sermons
Air - Lent: A Spring Season
Why I Love Jesus
Steve Watson
Apr 13, 2025
Today I’ll start by reading a couple of scriptures that will anchor our time.
The first is from the old Hebrew prophet Zechariah. He lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. His people, ancient Judah, the leftover part of Israel after their Civil War, they had gone through decline and war and loss of temple, loss of homeland, loss of life – so many devastating losses. But then in Zechariah’s lifetime, the exiles were given permission under Persian rule to return home to Jerusalem and rebuild their lives and their community. And here’s one of the things Zechariah was inspired to say and to write down.
Zechariah 9:9-11 (Common English Bible)
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion.
Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem.
Look, your king will come to you.
He is righteous and victorious.
He is humble and riding on an ass,
on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.
10 He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem.
The bow used in battle will be cut off;
he will speak peace to the nations.
His rule will stretch from sea to sea,
and from the river to the ends of the earth.
11 Moreover, by the blood of your covenant,
I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.
The second scripture is two bits from the 26th chapter of Matthew’s memoirs of the life of Jesus. These two little stories are both in the final week of our guide to this Lenten season called “Air.” So if you like this sermon, or even if you don’t, I’d encourage you to take a look at the guide this week. It’s on reservoirchurch.org, and we’re entering the 6th and final week in it. Here is how Jesus spent two of his last nights before his arrest and crucifixion.
Matthew 26:6-13, 26-30 (Common English Bible)
6 When Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease,
7 a woman came to him with a vase made of alabaster containing very expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus’ head while he was sitting at dinner.
8 Now when the disciples saw it they were angry and said, “Why this waste?
9 This perfume could have been sold for a lot of money and given to the poor.”
10 But Jesus knew what they were thinking. He said, “Why do you make trouble for the woman? She’s done a good thing for me.
11 You always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.
12 By pouring this perfume over my body she’s prepared me to be buried.
13 I tell you the truth that wherever in the whole world this good news is announced, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her.”
26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body.”
27 He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from this, all of you.
28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many so that their sins may be forgiven.
29 I tell you, I won’t drink wine again until that day when I drink it in a new way with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
30 Then, after singing songs of praise, they went to the Mount of Olives.
A few years ago I gave a sermon called Why I love Jesus. It’s one of my favorite sermons I’ve ever given. I’m not going to give the same sermon I gave four years ago. But I’m going to give another “Why I Love Jesus” sermon because I tried on some other ideas this week, but this is what my heart’s calling me to say.
So why do I love Jesus?
I love Jesus because he loved the Bible in a way that was good news for the people around him, and for all of history.
Plenty of people say they love the Bible but they do weird things with it, or things I at least don’t understand, or they say they love the Bible but they don’t even read it, or they use it as a weapon.
But Jesus, well, there are a lot of things we don’t know about Jesus. We don’t know how tall he was, although he was probably very short. We don’t know what his laugh sounded like, how high or low his voice was when he sang. We don’t know his birthday, or his favorite color or lucky number. We don’t know the names of all his brothers and sisters, although we know there were a lot of them. But we know that Jesus loved the Bible. Like he knew it really well. It helped him find his way again and again. And it led to better things around him too, radically better.
So when it was time to walk into Jerusalem for the final time, Jesus thought of these lines from Zechariah and thought – this is how we do it. I need a donkey. And he told his friends to go to the nearest village and steal him one. “Borrow it,” I guess. But I love that Jesus stole the donkey. And he climbed onto that donkey and rode into Jerusalem on the biggest weekend holiday of the year, when there’d be tons of people to see.
Sidenote: like 15 years ago, at the high school I went to as a kid, a guy rode a horse to school. It was around Halloween, and his family owned a freaking horse, and why own a horse if you’re not going to use it? So he dressed up as a knight and rode the horse to school, and he managed to do one full lap around the school parking lot, before the assistant principal ran out there, and told him to get off the horse and go home. He was actually suspended for two days for “causing danger on school grounds,” which is ridiculous, but that kid is taking that story to the grave with him with a smile, which I love.
Anyway, here’s Jesus, on the stolen donkey, and he thinks:
this is my time, I’m going to act out this scene from Zechariah and ride this animal into Jerusalem like I’m the king of this place.
