And yet the Bible says praise rhythms are always supposed to be that way. The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4 to “rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Rejoice in the LORD always!
We’re supposed to be a praise crazy people. And on Palm Sunday, of all Sundays, our praise should ring loudly. Today we celebrate that wonderful day the earthly praise of Jesus rose up; a moment when ancient
people of the earth perhaps came closest to properly honoring our dear Savior. Listen again to Luke’s famous description of the moment in Luke 19:36-40:
As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." The rocks will begin to cheer!
I have a hard time praising God (or doing anything else for that matter!) simply because some ink on a calendar says I should. While we set aside this day on our calendars as a special day of Palm Sunday praise, our calendars don’t change the fact that this is still just another day. My friends are still sick, my country is still horribly divided, my world is still a mess in all sorts of awful ways. I have a hard time pretending everything is wonderful and rosy…
And that is precisely where our Scripture passage today is so very helpful. This great text walks right into my praise holiday apathy and gives me enormous reason to praise.
There are three truths I believe God would have us notice in our text today – three truths I suspect we frequently forget.
Praise Is Imperfect
The first truth should be obvious, but I suspect it might also be the most obviously forgotten. Praise isn’t supposed to be about pretending everything is wonderful and okay. Praise isn’t about some smiley-faced, spiritually airheaded denial of reality. The first thing I learn about praise in this passage is that it is always, in one way or another, imperfect.
These people didn’t understand what they were saying – most were probably thinking this revolutionary Jesus was about to throw out the Romans. And not everyone in this crowd was participating from pure motivation. Some of what was being shouted was quotation from Psalm 118, a familiar passage for religious holiday processions. Some may have been yelling out of ritual or religious sense. And some were simply bystanders, watching and wondering.
All earthly praise is flawed and imperfect. So if we’re waiting to perfectly understand everything, to perfectly phrase or stage everything – waiting for everyone and everything to properly come together and “do it all right,” we will never praise. Our praise is imperfect.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the British atheist and humorist turned great Christian believer, was delivering a series of lectures on Blaise Pascal in 1978. He told a wonderful story about the Archbishop of Canterbury. At the end of a performance of Godspell, the Archbishop “rose to his feet and shouted: “Long live God,” which, as I reflected at the time, was like shouting “Carry on eternity” or “Keep going infinity.” The incident made a deep impression on my mind because it illustrated the basic difficulty I met with when I was editor of Punch; that the eminent so often say and do things which are infinitely more ridiculous than anything you can invent for them. That might not sound to you like a terrible difficulty but it is, believe me, the main headache of the editor of an ostensibly humorous paper. You go to great trouble to invent a ridiculous Archbishop of Canterbury and give him ridiculous lines to say and then suddenly he rises in his seat at the theatre and shouts out: “Long live God.” And you’re defeated, you’re broken.”(The End of Christendom, p78)
We are always shouting ridiculous things in the theater. We are always making fools of ourselves in church in one way or another. Our praise is every bit as flawed and frequently foolish as we are – imperfection is inevitable. God understands that. Jesus never paused to rebuke the imperfect praise and worship around him, did he? To the contrary, he guarded it.
If we’re waiting to praise God until everything is perfect and the planets properly align in our lives and in our world, we will never praise Him. Our praise is imperfect – get over it.
Praise Is Incendiary
The second truth I notice in this passage is that praise is incendiary. Praise is always provocative, disturbing, political, offensive, courageous, noisy and even irreligious. Jesus could have completely avoided this moment. He could have entered Jerusalem secretly and quietly. He could have walked in on his own two feet and skipped the slow ride of royalty on a donkey colt that had so many loudly prophetic overtones in the mind of the people. As a matter of fact, this flawed moment of praise and its accompanying tearful rebuke of Jerusalem, was so very incendiary the Bible says it became part of the engine driving the plot to kill Jesus. Jesus could have muted the crowd and done the whole thing very differently – but he didn’t because praise is noisy. Our LORD Jesus was utterly courageous and incendiary on Palm Sunday.
