What Parade Are You Going To Be A Part Of?
“As [Jesus] was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Rev. Vivian L. Rodeffer
Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023
Luke 19: 28-40
28 After [Jesus] had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Let’s think about parades for a few moments. Aren’t parades fun? Do you have a favorite parade? For some it’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For others the Rose Bowl Parade. In Phildelphia on New Year’s Day it is the Mummers Parade. Some of you or your children or grandchildren may have marched in a parade with their school band. When I was in grade school all the Safety Patrol students went to Washington DC and marched with other children from across the nation. There are endless types of parades. Military parades, Memorial Day and 4th of July parades, Parades celebrating all nationalities. All around the world a parade is an opportunity to join in a celebration.
This morning we’ll start with some background information about this familiar Palm Sunday scripture because it too is about parades. In their book, The Last Week [In Jesus Life], scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan help us discover that there were two parades occurring in Jerusalem on that very first Palm Sunday. We are all familiar with the first parade. The first was the “parade” where Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
The second parade is less familiar to us. It was the parade when governor Pontius Pilate entered the city with a full military procession. This was standard operation for Roman governors of Judea like Pontius Pilate. To come into Jerusalem for high Jewish holidays in case any trouble broke out and needed to be stopped.
These two parades had some things in common – they both had certain beliefs surrounding them. Did you know that the Roman emperor was thought to be the “Son of God,” “Lord,” and “Savior” within Roman imperial religion? These divine claims were reinforced by a show of power such as weaponry, soldiers, and displays of wealth.
Jesus’s followers and sympathizers had religious beliefs about who he was too. Teacher, prophet, and Messiah. And also Son of God, Lord and Savior. Borg and Crossan in their book suggest that Jesus deliberately planned a very different kind of procession as shown by him arranging for his disciples to go ahead of him to bring him a donkey on which to ride into Jerusalem. It is essentially a parody of the Roman imperial parade that Jesus uses to make a point.
The Roman parade put their full power on display with the strength and might of military force. Jesus rode in on a humble colt who had never been ridden before. As Christians, we are called to model Jesus’ humble way in the face of how the world still operates according to strength and might.
Jesus’s choice of parade has special meaning in today’s scripture as well. The reference is to the kind of king Prophet Zechariah predicted would save Jerusalem. [Zech. 9:9-10]. In that passage, the prophet says, the king “will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations…”. Jesus does not achieve peace through war, like the Romans did, but rather, through humility, non-violence, giving of oneself, and trusting in God’s direction. The world gives us a certain idea of what it means to be strong and powerful. However, those same traits can so easily be - and often are - used to do evil. Jesus turns them upside down and shows how real strength and power lie in loving and serving each other.
Christianity understands Jesus to be special because he is the only person to be both fully divine and fully human. He is truly God’s Son though in a different sense than the rest of us are God’s sons and daughters. While those who ascribed to Roman imperial religion at the time also believed Roman emperors were divine, Jesus’ way teaches us about the true God.
Finally, let’s look ahead to what Holy Week will bring. The Roman empire uses force to brutally end Jesus’ life. But in the end, God is victorious but not through a show of force, but by raising Jesus from the dead, bringing life from death. When we follow Jesus, we are saying we trust the God who has power over life and death. This frees us to live life differently than how the world would have us live–fighting, harming, and competing for power.
This Palm Sunday we have a choice to make. Which parade do we want to be a part of? Will we live like Pontius Pilate and his followers (e.g., upholding oppressive systems, using violence to make a point, needing to prove themselves to be better than others). Or, will we choose to live like Jesus and his followers (e.g., on the side of those who have the least, committed to making peace, serving, and loving others, humility).
As the Lenten season comes to an end, and Easter and new life is on the horizon, let’s chose the steps we can take to become less Pilate-like and more Christ-like.
Let us pray.
Good and Gracious God, Help us to chose to be a part of the great parade of people of faith down through the ages that follows the way of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] For the full chapter, see Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006, pp. 1-30.
