Margie Quinn
Today is Palm Sunday. I’ve heard this story, as many of you have, countless times. We’ve heard about the triumphal entry of Jesus, who rode into the city of Jerusalem as we threw down our cloaks and our palm branches in glory and praise of Him.
But this week, I actually learned that Palm Sunday is actually a story not of one but two triumphal entries, or parades as I like to call them. While there is no scriptural record of this second parade, many historians have pointed out that the Romans were undoubtedly holding their own imperial parade around the same time. You see, this is around the time of the major Jewish festival of Passover, when the Jewish people celebrate their liberation from Egypt, their escape from enslavement. What a beautiful Jewish ritual and celebration it was—and is—that they were able to say, "We escaped and left the clutches of empire and oppression and followed someone who showed us a different way of life and a different kind of freedom."
As they gathered around the table and broke bread together, the powers of Rome, who were so threatened and intimidated by that kind of joy and love, decided to host a parade around to remind the people that they shouldn’t expect liberation again, not from Rome.
To emphasize this point, this parade was to announce the raw political and military power of the Roman government. So Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, would ride in from the west to Jerusalem. He would appear on his warhorse with cavalry and foot soldiers following him. And people would gather on the side of the road to watch these big, strong horses and these foot soldiers, and the leather armor and the helmets and the weapons and the banners and the golden eagles mounted on poles. This was Pilate’s parade.
As Pastor Shannon Kershner notes, as they heard the marching of feet and the cracking of leather, the clinking of bridles and the beating of drums, they would grow increasingly more intimidated of this reminder: Caesar, not God, had control over their lives and over their deaths.
I imagine that, intimidated into silence, the people watching this parade would cower in fear, or nervously shuffle their feet as these men marched by.
But there was another parade going on at the same time. This one was led not by a man coming from the west in all of his imperial glory. This was a man coming from the east toward the city of Jerusalem. Jesus didn’t plan the timing of this parade by accident. No, he knew about Rome’s imperial parade, about the intimidation and fear tactics, about this desire to threaten and overpower the people, to keep them in their place, to keep that shoe on their neck. And so Jesus, ever the wily man that he was, said, “I’m going to have something different happen during that time.”
Some scholars refer to it as street theater—Jesus planning his own provocative performance for the sake of the Gospel; Jesus being willing to look a little foolish for the sake of the Good News. He crafted his own kind of theater to directly contrast Pilate’s parade.
Now, let’s look at these two parades:
In Pilate’s parade: War horses.
In Jesus’s parade: A donkey.
Imagine it: on Pilate’s horse, an expensive saddle. On Jesus’ donkey, a couple of dirty cloaks thrown over its back. Can you visualize the foolishness of this scene?
In Pilate’s parade, he rode at the front of this intimidating, powerful group of men.
In Jesus’s parade, he rode with a small group of uneducated fishermen and despised tax collectors. He rode with a really unorganized bunch of men and women—some of whom were walking behind him, some walking alongside him, some who might’ve scurried in front of him a little bit.
In Pilate’s parade: military gear.
In Jesus’s parade: sandals and worn clothes.
In Pilate’s parade: a display of domination.
In Jesus’s parade: a display of devotion.
In Pilate’s parade: a scared silence.
In Jesus’s parade: shouts of joy and praise.
Can you hear it, church?
The peasants cried out when they saw him. “Hosanna!” they shouted, which literally means “Save now!” These peasants and people were so comfortable addressing Jesus, begging for his mercy that they were willing to cry out, “Save now, Jesus! Save now!
Liberate us from this oppressive hold that Caesar has on us! Save now, Jesus! Deliver us from this looming cloud that hangs over us, telling us that we are small, that we are helpless, that no body of people who organize together to fight against the systems of power are ever going to be able to make change or do enough. Save now! Save us from the fear that swallows us and suffocates us every day.
Hosanna, Jesus! Hosanna!”
