Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2025, Dr. Tamilio
Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week. If you know the narrative, then you know a lot happens in just a few short days. Jesus enters Jerusalem and is greeted with thunderous applause. People lined the streets. They waved palm branches the way people might wave flags or pennants nowadays. Laying palms and cloaks before his feet was the same way that people would welcome a king — the equivalent, in some respects, to the way a flower girl throws rose petals on the aisle before the bride walks down it. It was a festive moment, though it would not last long. In just four days, Jesus would share his last meal with his disciples. The next morning, he would be crucified. Indeed, a great deal happens in just one week.
A couple of weeks ago at Bible study, I mentioned how Christmas and Easter sermons are among the hardest to write. How many different ways can you say that Jesus was born and that he rose from the dead? The Palm Sunday sermon is a tough one, too. How many different ways can you say that Jesus entered Jerusalem as the triumphant King of kings and Lord of lords?
As I was thinking this exact thought, something hit me. It hit me like a stone. In fact, it is about stones! As Jesus came into town, people (including Jesus’ disciples) were shouting, “Hosanna!” They were crying, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of our God!” It was a festive atmosphere — the way people would greet soldiers coming home from war, or the way a Boston sports team is greeted during its parade route through Beantown on the Duck Boats.
Imagine telling such a crowd to be quiet. Imagine telling the masses to keep it down. It would never happen. And it wasn’t about to happen when Jesus came to town. Yet, some of the Pharisees who were there that day tried to do exactly that. “Teacher,” they said, “rebuke your disciples!” Now that begs the question “Why?” Why did the Pharisees offer such a stringent command? Why would they want Jesus to “rebuke” the disciples? Because in their minds (the minds of the Pharisees) declaring that Jesus has come in the name of the Lord and seeing people treat him as if he is the Messiah was heresy in their minds.
But what does Jesus say? “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” I love this line. It is metaphorical, of course, but the point hits hard. Essentially, Jesus is saying that all of creation knows who I am: yes, that creation that has been groaning as if in the pains of childbirth, as Paul told the Romans (8:22). All of creation — every man, woman, child, fish, frog, fauna, fox, falcon, ferret, fir tree, and even the rocks themselves — all of creation is tired, weighed down by sin, and hatred, and destruction, and desolation. All of it. Knowing that the promised Messiah has finally come and that he has entered the sacred city of Jerusalem…how can all of creation not shout for joy. Finally! He’s here! Liberation at last!
We feel the same way, oftentimes. Things are never going to get better. Taxes keep going up while our standard of living declines. We seem to be losing that war on drugs with more and more people dying of overdose with drugs like fentanyl claiming the lives of not just serious drug users, but recreational ones who just want to experiment. We still look to war as a way to settle our political and ideological differences. Nothing seems to be getting better. Yes, we’ve advanced technologically, but for every step forward made by humankind, we seem to be taking two proverbial steps back.
Can you imagine how the people in Jesus’ day felt? They lived under Roman persecution. They had few rights. They were poor. Furthermore, their religious leaders cast heavy burdens upon them with no real recompense for their faith. Religion was about following the letter of the law. It consisted of strict adherence to the commandments as enumerated in the Torah. There was no room for grace, mercy, or compassion. People must have seen Jesus the way a person dying of thirst sees a cool drink of water. Of course, they would cry out when Jesus arrived bringing hope. Of course, they would shout for joy when their liberator entered the city gates. Of course, they would celebrate this unprecedented triumphant arrival. And, if they didn’t, even the stones at the side of the road would cry out.
This statement about the stones only appears in Luke’s Gospel. However, upon closer examination, one discovers that it is actually a reference to one of the minor Old Testament prophets: Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 2:11 we read, “The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.” Habakkuk was speaking about Judah’s exile in Babylon. As Kent Harold Richards writes, this verse indicates that even the buildings constructed for safety from the Babylonians will cry out.[1] However, whereas Habakkuk is speaking of the walls of the sacred city crying out in protest, Jesus says the very stones in the road will proclaim the liberation that Jesus brings. The legendary preacher Fred Craddock writes, “That stones would shout out is, of course, a figure of speech, but the expression does remind us that in the biblical understanding, the creation is involved in events that we tend to think affect humans alone.”[2]
Therefore, this day has cosmic significance. It isn’t just that Jesus rides into Jerusalem to tell its citizens that their liberator has come. All of creation is a witness to this, for Jesus’ arrival (his first coming as well as his anticipated second coming) will restore nature as well as us — the nature we have polluted for monetary gain, the nature that we think is just the theater of our existence with no inherent rights. Yes, even creation will cry out and breathe a sigh of relief.
But remember, this is a short week. Cries of joy will turn into cries of hate. The hands waving leafy branches will soon be shaking their fists. Instead of shouting “Hosannah!” they will be calling for blood, crying “Crucify!”
Follow him this week. Follow him to the Upper Room. Follow him to Gethsemane. Follow him to the mock trial. Follow him to the praetorium where he will be mocked and scourged. Follow him with Simon of Cyrene, carrying a heavy cross. Follow him to Golgotha where he will be crucified between two criminals. Stand with the women and weep. The stones are crying out today, but in just five days a huge stone will be rolled across the mouth of a tomb. There’ll be no shouting then. Everything will be silent. Yes, Easter will follow with shouts of “Hallelujah!” but not yet. Don’t be too quick to run to the empty tomb. Pause. Take stock of everything that will happen this week. It is the reason why the stones shout out. Amen.
[1] Kent Harold Richards, “Habakkuk,” from The Harper Collins Study Bible: NRSV (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), 1256-1257, footnote 2:9-11.
[2] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, from the Interpretation Series (Louisville: John Know Press, 1990), 228