Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of the holiest week in the Christian calendar. It’s a celebratory day, when we commemorate what is often referred to as Jesus’s “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem at the start of Passover. Jesus wasn’t the only notable person entering the city that day, to acclaim and fanfare, however. This was the topic of our minister’s sermon today.
The week-long Passover celebration brought thousands of the Jewish faithful from outlying areas to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple and make their annual sacrifices. The population of the city swelled to four our five times its usual size. Passover marks God’s deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. To remind the Jewish population that even (and perhaps especially), during this charged time, they remained subjects of Rome, the Governor of Judea would enter the city with a grand military parade. During Jesus’s day, the Roman Governor, of course, was Pontius Pilate. He ruled the area from his palace in the pleasant seaside town of Caesarea, some sixty miles away.
Pilate and his formidable entourage entered Jerusalem from the west, through the city’s largest, grandest gate. His procession would have been similar to those associated with an imperial military victory, as I discussed in an earlier post on Advent. There would have been warhorses festooned for battle, majestic chariots and legions of Roman soldiers. The message would have been clear: “We let you worship your own god, but never, never forget, that Caesar is truly in charge.”
Jesus and his disciples entered from the opposite and eastern end of the city, from the village of Bethany or Bethphage near the Mount of Olives. Jesus was often in Bethany, as it was the home of his close friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Not a place of prime real estate, it was a poor area, about two miles from Jerusalem. Jesus’s mode of entry was nothing if not intentional. At Bethany, he sent two of his disciples ahead to the next village, instructing them to return with a donkey and her colt, which they would find tethered in a certain spot (Matthew 21: 2-3).
Jesus rode into the city on the donkey, with the colt walking along beside them. By this time, after three years of ministry, Jesus had become a well-known, if perplexing figure. It was said that he’d been born to an ordinary family in the backwater village of Nazareth. While he lacked formal religious training, he clearly knew scripture. He spoke with the authority of a learned rabbi, yet he had an air of humility. Among his friends and followers were those that his righteous, upstanding fellow Jews tended to avoid, such as tax collectors, prostitutes and beggars. He traveled around with a ragtag inner circle that included rough uneducated fishermen, and even women. His teachings, which attracted huge crowds, were often controversial and counter-cultural: Blessed are the meek? Love your enemies? It seemed that he really had healed all manner of afflictions and diseases. He’d cast out demons. In addition to his friend Lazarus, it was said that he had brought two others back from the dead: a a widow’s only son, and a twelve-year old girl. He wasn’t especially concerned with Hebraic purity laws; he wasn’t afraid to touch the unclean as he healed them. He even claimed to forgive sins. Who was this Jesus, exactly? More than a prophet? An extremely talented fraud? If he was a fake, what did he seek to gain? Neither riches nor personal glory, it seemed. This Jesus was an enigma.
Our pastor urged us to imagine the two very different processions through Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday. They approached from opposite ends of the city, and they were polar opposites in spirit. One represented imperial might and earthly power. Its intent was to subjugate through fear and awe. The other represented a kingdom not of this world, a peace beyond our understanding, and a release from bondage, both physical and spiritual. Jesus’s humble donkey (likely a nursing female, accompanied by her colt) was chosen not only to contrast with Pilate’s battle-ready military stallion, but also to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah about the future Messiah:
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey. (Zechariah 9: 9).
The crowds that cheered Jesus on probably included some of the marginalized individuals he had healed. They hailed him with these words:
Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! (Matthew 21: 9)
The word “hosanna” means “save us.” It implies a fierce urgency: save us, and save us now! The exclamations of Jesus’s followers were a direct threat to Roman rule. The Emperor was considered a god-like and divinely appointed figure. He, and only he, could save the people. He, and only he, was the true King.
Which of these two processions, our pastor asked, do we choose to attend and support? He didn’t say this, specifically, but might we church folk pledge our allegiance on Sunday morning to Jesus’s path of loving our neighbors, of compassion and grace, while worshipping on weekdays at the altars of earthly prestige?
Sometimes even the best-intentioned of us can get the two paths muddled up. It’s especially easy to see where others have strayed while remaining blind to our own misguided meanderings.
Our minister encouraged us not to make the spiritual leap from the high point of Palm Sunday directly to Easter. If we want to keep on the disciple path, we must journey with Jesus through the dark valleys of this Holy Week. The only way to Easter is through the cross.
This week I’m asking myself what it means in my life to hail Jesus as savior on Palm Sunday, stick with him through the heartbreaking disappointment of betrayal on Maundy Thursday, and the terrible pain and sacrifice of Good Friday. I will never do enough, of course. No one of us mere humans can. But Jesus came to share with us the transforming power of God’s grace. May God bring us the courage we need, and the assurance that he walks with us through the lowest points of this week, as well as those we will encounter throughout our earthly lives.
John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg discuss the two Palm Sunday processions and their implications in their book The Last Week, published in 2006.