'Giving voice to the stones' - sermon transcript Palm Sunday 2025

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ^“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”  “I tell you,” He replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Let me ask this question, what stones come to mind, what stones do you think Jesus is referring to here?

Could it be the stones lying around on the ground?

Well yes, those stones would cry out in praise and still do, much as they are part of God’s good creation.

Nehemiah 9:6
You alone are the LORD. You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all things, and the host of heaven worships You.

So yes, those stones would sing the praises of Jesus even as today.

Worth pondering however that those stones could be used to build shelters and sanctuaries. They could be fashioned and formed to make a milling stone so that wheat can be ground and bread baked. Food and shelter and a place of worship. Alternatively, those stones could be picked up and hurled at a woman caught in adultery.

Or one of those smooth stones could be picked up by a young shepherd boy who steps out to face a giant of a man.

“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

Yes, those stones as well would testify to God’s goodness and provision and of his love and mercy.

It might be that your eye has been caught by the whitewashed sepulchres lining the road into Jerusalem.

In preparation for the forthcoming Passover, they may well have had a fresh coat of whitewash and look very clean, but…

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Full of dead men’s bones they may have been, but many of those dead men where the prophets whose words and deeds were recorded in sacred Scripture. Thus, they lived on in the testimony of their words, deeds and actions.

But words, Jesus accuses teachers of the law and Pharisees, of having forgotten or mangled or spent so much time gnat straining while camel swallowing that the spirit of the law was killed by the letter of the law.

Yes, these stones would sing out in praise of Yahweh and tell of his faithful and loyal love toward a peculiar people, the People of God, the Israelites.  And in these sacred stories and texts there is hope for all the nations.

These words, bearing witness to the Word who came unto his own and tabernacled amongst us. Came and shared our humanity so that at the last we might come and share in his divinity.

Or perhaps you can hear, smell and see the Temple. The huge temple complex, capable of accommodating a million people, the size of six football pitches.

The place of heaven upon earth, God’s physical presence.

Yes, once again these stones sing out God’s praises, and would do so even more if they but knew the time of their visitation.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her. How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not.”

And this massive temple that had taken over 40 years to construct would be brought down and its stones scattered…

But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

That all happened in AD70.

And today, what stones today sing out, ^“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Well, as I have said, certainly the stones that make up the created order.

All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name. Psalm 66.4

Certainly, when stones are used for good purposes, bringing shelter and food. Then they sing of God’s goodness and blessings upon the creativity of humanity.  

And yes, even in building like this, they speak of God presence, God’s faithfulness, the hope and desire that God will be here in this place.

And then, joy of joys, as we read in 1 Peter 2…

As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight,  you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”…

We, you and I, the person next to you - if we have ‘come to him’ we are those living stones that will sing out God’s praises. We will tell the story. We will live the story as we care for the stones of creation and the whole earth. We will stand with those who are having stones thrown at them. We will diligently search the Scriptures and heed the words of the prophets. We will seek that stones are used for good purposes.

And we will not be silenced by pharisees, by governments, by friends and family, or by anyone else or by anything but we will continue to cry out, “God bless the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory to God!”

Because, because, because - there is one stone that it was thought would silence Jesus for ever – but that stone was rolled away!