354 Shouting Rocks

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Shouting Rocks”, originally shared on April 9, 2025. It was the 354^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object? Today, we’re going to find out.

   We’ve been talking about how some people give up things for Lent, things that they like, in order to help them focus on self-sacrifice and discipleship, in the spirit of Lent.

   And how others add things for Lent, things like additional giving, service to others, and public witness that are also in the spirit of Lent.

   Sally and I added an every-Friday trip to McDonald’s for Filet-O-Fish. 😊 

   But this week, we added another wrinkle!

   This week, we used the McDonald’s app! It lets you customize your food, which is a hack to making sure it’s fresh if you’re willing to wait a little bit. It gives an even bigger discount on their Filet O Fish special, and free stuff, and inducements to buy even more food at McDonalds! It wants you to spend more money at McDonald’s. They’re good at that!

   But we’re pretty much sticking to our Friday Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

   OK, it’s not a real sacrifice, but we want to support one of the few things in popular culture that is an accommodation to Christian behavior. BTW, did you know that McDonalds feeds 1% of the world’s population every day?! It’s pretty popular!

    Jesus was pretty popular too on the day that he rode into Jerusalem like a victorious military leader on what Christians around the world will be celebrating this coming Sunday as Palm Sunday.

   But, when church members asked me why we weren’t growing into megachurch status, my answer was that people do come to Christ at megachurches but, on the other hand, McDonald’s sells a lot of hamburgers. It’s very popular. That doesn’t mean that a steady diet of their food is good for you.

   In fact, Jesus’ popularity with the crowds on Palm Sunday did nothing for the Christian Church at all. Just days later, people in Jerusalem abandoned him and many were shouting “Crucify Him”, very possibly some of the same people who had shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!“ just a few days earlier. And then they were fine with killing him.

   Have you ever seen a parade? Have you ever been in a parade? Have you ever seen a parade that started spontaneously because people were so excited that they just had to cheer? Today, you will.

   I love a parade! Especially one with marching bands. They are why I started playing drums.

   I remember watching the Memorial Day Parade in my hometown, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I remember standing on the curb hearing the rumble of the percussion coming from a distance, my excitement building as it grew closer.

   I remember the thumps on my chest as the percussion section drew nearer and then passed by, the staccato pulse of the snare drums, the splash of the cymbals and the massive thud of the big bass drums.

   I wanted that! I wanted to do that!

   I tapped out rhythms on every surface I found in front of me for years. I made my own drums out of empty cardboard boxes, Quaker Oats containers, or whatever. I destroyed a child’s drum set that my parents bought me for Christmas when I was in 5^th Grade to “Rock Around the Clock”.

   I played a violin for a year because our school system started its orchestra program a year before its band program, and I thought it would help me learn to read music. When I couldn’t play drums because I didn’t own a concert snare drum, I played mellophone (a French horn with trumpet valves) for a summer until my dad talked with the band director, who sold him a surplus used drum from the high school band.

   I started practicing on a practice pad and played that snare drum, moving immediately into first chair and staying there for four years. I still have it.

   I became the guy who played the drums, marching down the street in the parade.

   I almost missed a parade when I chipped my left wrist vaulting over a “horse” in gym class, but I wore a groove into the cast and played in the parade anyway.

   I saved up and bought a Ludwig “Super Classic” drum set with the silver sparkle finish, just like Joe Morello’s, the drummer with The Dave Brubeck quartet.

   I took it to college and played in jazz bands through college and seminary and beyond.

   It all started with a parade.

   Parades bring people together, whether they are in the parade or watching it. They create a sense of focus and a common experience, sometimes even a common cause.

   Jesus entered Jerusalem, once, at the head of a parade. He would be dead in a few days, but for that shining moment, he brought people together, at least some of the people anyway. He knew he would die there, but he rode into town like a champ.

   Here’s what happened, in Luke 19:28-38,

²⁸ After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹ When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰ saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³² So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³ As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” ³⁴ They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶ As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷ As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸ saying,

“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”

   I don’t know that there were any bands in that parade, but I imagine small children watching and running along with it on its sides, caught up in the excitement, finding branches to throw in his donkey’s path. Asking their parents if they could throw their outer clothing onto the path for Jesus’s donkey, like some of the adults were doing, and hearing a firm, “No”.

   I imagine that it was exciting, but that it was also kind of scary. Who were these people? Crowds can become mobs, and mobs and can spin out of control, they can get destructive.

   But here he came, Jesus. The Messiah, the Anointed One? The one they had been awaiting for 1,000 years? A deliverer, but from what? Many thought the Messiah would come as a king, like King David, and deliver them from the latest of many occupying empires: the Romans. (The crowds threw the palm branches that traditionally greeted successful military leaders.) Or, was he something else?

   Was the excitement contagious, or did many look on with horror, or indifference?

   How did Jesus feel, riding into Jerusalem like that? What did he think about the cheers of the crowds?

   I wonder if Jesus felt a momentary urge to just end the chain of events that he knew was coming, right there. To just stop with the cheers and spend the rest of his life as a popular rabbi, a miracle worker.

   But he didn’t.

   Why did he ride into town on a donkey? Was it a conscious reference to the Old Testament prophecy, as we read in Zechariah 9:9?,

⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

   Or did Jesus choose to ride in, as some scholars have suggested, on a symbol of humble service because he resisted the temptation to take the easy way?

