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For spring break this year Julie and I and the boys will be joining my parents in Arizona.  One of the unique parts of Arizona trips is the hiking we get to do into the mountains.  You don’t get to climb thousands of feet into the air in Michigan, at least not too many thousands.  While we won’t be mountain climbing per se, we will be climbing mountains.  It’s not always easy.  There are very steep parts to the mountain.  There are rocks that shift and paths that are slippery.  And, there’s always a chance that you might see some kind of snake or critter that gives you a bit of a start.  I imagine it will be hot along the way.  The path is not an easy one.  Yet, when you get to the top of the mountain, all the hard work is worth it.  The view is expansive.  The top of the mountain is serene.  Not only are you literally on top of the world, but that feeling sets in as you feel lifted about all of the problems below.  There is a life-giving quality to the tops of mountains.  You might say that the road is hard, but it leads to life.   

Of course, that road is physically hard.  There are other roads in life.  Roads that are hard in different ways.  This last week I was at a lunch for Bethany Christian Services and I heard people talk about adoption.  One single mother mentioned how she became a foster parent for a teenage girl.  She described how the girl was violent, stole, and lied constantly at the beginning.  But then she described how the girl became gentle, stopped stealing, and lied only occasionally (she was still a teenager).  Another man told how he and his family were happy.  They didn’t think there was anything that could be added to their happiness.  Then, they adopted two children: one from Africa and another from Haiti.  There was a joy there he had not expected; not only for him, but for all the biological members of his family as well.  I imagine that the VanEyl-Godin’s can tell you how difficult the adoption process is, but they can also probably tell you the joy that comes with it.  You might say that the road is hard, but it leads to life. 

Roads can be physically hard to walk and emotionally hard to walk on, but also spiritually hard to walk on.  This last week was the 30^th Anniversary of the assassination of Oscar Romero in El Salvador.  He became Archbishop in 1977, much to the displeasure of the more liberal catholics of the country.  He was seen as a “yes” man for the Catholic church which was too closely tied to the corrupt government.  Things changed for Oscar when his closed friend was killed and no one would investigate it.  Oscar said, “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, “If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.” He began to speak out against injustice and torture and assassinations in his country.  It’s why his name is familiar around the world.  But it was not an easy road to walk.  In fact, that path lead to his own assassination. 

Jesus was on a similar road.  Although, at first glance, it certainly doesn’t seem like it.  At first glance, the road that Jesus is on seems to be an easy one.  He is very well received by the people of Jerusalem.  As far as the people are concerned, their king has come.  The people were preparing a path for Jesus, laying down the cloaks on the ground.  Others cut branches off the trees and laid them on the ground.  The people were filled with excitement because they thought that they had found in Jesus a king who would answer all of their prayers and fulfill all of their hopes.  They had been stuck under the rule of outsiders for too long and they longed for God to free them from that oppression.  They had hoped for the king that God would send and that their Scriptures spoke promised.  In their eyes, Jesus was that king. 

“Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  With their actions and with those words, the crowds were crowning Jesus and preparing a path to the throne.  All of this during Passover as the people prepared to celebrate the their deliverance from Egypt.  Too many signs had come together for them not to be filled, not only with excitement, but also with expectation.  It’s no wonder that the whole city was in turmoil as Jesus rode in on his donkey.  A new king was no small matter, especially when the current one wasn’t expecting to give up his throne; especially when the real rulers were the Romans.  No doubt the people were prepared for a revolution. 

This road that Jesus is on seems to be one of glory, laud, and honor, an easy rod, one that will end on the throne.  But first glances can be deceiving.  This road that Jesus is on would quickly turn.  Jesus would be questioned at every turn.  He would speak of betrayal when he gathered in the upper room.  He would be brought to tears and anguish and be abandoned in the Garden of Gethsemene.  He would be denied by one of his closest followers.  He would be mocked, spit upon, and beaten.  Crowned with thorns, his throne would be a cross.  There would be different crowds at the end of this road, perhaps some of the same crowd.  Instead of singing, “Hosanna!” they would be shouting, “Crucify him!” 

This is certainly not the road that people had expected Jesus to be on.  Perhaps the only one that knew that was Jesus.  From very early on in his ministry Jesus was aware that the road he was on was not an easy one.  It was not a glorious one.  “Enter through the narrow gate,” he said.  “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who take it.”  Too many people wanted Jesus to take the easy road, to go through the wide gate.  Not enough people knew that Jesus wanted them to go through a different gate and down a different road.  At the end of the day, the people wanted Jesus to affirm their work and their religion, not join him in his.  God did not lend us his Son.  Rather, God sent his son. 

