"God's Revolution of Love"
An Introductory Meditation on Palm and Passion Sunday"
Luke 19:28-40; Luke 22 & 23
A few minutes ago, we heard the story how Jesus entered into Jerusalem on the
back of a donkey on that first Palm Sunday, in a dramatic act of subversive political
theater. Jesus enters into Jerusalem like a king, challenging the authority of
every earthly kind and even of Caesar himself.[1]
Can you imagine
what this must have been like for Jesus’ disciples? Jesus had told them what to
expect. Three times he had said plainly, “We
are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about
the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles.
They will mock him, insult him, and spit on him. They will flog him and kill
him. On the third day, he will rise again.” But I doubt they understood
fully what they would witness later in the week.
There are layers
of subversion in today’s scripture readings. Psalm 118 is a psalm of Passover,
of escape from slavery. It’s a psalm of liberation from oppression. It
celebrates God’s empowerment of people who were once exploited and dehumanized.
It praises the complete upending of power structures that enrich a dominant
ruler or class at the expense of those who are exploited and marginalized.[2]
The
crowd comes out joyfully to meet Jesus, strewing their palm branches and
spreading their cloaks on the road. They pour into the street to welcome their king,
riding on a young donkey—a beast of burden.
On the other side of the city there was another
parade. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the region, was entering
the city with his cavalry and foot soldiers, as he did every
Passover. There was often trouble in Jerusalem around the time of
the Passover—a festival that celebrated the Jewish people’s liberation from an
earlier empire, when Moses led them out of Egypt. So, the governor
brought in extra troops to reinforce the troops that were permanently stationed
near the Temple, as a show of power and force.
The story of Palm Sunday, as Luke tells it, draws on Old Testament prophecies
to show Jesus as a messianic king. Six centuries earlier, the prophet Zechariah
had proclaimed a messianic vision of a king like David returning to the throne
in Jerusalem, and Luke uses this imagery in describing Jesus’ procession into
Jerusalem. Zechariah says, “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.[3]
The people would have recognized this imagery. So, when Jesus came riding into
Jerusalem, it must have felt to the peasants in the crowd as though they were
on the threshold of an exciting new era. By entering Jerusalem in this
way, Jesus claims to be the legitimate king. This is a
counter-demonstration that challenges the authority of imperial rule over
Jerusalem.
In Zechariah’s prophecy, the new king would banish war from the
land— no more chariots, war-horses, or military weapons. Jesus’s
procession deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the
city.
Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of
the empire that ruled the world, the Roman Empire that exercised power through
military domination, using the cutting-edge military technologies of the day.
Jesus’s procession embodied an alternative vision-- the kingdom
of God. His victory will be won through humility and nonviolence and
love. Jesus’ humble claim to a peaceful kingship was radically
counter-cultural. It was politically subversive. This contrast— between the
kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar— is central to the gospel
story-- to the story of Jesus and the early church.
Jesus enters the city and proceeds to the Temple. Now, in that time, the Temple
wasn’t just a religious center, but also the place where Judean society
interfaced with the Roman Empire. As Robert Williamson points out, it was the
job of the chief priests to collect taxes as tribute for Rome and to keep Judea
functioning smoothly as a loyal Roman province. “Through the Temple,
religious elites kept the Empire operating smoothly. They provided a
theological rationale for the political and economic domination of the Roman
Empire, which enriched the upper classes at the expense of the poor.”[4]
According to Luke’s Gospel,
Jesus returned to the Temple on the following day to overturn the tables and
cast out the money changers, protesting the Temple’s collaboration with an
Empire that enriched the few and oppressed the many.
In a few moments, we are going to hear the story of Christ's Passion, as told
by Luke. Today and this Holy Week, may we
be startled and challenged into seeing God’s Reign afresh, as the subversive,
empire-challenging reality that it is.
Following Jesus on the way of the cross, we need to choose. Will we collaborate
with the Empire? Or will we choose to participate fully in God’s
revolution of love, which
promises abundant life for all? If we see injustice and evil in the world
around us, will we walk the way of humility and non-violence and love to resist
the that injustice, trusting in God’s abundance and faithfulness?
The good news we hear in the Holy Week story is that God emptied God's self for
the sake of every beloved creature, including you and me-- because it's God's
very nature to love us that radically. We know
what God's love is like by seeing it in the self-emptying servanthood
and humility and self-giving on the cross!
So, let us go there and be with our Lord in his suffering and in his
triumph. See his great love for you... and renew your great
love for Him.
Listen for the good news:
At this point, we heard the story of
Christ’s Passion, as told by Luke the Evangelist, in chapters 22 and 23. http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+22
Rev. Fran
Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn,
Michigan
April 14,
2019
[2] Lindsey Paris-Lopez, “Coronation
Before Crucifixion: The Ominious, Subversive Politics of Palm Sunday.” https://www.ravenfoundation.org/coronation-before-crucifixion-the-ominous-subversive-politics-of-palm-sunday-gvbs-year-c/
[3]
Zechariah 9:9
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