Palm Sunday
March 24, 2024
William G. Carter
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and
Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village
ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt
that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you
doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here
immediately.’” They went away and
found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them,
“What are you doing, untying the colt?” They
told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.
Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their
cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many
people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that
they had cut in the fields. Then
those who went ahead and those who followed were 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!”
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and
when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to
Bethany with the twelve.
What a strange way to end the Palm Sunday story! Jesus rode down the hill on the back of a donkey. His friends threw their cloaks on it, kind of a poor person’s saddle. He is surrounded by a group of people who cover the road with their own outer garments and leafy branches. Everybody is singing a song, “Hosanna! Hosanna!” It is a word from one of the psalms.
Then Jesus arrives at the Temple, looks around, and decides to go. It was late. So, he goes back up the hill to find a place to stay for the night. What a way to conclude the account!
We have been trained by other writers in the Bible to make more of the story.
- Matthew calls attention to
the donkey, tying it to the prophetic words of Zechariah. “Your mighty
king will come on a humble farm animal.”[1]
- Luke connects the story to
Christmas song that the angels sang at Jesus birth. Remember? The heavenly
host sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth!”[2]
In Luke, the Palm Sunday crowd sings, “Peace on heaven!” They understand
the mission of God – to create peace – so they echo the Christmas angels.
- The Gospel of John says, “No, the onlookers don’t understand at all.” Why? Because they cut down palm branches and started waving them around. Ever since the Maccabean rebellion of 168 BC, waving palm branches was like waving the national flag[3] in the faces of the imperial oppressors. According to John’s Gospel, the crowd on Palm Sunday believed Jesus would lead them in a revolt against the Roman Empire. They seriously misunderstood.
By contrast, today’s version of the account says, “He came down the hill and went straight to the Temple, but it was after closing time, so he went back up the hill.” A bit anticlimactic, don’t you think?
The storytellers and novelists among us would suggest that verse is a throwaway line. It breaks up the action. It would have been far more effective to say, “He acquired the donkey, rode down the Mount of Olives, people were cheering, and he rode it to the front door of the Temple. Then he dismounted, strode up the steps, and started shouting.” Now, that is the way to tell the story. In fact, that’s the story that the Gospel of Matthew tells. But that is not the story according to Mark.
Mark’s version raises some questions. Here’s one: why didn’t anybody notice Jesus when he stopped by the Temple? Everything we’ve ever heard about Palm Sunday suggests the entire day was a ruckus. In another account, it says, “The whole city was shaken.” Shaken, same verb as the two earthquakes he reports on the same week, on Friday and the following Sunday. Everybody said, “Thie is the prophet Jesus.”[4]
Mark, by contrast, is quieter. The crowds never identify Jesus, other than to put coats and branches before him on the street. The song they sing is Psalm 118, the same one we sang a few minutes ago. It is a Passover song, an annual prayer to praise God and call on holy help from trouble. It is the one big “hosanna” song – and “hosanna” means, “Save us – deliver us!” Everybody was singing because of the Passover holiday. There is no real inference in today’s version that Jesus would be the One doing the saving. It’s ambiguous.
In any case, nobody spots him in the Temple. Nobody shouts, “Hey, that’s the guy the crowds surrounded.” Sounds like there were no crowds by the time Jesus arrived at the Temple, just him and the twelve. He looks around, then he departs.
This is a strange text. As someone points out, “Mark spends more time describing the preparations for Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem than the entrance itself, more time talking about the colt than talking about the intentions of the one who will ride it.”[5] It sounds like he has pre-arranged the donkey, just as he will pre-arrange the Passover feast on Thursday night. Jesus is checking out the scene in advance. He is casing the joint. He “looks around,” to prepare for what he does next.
Then he goes back uphill to Bethany. No crowds, no parade, no singing, no fuss. I wonder if he went to return the donkey. Only needed it once, even though Mark says he continually went in and out of the city.[6]
And then, Jesus puts everything in motion. First thing on Monday, in a prophetic demonstration, he condemns a fig tree for being unfruitful. Then he walks downhill, back into the city, and up into the Temple. There he condemns the Temple for being unfruitful like that fig tree, yelling, “You have turned my Father’s house of prayer into a den of thieves.” He shouts this in the tradition of the prophet Jeremiah,[7] who shouted pretty much the same thing. This is why he was doing a surveillance the night before.
