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PALM SUNDAY

April 1, 2007

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11

Luke 19:28-40 (41-44) is the story of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as presented by Luke.  It nuances the story that it holds in common with Matthew (21:1-9), Mark (11:1-10) and John (12:12-19) in ways that particularly serve the purposes of the Gospel of Luke and supports its themes of God’s action against the powerful and of Jubilee liberation of God’s people and the poor.

The most important reality about the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry in all four gospels is that it is clearly and unequivocally a political statement!  And that is nowhere more clear than in the account appearing in the Gospel of Luke.

The story itself is, in its primary points, essentially the same in all four gospels.  Jesus and his disciples, journeying to Jerusalem, arrive at the Mount of Olives.  Jesus sends some of the disciples ahead to get a colt.  They do so, and Jesus then rides into the city, receiving the acclamations of the people and the disciples, as they wave palm branches before Jesus and place cloaks on the ground upon which the colt can walk (19:28-38).  Luke then ends the story with a conclusion that is found only in his gospel.  The Pharisees plead with Jesus to stop the people cheering his arrival, and Jesus replies that if they did stop, “the stones would shout out” (19:39-40).

At first, this incident seems simply to be a parade.  But it is far more than that.  It is the triumphal entry of Israel’s Messiah – Israel’s anointed, chosen king -- into its capital city!

The political nuances in Luke’s story are significant.  There is, of course, the obvious.  For Jesus to choose to ride a colt into Jerusalem to the acclamations of the people was an intentional fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!  Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”.  And every Jew would have recognized it as such!  Second, Luke is careful to tell us that the people cried out with “a loud voice”, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven” (19:38).  This is clearly a paraphrase of Psalm 118, a psalm that was used in pre-exilic Israel as a hymn of royal entry into Jerusalem of any of the kings in the lineage of David!

But there are many minor and subtler indicators, as well.  These indicators would easily pass by us, because we are not a part of either Jewish or ancient Roman culture.  But they would be obvious references to any Jew (or, in several instances, Gentile) living at the time of Luke.    

First, it is only a mile from the Mount of Olives to the walled entrance into Jerusalem.  For Jesus to require a colt on which to ride for only one mile when he had walked close to fifty in order to reach the suburbs of Jerusalem would clearly mean this is a political act, not a needed conveyance.  He is clearly and intentionally fulfilling Zechariah 9:9.  Second, Luke mentions that the colt was tied and had to be untied a total of five times.  Such a minor operation (the untying of a tethered animal) would not be worthy of such emphasis unless there was meaning in it – and the meaning is an intentional reference to Genesis 49:11, which speaks of a coming ruler who would arrive on an untied colt who would then be tied up.  

Third, there is an intriguing play on words in Greek (but not communicated in the English translations) in the disciples’ response when the colt’s owners ask why the disciples are taking the colt.  Luke writes, “As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them “Why are you untying the colt?”  They said, “The Lord needs it” (19:33-34).  The Greek word translated “owners” is the word “lords”.  Thus, what Luke is intentionally saying is, “The lords (of the colt) asked, “Why are you untying (that is, taking) the colt?”  They said, “The Lord needs it”.  Jesus’ claim as Lord supercedes the rights of the “lords” (the owners) to their property.  They are no longer “lords” over their property, because their claim to it has been superceded by the claim of “the Lord” (or “king”) to it (see I Sam. 8:10-18). 

Fourth, the significance of Jesus’ riding a colt into Jerusalem at his entrance into the city is more than a fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9.  All the heirs to the Davidic crown rode into Jerusalem on a colt on the day of their coronation (cf. II Sam. 18:9, 19:26; I Kings 1:32-40).  Further, there was a yearly ritual of enthronement in which the king rode into the city, in order to memorialize his earlier coronation.  Finally, the spreading of outer garments onto the path the colt trod was the acceptable greeting for the arriving king, both for his coronation and for the annual ritual of enthronement (see II Kings 9:13).  All of these indicators demonstrate that this was a clear political action on Jesus’ part, proclaiming himself as the Messiah – the chosen king of the idealized Israel that he was seeking to bring into being.

In the story of Jesus’ actual entrance into Jerusalem (19:35-38), Luke states why the people gave Jesus the boisterous welcome they gave him.  He writes, “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” (vs. 35).  Jesus is received and celebrated as the king of the kingdom of God because of “all the deeds of power” that he had done.  Luke wants to be sure that the reader sees that Jesus is acknowledged as Lord because, throughout his ministry, he indeed “brings good new to the poor, proclaims release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, lets the oppressed go free, and proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor” (4:18-19).

