Palm Sunday’s Dual Processions

Today is a day for joyful celebration, a time for a parade about a triumphal entry into the holy city of Jerusalem.  We bless branches of palm and wave them as we march around outside and inside the church hailing Jesus with shouts of Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  We sing the hymns, “All Glory, Laud and Honor,” and “Ride on, Ride on in Majesty.”  It is a grand event, a glorious day.  But then something happens.  The person we follow and praise is soon arrested, tried as a blasphemer, and executed on a cross of wood.  The story of Palm Sunday is not complete without the account of what happened in the days that followed.

In their book, “The Last Week,” the authors, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, tell us there were two processions that entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the week of Passover. “One was a peasant procession, the other and imperial procession.”  One was about the kingdom of God and the other was about the power of the Roman Empire to control.

Jesus entered the city from the east.  He “rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers.”  They had journeyed from Galilee, about a hundred miles to the north of Jerusalem.  It was the annual pilgrimage that Jews made to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, recalling the freeing of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. “Enthusiastic followers and sympathizers spread their cloaks, strewed leafy branches on the road, and shouted ‘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!”

“On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor… entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers….. The two processions embody the central conflict of the week that let to Jesus’s crucifixion.”

In the early part of the first century Jerusalem was a well-established city of about 40,000 people.  It was one of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East.  The temple had been rebuilt in glorious splendor.  Tourists coming to Jerusalem brought a lot of wealth to the city.  At the time of a major festival like Passover the city grew to about 200,000 people because of the Jewish pilgrimage.  There was laughter and celebration, and there were times when it could get out of control. 

Borg and Crossan ask us to “Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city.  A visual panoply of imperial power; cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.  Sounds: the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums.  The swirling of dust.  The eyes of silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.”

“Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world.  Jesus’s procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God.”  The contrast between these two processions is central to the story of Jesus and his early Christian followers.  Here are the two contrasting themes: the followers of Jesus into Jerusalem is about hope for the kingdom of God but it leads to death and resurrection. The entrance of Pontius Pilate is about the power and control of the Roman Empire and the necessarily complicit Jewish authorities needing to maintain law and order among an excitable and exuberant population.

The problem presented by Palm Sunday for us as 21^st century Christians is that we are tempted to see the Christian life as moving from one triumphal day to another.  Our tendency is to bounce from Palm Sunday to Easter day.  Jesus rides on a donkey through the gates of Jerusalem and then is resurrected to new life the very next Sunday.  But the real story is that our journey cannot avoid what happens in the week between these events; betrayal, trial, torture, and death.

I invite you to reflect on the events of this week and to make the journey through these days of this holiest of weeks.  As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus [who], being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”   Amen.