And many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:8-10)
The Middle Eastern sun is high and hot as an enthusiastic crowd starts to fill the streets of Jerusalem, cheering, celebrating, giving each other “high fives” as the young rabbi rides into the city on a donkey. Their people had suffered under oppressive regimes for centuries—the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes and the Persians, the Greeks, the Ottomans, and now the Romans—and their frustration had reached the boiling point; there was no turning back. An oppressed people can be kicked around for only so long before they start to fight back. At some point someone has to draw a line in the sand—and this young rabbi could be just the man for the job. The people are looking for a champion —someone who would fight for them; some rugged son of David who would stand and turn and face the Goliath of Rome and raise his clenched fist and shout the challenge to the arrogant enemies of God and of His people: “Who are you to defy the Living God?” And so they follow him, cheering as they go. “Hosanna!” “Save now!” “Deliver us from Roman oppression!” “Give us back our kingdom!” “Make Israel great again!” These are the cries that come from their mouths that echo the hopes that they treasure in their hearts as they follow this strong but gentle rabbi who claims that he has come from God and is returning to God. Goliath is about to fall. God and His people are about to be vindicated. The enemies of God and the enemies of God’s people are about to be defeated. No one defies Almighty God and gets away with it—at least not for long—and now the day of reckoning has come. While they are cheering and waving their palm branches, they might be asking themselves some questions that they dare not verbalize. “Why the donkey? Shouldn’t a warrior-king be striding into the city on a white horse? Could this have something to do with Zechariah 9:9? Where are the armies? That embarrassingly ordinary-looking bunch of unarmed “disciples” who insist on following him everywhere he goes doesn’t exactly look like the kind of militia that could march in and take over a city, let alone push back an empire. Something is not quite right about this turn of events. Something is not going as planned. This young rabbi seems to be departing from the conventional script. Why this talk about ‘love your enemies’? What kind of king is this? What kind of man is this? He talks of God as though he really knows Him. Could anyone know God that intimately? He speaks of God as being his Father in a way that seems almost scandalous. His way of dealing with people is not that of a warrior-king. He relates to people as though he really loves them. Can a warrior-king love his people? How can a conqueror allow his heart be touched by the needs and cares of his people, and even of his enemies, and treat them as his friends? He seems too gentle to be a warrior and too loving to be a king. His authority is won not by his harshness, but it’s somehow tied to his gentleness. He acts more like a servant than a king. He gathers his followers neither by threat nor by coercion but simply by being who he is. His people are his willing followers because at a place deep within themselves they know that there is something about him that’s worth following—or so they say. He teaches, but not as the other rabbis. He’s different. He’s a son of David, perhaps, but a different kind of son. Who is the man?” The people are perplexed but they dare not give up their hope, so they continue to cheer, waving their palm branches as the entourage enters the city. Perhaps something good will come of this; perhaps not. If he is the long-awaited Deliverer, the strong man who will set right all that is wrong with the world, then they are in the right place at the right time, following the right man. Rome is about to fall, and they are getting a front-row seat. Some day they will tell their children and their grandchildren that they were there on that historic day when the king came into Jerusalem, turned the tables on Rome and restored the Kingdom of David. If he is not the Deliverer then they have nothing left to lose, and so they continue to cheer. Today here in the US, we have our own brand of religious nationalism, Christian Nationalism, that closely mirrors the religious nationalism that surfaced on that first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago. If Jesus were a Christian Nationalist, the story would have ended very differently. Jesus would have said “So you want a king who will make your nation great again? Fine, I’m here, let’s do it”. They would have put together an army, or at least a very strong coalition of religious and political leaders who were willing to work with each other toward the accomplishment of some mutual goals, with an army to back them up. They would have gotten rid of the Romans and set up their own government. They might have accomplished the task of making Israel great again, but by side-stepping Isaiah 53 they would have accomplished nothing of eternal value. Israel would have become a superpower, and the tables would have been turned against the Romans. Through a powerful alliance between what we would now call Church and State, with the religious leaders legitimizing the power plays of the political establishment and the political establishment providing special status and protection to the religious realm, Israel would be a force to be reckoned with. That’s not the way the story ended, because Jesus was opposed to what we today would call Christian Nationalism, and he refused to become a king under the terms set up by a coalition between the security-seeking religious establishment and the power-mongering political leadership. Jesus would have nothing to do with that kind of an agreement. He wouldn’t dance the dance of “I support you, you support me, and together we’ll make Israel great again”. His goal was not to build a powerful world-dominating empire. His goal was to die on a cross, and to invite his followers to be willing to do the same. He allowed himself to be killed by the very sort of political and religious coalition that the religious nationalists of his day would have wanted him to spearhead. Jesus didn’t say “pick up your flags and guns and follow me”; he said “pick up your cross and follow me”. The way of Jesus is not the way of flags and guns and political might. The way of Jesus is the way of compassion, self-surrender, and self-sacrificial love. Christian Nationalism leads to the building of an empire that is characterized by flags and guns and the pursuit of political and military power. The way of Jesus leads to a cross. On that original Palm Sunday there were two groups of people in Jerusalem. First, there were the cheering palm-waving crowds who were surrounding Jesus. These were the religious nationalists, who wanted to use Jesus as a tool to make Israel great again. Second, there were the disciples who were following Jesus, though it would lead him (and eventually many of them) to a cross. Today we need to declare ourselves. Either we are standing with the crowds, waving our palm branches in hope of building a Christian America, or we are surrendering our quest for power, and we are following Jesus all the way to the cross. We can’t have one foot in each group. After showing us the way to the Father and teaching us how to live, Jesus died on the cross to provide atonement for our sins, and he arose victorious over sin and death, and he ascended into heaven, and one day soon he will return to set up his kingdom on the earth. It will be a peaceable kingdom that will be characterized by love, compassion, justice, and freedom from oppression. Let’s not make the same mistake that was made on that first Palm Sunday on the streets of Jerusalem. When Jesus returns, let’s not be found building the wrong kind of kingdom. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)
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