Ezekiel 36:22-26; Luke 19:28-40
Trees clap their hands. Lions and lambs transcend their natural place in the food chain and lie down together. Sea monsters praise God. Mountains burst into song. The Bible is full of images of nature taking on seemingly human qualities. Trees, lions, mountains, even sea monsters—but not stones. Stones don’t shout. They don’t come to life. It’s too extreme an image even for the vivid imaginations of the biblical poets.
These poets do use stone as a metaphor. Occasionally it’s a hopeful image, like a cornerstone, or solid rock on which you can rest. Most of the time it’s not. Ezekiel writes about “hearts of stone” to describe his people at a time when they were particularly stubborn and greedy. We know what he means by this expression, for we have all felt the stones in our own hearts. These stones are cold, unyielding, unmoving and unmoved. They are the walls we build to protect ourselves from pain; they are the places in our hearts that have grown hard from disuse.
Throughout the Bible we read stories of people being stoned—sometimes for crimes, sometimes because of the rage and fear of a mob, sometimes just because they are different. These too are stones we know well. If we have been fortunate never to have had them directed at us, we have certainly seen them—taunting stones thrown in a playground, angry stones thrown at occupying forces, stones of hatred and violence. Tomorrow, as we watch the Boston Marathon, we remember stones that are the remnants of hate–the rubble strewn across Boylston Street in the wake of the Marathon Day bombing six years ago. That memory stirs more recent images—not of stone but of bullet casings strewn around sacred places of worship—Tree of Life Synagogue, mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. We think of the rubble of African American churches in Louisiana burned down this past month.
And then there are the stones that point us to death and loss. The stone tombs of ancient times, the cemetery headstones in the modern era. Their permanence reminds us of our impermanence; their immovability reminds us that we cannot deny the reality of loss and grief.
When Jesus points to the stones by the side of the road, he points to a symbol that evokes all those layers of meaning—the hardness in our hearts, the violence in our world, the finality of death. And then he proclaims, “I tell you, if these people were silent, the stones would shout out.” These stones can sing. These stones will live.
These Pharisees, as annoyed as they sound in this passage, aren’t just being cranky. They are nervous, and rightly so. They saw the other parade that came through just hours before: the Roman governor Pilate coming into Jerusalem with heavily armed soldiers, determined to keep the peace during the festival of Passover, the celebration of freedom. The last thing we need, they think, is a second parade, loud noise to attract the jumpy soldiers or the brutal governor.
Jesus understands what is behind the Pharisees’ nervousness. He knows full well the danger of his alternative parade. And he refuses to be cowed by the governor’s show of force. There’s something more powerful going on, he says, even than the power of Rome. “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
It’s a good, snappy comeback to the couple of bossy Pharisees. And it’s more than that. Jesus is making a promise—to those frightened Pharisees, to the ecstatic crowd, and to us. What you see happening today, he says, is bigger than Rome. It is bigger than us. You have good cause to wave your palm branches and shout hosanna. And this is nothing compared to what God can do. This is nothing compared to what God’s love is about to do.
What is coming, Jesus promises, is the awakening of stone. Not just the stones by the side of that Jerusalem road back then, but the stones that weigh us down here, today. The power of God’s love has begun to break through, he warns the doubters, and will not stop until stones begin to sing.
The power of God’s love, Jesus proclaims, will take our hearts of stone and transform them. Like the shoot of a maple tree that bursts forth through a crack in a rock, God’s love will break open the stones in our hearts. The roots of new life will dig their way in, turning rock into soil that can nurture beauty. Gently, tenderly, God’s love will dismantle the walls we have built around our hearts and turn them into pathways that lead to hope. Like the stones on the road, the stones of our hearts will shout out—first a cry of longing, then a song of joy.
The power of God’s love, Jesus promises, will make the stones thrown in hatred shout out. These stones will cry out their refusal to be used to destroy. They will sing their yearning for peace. God’s love can turn the hands that grip rocks in rage into hands that grasp another hand, in a gesture of welcome and reconciliation. God’s love will turn the rubble of hatred into the cornerstones of a new bridge to peace.
These stones will sing, Jesus declares. Even the stones of death and loss will burst forth into new life. Death is not the end, for God’s love never ceases. Within even the most devastating loss lies the seed of new life. From within the deepest grief, God will bring forth hope. By the power of God’s love, the stones of death will sing.
“I tell you,” Jesus says, “if these were silent, even the stones would shout out.” The Pharisees who tell him to quiet the crowds don’t get what he is saying; they just think he’s trying to make them mad. His disciples don’t get what he is saying. They are focused on the parade they think is the culmination of all they have done; they cannot hear the promise that there is something still more wondrous to come.
And we don’t quite get it either. Unlike the Pharisees and the disciples, we do know what comes next. We know all about the death and resurrection, and we’re getting our Easter bonnets ready for the celebration. Still, we can’t quite make sense of Jesus’ promise. Stones, we say, can’t sing. Some hearts have become so hard we are certain they cannot soften. The rubble that remains after an act of terror is so overwhelming, the rage so deep, the problems so complex, we say, there is no way these stones can ever sing a song of peace. The stones of loss and death are so cold, so harsh, that we are sure they can never yield new life.
Jesus’ promise seems beyond belief. And yet Jesus invites us to believe. The transformation of stone seems beyond what we could even dare to hope. And yet Jesus calls us to hope. We feel so powerless in the face of these massive rocks. And yet Jesus challenges us to trust that when we work together, the power of God’s love works in us and beyond us. That power, he proclaims, is stronger than the hardest heart, stronger than hate, stronger than death.
The people of Jerusalem wave their palms and shout as Jesus rides by. They shout out their need—Hosanna! Save us now! They shout out their hope—hope that maybe this man is the one who will drive out the Romans, heal their sickness, usher in a new age. They shout out for joy—for everything they have yearned for seems to be coming to fruition.
Today we join the crowds in Jerusalem, with our palm fronds in our hands. We join them knowing what they could not possibly have known, for we have heard the promise of singing stones. We too wave our palm fronds and shout out our need—for the stones that weigh us down are more than we can handle on our own. We too cry out our hope—hope that the power of God’s love really can soften our hearts, really can bring peace, really can draw forth new life. We too sing out our joy—for in our daring to hope, the promise is already being fulfilled. The stones have joined our chorus—shouting, crying out, singing a song of joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.