“Who is This?”

Sermon by The Rev. Seth Olson

April 2, 2023

“When [Jesus] entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’”

On a day long ago, the entire Holy City asked, “Who is this?” As Jerusalem experienced the unsettled turbulence, the fever pitch, the near riots, they collectively yearned to know who this Jesus was. By my count, today’s service features about 65 different answers for this question through various descriptors of Jesus—from grand titles like “Son of Man” or “King of Israel” to expressive phrases like “self-emptying one” or “oh, most afflicted.” Back on the first Palm Sunday, the crowds ran ahead of Jesus cutting down branches and throwing down garments, as they had their own answer for Jerusalem’s question, shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” (italics added for emphasis)

Surely the disciples were among the crowds. They had professed already who this was. “The Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” attested their spokesperson Peter. Later in this week, though these same followers would answer the question about Jesus’ identity differently.

Judas full of greed and disappointment betrayed his teacher with a kiss, only to later experience the kiss of death as the aftermath of his guilt and shame. Peter after Jesus foretold of the disciples’ threefold denial replied, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” The other disciples chimed in likewise, but a cockcrow would be the alarm that awakened them from their denial! In the garden Peter, James, and John (the ultra-disciples) could not keep watch with Jesus falling asleep instead. When those with swords and clubs arrived to arrest Jesus, one disciple seethed with rage such that he turned to aggression with a blade.

The disciples’ replies to the question, “Who is this?” were not to hold up Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” nor as a Prophet, nor even as their rabbi. Instead, through betrayal, denial, unconsciousness, and violence they let their words and actions speak disbelief, fear, and faithlessness.

The danger with pointing out the disciples’ sin-soaked responses comes when I try to wash my own hands of Jesus’ death, like Pilate did. I claim that it was the disciples’ missteps and inaction, not mine. I likewise blame it upon religion and politics, the Jewish or the Roman people, not me. I so easily slide into the crowd to run from my own part in the story—how I might answer the question. And yet, even there hiding in the masses, I discover that out of one side of my mouth I call Jesus: Savior, King, Prince of Life, beloved, friend; then out of the other: slave, imposter, accused. Worst of all is the cry ringing out of my mouth for Jesus to be crucified. “Let him be crucified!”

Over and over again, I crucify Christ, we crucify Christ—not only in ancient Jerusalem, but throughout the ages in the deaths of martyrs and innocents, and in our day, at Columbine or Covenant, at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston or at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills. It would be easier for us, for me to just look away!

This is the danger: to sit back comfortably and wait for a week to pass, so that I may drop in wearing my Easter best to sing my favorite hymns and never acknowledge my part in the story, my part in Jesus’ betrayal, Passion, and death—my part in the crucifixion of Christ.

What if you and I did not know how this story will end? What if we were to watch with the crowds, the disciples, and Pilate? Better still, what if we were to walk with the women—Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee—to see how this story unfolds? What if we wondered anew, “Who is this?”

This week suspend what you think you know. Look past the answers that the disciples, religion, politics, or others tell you about who Jesus is. Instead, walk the way of Holy Week, and ponder, “Who is this?”