"Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him ‘Teacher,  order your disciples to stop.’ 
He answered,  ‘I tell you, if these were silent the stones would shout out.’

                                                                                  Luke 19:39-40

Have you ever had some terrific news that you could hardly wait to tell someone about?  Ever been so elated about something that if you didn’t tell someone you were going to explode?   A baby is born and big brother John can’t wait to tell the class for show and tell.  A young lady receives an engagement ring and she’s so excited that she’s text messaged her friend before her new fiancé is up off his knee.  Our daughter Beth called last week to tell us that Richard Gere is in Winnipeg making a film right now.  One of the girls at the dance school met him and asked him for an autograph.  He said to her ‘Sure,  do you have some paper?’  She didn’t so he took off his sock,  pulled out a Sharpie marker and signed that for her.  The girl brought the sock to dance class the next day to show everyone!  

I remember when our son David was born.  It was a whole day affair.  We started out at the local hospital in Indian Head Saskatchewan,  where we lived,  but there were some complications with the birth so we ended up at a big city hospital in Regina.  It was 2am before he was born and I finally got back home.  It was too late to call anyone but I was dying to tell someone so I called the local hospital and told them.  They probably though I was crazy calling in the middle of the night!
Good news is like that – too good to keep to yourself…you’ve got to share it.   That’s how it was when Jesus finally reached Jerusalem.  He had done many great things in Galilee,  but if this really was the Messiah,  then one day he’d have to go to Jerusalem.  That was where the temple was,  that was the center of the Jewish faith.   So his disciples waited for the day he’d go there…and other people longed for that day too.  And finally it had come.

The good news of his coming spread quickly and the crowd grew as he neared the city.   You know how news travels…I tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends and soon everyone is coming out to greet him.   They are waving and cheering and singing praises to the long-awaited King…because they hadn’t just waited a few years,  they’ve been waiting for this Messiah for centuries!    

Now, the Pharisees weren’t quite so enthused.  It was in their best interests to see that there were no ‘disruptions’ in Jerusalem during the Passover feast.   This little parade was just the sort of sporadic outburst that could draw the Roman soldier’s attention.   So appealing for peace, they say to Jesus ‘Tell them to stop’.   But Jesus says to them ‘If these were silent,  the stones would shout out!’   I took that literally when I was much younger.   I thought it was too bad everyone didn’t stop so that the stones would actually start shouting.  But now I understand that Jesus isn’t being literal here,  he’s saying ‘You can’t stifle good news…if you muzzle someone with good news it comes out some other way.  Good news is like laughter.  Have you ever tried to stifle laughter?  It’s hard!  I remember reading a certain Dennis the Menace comic once.  Dennis’ dad has stumbled on a skateboard while carrying two large bags of groceries from the car.   There are cans and packages all over and his dad is on the ground with his glasses askew.   Dennis looks at him and says ‘Sorry dad,  I tried not to laugh but it came out my nose.’  Good news is the same way.

Isaiah says it best:  ‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of them that bring good news.’  You can tell just by the way someone is walking whether they are bringing good news or bad news!  A child comes rushing home from school -  you hear the pitter patter of her eager feet on the sidewalk outside,  she bounds up the porch steps two at a times,  through the screen door and skips into the kitchen where you are sitting with your coffee and with a smile from ear to ear hands you an envelope and says ‘Report Card’.  Now you haven’t even opened it up yet – did she pass or fail?  Not a word has been spoken but you know already this is good news.  Why?  Her feet told you so.
 That’s what Jesus is talking about when he says ‘the stones will shout out.’  You can’t stifle good news -  the Messiah has come,  the long awaited Christ is at the gates of the holy city.   The reign of God has come and there is no stopping this parade!  When God’s justice,  God’s love,  God’s mercy begins to flow don’t think you can stop it.  Still, there are always those who will try:

Back in the 60’s Martin Luther King Jr.  went to Birmingham and joined a parade…  a parade to end to racial segregation and inequality in that city.   The police were out in full force that day and King was put in jail for parading without a permit.   A group of eight white pastors in the city wrote an open letter in the paper appealing for calm.  They argued that racial matters ought to be pursued in the courts and until legal changes occur,  that the decisions of those courts be peacefully obeyed.  They went on to say this ‘We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realize.  But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.’
King responded to their open letter with what has become known as King’s letter from the Birmingham jail.

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

…There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
…I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny…We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

King is saying the parade can’t be silenced because it’s God’s parade,   not ours.  When Jesus says ‘the stones would shout out’,  he’s really reminding us that we don’t get to decide whether this parade happens or not.  It’s God-orchestrated.  All we get to decide is whether to join the parade or not.  Are we going to shout your praise and proclaim the arrival of God’s reign,  or are we going to sit silently on the sidelines.
It’s parade time people – what are you going to do?

Amen