We wrapped up our Bible study for the season last Wednesday. We made it all the way through the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. It really felt like an accomplishment. I kind of wished I had special t-shirts to hand out, saying something like “I Survived the Old Testament Bible Study.”
In our last session we spent some time in the later prophets, those with a very far ranging vision – those prophets who speak of God’s ultimate intention for the world. One of these is Zechariah, who gets an honorable mention today.
These visionary prophets were living and writing during a time when it seemed like something big was afoot, cosmic shifts were imminent. These were the centuries just before Jesus was born. I think it must have felt like the world was about to change. It was. Most people, though, had no idea why – or what would likely happen.
The first disciples who traveled with Jesus probably didn’t have a clear vision of what was happening. They didn’t know much about where they were going as they followed his lead. But they did have some faith, enough to follow him. So, as they entered the city of Jerusalem on this Sunday, they stayed close to their teacher, attentive to his instruction. He guided them with his words and with his actions. What would they learn from him?
The day they entered Jerusalem was a busy day. It was near the Passover celebration, so there were many Jews from all over the region making their way to the city where they would celebrate, go to the temple and offer their sacrifices to God. Jerusalem was the place to be for the Passover.
It was a celebration like no other. Passover is the yearly remembrance of how God freed Israel from their bondage in Egypt. For hundreds of years they were enslaved by the Pharaohs. But God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt and on their journey to freedom, to the Promised Land. It was a deeply meaningful celebration. And also highly charged. Because, as they remembered the way God freed them in the past, how could they not feel that it was, once again, a time to be set free from the heavy boot of the Empire?
As the Jews from out of town came pouring in to the city, so were the religious leaders in evidence – the Pharisees and Sadducees, the High Priests and the Scribes, all there to see and be seen. These were the power players in Israel.
And as the power players, they had an important role to play with the Roman authorities – the real power. Rome controlled Israel and they didn’t let anyone forget that. If this was to be a big week in Jerusalem, where anyone who was anyone would be, then you may be assured that the Roman authorities would be there too, to collaborate with the religious leaders in keeping a watchful eye on the people. The Sadducees and the High Priests, in particular, seemed to work well with the Roman authorities.
Pontius Pilate was the governor Rome installed over Jerusalem. He was there in Jerusalem, too, that week. In fact, as Jesus’ parade approaches the eastern city gate, Pilate was entering the western gate, in imperial majesty, coming from Caesarea Maritima. On the Mediterranean coast. A gorgeous place. His palatial beach city. A sort of a working resort, an ancient imperial power center – on the beach. Naturally, Pilate liked being at Caesarea. Of course, he would have preferred to stay there. But politics and power concerns dictated that he be in Jerusalem on this hot and crowded and intense week of the Passover.
It was a week that would be fraught with tensions. There were agitators. There were protestors. There was talk of getting rid of the oppressors – the empire and their collaborators, the ones who made the peoples’ lives poorer. Jerusalem was a hotbed of dissidence – I think it was something that had been brewing for quite a while. Israel was longing for something to change.
But the empire, of course, had no interest in entertaining such change. Rome, like any sensible empire, had strict policies for dealing with dissent: stomp it out. This was the way Rome defined peace – by stomping out dissent. Jewish agitators were a potential danger, so they would keep a close eye on them and, if necessary, put them on a cross to make an example of them. Cross building was a thriving industry in the empire. There would not be a shortage, no matter how many dissidents must be dealt with.
Jesus often sounded like these ones – the agitators, the dissidents. The things he said, the values he set forth. He got angry at the authorities. He advocated for the poor and the powerless. To the empire and all who worked on the empire’s behalf, Jesus sounded dangerous.
For that reason, he knew that he should stay away from Jerusalem. He has mentioned it more than once. There was nothing but risk for him if he showed up in Jerusalem – especially now, at the time of the Passover. He could have stayed away. But instead, Jesus went.
But he took care to set up a particular kind of entrance. He made arrangements ahead of time to get a donkey. Seated on the donkey, he would ride into the city in a procession of palm branches and cloaks spread before him, with a chorus of Hosannas ringing around him. Hosanna, which means, Save us.
For those who understood, and the religious authorities surely understood, he was acting out the words of the Hebrew prophet Zechariah, one of those later prophets we read last week, who said:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The triumphant king arrives on a donkey – a colt, the foal of a donkey – from Chapter 9, verse 9. The prophet Zechariah continues:
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Do you see? The Lord, the Divine Warrior, will demilitarize the nations of the world. This is the prophetic vision; this is the ultimate good. And Jesus is in the midst of it.
But on the other side of the city there is that other entrance – with Pilate and his military entourage. Pilate, atop a war horse, dressed for battle; a battalion of soldiers surrounding him – with armor, with weapons, and with all the glory of the empire attached to them – ready to crush any opposition.
***
On Palm Sunday as we draw near to the end of our Lenten journey, we ought to consider the way we have gone, and the way we will choose to go. Where have we traveled, and what have we learned? The way of Jesus has taken us through darkness looking for light; through blindness looking for new vision; he has taken us away from well-worn customary routes and onto new paths; he has shaken our assumptions about death and turned us toward the expectation of life.
Through it all, one thing has been clear: We have to choose the way we will go. We can go the normal way: the way of the world. Or we can go the other way: the way of Christ. The story of Palm Sunday shows us both: Pilate’s way and Jesus’ way.
The preacher and teacher, Tom Long, says this is a story to read on two levels. On the one level, we see the chaos, the brutality of the empire, the forces that oppose Jesus, the dangers that await him. And on the other level we see the divine plan: the steady, undeterred cadence of the will of God.
Even while, at the first level, Herod is king, Caesar is lord, and Pilate is governor; at the other level, Jesus is Lord, King, and Messiah. At one level all the rulers of this present time will come together to take his life from him on the cross, that ugly instrument of torture. But at the other level no one takes Lord Jesus’ life; he gives it freely, for the sake of the world.
The first level is clear to see. The second level can be seen only through the eyes of faith.
You have to choose the way you will go. I pray you will go the way of faith.
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