Sermon - Word Made Flesh

Aaron Douglas, The Creation, 1935. Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

A sermon given during the Choral Eucharist at St Olave Hart Street, City of London on Palm Sunday, 13th April 2025 based on the text of the Palm Gospel (Luke 19.28-40) and the Passion Gospel (Luke 23.1-49)

It is now possible to use Artificial Intelligence to create a three-dimensional model using a text prompt. Give the AI a few sentences and it will visualise the scene. Hook it up to a 3D printer and word becomes - artificial - flesh. A recent craze has seen people using the software to form action hero figures of themselves.

I wonder what image of Jesus it would create from the text of the two gospel readings we have heard this morning?

 

Would it produce an image of the same Jesus? 

 

And how would it depict the crowds?

 

The difference between the way they see Jesus in the Palm Gospel, which was read at the start of the service - and the Passion Gospel which we sang just now - is stark. 

 

We move from a scene of joyful celebration, the crowd hailing Jesus as Saviour, to a litany of betrayal, denial, rejection and death; the crowd baying for Jesus’ crucifixion. From “Hosanna” to “Crucify Him!” in the space of a few minutes. And we join in. 

 

Today our liturgy uses us to create in an instant a three-dimensional model of Holy Week, without the need for artificial intelligence. We are made to get up out of our seats and embody this striking contrast between celebration and consolation - between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. We become the crowd. One moment waving palms and singing hymns in procession in praise of Jesus. The next, we are rejecting him, calling for His death. 

 

On Palm Sunday the crowd - that great multitude - were in high spirits. They saw Jesus approaching Jerusalem not on the back of a horse like a conquering hero - but riding a donkey - the way that the prophet Zechariah had foretold that the Messiah would appear. 

 

The people began praising God “joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen” and that everyone had been talking about. 

 

The miracles that Jesus had performed. The sick people he had healed. The thousands of hungry people he had fed. He had even raised people from the dead. The man who had the power to do all this had arrived. 

 

The crowd gave Jesus the red carpet treatment. Spreading their cloaks on the dusty road in front of him as the donkey made its way down and back up the steep valley around the edge of the city. 

 

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” the choir sang for us so beautifully earlier, echoing the song of the crowd on that first Palm Sunday. 

 

An extremely dangerous song to sing at a time when their country was occupied. To gather together and hail Jesus as King, to pay homage as he entered the gates of Jerusalem in such a public display was to blatantly defy the authority of the Roman Emperor and to risk the wrath of his surrogates. 

 

The crowd must have known that they were putting their lives in danger. But in that moment they saw in Jesus someone worth dying for. Someone who was more powerful than the Imperial forces. Someone who would defeat their oppressors,  save them and set them free.

 

A few days later they saw Jesus as a very different figure.

The Passion Gospel begins with a crowd surrounding Jesus as he stands before Pilate. 

 

Betrayed by one of his closest followers, arrested under cover of darkness as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he stands falsely accused. 

 

Jesus has been stirring up the people with his teaching, the crowd declares. No mention of his healing, his compassion, his mercy. The crowd are laying down judgement - not their cloaks - today. 

 

The revolutionary hope and optimism of Palm Sunday had vanished. Jesus hadn’t caused an insurrection. He hadn’t overthrown the occupying forces. Instead he had been arrested, beaten and humiliated by them. The crowd no longer see Jesus as someone worth dying for - he’s a disappointment. 

 

When Pilate offers them a choice between freeing Jesus or a violent robber, they choose Barabbas.

 

It is Jesus they want to be punished in the most painful, gruesome way. “Crucify Him, Cruficy Him” they cry. 

 

As did we. 

 

As ever the gospels hold up a mirror to our own lives. And as we give three dimensions to the text on the page, there’s no escaping the discomfort as we shout (or sing in our case) for Jesus’s crucifixion.

 

In inhabiting the role of the crowd, we are challenged to consider how we see Jesus. How consistent is our relationship with Him? Do we praise Jesus as our Saviour when we want something from him - perhaps when things aren’t going our way - and then, just like the crowd on that first Palm Sunday, abandon and forget him moments – or days - later? 

 

It’s uncomfortable to consider because we all, probably, do both - me included. Over the ages, the tension between these two gospel readings has become embedded deep in the fibre of our human being. But this muscle memory creates a form devoid of true life. Like an AI generated action figure.

 

We feel discomfort as we embody the role of the crowd because our bodies are telling us that something is wrong. This is not the behaviour of the person we created made to be. 

 

 

At the beginning of Lent we were invited to train ourselves to form our lives in a different mould. To dedicate more time to our lifelong quest to know Jesus, through prayer, study of the scriptures, acts of self-denial and compassionate, loving service. To learn how to be his disciples, his followers. To be more like him.

 

Our gospel readings reveal that while the crowd sees Jesus differently, he does not change.   

 

His humble, compassionate, loving service continues until the end. Praying for forgiveness for those who have crucified him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

 

Jesus may not have been the King, that people expected but he is the Messiah we need.  Through his death and his resurrection, he brings mercy, forgiveness, grace, and the promise of eternal life.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. A way that takes us through the horrors of the cross before the joy of Easter, if we are bold enough to follow Him.

This is the word made flesh that we are called to reflect – the figure we are to model in our own lives. The person we have been formed to be – by divine intelligence.

Image :  Aaron Douglas, The Creation, 1935. Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.