Palm Sunday – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Palm Sunday 1920, Part 5: The Moral

This is a continuation of Lloyd Douglas’s Palm Sunday sermon at the University of Michigan (the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor), preached on March 28, 1920, entitled, “Art Thou a King, Then?” (It can be found in “Sermons [5],” Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

A passage from “Art Thou a King, Then?” a sermon preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on March 28, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“I realize that I have spent considerable time today with this recital of the Palm Sunday story. I have been anxious that you might see the picture clearly and in detail. For it holds much significance for us on this Palm Sunday of 1920.

“We want an ideal leadership in America. We want a political state that shall be our pride and an example to the nations of the earth. We want to rid ourselves, as a nation, of the old tyrannies, the old social injustices, and walk in newness of life.

“But suppose a leader presented himself whose law of life was brotherly love; whose idea of personal greatness was only that he might become a servant of all, assuring every man who cheered for him that all he could ever hope to get out of it would be the place and rank of a servant.

“Would we acclaim that type of leader?

“Do we want that kind of leader? We who, through these latter days, have become so greedy, so callous?

“Does big industrial business in America desire a pure and undefilable leader who will feel the spirit of the Lord upon him to preach the gospel of hope to the poor — who will (not theoretically, through the incredibly show and ineffective processes of high salaried commissions, but practically) bind up the broken-hearted and ensure equal justice and equal rights for all men, regardless of their station?

“Does big commercial business in America want a leader who will institute workable measures to relieve the strain upon the public?

“Would such commercial interests welcome a leader whose program would involve the increased happiness and welfare of the common people, even at the risk of slightly reduced incomes at the top of society?

“America is very sick: with a social fabric badly rent — with a warp of quick and easy riches, too often questionably won; with a woof of sour and sullen poverty, grinding its teeth in hate of those who, smilingly, continue to heap upon them burdens desperately hard to bear.

“There is a way out. There is only one way out. It is his way who taught men the Golden Rule. Is it too late to choose that way?

“America must decide this question promptly. The date on which our option expires may be nearer than we have thought!

“Five days after this strange event of Palm Sunday, a great crowd of Hebrews who had hailed the young Nazarene as their future king dragged him into the presence of the Procurator and asked that sentence of death be passed on him as a disturber of the peace.

“And Pilate looked him over contemptuously — looked at his haggard face, his unkempt hair, his soiled garments, his fettered hands — and shouted to the crowd:

“‘Is this your king?’

“And they growled, ‘We have no king — but Caesar.’

“Ah, how they hated Caesar. And how they hated Pontius Pilate. And how they hated Rome.

“And how much they would have given just to have been able to yell back into the face of the Roman governor:

“‘We loathe your cruel government. We would gladly overthrow it if we could. We are slaves — and you know it — you greedy monster!’

“Yes, they would have liked to say that to Pilate, but they didn’t dare. For they were slaves. They had the hearts of slaves. They had the minds of slaves. Chains had been worn so long that chains became them. They wouldn’t have known how to behave under a decent government.

“Yet, here stood, in their midst, a man who could have led them out of their distresses. He could have unshackled their souls.

“Again, this gentle-spirited Leader speaks to a nation of high ambitions. Says he:

“‘Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life.’

“Is it too late for us to give this august presence room in our national life?

“We will do well to ponder his claims today — for we must accept him or send him to his cross again.

“What then will ye do with Jesus? is a question that a nation may not answer with a nonchalant: ‘We don’t know!’

“When the question is asked, ‘Is this your king?’ the answer must be either, ‘He is our king!’ or, ‘We have no king — but Caesar. We have no ambition to live up to our boasted ideals. We like the old chains. We love the old poverty for the 99% and the fine old luxuries for the one percent. As for this fellow, away with Him.'”

Palm Sunday 1920, Part 4: The Procession

by Ronald R Johnson

[This is a continuation of Lloyd Douglas’s Palm Sunday sermon at the University of Michigan (the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor), preached on March 28, 1920, entitled, “Art Thou a King, Then?” (It can be found in “Sermons [5],” Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

Christ is part of a caravan of pilgrims making their way into Jerusalem for Passover Week. They are singing the songs of deliverance. Douglas says:]

“There was just a slim chance that Israel, feverishly anxious to find adequate leadership, would listen to [Christ’s] message. If ever they were in a mood to hear an interpretation of God’s will, one would think that time was now.

“If he could only lead them to see that their Messianic hope must reside, at last, in a new social order, in a new spiritual commonwealth.

“It was worth trying.

