’ ( Luke 2:14)
The angels sang about glory in heaven, and about peace to all people on Earth. And on this Palm Sunday, Luke tells us the people also sang about glory in heaven, and about peace. But this time, as Jesus passes by, the people are chanting that there should be peace in heaven.
Luke is quite deliberately placing this reminder of the angels’ song into the Palm Sunday parade. On the night of Jesus’ birth, angels wished for peace on Earth. Thirty years later, Jesus’ followers wish for peace in heaven. It is as though it is a call and response song, separated by an entire lifetime. Heaven sings out peace to Earth, and Earth replies by singing for peace in heaven.
So, let’s try this. I’d like this side of the room to say this blessing loudly, by standing up and facing the other people on that side. Stand up, turn towards them, and wave your palm fronds saying, “Peace on Earth!” And this side of the sanctuary will also stand, and reply with “Peace in heaven.” Let’s try it. Peace on Earth starts first.
“Peace on Earth!”
“Peace in Heaven!”
“Peace on Earth!”
“Peace in Heaven!”
Thank you. This may remind you of something. It is like when we pass the peace earlier in the service. We wish each other peace. Not so we can gain anything, but out of a pure sense of giving.
Last week, I spoke to someone who was attending our service for the first time. She said she was delighted by how long the passing of the peace lasts here, and that everybody gets up and walks around. And then they she pointed to the people in the gathering hall after the service. They were still chatting and sharing their lives with each other. This place is so warm she said, people obviously really like each other.
Wishing peace to each other is the start of having peace. But the wish for peace works best when it is not self interested. This is a key part of Luke’s message. When the angels appears before the shepherds, they do not wish peace to God or other angels. Instead, they wish peace to those most different from themselves, to us human beings. That’s how we know they are from God, because they selflessly wished peace on others.
And in Luke’s Palm Sunday parade, the people returned the favour. They did not wish peace for themselves, but for heaven. For someone else, for beings living in a realm we hear about, but cannot see. That passing of the peace, through their chant, is a an act of selflessness.
Now, you may have noticed that in Luke’s Gospel, the people do not cry out “Hosanna!” That is in the other gospel accounts of Palm Sunday. Hosanna means “save me,” or “save us!” It is self interested. So Luke is making a point here. The desire for peace which the Messiah brings should not be a self interested desire for peace. Everyone wants that. Even the Romans want there to be peace. No one wants war to plague their own houses.
Asking for peace for yourself is easy. But real peace, a peace that lasts, cannot be self interested. True peace only begins when it cares about peace for others, not just ourselves. True peace, the kind we expect Messiahs to bring, involves a broadening of the human heart, where we learn to look beyond just our own self interest, and we think of others. The kind of wish for peace that would help if Russians wished Ukrainians could have peace. If the people of Israel and Gaza wished each other could have peace. That kind of compassion and selflessness is what can prevent wars from beginning in the first place. A true concern for others, that no harm should come to them. That they should live in peace, just as we would want to live in peace.
So, in Luke’s version of the palm Sunday parade, he has the people who are oppressed and under the heel of the Romans, he has them express a wish for peace, not for themselves, but for heaven. The source of all peace. The angels on the night of Christ’s birth had wished for peace to all people on Earth. And on this day, these disciples, the ones who have been Jesus’s followers and students, they wish peace to the beings of heaven.
What a beautiful idea, that across thirty years, angels and humans could be wishing each other peace, in a cosmic passing of the peace where time and space no longer matter. That baby, in that manger - look at him now, all grown up, teaching people to sing out for peace. And so many lifetimes later, we have built structures of stone dedicated to peace. From the outside, people walking by hear music and singing from this house of stone, as though even the stones themselves are singing out. Songs of peace, for each other, for strangers, for the whole world.
Sometimes you can predict the future with a baby. Let us help make that prediction a reality by bringing peace to the world.
Amen.
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