Reading: Luke 19: 28-44
I noticed in the news this week that Harrison Ford is to make a new film in the Indiana Jones series. It’s scheduled for release in 2019.
If you’ve never seen any of them, Indiana Jones is an archaeologist, played by Harrison Ford. The basic plot is about searching for great historical objects. In the first one, for example, it was the Ark of the Covenant, from the Bible. Often he’s also trying to stop these objects falling into the wrong hands.
There have been four films in the series so far. The first three were set in the 1930s. In the third one, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he and his father, played by Sean Connery, set off to find the Holy Grail. The Grail is a cup of legend. It’s said to be the cup Jesus drank from at the last supper. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have collected some of the blood of Jesus in the Grail when he was placing Jesus’ body in the tomb (As you do!). In legend it is said to have great powers. For example, if you drink from it you will be eternally young.
Indiana Jones and his father try to reach the Grail before the Nazis. In the big scene at the end they are all in a chamber in which the Grail has been hidden for 700 years. It’s guarded by a Knight, who has been kept alive all that time by the power of the Grail. Indiana’s father has been shot and injured. Drinking from the Grail could save him.
But the real Grail is hidden amongst a number of fake grails. The Knight explains that they may have the Grail, but they must choose the correct one. But he warns them to choose wisely, for although the real Grail can bring life, a fake will destroy them.
One of the Nazis decides to choose. But he doesn’t know which to pick. A Nazi-sympathising archaeologist offers to help him, and hands him a golden chalice, which he gladly accepts. I mean, this has to be the right one. It’s more beautiful than he could possibly have imagined. It is, he says, truly the cup of a king.
But it’s a fake. As he drinks from it, he ages and dies on the spot.
Then Indiana Jones spots among the cups a humble, rough, plain, wooden chalice and says ‘this is the cup of a carpenter.’ He takes it to his Father, and, sure enough, it’s the right one, and his father is revived.
What’s any of that got to do with Palm Sunday?
The story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem and being cheered on as a king is one of the few stories about him that we get in all four of our Gospels. The precise details vary slightly, but it’s basically the same in all four. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt with the crowd of disciples joyfully praising God, shouting ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in Heaven and Glory in the Highest!’ In some crowds wave palm branches, or place palms in the path of the colt. I suppose it’s a bit like rolling out the red carpet for celebrities today.
As Matthew tells it, onlookers asked ‘who is this?’
Which is a reasonable enough question. If you were in that Westminster/Piccadilly/Mayfair area of central London and saw a great big car surrounded by security, maybe crowds lining the roads, perhaps even a few protesters, you’d probably ask the same thing. Who’s that?
Another reason it’s a good question is because the strange thing about Palm Sunday is that, for a brief moment, ahead of the dramatic and terrible events which we know will take place over the following Thursday and Friday, Jesus is celebrated for who he is…
…but it’s also a moment when he’s celebrated for who he is not.
They were welcoming him as a king. But Jesus was a very different type of king from what they were expecting or hoping. They were cheering him on for who they hoped he would be. But as events unfold it turns out that on their terms Jesus would disappoint.
This was a calculated, deliberate act by Jesus. Even without the palms and cheering he would have been noticed. Most Passover pilgrims arrived on foot. Deliberately choosing to ride the colt into town would have set him apart from those around him.
The scene contains echoes of another couple of episodes. In II Kings 9, when Jehu sets off to overthrow the house of Ahab and Jezebel, his followers spread their cloaks before him and declare him a king. When the last, great Jewish deliverer Simon Maccabaeus defeated pagan oppressors he rode into Jerusalem, to set up his Kingdom and was greeted with cheering, praising crowds and the waving of palm branches. If you think that’s just coincidence, the next thing Simon Maccabaeus’ did was cleanse the temple.
But there is a third echo of Jewish literature which both Matthew and John use to explain what’s happening. It’s found in 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.
That’s why they ask ‘who is this?’ rather than ‘what’s going on?’ They’d have guessed precisely what was happening, just as you and I would know what was happening if we saw the great big car, surrounded by security in Whitehall, even if we don’t know who it is.
They were right to cheer him on as a king.
But what kind of king?
