The Stones Would
Immediately Cry Out
A Palm Sunday Sermon by the Rev. Eric H. Carswell
Lessons: Psalm 148, Luke 19:28-40, Arcana Coelestia 5323:3
Jesus answered and said to the Pharisees, “I tell you that if the disciples should keep
silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Luke 19:39-40)
P
icture what was happening as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. He was riding on
a donkey and a multitude of His disciples, followers and many others were
rejoicing and praising with loud voices His arrival as king. They spread their
outer garments and palm branches on the road before the donkey carrying
Jesus.
The noise and celebration could have been almost overwhelming. The
celebration was so great that people were offended. Some of the Pharisees
called to Jesus to rebuke His disciples for the noise, and He replied, “If [these]
should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
What did Jesus mean by invoking the voice of the stones? Literally it
implies a miraculous praise coming from non-living objects. For those who
have the eyes and ears to see and hear, all of creation can praise the Lord. We
are taught:
Nothing ever exists in the created world that does not have a correspondence
with things in the spiritual world, and so that does not represent in its own way
something in the Lord’s kingdom. It is from there that all things come into being
and are kept in being. If people knew that this is how these things stand they
would never attribute everything to natural forces as they are accustomed to do.
Consequently each and all things in the universe represent the Lord’s kingdom, so
much so that the universe with all its constellations, its various atmospheres, and its
three kingdoms is nothing else than a kind of stage on which the Lord’s glory as it
exists in heaven is represented. (Arcana Coelestia 2999-3000)
Many places in the Psalms also convey something of this idea. Psalm 69
includes the words, “Let heaven and earth praise [the Lord], the seas and
everything that moves in them.” And Psalm 145 says, “All Your works shall
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