What has upset him so? Well, the money changers, for sure. They are present because the high priests decreed no street money was allowed on temple property. They called it filthy, inappropriate. So, they welcomed the money changers to make their own temple money available. All at a jacked-up transaction rate, you can be sure.
And then, the dove sellers. Why were they selling doves? Ever since the book of Leviticus, doves were the approved alternative to sacrificial lambs.[8] Doves were sold to the poorest of the poor, presumably vastly overpriced. If you’re going to Jerusalem, you must pay the big city prices, right?
Jesus calls out the whole thing as corrupt. The religious system was selling salvation for a profit. Like a prophet of justice, Jesus rides down the hill, slips into the Temple after closing time, scopes out the operation, then returns the next morning to overturn the tables and chase away the birds. For this, Mark says, the religious leaders want to kill him.
They have had him in their sights since chapter two, back when he worked the small towns of Galilee. Now Jeus has stepped onto their turf. They will confront him; he will push back. He will challenge them; they will push back. They will interrogate, he will silence them with the wisdom of God. For he came into the city to confront a religious system that bilks the poor, sells out to the rich, and cuts oppressive deals with the Roman Empire.
In turn, the religious system will maneuver the Empire to get rid of this troublemaker. The whole Gospel story has been building to this moment. There is a conflict building, and it is emphasized by two competing parades on Palm Sunday.
Two, you say? Yes, two. The first was the one we know: Jesus borrows a donkey and rides it down the hill. The second parade, held at just about the same time, was a procession of Roman soldiers, led by the imperial governor Pontius Pilate, entering the city from the opposite direction. The conflict was inevitable. On this hill, a quiet man on a donkey, accompanied by the singing of a Passover song. On this side, drums and trumpets announced the military might of the entire Empire.[9] The two were due to clash.
Palm Sunday is a big day for us. The music is big. The hosannas are loud. Yet don’t miss the inevitable confrontation. It’s Jesus the humble prophet up against the powers and the principalities. Jesus will lose. That’s the truth of it. Jesus rides into the city to confront a corrupted Temple in cahoots with an indifferent pagan Empire. He has no army, no armor, no evidence of physical force. He could not win such a battle.
That is the irony of this coming week. Palm Sunday is often called the “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem. But where is the triumph? He will be accosted, arrested, interrogated, condemned, and sent away into oblivion. That’s what the cross is all about. Palm Sunday is not really about triumph. The triumph will belong to the religious leaders who don’t want their authority interrupted. The triumph will belong to the moneychangers and the dove sellers, who will set their tables back up by Tuesday. The triumph will belong to the Empire, who eliminates the troublemaker and moves on.
What they miss about Jesus, the same Jesus unnoticed after the Temple has closed on Sunday night, is that for him, his losing will ultimately be his winning. This is a most unusual truth. Like Jesus, it remains largely unnoticed. Consider the mystery of it all, which begins on Palm Sunday:
Jesus will win by humility, not by force.
He will win by gentleness, not by
brutality.
He will win by truthfulness, not
distortions and lies.
He will win by willing
self-sacrifice, not by defiant self-protection.
He will win by love, not hate.
He will win by the grace of forgiveness,
not the ugliness of retribution.
He will win by losing everything on
the cross, and for that he will be exalted.
All the world’s false values are flipped on their heads. All the empty virtues of corrupt religious leaders will be cancelled. All the Empire’s brutal efficiency will be exposed as a sham. For those who were paying attention, it was revealed in the song the Palm Sunday crowd was singing. Can you remember the words? Went like this:
The stone that the builders rejected has
become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is
marvelous in our eyes.
Jesus rejected, now the foundation of what it means to be human and holy. Can you believe it? Behold, the mystery at the heart of all that we Christian people trust and hold dear. Come back next week and we will tell you what it’s all about.
[1]
Zechariah 9:9.
[2] Luke
2:14.
[3] See, for
instance, https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2015/03/29/day-40-what-does-your-palm-branch-mean/
[4] Matthew
21:10-11.
[5] Gary W.
Charles, in Preaching Mark in Two Voices (Louisville: Westminster John
Knox Press, 2003) 187.
[6] Mark
11:11, 11:12, 11:20, 13:3, 14:3, 14:13.
[7] Jeremiah
7:11.
[8]
Leviticus 5:7, 12:8.
[9] See Marcus
Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Final Week: What the Gospels Really Teach
About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (New York: HarperOne, 2007).
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