Approaching Jerusalem -- Palm Sunday

 

Mark 11:1-11

March 28, 2021

 

            The last parade I attended was the Christmas parade in Shawnee, Oklahoma 2018. It was Zach’s last time to march in the high school band, and I watched and waved and cheered as the band went by. As soon as I spotted him in the lineup, I started taking pictures and video to capture the moment. I ran ahead of the band, so I could see them march toward me once more. It was Zach’s last parade in the marching band. I wanted to capture as much of it as I could. Seeing the band, seeing my son in the band, made that parade great for me.

We all know what makes for a great parade, don’t we? You need stunning visuals. You need great music. You need crowds of people laughing and cheering and waving. You need floats and balloons and bands. It helps if there is candy for the kids, and if it is a Christmas parade and its cold and dark outside, then having hot chocolate waiting for you when you’re done is a bonus too. We all know what makes for a great parade, don’t we? You need spectacle. You need pomp. You need circumstance.

If this is the bar that I have set for a great parade, then I’m not sure if Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city quite reaches it. If we are really being honest, Mark’s telling is rather anti-climactic. Jesus and the disciples were approaching Jerusalem, and they were at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of the disciples ahead of him into the village. He told them that the minute they entered the village they would find an unridden colt tied there. They were to untie that colt and bring it back to Jesus. Jesus warned them that if anyone should ask why they were taking the colt, they were to respond, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”

The disciples did what Jesus told them to do. They were questioned just as Jesus told them they might be. They responded the way they were instructed to, and they brought the colt back to Jesus. They threw their cloaks across the back of the colt, and Jesus rode it into Jerusalem. It is true that people did gather to welcome him into the city. They cut leafy branches and spread their own cloaks on the ground before him. People followed behind him and walked ahead of him, shouting,

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

This sounds royal and pomp-full enough, but Jesus doesn’t do anything that you might expect once the parade is finished. He makes no speeches. He performs no miracles. Instead, he goes to the temple, looks around at everything, realizes it is late, and goes back to Bethany. Jesus does not even stay in the city. He returns the way he came. Anticlimactic.

Mark puts a great deal more emphasis on the telling of how the disciples managed to get the colt than he does on Jesus’ actual entry. The procession seems almost like an afterthought. And while the procession itself had a certain amount of drama and pomp, that ended as quickly as it began. One aspect of Mark’s version that I had not picked up on before was the fact that the colt was unridden. You don’t have to know much about horses or donkeys or colts – and I don’t – to know that a colt that is unridden will not be prepared for a rider. This was an animal that had not felt the weight of a human being before, but Jesus was awfully specific about the unridden part. When I really think about that, it is hard not think in rodeo terms. Wouldn’t the colt have bucked at this new thing happening to it? Wouldn’t it have resisted someone sitting on top of it? Does the fact that Jesus rode it mean that he worked a miracle with it much like the ones he worked with humans? It seems that there was a certain amount of clairvoyance involved with the story already. Jesus seemed to predict exactly what would happen when the disciples went into the village. Perhaps Mark’s emphasis on the retelling of it was to point out that Jesus knew exactly what would happen, not just on this day but in the days to come?

Jesus also knew that the people who heralded his arrival into Jerusalem would have seen the grand arrival of others before him. The people would not have been surprised at the sight of someone royal or important riding into the city on the back of a mighty steed or in a golden chariot. Writer and scholar, Debi Thomas, describes two processionals happening on that day.

One came from the West, and it was a full-blown royally regaled romp, dripping with both pomp and circumstance. This parade answers a question that until this week I had never thought to ask: why was Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem at the same time Jesus was? Pilate did not live there normally. It was not his first home, and the rest of the time he resided elsewhere. No, Pilate was in Jerusalem because it was Passover. Passover was a Jewish festival that remembered, celebrated, elevated the Israelites miraculous, divine exodus from slavery and oppression. If ever there was a festival that could get folks riled up and ticked off at the occupying Romans, it was Passover.

So, Pilate processed into Jerusalem with all the might and light he could muster. That parade was a perfect reminder of what the people faced if they tried to rebel or riot. Let the people see the splendor and the strength of the Romans and let them be reminded – vividly reminded – of what was what and who was who.

And whether it was clairvoyance or just the astute observations of One who knew that his purpose and point was to face that strength, Jesus knew what Pilate’s parade was all about. And so his triumphal entry came from the East. His was the opposite of Pilate’s. Jesus processed in the way we have already described, on an unridden colt, with people hailing him, crying out to wave, laying branches and cloaks before him. Pilate may have been heralded with notes blared from golden trumpets, but Jesus was hailed with Hosannas. I used to think that Hosanna was just an old-fashioned biblical way of shouting, “Hip, Hip Hurray!” but “Hosanna” actually means, “Save us. Save us now.”

Pilate rode into Jerusalem to make sure the people knew that their only salvation lay in keeping their heads down, doing what they were told, living and laying low, and remembering, always remembering, that their fate remained in the hands of the Romans.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem much more quietly. He rode in as he did everything else, with humility. Did he want his presence known? Certainly. But he also wanted his presence to be understood, to be seen for what it is – a servant, humble and lowly, but still the Son, the One they had been waiting for – for so very long.

And the people did hope. They did hope that Jesus was the One they had been waiting for, praying for. That’s why they cried, “Hosanna.” They knew they needed saving, the just did not or could not understand how that salvation would come. They were desperate. They were tired. They were beaten down.

But their hopes, raised so high, would quickly diminish into disappointment. As Jesus approached Jerusalem, the people believed that finally the end to their long oppression had come. But we know that this week, this final week, will not produce the results they or – or we – expect. For as anticlimactic and lacking in drama as Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem may seem on the surface, the rest of the week will be high drama, culminating in death on a cross, and against all odds, resurrection from the grave. There will be last suppers and footwashing and lessons on love. There will be remembrance attached to everyday things. There will be betrayal and grief and a confrontation between these two men who both rode into Jerusalem. In worldly terms, there will be winners and there will be losers. But in divine terms, God’s purposes will be fulfilled. Death will be overcome. Salvation will be achieved. It’s just that many won’t recognize it. Hopes may seem dashed and expectations disappointed, but in the end and at the beginning, hope will also be resurrected.

And that’s what we cling to, isn’t it? That hope is never completely extinguished. The story of Palm Sunday, indeed the story of Holy Week, the gospel story, the scripture story, the story of God and God’s people, is a messy one. It’s filled with great highs and debilitating lows. It is filled with the messiness of people who seek to do what is right and fail miserably. It is filled with the messiness of people trying to live in community with one another and with God. It is filled with the messiness of people who were created by God to be in relationship but fall short time and time again.

This week that we now enter is the pinnacle of that messiness. It is filled with hope and disappointment. It is filled with love and betrayal. It is filled with human beings making difficult and wrong decisions. It is filled with sacrifice and pain and grief. But most importantly, it is filled with God walking with God’s people, standing with us when we get it, when we get a glimpse of the kingdom, of how this world and the next should be, could be, and one day will be. And it is filled with God standing with us when we don’t have a clue, when we cannot see more than a few inches in front of us, when we struggle to understand, when we grieve at the harm we do to one another, when we think that we cannot muster even the smallest grain of faith. Our God stands with us in all of our messiness, in all of our triumphs and our tragedies.

We are about to enter the messiness of Holy Week, and God is with us as we walk this road, as we carry our own crosses, as we approach Jerusalem, crying out, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Save us, Save us now.” And God does. Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.