Transcript
From Matthew’s Gospel: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the he who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest!” I speak in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We admire their literature. We use their laws and legal vocabulary. Their political principles of the separation of powers and checks and balances are our principles.
Yet the boot heel of Roman tyranny, the brutality with which they subjected their enemies, is legendary. And in terms of their culture — and I’m talking about the period after the Roman Republic — the time from Octavian on was characterized by moral decay of unbelievable proportion, decadent even in the minds of Latin philosophers and the most popular writers of the day.
A few decades after that first Palm Sunday, in 70 AD, the Roman general Titus collected his armies and marched against Jerusalem. He surrounded it, took it, plundered it for all it was worth, and destroyed it. A hundred thousand Jewish men women and children were taken captive as trophies of the victory. According to the historian Flavius Josephus, over one million Jewish men women and children were killed.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem. As he approached the city, he said, “If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes.”
“The days will come upon you,” Jesus said, “when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you against the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
As Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, Pontius Pilate represents Roman authority. His contemporary Philo of Alexandria describes him as “naturally inflexible, a blend of self will and relentlessness.”
Pilate had full powers of life and death over the people. All capital crimes had to be referred to him. That’s why when Jesus was tried by the Sanhedrin under Caiaphas and found guilty the imposition of the death penalty could not be made until the case was referred to Pilate.
The prosecuting attorneys had to change the description of the crime. Pilate in Roman law would not have imposed a death penalty for blasphemy against the Jewish God. So now the complaint was this man was making himself the equal of Caesar. Pilate takes the bait and ultimately condemns him.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at Passover. He’s saying by that body language this city is mine. I am LORD. And anyone versed in Israel’s scriptures knew it. In the Book of Judges, Jair had 30 sons who owned 30 donkeys and they ruled 30 cities in Gilead.
When King David himself was an old man, his son Adonijah couldn’t wait for the old man to kick the bucket so he announced himself as king, the successor to David while David was still alive.
Word came back to David that Adonijah is pretending to be the king and David responds by commanding his trusted officers — he convenes Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah who was one of his mighty men — and he says this to them,
“Take your Lord’s servants with you and set Solomon, my son, on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon. There anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet. Shout, ‘Long live King Solomon!’” Not Adonijah but Solomon, of the Lord’s choosing, who rode in on a pack animal.
So we come to that original Palm Sunday. As they approach Jerusalem, Jesus sends two disciples with instructions to bring a donkey to him. That rang bells in their minds.
He is fulfilling the promise of Zechariah. The false claimant is on the throne. Pilate pretends to be the governor of Israel, Herod’s sons ruling other parts of the community. And Jesus now asserts his rightful rule over against the phonies.
He exercises the kingly right of impressment, demanding an animal that isn’t his. Everything we are and have belongs to him, so it’s put at his disposal to use as he sees fit.
Luke and John tell us about the colt that hadn’t been ridden. Matthew says there were two animals, the unbroken colt but also its mother that would comfort the little guy being ridden for the first time.
He tells us that the disciples brought the animals and “put their cloaks on them.” They take off their garments, and place them on the animals.
In the ancient world your garment represents your inheritance, everything you are. When Jonathan wanted to abdicate the throne and allow David to be the king, he takes off his garment and puts it on David. And so we take off our garments, we get off the throne of our own lives, and recognize Jesus as Lord, the only one who can run our lives the way they were meant to be. That’s what they were doing taking their garments off as they welcomed and received him into the holy city.
And they waved palm fronds. That symbol came originally from the celebration of tabernacles where we made a little tent out of palm branches to say we’re sojourners and we don’t want to live without God making a home among us mortals.
Jesus rides a donkey into Jerusalem at Passover. Nobody does that. The Mishna forbids it.
If you were disabled, you rode the hundred miles or whatever to get to Jerusalem, but just as you were about to surmount the Mount of Olives, you would dismount and, if necessary, crawl the rest of the way.
The tens of thousands of worshipers who came into Jerusalem on that original Palm Sunday, none of them rode except this one who was fulfilling the promise of Zechariah, declaring himself to be the promised Son of David, the righteous one bringing salvation with him.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Jesus is LORD. That’s all. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. If the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed.”
At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus deals with the Syrophoenician woman up there in Tyre and Sidon. He begins, as all the conquerors of Israel did, in the north.
Then he set his face like a flint to Jerusalem, heading with every step closer to the place where he will finally defeat his enemy. This is “movement to contact,” as it’s said in our military. If you didn’t know better, you’d say it doesn’t look like much.
But here’s what Jesus says. “Now is the time for judgement on this world. Now the prince of this world will be driven out! But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