“It would probably be unsuccessful, but it was worth trying. He resolved to submit himself to the outward tests of the Messiah, as picturesquely foretold by the prophets.

“His disciples were ordered to go find a colt, the foal of an ass. They spread their garments on the beast, in the presence of the curious throng of wayfarers. The word was passed along that the Young Prophet of Nazareth who was reputed to have healed the sick, whose words were quoted on every hand as words of authority, was about to ride into Jerusalem as the Messiah.

“Messengers rushed to Jerusalem and spread the tidings.

“Jesus rode slowly at the head of a vast concourse of people. Jerusalem poured through the city gates and hurried out to meet him.

“It is said that the road which he took still exists, winding around the shoulder of Olivet amid groves of figs and palms until, suddenly, across a wide ravine, Jerusalem rises like a city painted on the clouds.

“The crowd rifled the trees of their foliage and strewed the branches along the road for the advancing king. The cries of ‘Hosanna!’ filled the air. The multitude grew hysterical with joy. Never was there a scene of such enthusiasm; never a crowd so infatuated with a sublime idea.

“To those tumultuous throngs, it seemed that the knell of Rome had sounded. The long and often disappointed dream of Jewish nationality was coming true! The golden age had dawned — for, at last, a Jewish king was riding to his capital in triumph.

“Amid this tumult of delight which swept away all sober sense, no one was any longer capable of seeing things in clear and lucid outline; all swam through a dazzling mist; all caught the glamor of imagination.

“And least of all did the multitude perceive the growing sadness on the face of Jesus.

“At the distance of about a mile and a half from Bethany, the road abruptly bends to the right, a narrow plateau of rock is reached, and with a startling suddenness the whole city is revealed. Nowhere perhaps in all the world is there to be attained a view of a metropolis so complete in itself or so dramatic in the suddenness of its revelation.

“It was here that the procession halted.

“There stood the temple, filling every corner of the area with its multiplied and splendid colonnades, with its superb and lofty edifices, which crowded to the very edge of the abyss and rose from it like a glittering apparition.

“The whole city was planned upon a scale of almost equal grandeur. On every hand, mansions of marble rose out of gardens of exquisite verdure. Terrace upon terrace, the city climbed. In the northwest it was crowned by the porticoes of Herod’s palace; a vast aqueduct spanned the valley; and from the Temple to the upper city stretched a stately bridge; while the walls themselves, built of massive masonry and apparently impregnable, suggested a city ‘half as old as Time.’

“It was thus that these ecstatic pilgrims thought of the sacred city. Jerusalem — beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth — would endure forever, when Rome had vanished.

“If Jehovah had humbled her by permitting Roman occupation, it was only for a day — and the hour had now struck. The King was coming to his own. How delightful it was to shout ‘Our King’!

“But these were vain hopes and fond illusions, not shared by him whom they acclaimed. Where all was hope and pride and triumph, he alone was not elated. He alone saw the city with the prophet’s brooding eye; and as the procession halted on this rock plateau from which the whole vast panorama lay unfolded, an utter sadness fell upon his heart.

“And he wept.

“Jerusalem had rejected the things that might have made for her peace. It was too late to avert the disaster.

“To the consternation of his followers, Jesus wept what must have seemed to them tears of weakness in the very hour when courage was most needed to affirm of himself what they affirmed of him, that he was a king.

“Now, I think that anybody could tell the rest of this story even if he had never heard it. Need it be said that the crowd left off chanting and fell into little groups to discuss the situation in bewilderment? Need it be said that they threw away their palm branches and retired from him?

“He rode on into Jerusalem and saw it through. But it was a day of great disappointment — both for him and Jerusalem.

“They were not ready for an ideal king who believed in the social commonwealth of souls. They wanted a king who could give them political freedom — and, at length, political power.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Palm Sunday 1920, Part 3: Pilgrims

by Ronald R Johnson

“Early in the fourth year of his ministry, Jesus became conscious that the hostility of the priests would shortly produce a crisis. Their warnings had become more and more dramatic, and it was evident that another visit to Jerusalem would be fatal.

“Nevertheless, he resolved to go back to Jerusalem. He arrived in the vicinity of the Holy City a few days before the annual feast of the Passover and sojourned in the little village of Bethany among friends.

“I have already reminded you of the extraordinary excitement which agitated the whole of Palestine during the period of these Passover celebrations. On such occasions, the patriotic and religious ardor of the Jews ran like a flame throughout the land.

