Which procession are we in?

Isaiah 50: 4-9a. The most intensely personal of the “servant songs” of Isaiah (even though the word “servant” is never mentioned) mentioning the tongue, ears, cheeks, beard and face reminding us that it is real human beings that are called to follow and execute God’s will. Christians have always from earliest times applied this prophetic writing to the trials of Jesus. Verse 4 talks about the servant being taught, and it becomes clear that his teacher is suffering and through that suffering his faith grows that God is with him.

Philippians 2: 5-11. This may be the earliest statement of Christian faith that the church possesses because the New Testament letters all predate the gospels and we’d have to wait about 300 years for the Nicene creed. Scholars believe it may be a hymn that pre-dates Paul which is extraordinary because of its exalted view of Christ – a view that is of the same order as John’s prologue. It assumes Christ’s pre-existent status, his self-abasement to earthly life and death, and exultation to universal Lordship.  

Matthew 21: 1-11. What may be missed in this depiction of Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem is that it was a premeditated act. The donkey and colt had been prepared and waiting for people to turn up and give the “code word” for them to release the Donkey and colt to enable Jesus to act. You could call it a subversive pre-planned demonstration in modern parlance, a direct challenge to the domination system (Roman power exercised through local Jewish collaborators) that operated in the Holy Land at that time. Matthew quotes the prophet Zechariah to undergird what was really happening. In the rest of the quote from Zechariah, he states what kind of challenge this was. His kingship was to be one of peace, rather than the oppressive militaristic system operated by the Roams in collaboration with the Jewish authorities.

My views on “Palm Sunday” and Holy Week as a whole have been shaped by the insights of an American Lutheran theologian called Marcus Borg, now sadly died.

I have only made the effort to actually go and listen in person to just two theologians in my life. One was Keith Ward, Anglican priest and Professor of Divinity at Oxford university, that was just to Hertfordshire, and the other was Marcus Borg, for whom I travelled all the way to Edinburgh to listen to him.

His central premise is that the whole of Jesus’ ministry is the story of the clash of two very different ways of ordering society. One, represented in his time and circumstances by the Roman empire, based on force and subjugation and unjust structures and the other by the Kingdom of God characterised by peace love and justice.

This clash of kingdoms, two different mindsets, came to a head in what we now call Holy Week and that week starts with what we call Palm Sunday.

What is generally not appreciated is that there would have been two processions entering Jerusalem in the days leading up to the Passover festival.

The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate did not live in Jerusalem. He lived on the coast in a city called Caesarea Maritime about 60 miles away which was the Roman administrative centre. But for important festivals he and a force of Roman soldiers would make the journey to Jerusalem, primarily as a show of force, and an attempt to keep the peace at a time of heightened religious fervour.

Can you imagine that procession entering from the Western side of Jerusalem to deliver Pilate to his seat in Fortress Antonia overlooking the Jewish Temple ?

A visual feast of cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, helmets, weapons, armour glinting in the sun, banners, golden eagles on poles, the beating of drums, the sound of marching feet. They represented not only Roman imperial power but Roman imperial theology. The emperor that they represented was not only emperor, he was called “Son of God”, “Lord” and “Saviour”.

Pilate’s military procession proclaimed not only Roman imperial power but also Roman imperial theology.

And the onlookers, the Jewish peasantry, looking on, curious perhaps, but resentful and quiet.

The other procession, entering Jerusalem from the other side of the city was very different. Jesus, unarmed and without any pomp or protection, rode down the Mount of Olives into the Eastern side of the city on the back of a donkey.

The onlookers, the ordinary people went wild throwing their cloaks on the ground, waving branches in the air and shouting “Hosanna!”

Hosanna’s meaning changes with the context but in this context Hosanna would mean “Save us!”.   

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was what we would call today a pre-planned counter demonstration.

Notice the donkey and colt had been prepared in advance by Jesus to be used and could be appropriated by two of his disciples when they delivered the right phrase to their keepers.

The clash of Kingdoms, the kingdoms of this world represented by Rome and the Kingdom of God represented by Jesus were entering the arena to confront each other for the final time in Jesus’ 3 year ministry.

As an aside, much is made in Christian sermonising that the crowd that cheered Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday had turned by Friday when before Pilate they were urging Pilate to crucify him but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that they were the same people.

The people who cheered Jesus into Jerusalem, were the ordinary people of Jerusalem, the peasants, the people Jesus spoke for, but the people baying for Jesus’ death would have been a smaller crowd, insiders, the collaborators. After all this confrontation happened in Pilate’s palace. Someone had to let them in, and they weren’t going to let the hoi polloi in there.

The confrontation there was an unsuspecting Roman authority surrounded by his Jewish collaborators who worked together to oppress the people and they could see their position threatened by this upstart preacher from Galilee.

But that lies in the future. Palm Sunday sets the stage for the final showdown between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of this world.

Without giving anything away – spoiler alert – the Kingdoms of this world think they score a huge victory over the Kingdom of God when they crucify Jesus, but this turns out to be a short lived, apparent victory.

My next sermon on YouTube will be on Easter Sunday to find out God’s verdict on who really won this battle.