Palm Sunday. It's like the Transfiguration. They are both glorious and majestic days. It's where we want to stay to avoid what is to come. What follows those days is inglorious and painful. These particular days show us the way we think things should be, especially when you are dealing with an Almighty God. Everything is glorious, upbeat, positive. God's in charge, and everything is right with the world.

Isn't that they way it should be? Isn't that the way we wish it was? We're saved from our sins, and therefore we have every right to be joyous. A child's song put it this way, "I'm in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time," and the reason for it, as the song goes, "since Jesus Christ came in and cleansed me from my sin, I'm in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right, happy all the time."

We know from living our own lives as Christians it's not the way. We're not happy all the time. What's worse, when we expect it, and it's not there--if we do even the little bit of reflecting on our lives--we will wonder what is wrong with us, what's wrong with our faith.

Perhaps we have this trouble because we don't distinguish between two kinds of glory. One is the majestic glory we naturally expect. It's the glory, whose expectation we find we have to fight here on earth or we should expect to be disappointed. The other is God's mercy. This is God's glory to us especially here on earth and could never disappoint us. These two come together well on a day like today, because the day has two extremely different themes--the glory of Palm Sunday and the glory of Good Friday.

As I had said, we want Palm Sunday. Jesus rides into Jerusalem, and long before he got there, people were shouting and cheering and laying out blankets and branches from palm trees.

If we were there, we would have been caught up in the crowd's emotion. Think about what it was like. Victory was in the air. Mothers would be holding up their little children to see Jesus ride by. "Look, Honey, there He is. That is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. The Lord has finally heard our prayers. He has sent the Messiah. Now, the day the Lord has promised is about to be fulfilled." Their brothers and sisters are already out in the street, singing and shouting and laughing. It would have been better than a Christmas morning, even 10 Christmas mornings. Everybody would be in a mood that couldn't be topped.

The old men wouldn't be able to hold back the tears. The day they had been telling their grandchildren as they had told their children when they were younger, was actually coming in their day. They had lived to see the day.

The young men would have been getting ready. If the Messiah is going to restore the kingdom to Israel there will be blood to be shed. Who, but the young men, are the ones who are likely to do it? But they are not scared. They are honored. They may lose their life against their enemy, but it would be worth it for the sake of their freedom.

All is right with the world. All is glorious. It's like small town America getting ready to send off their boys to war, before television brought the images of war into our living rooms and everyone could see Stephen Crane was right, "War is hell." Before that time, though, before it was so clearly seen, and because the people of the town knew the boys needed their support and needed to know they had it, they would gather in the streets, and throw a parade. The atmosphere is rich with pride. We are invincible.

How nice that is. How we wish we always felt it. Nothing can touch us. Everything is success.

One day glory like this will be ours. One day there will be nothing that could touch us. One day, we will sing songs of victory, and nothing will disturb our singing. One day, we will stand before the Lamb and sing His praises, and the mood will never come down. One day that will come, it is our guarantee as children of God, dressed in the robes of righteousness of the Son.

Even now, we get a glimpse of that glory, as the Lamb comes to us in our worship. We've tempered it a little bit for Lent. We don't sing "Alleluias." We don't sing praise songs to the Lamb--at least not quite like we do the rest of the year. But, even while we limit ourselves, we still get glimpses of glory. Heaven comes down among us. The angels and saints surround us. His glory abounds--even if we don't feel it.

But this glory, even outside of Lent, is limited to where He has designed to come to us. This is the stuff of worship, bit it's limited to where He puts Himself in the Word and Sacrament. When we expect the kind of glory like on Palm Sunday, simply because we are God's believing and baptized children, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

Instead, the glory we know best is God's mercy. And that is what Jesus' Passion is all about. This is really the only glory we could know. The glory of the Almighty God, we wish we could have, and sometimes think we should have while on earth, is beyond our ability to endure as sinners. Moses had asked the Lord for it. "Please, show me your glory." And the Lord said to Moses, "You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live."

To expect to stay in the glory of the Transfiguration or Palm Sunday is to expect to be able to see His face, but this is impossible for us. After Moses requested this, but before denying seeing His face, the Lord did say, "I will be gracious to whom I am gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy."

That's what is going on in the second half of this day. This is the glory of the cross and the Passion. This is the glory we know and the glory we do clearly see as we worship. But the problem is, it doesn't look like glory.

This is where it conflicts with our expectations; and where I can sound like a broken record. But sin is what keeps us from letting God be God, the God He needs to be to us and for our sake, and because of that we need the other kind of glory, God's mercy. We need Jesus' suffering and death. We need His mercy, which comes not WITH majesty and power, but THROUGH pain and death.

The people cheering on the Messiah on Palm Sunday were not so far off after all. They didn't know what kind of war it would be, but they knew it was some kind of war. But it's different for Jesus. He doesn't have their support. In fact, they and all people, including us, are the ones who threw Him to the enemy. And it's hard to hear the Lord say this is His glory.

Everyone turns against Him. Nobody stands with Him. Everyone accuses, but He won't defend Himself, although He is completely innocent of any accusation. He sees a dangerous criminal offered the chance to go free, and the people preferring to face the danger of having him out on the streets, rather than letting Jesus preach any longer. He sees a leader give up trying to set Him free, washing his hands as if that removed his guilt. He sees the soldiers mocking Him, treating Him like a king, when they don't realize He is the King of kings. He hears the people shouting a curse, which is actually the greatest blessing they could request. "His blood be on us and on our children."

Now we place ourselves in this crowd. Same town, different crowd, only five days later. The battles He was riding off to on Sunday have begun, and it looks like He is losing. Everything feels like a loss. Nothing is right.

Let me tell you, friends. God is working. God is working His glory. When it looks like He is nowhere around, it turns out He is in the middle of all of it, all this chaos, all this hatred. He is directing it all. He is bringing mercy through every step.

Ahh, what blessed words when the people scream out with bitter hatred. "His blood be on us and on our children." Pilate tries to wash off the blood and the guilt, and the people would gladly have it transferred to them. Yet, the people had no idea what they are saying. These are the words of the most desperate believer, the most devout Christian. "His blood be on me and on my children." Without it, I have no hope. Without it, my children have no hope. Let His blood be on us, that it would cover our sin, that it would wash us clean.

This is His glory. People shouting. Crowds laughing. Criminals fleeing. Rulers dodging. Religious people mocking. Leaders threatening. Soldiers beating. Whips and scourges cracking. Wounds gushing. Flies buzzing. The Father abandoning. The Son of God sighing. God dying. This is glory.

This is all in His plan. This is what was planned before time began. What seems to be going so totally wrong, what seems to be the enemies getting the upper hand, what seems to be God losing, is really His victory. This is His glory, the glory for us. This is the mercy we seek when we feel we are unforgivable. This is the victory for us when we are failing.

Through this week, we'll be looking more closely at the Passion. We'll see His mercy more clearly. We'll see it is truly glory. Because He shows us that glory, because He gives us the fruits of the glory of the Passion, then the glory of the Transfiguration, of Palm Sunday, and of Easter will be ours forever.

AMEN