Palm Sunday
I think I’ve talked about his before, but I have a broad taste in music. It comes from having grown up in a household where we were surrounded by all kinds of music. There were my Dad, with his passion for classical (especially the romantic period) and jazz of all kinds; My Mom, with her love for Johnny Mathis, Blues, R&B, and standards; And Bola, the exchange student from Gambia, who brought with him Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Fela Kuti.
As a result, my siblings and I all listen to an equally broad spectrum of music encompassing not only what we were exposed to as children, but also what we’ve discovered along the way due to the musical curiosity fostered in us at home.
It’s no surprise, then, that my kids also have a broad taste in music. And yet I was still surprised, some six or seven years ago (and pleasantly so, I might add), when I was in the car one day with Nora, our youngest. I asked her what she wanted to listen to, and she said, “How about the Rolling Stones?” And I said, “Sure! Go ahead and pick out something.” And I heard the London Bach Choir sing, “I saw her today at the reception…” The opening line to the classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. One of those songs that seems to do everything the Stones do so very well. “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find … you get what you need.”
The crowds on that Sunday in Jerusalem didn’t get what they wanted. Swept up in the excitement surrounding the itinerant preacher, teacher, and healer from Nazareth, they thought they had in their midst exactly what they wanted: someone who would lead a revolt against Rome. They praised God “for all the deeds of power that they had seen” and cried out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
That takes some real nerve, to shout “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord” when the iron-fisted Pilate was in the city with informants everywhere. Just to be clear, they were quoting Psalm 118, a royal psalm which comprises part of the collection of psalms (113-118) sung during Passover. But still! It certainly didn’t do anything to make Jesus any more palatable to the Roman authorities that they used this ancient blessing to hail him as “king.”
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” Now it just so happens that they were right! Just not in any way that they thought. Because Jesus doesn’t come with earthly power to overthrow an empire. King Jesus enters Jerusalem not as a conqueror, but as a servant. Clearly this is a disappointment to the crowds who praise him today, because by the end of the week they’re shouting, “Crucify him!!”
We find ourselves in a season where, once more, conflict is before us: this time in Ukraine. Our newsfeeds are filled with the images of destruction and death, refugees crowding onto trains and buses, trying to escape the brutal and unprovoked invasion of their country by Russia. And we cheer the bravery and resolve of President Zelensky and the army and ordinary citizens of Ukraine who are fighting against tyranny. But it’s hard to look at. The siege and bombardment of Mariupol—where citizens are without food, water, and fuel—is a stark example of where earthly power takes us. One man’s delusional bid to resurrect an empire long gone has led to the deaths of probably tens of thousands, many of them his own soldiers.
That anguished plea to Pharaoh by his advisers, after he has refused yet again to listen to Moses, rings true today, thousands of years later: “Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” (Exodus 10:7). No, Pharaoh does not understand. Vladimir Putin is using the same playbook used by despots for millennia. You can swap out the names if you want to but, in the end, they are all the same thing: agents of evil and death.
Pope Francis referred to Putin this week as a “potentate” who has unleashed terrible things: “From the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread. We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past. However, the icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all.”
The grim reality of war has engulfed the lives of millions of people, not just in Ukraine, of course, but in ongoing conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia... We had hoped that a conflict like the one in Europe, where the threat of nuclear weapons is real and terrifying, would never happen. Alas, it is the natural result of the sins of pride, overweening ambition, and greed.
At a time like this, as The Church, the Body of Christ, we must be willing to name a thing what it is, and we must hold out hope. Pope Francis went on to urge his listeners to pray and work for peace: “Now in the night of the war that is fallen upon humanity, let us not allow the dream of peace to fade.” On this Palm Sunday we, The Church, The Body of Christ on Earth, are called to speak of that dream of peace, to speak of the Prince of Peace.
This year, as every year, we begin Holy Week in praise of a king whose power is not that of tanks and fighter planes, drones and hypersonic missiles. This week, we see the power of God to do something that no army can do: to give life, not destroy it. To change hearts, not break them. And to destroy the power of sin and death once and for all.
The crowds in Jerusalem so long ago dreamed of victory and glory. To paraphrase the Rolling Stones, they didn’t get what they wanted, but they got what they needed. What they needed, what we still need, is a Savior. Yes, Jesus rides into Jerusalem to topple the powers that be. But those powers are not the Roman empire, or any other earthly empire for that matter. Later this week, Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
A few weeks ago, at Zion, one of their newest members approached me after the service and asked with keen anguish how we can make sense of the destruction in Ukraine. And my response was that it shows us that Evil, with a capital E, is very real. The powers that be, the old order of things that underlie all human empires, are sin and death and Satan. These are the enemy. These are the ancient and most potent enemies of the whole human race. Sin, death, and Satan, Evil if you will, have the power to break our hearts. They have the power to take our lives and the lives those we love. These are the enemies that are defeated, by God’s power, through Jesus’ death on a cross, and through his glorious resurrection, when God says the final “YES” to Jesus’ life and ministry.
A king enters the holy city of Jerusalem, humble and riding on a donkey. He has come to destroy the old order of things, to defeat the ancient enemies of humankind, but not in a way that anyone there expected. By God’s grace we are all called to tell the story of God’s marvelous power that confounds all human expectations. And may God’s blessing be upon you as you proclaim “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” (Philippians 2:9-11).
AMEN