“There was no populous city of the East, no remote hamlet, which did not furnish its contingent to what was practically a concentration of the Israelitish forces. These innumerable bands of pilgrims marched upon Jerusalem from every quarter, singing the ancient psalms of Israel — encouraging in one another a joyous ecstasy, full of eager, albeit long-deferred, hope of some great national deliverance to which the past history of their race, and especially the history of the Passover itself, gave vigorous sanction. It has been said that not fewer than a million non-resident Jews gathered in Jerusalem on this occasion.

“Camps sprang up outside the city walls, and contiguous villages like Bethany were crowded to overflowing. Every road leading to the city was thronged with pilgrims who daily increased in numbers as the solemn fate drew near.

“Much has been said, from time to time, about the loneliness of leadership. It is true that every great man who has offered the human race some new apprehension of truth has led a lonely life, for all that he was surrounded constantly with crowds of people.

“And there is nothing more touching, I think, than the sight of a great leader repudiating his natural desire for intimate friendships and his innate longing to be in and of the common life of his generation — in order to accomplish his mission.

“St. Paul hinted at this when he said to the young Timothy, whom he had just appointed an ambassador of the Christian religion at a court where the new spiritual cultus was in high disfavor:

“‘No man that would be a soldier dare entangle himself in the affairs of civilian life.

“‘May the Lord give thee understanding of this. Study to show thyself approved of God.’

“Doubtless there was a strong tug at the heart of Jesus to join these singing pilgrims and enter with them into the joy of this great family reunion of his own people. Jerusalem meant much to him. The fascinatingly interesting history of his nation was very dear to him.

“If he could only have put aside for a few days the responsibility of his task and have gone to the feast as a pilgrim, it would have been a delight.

“History furnishes many a tale of young kings who have left their thrones to wander about the country incognito and live for a little time like the common people.

“I suppose there is no more cruel bondage to be had than the slavery connoted by a crown. And the loneliest people in all creation are kings.

“Jesus must have felt strangely apart from everything that the people considered to be worthwhile on the morning of the day which we are now celebrating.

“There they marched, chanting the old petition for a deliverer, a Messiah, who would rule Thy people Israel.

“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, thy king cometh, riding upon a colt. Rejoice, O Jerusalem. Break forth into joy. Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’

“Jesus contemplated that situation with increasing interest, and a new idea grappled with him. Would it be possible?

“There was just a slim chance that Israel, feverishly anxious to find adequate leadership, would listen to his message. If ever they were in a mood to hear an interpretation of God’s will, one would think that time was now.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Palm Sunday 1920, Part 2: Not Political

by Ronald R Johnson

“‘Wanted: a Messiah,’ then! That was the cry of Israel on the sunny Sunday morning which we commemorate as the Day of Palms.

“Now, having looked at the demand, let us examine the supply.

“Jesus of Nazareth was not a man to whom the Jewish public would instinctively turn for Messianic leadership. And very few had ever thought of him in this connection. His hold upon the masses was irresistible and they followed him about from place to place as sheep follow a shepherd.

“But he had never made any attempt to organize them or influence them to a mass movement. He had strong words for the priests, whom he called ‘blind leaders of the blind,’ and he dealt unsparingly with the whole system of religious profiteering in vogue at the temple, but he had never tried to equip any of the machinery of overthrow, even for these unscrupulous custodians of the nation’s religion.

“Many times they sounded his political views, without satisfactory results. Fully understanding the motives with which they asked such questions, Jesus practiced canny evasions of the subject by employing the case in hand as an illustration to point a moral in spiritual life.

“They said: ‘Is it just that we should be required to pay a per capita tax to the Roman government?’

“He rejoined: ‘How much is it?’

“They replied: ‘One denarius.’

“‘Let me see one,’ he demanded.

“Somebody in the crowd passed him a coin, and while all stood waiting, breathlessly, for a sensation, he turned the piece of money over and over in his palm and inquired: ‘It bears the image of a face. Whose face is it?’

“‘Caesar’s,’ they answered in concert and in a tone that encouraged him to express himself concerning that person.

“‘And on the other side is a signature. Whose is that?’

“‘Caesar’s,’ they shouted, now making no attempt to temper their indignation.

“‘It belongs to Caesar, then?’

“Nobody was able to deny the ownership if a piece of property that had a man’s picture on one side and his signature on the other. If it is Caesar’s…

“‘Give it back to Caesar!’ said Jesus. ‘And give back to God that which is His.’

“If one studies this episode critically, one is forced to admit that Jesus decision in regard to the justness of the tax was quite beside the point.