He thinks:
I’ll look like the shabbiest, weirdest king ever, and my big platform for my kingdom will be to defund and destroy the entire military apparatus and empty out all the prisons and proclaim an eternal age of peace on earth and freedom for all peoples.
I love that Jesus wants all the weapons destroyed. I want that too. I’m so tired of the billions of dollars we spend on bomb-making, bombs that these days are killing kids in Gaza. I love Jesus for daring to take a principled stand against war.
And the people love it too. They can’t stop cheering!
I love that the Bible gave Jesus the most delightfully weird vision for his life, and I love that it shows me the way, that this big old set of books is a way the Spirit speaks to us still, pushes us to plant gardens, and love enemies, and bless the children, and honor our elders, and to disrespect the fools and tyrants, and stand up for the little people and turn over tables and be fearless and hopeful in face of our fears and despair.
And I love Jesus because he threw the best protest.
I don’t really like protests and marches very much. The crowds bother me and the noise and the wondering if they’re doing any good, but protests are part of what we need to show each other that the way things are is not OK. And I love that Jesus staged the funniest, boldest, most raucous of protests.
Because the Roman governor was marching into Jerusalem with his war horses and armies, his boots and swords and bows and arrows and chariots and shields, and horns were blown and the war cry shouted the big lies: the glory of Rome! The peace of Rome! Good news for all people!
And the crowds were supposed to give fake cheers or at least their very real fearful attention and respect to their masters who would rule them and tax them and control them as they wished.
And Jesus didn’t go to that march. It bored him, maybe it even disgusted him, we don’t know. So he threw his own march. A braying donkey his friends stole in place of a horse, a rag tag collection of rabbinic students in place of an army, an old prophecy of broken and banished weapons in place of the tools of war – nothing to intimidate, just boldness and vision and love that drew the crowds and then their cheers, as they thought: this is what good news looks like, this is what glory looks like.
Jesus was funny and creative and knew what he stood for and stoked a vision for a truer, more peaceful, more beautiful world, and I love him for it.
And I love Jesus because he loved it when the crowds sang Hosanna, Hosanna!
We’re told that the authorities said to Jesus – get the people in line. Quiet it down. Make them shut up. They’d be suspended folks for a couple of days if they could. And Jesus was like – no, no, no, don’t bother, because even if they stop cheering, the rocks beneath their feet will cry out. We could use some laughs and we could use some full-throated cheers for a change. Hosanna, hosanna – this old Hebrew word which was a shout of praise!
Hosanna Shouts
People called out:
Hosanna to the son of David – that’s a line for royalty, they’re like, we’ll take this donkey-riding, peace loving rabbi for our king.
Now that word Hosanna – it’s a cry of praise. But what it literally means is:
Save us.
Save us. People who cry “Hosanna” aren’t just playing dress up and yelling. They’re saying:
help. Save us.
People who cry “Hosanna” have their backs up against the wall. We say “hosanna” when we’re sick and when we’re dying and when we’re scared. We say “hosanna” when our neighbors have gotten scooped up by ICE and taken away. We say hosanna when we’ve lost our jobs or lost our rights or when we fear for our country.
And so “hosanna” is a sad song and it’s a hopeful song all at once, and I love Jesus for listening, and I love him for all the ways he hears us and helps and shows us the way in our times of trouble.
HOSANNA singing
I love Jesus because he cares more about people than principles.
If you have no principles, you’re a fool or a coward. But if you care about principles more than people you’re dangerous, and not in a good way.
And look at Jesus with this woman who pours all this perfume over Jesus’ head because she loves him, and his disciples have their principles about what to do with money and how much it costs and what’s prudent, but they’re missing the moment.
And I wonder sometimes, how many moments do we miss when we’re dug in on our principles, or our fears, or distractions, and I love Jesus for paying attention and not missing the moments, like this one where someone had so much goodness, so much love to give.
I love Jesus because he told the truth and he loved it when other people told the truth. I say this with my therapist a lot, some other people too, I guess, like why bother doing this if we’re not going to tell the truth.
And Jesus knew he was going to die. A lot of people knew that if they were paying attention. Jesus had been telling his friends he was going to die. He’d made a lot of enemies amongst his own people. And he’d been busy pissing off the Roman establishment who’d come into town on their war horses. But everyone’s pretending things are normal, except Jesus, and except this woman.