When I praise Jesus as King, I am provocatively declaring I accept no other king. I am inviting this world’s political structures, principalities and Roman power brokers into battle. When I set aside time in my week for praise and worship, I am loudly declaring God’s praise more important than anything else I could be doing. When I praise Jesus’ words as truth, I am condemning any other words which might disagree. When I praise Jesus Christ as the singular, Sovereign LORD of the Universe, I am surrendering even my good desires to religiously control things. My praise is offensively irreligious – it is not beholden to ritual, routine and tradition. While I may not be as intentionally and courageously offensive as our long ago Palm Sunday Jesus chose to be, I must get it into my head that praising Jesus as LORD is not going to be universally popular in my world any more than it was in that of Jesus. Boldly shouting the praise language of the LORD will utterly expose, confuse and wildly upset some people.
If we’re waiting to praise God until we can find a way to do so without ever offending anyone anywhere, we will never praise Him. Our praise is always incendiary – get over it.
Praise Is Inevitable
Our praise is imperfect and it is incendiary, but it is the third truth of this passage which intrigues me most today. When Jesus was told to rebuke the imperfect, incendiary praises of Palm Sunday, he starkly refused, saying, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!”
Praise is not only imperfect and incendiary, folks, it is inevitable. I wonder if this isn’t the most important thing God longs for us to see today. Whether we choose to praise the God of the Bible or not, whether we sing His songs or someone else’s, whether we hate the church or love it, there will be powerful praise on the earth. The rocks will cry out if the people do not.
As the prophet Habbakuk said centuries before, we can choose to ignore God and go our own greedy, sinful way, but “the stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.” The stones around us will speak the truth. As Isaiah said in his great invitation to the thirsty in Isaiah 55, we have the opportunity to join “the mountains and hills bursting into song” and the “trees of the field clapping their hands.” Psalm 96:11-12 calls “the heavens to rejoice and the earth to be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy…” We have the opportunity to join that gorgeously inevitable praise music. The Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:20, plainly declared that “since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” What we need to know about praise can be known.
Praise is inevitable. There has been and always will be praise on the earth. There is a beautiful song of praise already being loudly sung in the world. There is a river of life flowing powerfully in only one direction. There has been and always will be praise on the earth.
How utterly fitting is it that Jesus discussed the stones crying out in verse 40 and then prophesied the stones of the temple coming down in verse 44? Suppose there’s a connection?
I think so.
There is a powerful, gorgeous song of praise being loudly sung in our world today. We can join the lovely song, adding our own little imperfect, incendiary, stumbling Palm Sunday voices to the feisty heavenly praise team or we can watch and wait for the rocks to inevitably cry out around us, cry out without us or perhaps, horribly even one day cry out against us.
Praise is inevitable. Sure - it always imperfect and incendiary, but it has been, is now and always will be unstoppable. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. It is inevitable. This is not just another, tired day on our calendar any more than the first Palm Sunday was just another kingly procession. This is a great crescendo in the concert. This is a rhythm reminder. This is an on-ramp to the loudest rock show on earth…
So let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name. Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things He does for me. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagles! The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly. He revealed His character to Moses and His deeds to the people of Israel. The LORD is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; He does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For His unfailing love toward those who fear Him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The LORD is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him. For He knows how weak we are; He remembers we are only dust. Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone—as though we had never been here. But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear Him. His salvation extends to the children's children of those who are faithful to His covenant, of those who obey His commandments! The LORD has made the heavens His throne; from there He rules over everything. Praise the LORD, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out His plans, listening for each of His commands. Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels who serve Him and do His will! Praise the LORD, everything He has created, everything in all His kingdom. Let all that I am praise the LORD.
Let the rocks cry out praise in this place!
May we join the praise team today! Come join the rock band!
Amen.