“Strictly speaking, the denarius did not belong to the man whose face and hand were stamped upon it, but to the possessor — and its value was not intrinsic but legally ascribed to it. But it was an easy and harmless way out of a trying situation in which almost any serious answer would have been misconstrued.

“Again, when the priests were anxious to convict him of the usurpation of power, they asked him, upon the conclusion of an address, ‘Who gave you the authority to utter these words?’

“And he promised to tell them, provided they would first answer him a question. They consented readily, for the priests were prepared to meet any and all queries.

“‘The baptismal ceremony administered by John, the Nazarite — was it of heaven, or of men?’

“It just happened that there were scores of people standing about, listening, who had accepted the baptismal rite at the hands of John and believed it to be a divine conferment of grace.

“And the priests reasoned thus with themselves: ‘If we shall say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why, then, did ye not believe in him?’ And if we say ‘Of men,’ — well, there are the people.’

“So they said: ‘We will not answer.’

“And Jesus replied: ‘Neither will I.’

“Now, our Lord did not go about hedging and evading problems of real concern to the establishment of life’s realities in men’s hearts. His teaching was wholly constructive and unequivocal.

“‘If you would live, you must love.’

“‘If you would be great, you must serve.’

“‘If you would be pardoned for your mistakes, you must forgive others their mistakes.’

“‘Do not parade your charity or your piety before men, but exert it in secret.’

“‘Avoid the trumpet and street-corner method of doing and being good.’

“‘It is only the life of the soul that really matters. Keep your soul alive. The dead carry nothing out of this world except such things as they have given away.’

“‘Blessed are the poor, the mourners, the persecuted, the friendless — for theirs is the kingdom of God, and they are called to be the children of God.’

“‘It is readily to be seen that the Isrealitish quest of a Messiah who would restore the lost prestige of the Davidic throne failed to comprehend this Nazarene idealist as a possible candidate.

“Nor is it entirely clear that Jesus considered himself a fulfillment of this national dream which had accumulated so many features of no interest to him. He had in mind an ideal spiritual commonwealth — and, as its founder, he could, by accommodation, admit that he was a king of this new state; but the fact was ever more apparent to him that his conception of the ideal commonwealth of souls was so remote from their ideal, both as to motive and method, that by no stretch of the imagination could he persuade himself that this nation would accept his leadership.

“That we may be doubly assured of this feeling on the part of the Master, we have but to review his attitude toward the Galilean public when, early in his ministry, they tried to force him to be their king. He doubtless would have been willing to accept the leadership they offered him that day, but for the fact that in their minds it carried with it some semblance of political authority. The men who offered him the crown hoped to receive some recognition.

“If there had been the slightest suspicion of a yearning for political power or popularity in the mind of Jesus, he would have made good use of his opportunity to organize the Galileans at the time when they urged kingship upon him.

“Less than a week thereafter, he is saying things to them which were so difficult to understand — things which concerned the ultimate values of the life of the soul — that they left him; and when they were all gone, he turned to the little group of disciples who stood there wondering at his careless disregard of popular approval and said, ‘Will ye also go away?’

“It was an honest question. He did not know, certainly, that they wouldn’t go.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Palm Sunday 1920, Part 1: The Coming Messiah

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page of “Art Thou a King, Then?” a sermon preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on March 28, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

Last September I began a series of posts featuring the sermons that Lloyd C. Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor during the 1919-1920 school year. A student had collected the transcripts and donated them to the Lloyd Douglas Archive years later.

Here is the last sermon in that collection: Douglas’s Palm Sunday sermon, preached on March 28, 1920, entitled, “Art Thou a King, Then?” It can be found in “Sermons [5],” Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. (© University of Michigan.)

He begins:

“Not infrequently, special messages are issued from the Executive Mansion in Washington, urging the people of the United States to put aside their work and commemorate the deeds of some national hero. Occasionally, they are asked to assemble themselves in their customary places of worship to pray for a grave cause which seems in jeopardy; or to give thanks for abundant harvests or the blessing of peace.

“One could wish that in view of the present social, economic, and political ill-health of this country, a call had gone forth requesting all loyal and patriotic Americans to gather in their churches on this Palm Sunday of 1920 to consider what manner of leadership they desire. For the problem of ‘National Leadership’ was at issue on the Day of Palms.

“I do not mean that it would be the part of wisdom for Americans to assemble in their churches today to discuss the relative merits of the various candidates for the Presidency — but to reflect upon the type of leadership in demand now at this hour of rather serious emergency.

