What is Salvation?

Mark 1:1-11

Introduction

I grew up attending church but I must confess that only a few things actually caught my attention as a child. One of them was Palm Sunday. I had no sense of a liturgical calendar, I just knew that I was happy when I showed up at church and there was a container of palm branches. That meant we would have a procession down the aisle waving our branches, and most likely, some sword fights after the service.

For many people, Palm Sunday is still a highlight of their church year. But the funny thing is that palms are not actually the centre of the family. While palms are mentioned in John’s account of the event, Mark doesn’t mention them. He does say that put down branches, but it is not certain that they are palms. The focus is actually more on the throwing down their cloaks. That provides a bit more of a twist for us. It is one thing to wave a branch in the air as Jesus rides by, it is another to throw down, what is likely, your only cloak, not for Jesus to walk on it but his borrowed donkey. That is a different level of adoration.

What we are really celebrating here is not the imaginative use of branches by the crowd but what is called the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus preparing himself to enter into Jerusalem. He knew that it would be in Jerusalem that he would be crucified but that had to take place at the proper time.

We now know, although the disciples didn’t fully understand it at the time that Jesus was going to the cross, not just because some people hated him, but as the means of salvation. Many thousands of Jews, in addition to other people were crucified by the the Romans. In fact, very close to the time Jesus was born, a Roman general crucified two thousand Jews.What separated Jesus from these other crucifixions? It was the means by which God would bring about salvation.

What we are seeing in this passage is not just the entry of Jesus into a city so that he was physically in the proper place for the event to take place. This is actually the theological framing of what would take place.

Hosanna

One of the reasons that this story captures our imagination is that we can easily picture it from the descriptions. We can imagines the smells and sounds and sights. There would be a great crowd, not specifically to see Jesus, but to come to Jerusalem for Passover. There would be electricity in the air over the anticipation of what would be taking place. The presence of Jesus only intensified that. Word of mouth would have spread throughout the crowd about this mysterious teacher. He was not afraid to argue with the other religious teachers and he was known to heal the sick and even cast out demons. The rumour mill was working overtime. 

Passover was the time to remember God’s rescue of the people during the time of Moses. This would have reminded them of prophecies of David-like king who would come and once more rescue the people. There was even a prophecy of that king riding in on a donkey. Could this isle the day of their salvation?

The Jews were looking for salvation, but a very specific salvation. It would have included the removal of the Romans and Israel regaining its sovereignty. It would have been a return to the glory days of their greatest king, King David.

The people shouted Hosanna, which literally means “save now.” They were ready to be saved now and Jesus might just be the means of that salvation. In fact, the name Jesus also come from root word meaning to “to save.” It looked like all the pieces were falling into place.

The crowd who watched Jesus enter were both right and wrong. Jesus was the saviour and he had been sent by God to provide salvation. But it did not look like they expected. A week later, Jesus was dead, hanging on a Roman cross. Even with rumours that he had come back to life, the Romans were still in power. Even with a growing Jesus movement, a generation after the crucifixion, Jerusalem lay in ruins and the temple was destroyed. 

Christians have sometimes criticized Jews for their misunderstanding of Jesus and their focus on rescuing the nation. But to be fair, there are in certain areas, strong attempts to wed Jesus to nationalism, to bring about a political salvation. We need to be careful with our criticism.

Save Now

The Apostle Paul knew when he preached Christ crucified, that it was an unattractive message. Crucifixion by definition meant that you had lost. How could Jesus help anyone if he couldn’t help himself?

Paul knew, as we do, that the salvation that comes from Jesus on the cross was spiritual rather than military or political. But what actually is that salvation?

I used to attend a church where people would often ask each other were you saved, when were you saved, and so on. “Being saved” was the most common way of describing the Christian life. The trouble came when someone asked “What are we saved from?” There were not always consistent answers, although probably the most common answer was that we were saved from hell. To many of my friends in church, the point of believing in Jesus was to save you from hell, so you could go to heaven. The problem was when you tried to find a verse that said anything like that. The focus of the biblical gospel is never described as providing a transfer ticket from hell to heaven. I am not discounting the reality of heaven and hell, I am just saying that the Bible doesn’t put salvation in those terms. Jesus preached a gospel, but it was not a gospel of heaven and hell. Jesus preached a gospel of the kingdom of God. Notice that the coming of the kingdom is exactly what is mentioned at the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem.

I would like to suggest that salvation is spiritual but that it is something that is much larger than a change of eternal destination. 

We need to begin with the question of what we are saved from. What I see in the New Testament is that we are saved from separation from God. Some actually define hell as eternal separation from God. But the separation that the New Testament talks about is one that exists long before death. I have been speaking recently of the importance of human flourishing. Human flourishing happens in relationship with God. Our world is very aware that there is something wrong. They are trying to solve the problems of life with all sorts of solutions, some better than others. However, what is needed is a restoration to our Father who art in heaven. It is more than just praying a prayer, receiving a card from an evangelists or even being baptized. It is about being reconciled to our God. Yes, this has ramifications for our eternal existence, but salvation is for right now. It is not a promise for an easy life but is the welcoming into a family. Salvation is about how we interact with God, how we interact with others and even how we interact with others. Salvation is the process of being healed of all the hurts of this world, beginning now and continuing to the time that the Lord wipes away our tears in the New Jerusalem.

Conclusion

Hosanna. Save now. We can say that today just as much as the people on the road to Jerusalem who were throwing their cloaks in front of that teacher on the donkey. They had specific things they wanted to be saved from just as we might have specific things we might want to be saved from. But we are not designers of our own salvation. If we were, we would not choose the crucifixion of the Son of God as the means of that salvation. Jesus offers us salvation through his death and resurrection. Understanding that salvation as simply about heaven and hell is putting salvation in to far too small of a box. God wants us to experience salvation right now. God wants that salvation to transform us right now. God wants us toe be fill with joy and peace and hope for that salvation right now.