PART 1
Palm Sunday (A)
Matthew 26-27
March 29, 2026
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The text I have chosen for this morning’s sermon is the Gospel of St. Matthew.
The barebones facts of the Passion of Jesus Christ are, hopefully, familiar to most of you: the Last Supper, the prayer in Gethsemane, the trial before Pilate, the scourging, the crucifixion, the two criminals, the cry of “It is finished.” There’s more to our Lord’s Passion than you might realize though. When those little details that slip by unnoticed or which seem insignificant are put together, the full picture of your salvation is revealed. Normally, I wouldn’t end a sermon with “To be continued,” that seems wrong. But there are so many details in our Lord’s Passion, I’m have to finish this sermon on Good Friday.
Matthew starts us off with sad news: “Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?’ And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.” The value of our Lord’s life is thirty measly coins, equal to the value of a slave who’d been gored by an ox. We’ll never know why Judas betrayed Jesus. Was it greed? Disillusionment? Who knows. We do know that his betrayal was at the instigation of satan. Satan put the temptation before Judas, once again trying to destroy Jesus, and once again satan was out of the loop because this betrayal didn’t stop God’s plan, it fulfilled it! Satan thinks he’s working, but God’s always in control. It’s the same thing for you and me, for when it looks like satan is winning, God’s plans always come to fruition. When confronted by God and His plans, satan doesn’t stand a chance.
Jesus’ disciples would be a great case study for a psychology class. They have stupid arguments over who’s the best disciple. They’re really slow on the uptake, they don’t listen well, and they aren’t very self-aware. When Jesus says they’ll abandon Him, they boast they’ll die with Him. And what happens when the bad guys show up? They scatter like rats from a ship. Fear overcame their faith and their words were just words. What would we have done had we been at the Garden? Would we have fled or stood strong? Chances are we’d have been running too. Sometimes, we’re running even today. When we’re baptized, confirmed, and join a church, we promise we’ll regularly worship and be faithful unto death, and what happens? We abandon Him, right? There are so many distractions that steal our focus. We take our eyes off Him as we eye an escape to some other activity. If we don’t even put Him first in our life, how can we say we’re going to die for Him?
Peter especially has a rough Good Friday. He promises that even if everyone else abandons him, he’ll stand by Jesus’ side. And he does, as long as nobody recognizes him. Peter denies knowing anything about Jesus, and then, when his accent betrays him as coming from the same area he pretends not to know of Jesus at all. In the last denial, he swears that God should curse him if he’s lying! That’s when Jesus and Peter lock eyes and it’s over. Peter breaks down. Is it repentance or remorse? Maybe it’s both? Peter broke his promises to Jesus and now he’s devastated.
You and me? We deny Jesus by our words and deeds, right? Peter and the disciples committed what should’ve been considered an unforgivable sin. On Easter Jesus proved there aren’t any unforgiven sins. He appears in the locked room and says to those frightened disciples, “Peace be with you.” This isn’t a wish or a request, it’s a promise that their sins are forgiven and God isn’t angry at them. When I say, “Peace be with you,” I’m telling you the same thing. Your sins are forgiven; God’s anger is put away because of Jesus. You have peace!
The word Gethsemane means oil press and it was the site of a spiritual struggle as Jesus pleads with the Father to find another way. He prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” What is the cup that waits for Him? In the Bible, cup is frequently used as a metaphor of God’s wrath. Jesus is scared because He knows He must drink God’s wrath for our lifetime of sin, a lifetime of this world’s sin. In the garden where olives were pressed for oil, our Savior is pressed until He sweats blood and cries in anguish. As Jesus prays for the Father to find another way He also prays, “Thy will be done” so the Father sends an angel to encourage Him. He will swallow the dregs of sin and God’s justifiable anger over your sins. He will endure physical and spiritual agony, so you don’t have to. He drinks the cup of God’s wrath so that you drink from the cup of His joy.
In the Middle East, a short and non-romantic kiss was a common greeting and a sign of respect. Judas corrupted the kiss by making it a sign of betrayal. Despite the torches, the garden was clothed in shadows, so the kiss identified Jesus to the soldiers. Jesus is betrayed by a friend, and then what does He do? He dies for His betrayer. For Judas’ sins of betrayal and greed, He died. For our sins of betrayal and greed, He also died.
Peter was fortunate Jesus protected him in the Garden because his foolishness almost cost him his life and poor Malchus his ear. Jesus had to rebuke Peter for trying to protect Him from the cross earlier, and now He must do it again. A sword isn’t necessary when the Father would send 72,000 angels upon request, but for Jesus to be the Christ, His death cannot be stopped, it must happen. If the heavenly army had rescued Him from the Roman army, you wouldn’t be saved! Your freedom came at the expense of His freedom, your life at the expense of His life.
In a meeting of the Jewish Council, the High Priest Caiaphas declare: “Don’t you understand that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” Now this one man stands before him on trial for His life. Caiaphas had no idea that what he said meant something completely different. He was only worried about the nation of Israel, the Temple, and the necessity of keeping the Romans happy. Jesus was worried about the world. It was better for one man to die than for all of us to die. He died, we live. He perished and we never will.
During Jesus’ trial, Caiaphas said, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” In other words, he commanded Jesus to swear to God that He was the Son of God. This is the moment of truth; no one can lie when they’re under oath to God, so Jesus replies, “You say that I am.” I am. Jesus uses the divine name for Himself, identifying Himself as the Christ, the Son of God. Up to this point, Jesus let his miracles and teachings do the talking, now He announces in no uncertain terms that He is the Son of God, the Savior, the long awaited Messiah. This answer infuriated the Jewish council and was the foundation for their case for the death penalty. Despite everything they had seen Jesus do, they just didn’t get it. God stood before them and they squeezed their eyes shut. By God’s grace, He has given you eyes of faith. Though you cannot see God standing before you, you can know that He is! You can trust that He’ll give you comfort and aid no matter the circumstances.
The most tragic figure in the Passion account is Judas. Satan uses his greed to betray Jesus and when he sees the consequences of his actions, he wants to undo everything. He pleads, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!” In a familiar scene, the priests failed him. They should’ve taken him to the Temple to sacrifice a lamb as a sin offering so he could be forgiven. Instead, they mocked him and sent him away even more despondent. Death is the only option, at least that’s what Judas thought. If he’d only known why Jesus was about to die! When you betray Jesus, when you lie to Him, when you reject Him because He doesn’t do what you want Him to do, you can always come back. Our Lord will never turn His back on you. He will never tell you to “See to it yourself” because He saw to it Himself. In His body and blood, you will always find forgiveness, because He was the perfect offering for your sin.
Details matter. I think this is especially true when it comes to the Bible. Why would God tell us things that don’t matter? I’ll admit I don’t understand why He told us that in 1440 BC the tribe of Judah had 74,600 men in fighting shape. Other details are clearly important: a braggart denies knowing Jesus, a kiss is a betrayal, thirty pieces of silver, and a cup. Of all the details you must remember is the most important one: all of these details are about you, your forgiveness, and your salvation.
Amen
Now the peace which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen