Palm Sunday A2023
Matthew 21:1-11
Jesus sent disciples ahead of him to secure the donkey, and word spread quickly. The crowd probably got up early to prepare. To cut branches from palm trees. To gather their friends and family. To spread the news that Jesus was going to enter Jerusalem, the seat of power in that region of the world. The crowd probably got up early because they believed a king was coming to save them from the tyrannical rule of the Roman Empire. They literally believed Jesus was coming to free them from Roman occupation. The donkey, a sign of the king’s arrival from the Old Testament prophet Zechariah, tipped them off. We know it did because of the palm branches and cloaks the crowd prepared for Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem.
In the Old Testament book Leviticus, during the Feast of the Booths, worshipers processed around the temple altar rejoicing by waving palm branches in accordance with God’s instructions to Moses: “you shall take the fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees…all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” Many generations before, the ancient Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and then delivered out of slavery by Moses. On Palm Sunday, the palm branches signal the crowd’s joyful hope that, like Moses, Jesus will lead a new exodus and deliver them from their bondage. So too by “spreading their cloaks on the road,” the crowd signals they recognize Jesus as royalty, just as described in 2 Kings.
For the first century Jews who gathered in Jerusalem to laud Jesus as king, Palm Sunday was a political event. They lived in an occupied land with soldiers on the streets. They lived hand to mouth and were still required to pay exorbitant taxes. They lived with the constant threat of state-sanctioned violence, as we well know from the story of Jesus himself. They wanted freedom. No wonder the crowd turned on Jesus just a few days later. If Jesus couldn’t save himself, how could he possibly save us? They likely wondered.
While the crowd rejoiced upon Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, he later disappointed the hopes of everyone. For he did not slew a single soldier. He did not remove the emperor from his throne. He did not change the law of the land. Jesus did not change the political situation at all even though his presence before Herod and Pilate, his acts of love, and his words of sedition all challenged the emperor. By his life and ministry, certainly by his crucifixion and death, Jesus humbled the emperor and the empire. The Roman Empire was so powerful that, when faced with an illiterate, homeless, former refugee, peasant who others hailed as king, when faced with Jesus, the Roman Empire was so powerful that they killed him…to silence him, to cover over the fact that they had no power at all.
Two thousand years later, we call Jesus “savior,” we hear the crowd cry “Hosanna” meaning “save us,” and we assume Jesus saves us from our personal sin and frees us from the weight of guilt and shame. And that may be true for the Apostle Paul and other New Testament writers witness to that. But Jesus’ actions and words on Palm Sunday and the Holy Week on which we embark today tell a somewhat different story. They tell a story of one who saves us from our distorted visions of grandeur such that we believe ourselves king instead of Jesus. They tell a story of one who frees us from a desire to hurt others, to control others, to use violence to solve problems. They tell the story of one who exercises power in love, in washing feet, in sharing a meal, in forgiving those who hurt him, in dying because crucifixion was the political consequence of healing on the sabbath, proclaiming the kingdom of God, loving tax collectors, and allowing people to hail him Lord and king. Jesus frees us, yes, but frees us for lives of loving service to God and our neighbor, for lives similar to his.
So I guess Palm Sunday is still a political event. In a nation where violence is pervasive, so pervasive that both the state and its citizens use violence to solve problems, our king rides a humble donkey and shatters all our hopes for a leader who will exercise power through violence, even for the sake of a good cause. Our king instead exercises power through love and frees us to do the same. Palm Sunday and Holy Week are not theoretical. Jesus knows when he gets on the donkey that doing so will cement his fate for to enter Jerusalem on a donkey, to be hailed Son of David, to be flocked by a crowd shouting “Hosanna” is sedition. It is to challenge the sitting emperor. Even though he knows he will die and die in great agony, he does not pick up a sword. He will not bring about the kingdom of God through violence. There will be another way. That other way is the one we walk this week, this holy week.