It is Jesus’ work for the political and economic liberation, spiritual deliverance and full transformation of all the people (especially the poor and marginalized) and the systems of society that earns him both the adoration of the people and their consequent resolve to declare him king of all humans and their systems.  In this way, the angel chorus at Jesus’ birth is fulfilled, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth shalom among those whom he favors” (2:14), a chorus that is virtually repeated in Luke’s account of the cheers of the people at that Palm Sunday parade, “Shalom in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven” (19:38b).

Luke then concludes his story of the Triumphant Entry with an account that appears in no other gospel.  “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (19:39-40).  

That is what the Gospel of Luke is all about – the stones shouting out when the leaders are silent.  For Christ has come for the poor, the powerless, the marginalized, the victimized of society, Luke is telling us – the little people, the “stones” of this world.  And they see in Jesus their salvation and liberation.  Therefore, they will cry out in praise to him even when his disciples – those who say they follow Christ – will not!

What does not immediately strike one, however, is the artful use Luke makes of this story in this context.  For it is a transition statement from Jesus’ triumphal entry (19:29-38) to his weeping over Jerusalem (19:41-44 – a story that is also unique to Luke).  And what is significant about this transition story is that Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” is actually a quotation from the prophet Habakkuk in Hab. 2:11.  Here is Habakkuk’s entire statement that contains that famed quotation.  .

“You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life.  The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.  Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed, and found a city on iniquity!  Is it not from the Lord of hosts that people labor only to feed the flames, and nations weary themselves for nothing?  But the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:10-14).

The very city named for God -- Jerusalem[1] -- is a city built on bloodshed and iniquity.  And the very stones of that city’s walls cry out in protest and accusation against its political, economic and religious leaders who continue running it oppressively in order both to maintain control and to corner its wealth – even if that means exploiting its “little” people.

But it will not always be so.  The day is coming, Habakkuk the prophet promises, that Jerusalem “will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (2:14).  And that day has now dawned, Luke is telling us, as Jesus rides in triumphal procession into the city, with his followers and the people crying out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven”!

It is at this point in the narrative that Luke has Jesus weep over Jerusalem – the only gospel writer that juxtaposes the lament over the city and Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city, connecting through the Old Testament prophecy of Habakkuk.  That prophecy compares the city as it has become under the dominating lust for power of its systems with the city as God calls it to be.  In Luke 19:41-44, therefore, Jesus laments over the city that Jerusalem has become.  This passage is not a part of the Gospel lesson for Palm Sunday, but it ought to be because it completes Luke’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry.

Jerusalem – and Israel symbolized through Jerusalem – has refused to perceive what God is doing in their midst.  If they had embraced Jesus as their Messiah, the full Jubilee to which he had called them, and in doing so had returned their order as a nation to that which God intended, they would have become a nation of shalom.  But this possibility was “hidden from their eyes”, for there is none so blind as those who will not see!  Therefore, Israel’s leaders have decreed their own fate, for their nation and their beloved city will be destroyed, eliminated, wiped out.  And all “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God”.               

Isaiah 50:4-9a is the third of the four “Servant Songs” in Isaiah (the others being 42:1-4; 49:1-6; and 52:13-53:12).  In this song, the speaker fills the role of the servant, and the audience is Israel – and especially those Jews who have fallen away from God.

In this song, the servant’s words reveal him as the prophet who speaks truth to the Israelites, confronting them in their lethargy and depression in the midst of Babylonian exile.  He speaks the word of the Lord to them (vss. 4-5), calling them to become as a nation and as people those whom God created them to be.  The servant describes himself as the one chosen by God to receive God’s word and then to reveal it to the exiles, so that they might be re-energized and work to form society as God intended it to be.

There will be those among the Israelites who will hold positions of power, and who will oppose both the words of the servant and his ministry, the prophet declares.  In their hatred of him and of his proposed reform of their systems, they will attack, persecute and physically harm him.  “I give my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (50:6).                 

But in spite of the direct opposition of those holding political, economic and religious power, God will sustain the servant and stand by him.  That sustenance will enable him to be both single-minded and uncompromising in his commitment to God and Israel’s redemption.  Thus, he will be able to accept his suffering with stoicism, and that suffering will become transformative for those who see and respond lovingly to it (vss. 7-9).

One can see how this servant song, as well as the others contained in Isaiah, would have sustained and encouraged Jesus, as he faced into the inevitable consequences that would inevitably occur because of the action he and his disciples took that first Palm Sunday morning.

