Having been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), we humans have been entrusted with the gift of power. This gift is coupled with the intellectual capacity to imagine what might be, plan how to make it possible, design the details of the plan, and use our power to implement the plan to bring what we imagined into reality. This ability to use power to create is an expression of the divine spark that was implanted in us.
This gift raises a central question: how do we choose to use this power that has been entrusted to us? How we use our power was the theme of Jesus's Palm Sunday sermon.
Jesus's royal entry into Jerusalem that Sunday before Passover (we like to call it Triumphant Entry - which says something about us and how we view power) was a sermon. Jesus followed Jeremiah and Ezekiel in acting out a sermon to proclaim a truth the people could not and did not want to hear. He acted out at least three sermons that week: the entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the Temple, the reinterpretation of the Passover meal. The theme of each of these three sermons was the same: how do we choose to use the power that has been entrusted to us?
Jesus planned his entry into Jerusalem, including prearranging for the donkey on which to ride and the password that would give his disciples access to it. He factored in the excited expectations of the crowd - and they did not disappoint.
The Passover was a celebration of the LORD's deliverance of the descendants of Israel (Jacob) from slavery in Egypt. God's deliverance and the covenant that grew out of it gave birth to the nation. These two factors were foundational to their identity. This annual celebration stirred the deep desire for God to act again ... to deliver them again ... to set them free again ... this time, from the power of Rome. Their religiously fed patriotic desires were so inflamed during Passover that the Romans had built an army garrison adjacent to the Temple compound so their soldiers could immediately respond to any rebellious demonstration before it got out of hand.
The crowd that accompanied Jesus from Galilee - including his disciples, especially his disciples - carried those desires for God to act again to set them free. But their desires were fed by the expectations that Jesus was the Messiah. They had seen him use his power to heal. He had fed 5,000 of them in the wilderness as Moses had fed the people with manna from heaven. (A popular belief was the Messiah would feed the people with manna from heaven the way Moses had.) They believed him to be the Messiah who would throw off the hated yoke of Rome and set them free.
The crowd's desires for freedom, fed by their expectations that Jesus was the Messiah who would set them free, were expressed in their actions. As Jesus rode the donkey down the Mt. of Olives toward the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem, they spread palm branches and their cloaks on the path before him. They gave him the red carpet treatment. They waved the palm branches - a symbol of the nation - in the air just as we wave the American flag on 4th of July parades. And they sang songs that about the messiah, crying "Save us!" (Hosanna!).
Without a doubt, this entry was a political demonstration. It was a parade honoring their king. And that's how the Pharisees understood it. They urged Jesus to restrain his followers lest they draw the attention of the Romans, bringing out the Roman army to squelch the demonstration and disperse the crowd. The Pharisees feared a bloodbath.
Jesus designed all of this. One other thing Jesus designed: the timing of his entry. The timing was a crucial part of his acted-out sermon.
History tells us that each year, the Sunday before Passover, the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate would lead a legion of Roman soldiers from their post in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem. This detail would serve as reinforcements for the garrison adjacent to the Temple complex during this volatile religious celebration. Pilate led the soldiers into Jerusalem through the Western gate. Their entry was designed to communicate a message. Pilate rode a war horse. The soldiers were dressed in full battle gear. The message was clear: we will deal swiftly and decisively with any who dare oppose us.
While Pilate was leading the military parade through the western gate of the city, Jesus was leading his parade through the Eastern Gate ... riding a donkey.
The donkey was a part of Jesus's sermon. Whenever a king went into battle, he rode a white stallion as his war horse. The stallion symbolized power used to dominate and destroy. Whenever a king visited his people in his country, he rode a donkey, symbolizing that he came in peace. Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, symbolizing peace. The donkey was also a beast of burden - an animal used in service.
The contrast between the two parades was the heart of Jesus's acted-out sermon. He was presenting a contrast in how power is used.
Pilate's military paraded represented the use of power over, down against another for personal benefit. Power was used to control the other, keeping them in their place. Power was used to dominate the other and, if necessary, to destroy them. This way of using power was the way of Rome. But it was not just the way of Rome. It was the way of Herod the king who represented Rome. And it was the way of the Jewish Sanhedrin - the religious leaders of Israel. They used their positions of authority to take advantage of the people, getting rich off of them. (Jesus confronted this abuse of power in the cleansing of the Temple and in taking control of the Temple compound during the week of Passover.) And it was the way of the crowd that accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem, including the disciples. They expected Jesus to use his power to defeat Rome, setting them free. Power over, down against the other for personal benefit is the way of the world ... even today. It is the way inherent to our human condition. It is how we naturally use our power - in self-serving ways, at the expense of others.
Jesus's parade spoke of a different way of using power. He presented God's way of using power. Jesus lived out the way God uses power. Jesus used his power to serve. We see this way of using power most clearly in his healing miracles in which he addressed the physical needs of others. The way Jesus used power was governed by a servant spirit. The servant use of power is power used alongside another, on behalf of the other, for the other's benefit, often at great cost to oneself. It is the way power is used in the Kingdom.
In Jesus's acted out sermon entering Jerusalem, Jesus called the nation to choose between these two options. One option would lead to death; the other, to peace. Would they continue to follow the way of the world, using power over, down against others in an effort to dominate them for their own personal advantage? Or, would they embrace the servant ways of God that led to peace?
Our annual celebration of Palm Sunday confronts us each year with this same question: how will we choose to use the power God has entrusted to us?
Jesus's question calls for a conscious choice. The fact that we refer to Jesus's entry into Jerusalem as his Triumphant Entry might tell us how we are inclined to answer his question.
"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45).
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