And Luke offers us another little glimpse of why that question matters. The crowd were chanting about ‘peace in heaven’ yet as Jesus approaches Jerusalem he weeps and says ‘if only you’d known what would bring you peace, but you just won’t see it.’
Which brings me back to Indiana Jones and the choice of grails. A fake king would be as much use as a fake grail. To choose well, to allow Jesus to be the kind of King he came to be, that could bring life, to choose badly could be so destructive.
I have known this story for almost as long as I have been alive. But recently I stumbled on something that actually unlocked it slightly differently for me. It’s reckoned the events about which we read and which we’ll celebrate this event happened around AD30. We’re told that Jerusalem would have been really busy with all the pilgrims for the Passover season.
The story is sometimes called ‘The Triumphal Entry.’ But you know is on the Monday of that week you’d have asked someone if they saw ‘the triumphal entry’ into the city, chances are they would not have instantly thought you were talking about Jesus of Nazareth.
For it appears there were two such processions into Jerusalem that day. In some ways they looked similar, but they couldn’t have been more different.
According to Roman historians, on that day in AD30, from the West side of the city, Pontius Pilate led a procession of Roman cavalry and centurions into Jerusalem. (Source: Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan; The Last Week; Page 1) Pilate didn’t spend all his time in Jerusalem. He preferred the coastal Caesarea-by-the-Sea, to the stuffy Jewish capital. But Passover was a politically sensitive time and it made sense for him to be there.
It was Rome’s job to give you peace. They prided themselves on it. And you could have it simply by doing what they said. Of course you didn’t have to take it. There was an alternative. You could go to a cross…
Pilate’s procession was a display of strength. It was designed send a message and leave them in no doubt who was in charge in Jerusalem, and to stop them getting any ideas.
Then from the East side of the city came a very different procession. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. He’s greeted with cheers and hosannas. In one sense, as we seen, it had the echoes and trappings of royalty. But it painted a very different picture.
What kind of king is this?
It was true that the Zechariah prophecy declared that God would rescue them from their enemies. But it was a king who would come humbly, on a donkey. He comes not on a steed of war, but on a trundling, slow moving donkey.
The people were right to celebrate Jesus as a king. Not only was it far more true than they could possibly have imagined, it was the message he was intending them to hear. He was indeed offering himself to them as their king.
But he wasn’t offering himself as the kind of king they wanted. This was not just a challenge of ‘who’ was the true king. It was a challenge of how. Pilate’s way was to show your strength, your power. Jesus’ way was very different. Jesus was declaring that God’s rule is exercised very differently.
But was that the kind of king they wanted? True some of them thought they were siding with Jesus. But their model was all wrong. In reality they wanted him to be more like Pilate. To do for them what Rome did for their rulers. Make their lives better, overthrow the empire, turn the tables on Rome. This time they would be on top.
They basically wanted to be what they hated in everyone else. They wanted a king like Caesar. They wanted a peace like Caesar’s.
But Jesus wasn’t coming as that kind of king. It wasn’t the job he applied for. Jesus knew that Pilate’s way was about as likely to bring them the peace they longed for as a fake grail was to bring healing.
And Jesus wasn’t about to compromise.
Because Jesus hadn’t come to be the king they wanted.
He’d come to be the kind they needed.
And that was so much more.
On this Sunday, as we hold our palm crosses and we are invited to place ourselves in this story, it’s perhaps worth asking if we know, any more than they did what would bring us peace?
What kind of king do we want?
What kind of Christ?
And most importantly, at the back of it all… What kind of God do we worship?
You see we can read the story, we can revisit it year after year. We can hear the historical background and shake our heads and from a position of hindsight, knowing where it’s all going, we can wonder how on earth they could miss what was happening in front of their eyes?
But we too can come to Jesus with a whole mix of motives. We can want him for the comfort he brings, or because we have a problem we want him to sort out. We can want him for some feelings we want to gain, or some spiritual experiences we want to have.
I’m not saying that Jesus can’t be or won’t be some or even all of those things to our lives. Thankfully Jesus doesn’t wait for us to get it all right before he’ll accept us. In his grace, mercy – and his humility – he’ll welcome us as we start from those places and seek to lead us forward.