Do you hear both the praise and the desperation in their voices as they see the King of Kings? Not a warlord—a different kind of king. A king willing to hop on a donkey and ride through a town as people put palms and cloaks down out of respect and admiration for this man who was willing to look foolish for the sake of the Gospel.
In a world of winners, he was willing to look like a loser.
In a word of powerful, intimidating leaders, he was willing to look vulnerable and weak, riding not in front of his followers, but alongside them. If that isn’t good news, church, I don’t know what is.
So the peasants and the people spread their cloaks and clothes on the ground and said, “Blessed is the king who comes not in the name of Caesar or Rome, but who comes in the name of the Lord. “Peace in heaven,” (not worldly power on earth); peace in the highest heaven, and glory!”
And yet, amidst the laughter and praise and this palpable joy, we can hear the Pharisees begin to grumble. They say, “Jesus, order your disciples to stop! It’s a little bit too much. Things are getting a weee bit too wild.” And Jesus responds: “Even if they stopped—even if they silenced their shouting and their praise—my creation, God’s beautiful creation, would still cry out. Even the stones would cry out!”
I’m struck this morning by these two contrasting parades. I read the story this week with new eyes, recognizing these little details that Jesus intentionally placed in his parade, in his riding into the city of Jerusalem, in his triumphal entry—set apart from Pilate’s.
How could anything good come out of Nazareth, they ask? Yet, here he comes.
I am in awe of Jesus’s constant ability to risk looking foolish for the sake of the Gospel—and the ability of those around Him to risk the same.
Y’all remember that paralyzed man who really wanted to be healed by Jesus, but the crowd was too large in the house for him to approach him? So, his friends cut a hole in the roof and lowered this man down into the room? Surely, that would have looked foolish to those people.
Y’all remember the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and, in desperation, pushed her way through a crowd and grabbed Jesus’s cloak, saying, “Heal me”? Y’all don’t think people cried, “Foolish woman!”
Y’all remember Zacchaeus, who climbed up in a sycamore tree just to get a look at his Savior? Imagine how foolish it was to see a grown man shimmy up a tree, peering down in between branches. Foolish followers.
They risked humiliation and embarrassment to follow a man whose healing and way of being was so compelling that they could not resist being near him. That’s how magnetic his love was.
Do you remember Jesus Himself, perhaps the biggest fool of all?
He said, “When you’re slapped on the cheek, turn the other.” He spit on the ground and made a little mud, and took that mud and put it over a blind man’s eyes, healing him. He spit into his hands and stuck his fingers in a deaf man’s ear to heal him. Y’all don’t think people thought all of that looked a little foolish?
And as we enter this Holy Week, as we walk toward the cross, we remember Maundy Thursday, when Jesus knelt down before the calloused, dirty feet, the broken toe nails of his disciples and in a moment of true foolishness, of flipping the script, he washed their feet; even when they asked him not to, even when they felt a little uncomfortable or embarrassed by the act.
Jesus said: I don’t care. I don’t care how I’m seen. I care about showing you a vulnerable kind of love that is in direct opposition to the powers that you see. And yeah, it’s going to make you a little squirmy. But, I’m willing to look foolish for you.
Church, our Savior is willing to look foolish in order to heal us and liberate us and save us. He doesn’t care about social norms. He doesn’t care about showing off his power and grandstanding his might.
He cares about you. He cares about me. He cares about the people shouting “Hosanna! Save now!” and he cares about the ones who will soon shout, “Crucify Him!” Imagine that. His love extends to our praise of him and our persecution: both the faithful followers and the fair-weather fans. Foolishness—all for the sake of us.
The fool who, as we heard in Philippians, did not view his divinity as something to lord over others, but emptied himself for the sake of being with us, among us, beside us and for us. The fool who washes our feet, even when we squirm. The fool who is willing to be arrested and humiliated and mocked and laughed at as he lays on the cross, all out of his love for us. The fool whose triumphal entry was not a display of dominance but of devotion.
Grab your donkey.
Throw down a cloak.
Follow the fool who risks it all for our sake.
Amen.