You’ve been hearing me mention to the children that one of the ways to remember Lent is to think about how God leant us his Son.  I’ve also mentioned how you’re not supposed to think about it that way.  That’s because when you lend something to someone, they get to use it how they want.  You can give them instructions.  You can ask them to care for it.  But, at the end of the day, they are in charge of the thing that you loaned to them.  We could never say that Jesus is here for us to operate.  Jesus is not someone we get to use for our own purposes.  God did not lend his Son to us.  God sent his son to us.  God sent his son so that we could be transformed and enter into God’s kingdom.  There were too many people in Jesus’ day who saw him as an object to be used. 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  Jesus seems to think that many good, religious people will come to him and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast our demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?”  The problem here seems to be that the people Jesus is talking about only wanted to use him to make their road easier to walk on rather than follow Jesus on the road that he had called them to.  The people that Jesus is talking about only wanted the glory and the honor and the power.  Jesus’ whole sermon, though, is about service and sacrifice, and suffering with others to ease their burden. 

God sent us his Son his so that we would be reconciled to our neighbors, so that we would be faithful to our spouses, and so that we would love our enemies.  God sent his Son so that we would give and pray and fast for God’s glory rather than our own.  God sent us his Son so that we would be generous, so that we would have hope and not worry, so that we would have mercy and not judge.  God sent us his Son so that we would do to others what we would have them do to us.  We all know that it’s easier to hold a grudge, it easier to abandon those we don’t get along with, it’s easier to hate our enemies.  It’s easier to glorify ourselves and worry and judge.  It is an easier road, but we also know where it leads.  Those things lead to the destruction of relationships, of our own souls, of life itself.  Those things take life apart.  Harder is the road that Jesus calls us to walk on.  Hard is the road of service, sacrifice, and suffering with others to ease their burden.  It goes against almost every grain in our bodies.  That’s why Jesus walked it first. 

When the Bible says that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, it means that Jesus is the one who first began this road and the one who will bring it to its completion.  No one else in God’s kingdom would have believed that the proper place for God’s Son was the cross.  Only Jesus had the faith, the hope, and the love that it took to enter the narrow gate and walk down the hard road of service and sacrifice and suffering with others to ease their burden.  He walked down that hard road so that we could have the same faith, hope, and love in order to follow him.  Because, while the road is a hard one, it is the road that leads us to life.  Jesus wants nothing more than for you and I to enter the narrow gate, to walk down the hard road.   

At first glance that may make it seem that Jesus is a tyrant, a taskmaster.  To be called to service, to sacrifice, to suffering with others to receive their burden, seems to be a call that places a heavy burden on us.  But there is a reason for it.  There is a place that that road leads.  At the end of the day, Jesus doesn’t want suffering for us, but salvation for us.  At the end of the road, Jesus wants nothing more than for you and I to experience life.  Oscar Romero believed this.  He was willing to walk a hard road because believed it would lead him to life.  The week before he was assassinated, Oscar Romero spoke to a congregation about Lent and the hope he sees in the cross. 

No one can quench the life that Christ has resurrected. Neither death nor all the banners of death and hatred raised against him and against his church can prevail. He is the victorious one! Just as he will thrive in an unending Easter, so we must accompany him in a Lent and a Holy Week of cross, sacrifice, and suffering with others. As he said, blessed are they who are not scandalized by his cross.

Lent, thus, is a call to celebrate our redemption in that difficult combination of cross and victory. Our people are well prepared to do so these days: all that surrounds us proclaims the cross. But those who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this calvary of El Salvador lies our Easter, our resurrection. That is the Christian people’s hope.

Unlike the people who stood along the side of the road of the Triumphal Entry, we sing “Hosanna!” this morning knowing full well that the road Jesus was on is the one that leads to the cross.  But we also have the benefit of knowing what happened after he died.  We know that the cross is no longer simply a symbol of death and destruction.  We sing “Hosanna!” this morning because the cross is the symbol for us of the destruction of death.  The cross is for us the beginning of our hope because we know that God has the power to overcome every enemy and even death itself.  The hope of the cross is the reason that we can be filled with excitement this morning. 

As Christians in the world today, it can seem awfully difficult to keep the faith especially on those days when so much seems difficult, when marriages are hard, when homes are foreclosed, when children stray, when governments bicker, when nations war, when the world decays under pollution.  There seems to be enough sacrifice and suffering in the world and we would rather avoid a road that calls us to more.  As Christians in the world today it can seem awfully difficult to remain committed to the church, especially on those days when it becomes difficult to do so.  Service seems an odd choice when it so much easier to stay in bed.  It’s on those days, however, that we remember Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith and the head of the church.  We remember the road that Jesus walked and we remember the way that he walked on it and we sing.  We sing, “Hosanna!  Hosanna to the king!”  Amen.