But in the end, they’re not the primary role Jesus wants to fill in your life. He offers himself as our king. Not necessarily the kind of king we want, but the kind of King we need.
He comes to bring us peace, but it might not look exactly as we imagine.
And whether we’ll embrace that kind of kingship is not always as straightforward a question as we might think. For at times his rule can feel very slow, like the plodding of a donkey. The kind of images Jesus uses to describe his kingship are like a bit of yeast working through dough, or like seeds growing. Ever tried to watch that happen?
Recently I’ve been reading a book called Falling Upward by a Franciscan called Richard Rohr. He speaks of the way God works in our in us and in our world as ‘a quiet, inner unfolding’ of things. But, he says, this seems to cause the most doubt and anxiety for many believers. We seem to prefer a ‘touch of the magic wand’ (Tinker Bell?) kind of God to a God who works secretly and humbly and who includes us in on the process on the conclusion.’ (Page 110).
The way of quick fixes was the way of Pilate, not the way of Jesus, not the way of God. They might seem so attractive, but it might not be what brings us life. In fact when we try to second guess God and take matters into our own hands, how often do we end up creating more problems than we solve?
Even when God’s plans for us do come to fruition it may not always be recognised for what it is. The mustard seed might grow into a great tree in which the birds of the air build their nests. But the birds would probably just have happily eaten the seed from which it came!
And that brings me on to another aspect. For this king doesn’t force his will on anyone. He can be rejected. And he so often is. For in so many ways that kind of Kingship feels weak.
A few years ago there a very big name American pastor who was challenging the gentle Jesus, meek and mild idea, but said ‘I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.’ Now I’m not a big fan of the gentle Jesus, meek and mild image either, at least not as we tend to hear it. But I did find myself wondering ‘why does this guy want to beat up anyone, let alone Jesus?’ To me that sounds like he wants a king more like Caesar than like Jesus.
And it totally misunderstands strength.
There’s a lot more life and strength in allowing yourself to be vulnerable, than in having all the power and all the answers.
One wonders how he copes with the Jesus we get. The Jesus so triumphantly celebrated on Sunday was crucified come Friday. His kingship was mocked both by his guards and in the sign placed above his head. As Isaiah had prophesied years before he offered his back to those who beat him, his cheeks to those who pulled out his beard. He looked into the eyes of those who mocked him and spat at him. The only throne this king of the Jews found was a cross. He looked defeated.
Yet in doing so, as Paul would later says ‘he had disarmed the powers and authorities, making a spectacle of them by the cross.’ (Colossians 2: 14) For Jesus shows in the cross and resurrection that everything they could do to him still wasn’t enough. In Christ God offered us more than even those who’d been with Jesus all along could have imagined. But that’s more the story for next week.
When Jesus offers us himself as our king, he calls us to place our trust in him and it’s not an offer to sort everything out for us. That’s not the kind of peace Jesus offers. Jesus hasn’t come to be the kind of king we want, but the kind of King we need. Jesus knows that kind of King has no more power to bring us life than a fake grail in an Indiana Jones film. Jesus knows the path that will save us and lead us to life.
Sooner or later, the path will take us through the dark times, the places we’d rather not be or rather not go. Sadly, faced with that so many give up on Jesus at that point. He’s let them down. He wasn’t who they thought he was.
Sadly they fail to realise Jesus came to be so much more.
For you know, if you’re prepared to go there, and if you’ll trust him with it, those are the places were healing can happen.
Those are the places were new life and resurrection become possible.
The hardest lessons can be the most painful ones to learn. I wish it wasn’t like that. It’s a cup we all beg to be spared. But it just seems to be how we’re wired. The road to life and resurrection, takes us through Good Friday.
When Jesus offers himself to us as our king, he never promised us that we would be spared the darkness, but calls us to trust him, to face it in the hope, the promise, the assurance of resurrection. Jesus is the one who knows what those things that will bring us peace. Not peace that the world can give us, or we can achieve in our own strength, but a peace that runs deeper in the knowledge that in all things we are held, we are loved. He knows how to get us there, for, as he told the disciples on the night of his arrest he has travelled that road before us, preparing the way. If we trust him and follow he will take us there too.
paper dolls 