Philippians 2:5-11.  This passage, along with I Corinthians 13 and Psalm 23, is among the most famous and beloved poems in the scripture.  Whether it was written by Paul the Apostle or simply “borrowed” by him as an already well-known poem about Christ, we do not know.  But we do know that it is one of the most powerful statements in the scripture of what God chose to do both for us and for all humanity.

The poem divides into two relatively equal parts: verses 6-8 proclaiming Christ’s humiliation, and verses 9-11 celebrating his exaltation.  It begins “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”, and then launches into the poem.  The poem’s larger context (vss. 1-5) is on the importance of Christians being of the same mind with one another, and his recognition that one cannot have unity without humility.  That is, that which enables people to be united with each other and committed to the common good is their willingness not to be first nor to be always right.  He then, in essence, says, “That’s the way Jesus was.  And if humility was good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for us!”  To demonstrate the depth of humility that lay in Jesus, Paul then presents this poem.

“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (vss. 6-8).

Before the incarnation, Christ had both a “form” and a status equal to God.  The word “form” doesn’t mean that he is “like God” in appearance, but that he was divine – what centuries later the church fathers would call “God of Very God”.  But, though he was fully and totally God, Christ did not see that relationship as “something to be exploited” (or, in other translations, “grasped”).  Jesus was not trying to become God; he already was God.  But his love for humanity was so profound that he did not cling to his privilege of being God, “but emptied himself”.

Jesus relinquished his heavenly status, Paul is telling us, in order to return our world and humanity itself into the world as God intended it to be.  He “emptied” himself or “made himself nothing”, and he did so in three ways.

·        “Being born in human likeness” -- Christ becomes a human being, so that he is not just “similar to” other human beings, but is himself uniquely human as God created humanity to be (that is, before the Fall);

·        “taking the form of a slave” – Christ not only deprived himself of his exalted status to become a human being, but assumed the lowest possible human status – that of a slave;

·        “becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross”.  Not only was Christ, in becoming human, willing to face the reality of death that being human requires.  Christ was willing to submit to the Father’s will by both living a life of obedience, but carrying out that obedience in the death prescribed for disobedient and rebellious slaves – crucifixion!

"Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (vss. 9-11).

God’s grateful response to Christ’s commitment to and acting out of total obedience to him and love for humanity is that God exalts Christ.  He is restored to the glory he voluntarily relinquished so that humanity might be returned to society as God created humanity to be.  Humiliation is replaced with exaltation; obedience is replaced with glory; servanthood is replaced with power.  Christ’s very act of “emptying” himself becomes the means that makes humanity’s salvation possible and the world transformable.  Now, all humanity will bow the knee in homage to the servant-king.  All the systems and powers of the world and even of heaven and the underworld – political, economic or religious – will confess Jesus as Lord.  God will be glorified because Christ chose to “empty himself” and to take upon himself “the form of a slave”!   

Philippians 2:5-11 is a magnificent poem of the depth of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for the world.  And it is consequently the most powerful of examples in motivating each of us to act humbly as we seek to build the Body of Christ with our brother and sister Christians.  But why would this scripture be used as the epistle lesson in the lectionary for Palm Sunday?  Would it not be more appropriate to use it for Good Friday or even Maundy Thursday?

Not really!  It is most important to use it on the day we celebrate the Triumphal Entry of our Lord into Jerusalem.  And the reason why it is so important is to remind us that this entry was not for the purpose of bringing acclaim to Jesus or initiating the overthrow of Rome and of the Jewish clerical aristocracy.  If that were its purpose, then it had already miserably failed.

But that was not the purpose for the Triumphal Entry.  The purpose of that entry was to declare that Messiah had come – the Messiah who was not to be a conquering warlord but a humble monarch seeking to build a kingdom of shalom.  The purpose of that entry was to proclaim that it was the One for whom the stones cry out who was now entering Jerusalem -- the One who had come to stand with and for the poor and who was standing over against the systems, calling them to accountability and acting as their judge.  The purpose of that entry was to announce the coming of the Suffering Servant – the One who would suffer and be persecuted, be tortured and die both for the people and systems of Israel – and therefore the people and systems of the entire world. 

The purpose of that entry was to initiate the final week of Jesus’ life, as he moved relentlessly toward that humiliation when God-in-the-flesh would “become obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross”.  For the law of God is that the way up is down, the way to victory is the way of defeat and the death of the Almighty One becomes the means for the liberation of each person and system whom God would call!

(Copyright © 2007 by Partners in Urban Transformation)