Palm Sunday
In the name of theFather and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bodies pressing together, shouting and clamoring in the heat of the day. The triumphal entry of Jesus to Jerusalem is underway, the Messiah has come, and the Roman occupation is to at last be overthrown!
The triumphal entry into Jerusalem is underway!
A person 2,000 years ago while reading the Gospel account would have noticed, as Dr. R. Alan Culpepper writes, striking similarities of this entrance procession towards the accounts of Alexander the Great’s entrance into Jerusalem, Antony’s entrance into Ephesus, and Titus’s entrance into Antioch.[1]
St. Matthew is making a very clear comparison between the authority of Jesus, and the worldly authority of the Roman Empire. But with a twist.
The riding on the donkey mirrors Jacob’s royal blessing of Judah in Genesis 49:10-11, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah… binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine…” Later in scripture, Solomon rides on a mule to be anointed as King of Israel (1 Kings 1:32-34).
The opening prophetic fulfillment cites Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9, where the King of Israel comes “humble and mounted on a donkey” to bring peace (Zech. 9:10).
The vision portrayed by the prophets and fulfilled in Christ is one of humility and peace-making.
Christ the bringer of peace and breaker of chains, Christ the humble one who comes to serve, not to be served. Christ who calls us friends.
We begin to see that the Kingship of Christ looks very different from the world’s understanding. We begin to understand what He means when He tells Pilate, in the Gospel of St. John, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” (John 18:36)
The irony is not lost on me that yesterday was the 3rd round of “No Kings” demonstrations across the country, and today we hold palm fronds and process like the people of Jerusalem did 2,000-some years ago, hailing Christ’s royal entry into Jerusalem.
We do not like Kings. Breaking away from kings is kind of an integral part of the history of the United States.
We also have good reason to be weary of associating Christ’s kingship with that of earthly power - which has, historically, gone very, very poorly and caused immense trauma, violence, oppression, and destruction over the centuries towards women, non-white peoples, queer peoples, indigenous persons under the helm of colonial Christian conquest, non-Christians… the list goes on. And on. And on.
It is yet one nail in the coffin which confirms the profound danger, and skepticism, we ought to have towards power, empire, unbridled authority, and state-sanctioned violence.
AND
The Kingship of Christ radically subverts, challenges, and critiques the ways of empire and kingship and the rulers of the world. The power of Christ is not, after all, seen in His conquest, but rather in his self-sacrifice.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Church in Philippi includes the kenotic prayer, which describes the self-emptying of Christ in His sacrifice, as the manner by which He is exalted above every name.
It is the kenosis, the self-emptying, of Christ through which we bear witness to what the Divine authority of Christ looks like.
An orthodox hymn captures this profound contrast beautifully, as the lyrics read:
“Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a Tree,
He who is King of the Angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in mocking purple.”
This is what the Kingship of Christ looks like, to the shame of a death-dealing, violence-wielding, gruesomely-dominating empire is.
To give oneself for the liberation of all.
For the salvation of all - both spiritual and physical.
And this is why the Kingship of Christ radically subverts the notions of the authorities, the powers, the principalities of the world.
To proclaim Christ is King, is to say that Caesar is not.
To proclaim Christ is King, is to say that the President is not.
To proclaim Christ is King is to say that the billionaire-class oligarchs are not.
To proclaim Christ as King is to proclaim that the worldly kings which
Wage ceaseless war
Murder the innocent
Decimate families
Kidnap the helpless
Pound the poor into the dust
Are precisely those who face most prominently the judgement of God, and are those we are called as, as emissaries of Christ, to stand up against.
To proclaim Christ is King, is to say that the death-dealing, terror-inducing, mechanisms of death and destruction we observe and experience do not, in fact, have the final say.
To proclaim Christ is King is to proclaim liberation to the oppressed.
Welcome to the shunned.
Peace to those racked by violence.
Freedom to the oppressed.
Life to the dead.
This is why the crowds cried out: Hosanna!
This is why we cry: Hosanna!
Because the authority of Christ rests not in domination and destruction and violence and murder and torture.
Jesus Christ subverts worldly power.
Jesus Christ extends his arms on the hard wood of the cross and carries the pain of the world within his wounded body.
And this is why the Kingship of Christ can not truly be taken up in the bloodied arms of armaments and bombs.
Nor in the frothing mouths and red-face vitriol of white Christian nationalism which runs so rampant in our nation as a profound perversion of the Gospel of Christ.
Nor in the economic systems which shackle humans to modern forms of slavery and decimate the environment.
Because Christ the King, triumphantly riding on a humble steed and Christ the Crucified, abandoned and destitute and forsaken and emptied, are one and the same.
So we cry alongside the people who witnessed the healing liberation offered by Christ 2,000 years ago:
blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!
Amen.
[1] R. Alan Culpepper, Matthew: A Commentary, from teh New Testament Library Ed. 1, 2021, pp. 500-502.