“It might be pertinent to inquire of ourselves whether, if a man of the Jesus type of mind were to appear, we would welcome him or repudiate him.

“As a nation, what are we out after? What is our highest ambition?

“If we can discover just what that is, then we will know what manner of leadership we desire.

“So; the lesson of Palm Sunday is decidedly important at the hour. And that we may be in a position to learn something from the blunders of the people who staged that impressive pageant so long ago, it is necessary that we should know the conditions of their country.

“The Jewish people longed for an ideal leader. It was an ancient hope which had first become articulate with the great seers and prophets of the eighth century.

“Previous to that approximate date, a vague longing stirred Israelitish leaders to found a civil-and-religious state under the direction of some heroic figure cast in the Mosaic mold — an aspiration which lacked definite expression. It remained for the clear-thinking and far-visioned writers of the Apocalyptic literature to translate this yearning for a king into the language of the people and predict his coming in tones of sturdy conviction, somewhat after the manner in which we have been promising ourselves that the fine idealism of a freeborn and liberty-loving democracy must, in time, produce a certain moral supremacy, at once a pattern and ambition for the other nations of the world.

“As the ages passed and the successive generations of prophets copied, in colors, the rough drawings which their predecessors had made of the nation’s Deliverer, it is only natural that this picture should become embellished with much intricacy of detail.

“On an appointed day, the New King would ride into the city, to be instantly recognized by the populace. The pageantry of the old Davidic days was to be quite outdone by this ovation in which the discordant elements of the kingdom would forget their divisive principles to shout: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’

“Now; all Israel had nourished this darling hope which had increasingly deepened into faith until the Nation that had lived so much upon the glory of the past found its highest pride in the promised richness of the future.

“Every Jewish girl prayed that she might be found worthy to give her nation a king. And the burden of the temple prayers, and the theme of the antiphonal chants, and the orotund canticles of the priests were one and the same: ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, Behold, thy king cometh — the King of Glory. Who is the King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. He is the King of Glory.’

“One does not like to cloud this ideal portrait of a nation’s dreams with a rehearsal of the fact that, occasionally, some young man was presented to the public as the consummation of the sublime forecast. But since one must be faithful not only to the poetry but the history, as well, of this interesting tale, it must be admitted that Messiahs had come and gone with considerable frequency and regularity for some time previous to the period in Jewish life which holds, for us, the largest significance.

“No one of these numerous Messiahs had been able to exert an influence over any large number of people, or for more than a brief day, but reported Messianic advents, from time to time, differing only in minor details, distinctly alike in the disappointment they produced, had made Israel sluggish on the point of investigating Messianic claims.

“Now that Palestine had become tributary to the Roman Empire, however, and the impositions of the Caesars more severely tried their endurance, the Jews renewed their interest in the Messianic prophecies and cast about desperately for some leader whose capacities might measure to the ancient requirements of an ideal king. This ambition reached flood-tide on the occasion of the annual Passover feast, when Jews from all nations sought sanctuary, for a few days, in the Holy City of their fathers.

“Pontius Pilate, the then Roman governor of Judea, was by nature far from being a diplomat; and his want of tact in handling his Hebrew constituency never was displayed more conspicuously than during these great festival events. Pilate never was able to understand why the Jews did not love and honor Rome. It was doubtless due to some racial eccentricity which he could overcome by familiarizing the people with the sights and sounds of things Romanesque.

“So he built huge amphitheaters in the prevailing Roman style and established games and sports of the current Roman vogue. He rebuilt old Jewish cities and gave them new Roman names.

“And when the Israelites met to celebrate their national feast, he filled the streets with gaily-uniformed Roman soldiers in the fond belief that his provincial subjects would take pride in seeing these flashy exponents of Caesar’s civilization honoring the occasion with their presence. Which produced exactly the opposite effect and infuriated the Hebrew public to a state of near-revolution.

“And had Pilate built his praetorium on the crater’s edge of a volcano, his situation would have been no more precarious.

“Any daring young Israelite of magnetic personality who enjoyed the people’s confidence would have needed only to apply the torch of revolution to this general sentiment and Caesar’s local establishment could have been swept off its feet in an hour. What might happen later was, of course, problematical. That, again, would depend upon the ability of the revolutionary leader. Almost anybody could start a revolution; no one but Messiah could see it through.

“‘Wanted: a Messiah,’ then! That was the cry of Israel on the sunny Sunday morning which we commemorate as the Day of Palms.”

[To be continued in my next post…]