And Jesus says:
leave her alone because look at this beautiful thing she’s done, anointing my head, preparing me for burial.
We have such a hard time telling the truth. In our politics, in our public life, of course, most people don’t care very much about the truth anymore. We’re such suckers for con men and conspiracy theories and outsized fears and stupid arguments.
But I think we struggle with the truth in private too. And I love Jesus because he says the truth will set you free.
The truth about the things we don’t want to accept will set us free.
And the truths we stuff down and can’t talk about will set us free.
Yesterday, we had a memorial in this space for Marianne Snekvik, and there were two or three hundred people here remembering and honoring a beautiful life we miss already. And one of Marianne’s grandkids stood up here where I stand, talking about how good of a grandma Marianna was, and at one point he was trying to say just how much he misses her already, and he started crying, and he couldn’t speak and just kept crying for a minute, while his cousin stepped up and put his hand on his back and gave him love and gave him time. And after a while he finished.
And I know the cousin, but I don’t know the teenage boy who stood there crying and saying he missed his grandma already, but I know that I was so proud of him for standing there and feeling the truth and telling the truth, and I hope he remembers that moment for the rest of his life, that there is room for all his feelings, and there is room for things that are worth saying that are hard to say, and that when you need it, someone will wait with you and put their hand on your back to steady you. And even when they don’t, Jesus will, because Jesus loves the truth – all the truth – and he loves it when we tell the truth, about everything we can.
And I love it that beautiful things can happen when we tell the truth, like letting out our grief, and preparing someone for their death, and getting free.
I love Jesus because he was safe. A woman could touch his head and pour perfume on it, and not worry that he’d think she was coming on to him, not worry that he’d touch her back, or try to make some kind of play when no one was around, because Jesus knew the difference between a sister and a friend and a lover, and he had control of his body and his sexuality so you could trust him to be safe.
And I love all the safe people in the world, and all the people that helped me do the work to be safe too.
I love Jesus because he gave his friends wine and said it was blood and it sealed a new covenant.
This is such weird and intense language and to leave behind a ritual that would get your followers accused of weirdo love feasts and cannibalism and all kinds of other bizarro stuff is a bold move, Jesus, and I love that.
I love the language of covenant too – the language of a sacred promise, a sacred deal. I guess I love Jesus for having one for us.
And I think this covenant language, and this meal of bread and wine, and blood and body, is Jesus’ answer to all our Hosanna cries and songs, all our spoken and unspoken prayers of “Save us.”
Because we think we want Jesus on a big old horse, rolling into town with all his armies of angels, and opening up a can of whoop-ass on God’s enemies, or at least on our enemies. Find their enemy, and destroy them.
But Jesus said that is not the way of his kingdom. Not doing it. God’s all about destroying the weapons, not destroying the enemies. And so Jesus rolls in on a donkey and tells the truth over and over, and sits at tables where people are broken and poured out in love, for the healing of the world.
Jesus wants all of us to know all of God – all the truth, all the encouragement, all the love, all the abundance. Jesus wants us to know all the forgiveness, because our lives are so full of crappy things we’ve done and crappy things that have been done to us, and Jesus wants these things to be beginnings and not ends.
And Jesus did this for his friend Judas who was about to sell him out and betray him. And Jesus gave the wine of the promise to his other friend Peter who’d be so scared he’d deny he ever knew him. And I love that Jesus gives me this wine every week, again and again, no matter what people have done to me, no matter what I’ve done, no matter how many good things I could have done that I sat on and did nothing about. I love Jesus for still knocking at my door and saying:
want to eat again? Want to try again? Want to live again? If you do, I’m here for you. I’ve got your back.
We’ll never reach the end of God’s love for us all. And our bread sharing, wine pouring, crucified and risen Jesus will never stop loving us all and never stop calling us to this kind of love that saves and heals all things. All things.
Friends, you, me, our friends, our enemies, we are all called to this table of Christ with all our love, all our hurt, all our shouted and crackly whispered prayers of “Hosanna” to be seen, to be told the truth, to be loved, and to be part of the body of Christ that is died and risen, that is broken and poured out for the healing of the world, and the renewal of all things.