Loading...We have begun our journey. Holy Week is upon us. This week that marks, for many, the reason we follow Jesus. Next Sunday, our pews will be full of people who come to remember the resurrected Christ with thanksgiving and joy.
But today and for the rest of the week, we come here, or maybe we stay home, and we open our Bibles to the Gospels of Mark and John. We fervently pray, contemplate, and consider this journey with Jesus from life, to death, to life again.
It would be a disservice to the story to let this week go by without exploring the nooks and crannies of how this event came to be two thousand years ago.
So, we begin this journey to the cross today.
Perhaps you have noticed that today our Palm Sunday has been a little different than what you remember from past Palm Sundays. I intentionally chose to not read the story of Jesus’ Passion…yet. (We’ll do that at the end of our time together today.) You see, the story of this week is so very important to what happens on Thursday and Friday, that I want to spend a little time here. On Sunday. On what was happening in Jerusalem before the drama of Friday.
Jesus is entering Jerusalem early in the week, during the preparations for Passover. According to the website, My Jewish Learning, “Passover is a festival of freedom. It commemorates the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, and their transition from slavery to freedom.”[1]
This is a time when Jewish people take their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the Temple to pay respects to YHWH. Jesus does what his mama taught him, and goes to Jerusalem, ready to walk into the crowds gathered there.
We mimicked this chaotic scene when we gathered, not here, in the sanctuary, but in Gleason Hall. As we just experienced, the people are mingling, meeting friends and relatives they saw just yesterday or who they may not have seen since the previous Passover. It’s loud, it’s colorful, it’s buoyant.
Jesus walks into this place from beyond the Mount of Olives. It is a road he has traveled many times in his lifetime. This main entrance into Jerusalem will be full of pilgrims in preparation for these holy days.
The Gospel begins with Jesus telling his disciples to go and get a colt, or a donkey, or some young beast of burden, for him to ride into the chaotic, throbbing scene they are about to enter.
Why the colt? And why is this even a part of the story?
It is a symbolic gesture. Royalty often entered Jerusalem riding on an animal: whether it is a horse, an ass, or a camel, royalty comes in riding. For those expecting their king, their Messiah, to join them this Passover, that person would need to be riding an animal.
Did you notice Jesus chose an animal that was young? That has never been ridden. Can you imagine the fear in the animal? I wonder what the crowds thought about that.
Perhaps he Jewish people were so hungry for the one who would bring them freedom and peace, saving them from the Roman Empire, that they were looking for that person, riding something…anything to announce God had not forgotten or forsaken them. A horse or a colt, a donkey or a camel didn’t matter.
They were desperate.
Jesus entered Jerusalem on that road, riding an inexperienced animal, into a crowd of people who were longing for a sign that they would be made free again. To them, even on this colt, Jesus was that sign, so they laid cloths and branches on the ground before him, giving him the royal treatment, 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!”
Remember, they were in Jerusalem to celebrate their freedom at a time when freedom was fleeting, where persecution and abuse continued at the hands of the Romans, who had captured Jerusalem in the year 63 before the Common Era. They were looking to God to provide them with an army of sorts to end the unreasonable taxation and oppressive imperialism, so they could truly be free.
The Israelites wanted to see their Messiah come in with force, with swords, with might.
And Jesus entered on a colt.
Not exactly what they wanted.
Even though many had heard Jesus teach and heal and care for them and others…even though they experienced his quiet inclusion and expressions of love, they still wanted an army. They wanted force. They wanted to eliminate their oppressors.
At the same time, they believed Jesus could change their circumstances. And they laid branches and cloths covering the ground around him, respecting him, honoring him, hoping, praying, believing that through him, freedom was near.
And what did Jesus do? He poked his head into Jerusalem. Stopped by the temple. He took a look around to see “what was what” and turned around and left Jerusalem.
That’s it. That’s our story of the Sunday before Jesus dies on the cross.
Jesus gets the lay of the land, gathers the disciples, and goes back to Bethany to spend time with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, who are his dear, reliable friends. And for the next few days, Jesus will return frequently to Jerusalem to stand up for God’s people. In the next 2½ chapters of Mark’s Gospel we learn:
- He cursed a fig tree because it did not have fruit to feed him.
- Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers outside the temple.
- He explained to the disciples the importance of praying with a heart of forgiveness.
- Authorities tested his authority.
- He used parables about vineyards and rejected stones to explain the Torah.
- Pharisees and Herodians tried to trick Jesus, questioning him about taxes.
- He reminds Saducees about marriage vows and scripture.
- Jesus answered the questions from a scribe about the first commandment, saying: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And he will tell those scribes the second: you shall love your neighbor as yourself, all to their satisfaction.
- He taught in the temple and poked at the scribes’ haughtiness.
- He taught the importance of giving back to God.
- He talked about stones upon stones, signs, and staying vigilant as the next few days would become something none will expect; and
- He told his followers to “Keep awake.”
You see, a lot will happen between Sunday and Thursday that leads to the arrest, trial, flogging, and crucifixion on Friday. Some would say many of these incidents provoked Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and other religious leaders to their actions. Some may say Jesus was simply continuing his ministry of teaching what love looks like.
We need to slow down and not rush to Good Friday. We need to take time to wonder, explore, study, and pray with Jesus in these last days of his mortal life. To understand how the people around him would cry “Hosanna!” on Sunday and “Crucify Him!” on Friday.
And. And. To see that what is to come is about his deep love for all of humanity.
That love has been misunderstood by so many. If we remember the reason the Jewish people celebrate the Passover—this festival of Freedom—we may better understand that Jesus came to show us what freedom looks like.
It looks like LOVE.
Let us pray. God of Freedom, God of Love, give each of us moments this week to explore what the rest of the story of Holy Week includes. Encourage us to take quiet time with your Word to learn what love and hope and freedom can look like in a world that is full of turmoil, war, fear, and distrust. Give us courage to ask questions, enter conversations, and to listen deeply for your voice in this wilderness we call our lives. For it is in you, our Creator, where we learn the true ways freedom, of living in love through your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-2024/ Retrieved 5:15 p.m. 3/23/2024.