   He got that donkey when the disciples just went and untied it and, when the owners asked them to explain, they said “The Lord needs it”. And they said, “OK”! Either I’m missing something here, or it was another world back then.

   Or did they know about Jesus? Was he that respected, that popular?

   The Bible says that a “multitude” of his disciples began to loudly praise God. Right there. In broad daylight. In public.

   Yup. It’s easy to follow Jesus when he’s there at the head of the parade. Top of the charts.

   It’s harder when he’s headed to the top of the cross.

   That’s where Jesus was headed, and do you know how many of the “multitude” followed him all the way?

   Zero. The power of that parade, the one we celebrate on “Palm Sunday”, was very temporary. Jesus knew that.

   His humble service would change everything. But that’s a story for next week, a week of love and shame. Holy Week.

   But now, the story turns to stones.

   Do rocks have feelings? Do they have needs and aspirations? If they could talk, what would they say?

   People were going nuts for Jesus.

   The Bible, in Luke 19’s version of events, says that “the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen”. They celebrated, “the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

   But not everyone was happy. The Pharisees, members of a religious party of highly observant laymen (only men could be Pharisees), were upset. Were their hearts hard, like stones?

   Maybe they thought that Jesus being called the Messiah was blasphemy. Or maybe they were worried that the Romans would hear the shouts of “Blessed is the king” as a signal for insurrection and would put it down in a crushing and indiscriminate fashion.

   Either way, we see their response, and Jesus’ answer, in Luke 19:39-40,

³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰ He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

   That’s an indication that something significant and unstoppable is happening!

   You may remember, or have heard about, a mid-1970’s fad where people bought a product called a “Pet Rock”. The joke was that, unlike other pets, the pet rock required no grooming, walking, special food or beverages, no Dr. visits, or housesitting when you are away. In fact, your pet rock didn’t do anything requiring maintenance at all, and it certainly didn’t shout out!

   What would it take for a rock to shout? I’d say that it would take an act of God.

   It would take something so positively life-changing that if people didn’t shout out about it, God would arrange things for the rocks to shout out.

   What do you think that a shouting rock would sound like? I’d guess that it would have a gravelly voice. 😊

   You’d want a pet rock then, wouldn’t you? If it was a shouting rock! 😊

   And what would it say? “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

   And what irresistible thing was happening that called for shouts of praise? Jesus was coming.

   The pivotal event of human history was about to happen, and the people thought they knew what it might be, but they didn’t.

   All people were created for a living relationship with the one true living God. People rejected that relationship and brought evil into the world. Now God was going to die to restore that relationship as a gift, by grace, through faith. Not by human effort. That’s something to shout about!

   Jesus knows he’s going to die there, but he rides into town like a boss.  

   It seemed like a victory parade, and in a sense it was. But nobody knew it was also a funeral procession but Jesus, or if they had heard it from Jesus, they didn’t want to know.

   Now, the time was at hand. Jesus had come as the Messiah, the deliverer, to deliver people from sin, death, and the power of the devil and all the forces that defy God. That would be accomplished on the cross.

   Jesus enters Jerusalem at the head of the parade to become the head of the Church.

   He does so through his death, in humble service to humankind.

   That is the message of Palm Sunday. The triumph of obedience. The victory of God in flesh.

   That is Paul’s focus in his letter to the church at Philippi in Philippians 2:5-11,

⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

   I mentioned earlier that I had played drums in jazz bands in college and in seminary and beyond. I wasn’t a great drummer, I admit. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t like to do solos. I was fine being the back beat, setting the mood, the tempo, and the feeling, with everyone else.

   My favorite quote on drumming came from Charlie Watts of “The Rolling Stones”, who died a few years ago, though I can’t find the attribution for the quote. He said, “I don’t want to be the world’s greatest drummer. I want to be the drummer in the world’s greatest band.”

   That’s us. We are not a collection of individuals. We are a community, the Body of Christ, with Jesus as the head and we as members of the body. Among other things, that means that as the head of the Church, Jesus is the face of the Church.

   Is he? Is Jesus what people think of when they think of our churches? Is it what we present to people? Is Jesus central to the message we present to the community?

   Palms were raised on that day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

   Some of the palms we will raise this coming Sunday at our Palm Sunday services will be burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday next year. They will be used to make the sign of the cross on our foreheads, and we will hear the words, “Remember that you are dust. And to dust you shall return.”

   Those are some mighty scary words to most people. But to us, they are applied in the shape of the cross, the shape of victory. Jesus’ victory, which the crowds on Palm Sunday couldn’t see, past their belief in their own needs and desires. Do we see it?

   What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? On Palm Sunday, if the people hadn’t cried out in praise of Jesus, the rocks would have!

   I’ve heard it said that there is gold in the rocks in the foothills above where Sally and I live. When my sister’s children were young and she and her husband and the kids visited us from Minnesota, we took them up there to pan for it. Whatever shiny flecks we found weren’t very much, but everyone had fun.

   But what could rocks carry that is more precious than gold? A message?

   What if we’re not awake to what God is doing right now, what if we aren’t being the Body of Christ, embodying the face of Jesus to the world? What if we knew that we needed a Savior?

  They would say, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”