SUNDAY: THE (NOT SO) TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

Over the next week I will write a brief blog each day to reflect on Holy Week up to Easter Sunday. Why am I doing this? To give you a way to spend time reflecting each day on the days leading up to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Each blog will have suggested reading and then a brief thought for the day. May you find this as one small way to center your heart and mind as we walk together toward the resurrection. 

Suggested Reading: Zechariah 9:9-13; John 12:12-19

We call today Palm Sunday. It is the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as people followed him shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Many refer Jesus’ entrance as “The Triumphal Entry.” However, for those surrounding Jesus it was anything but triumphal. In fact, it was a letdown.

Which naturally raises the question, “Why were the people let down?”

To answer that question we need to rewind the clock a bit to a time when Jerusalem was conquered by a king named Antiochus Epiphanes of the Seleucid Empire. After he sacked Jerusalem he went into the Temple, set up an idol of the god Apollo and, in worship to him, sacrificed a pig on the altar.

Antiochus then went on to set up temples for the worship of other gods in the land of Israel, and, to ensure the people of Israel worshipped his gods, he outlawed any and all forms of Jewish worship. To enforce these new laws he sent his military throughout Judea to make the people participate in ritual worship to his gods.

This all went well until one of Antiochus’ generals, named Apelles, went to the town of Modin. It was there he met a man named Mattathias who refused to participate in any rituals or perform any sacrifices. When one of Mattathias’ own people agreed to perform the sacrifice, Mattathias killed him and then turned the sword on Apelles and his men.

Mattathias and many who lived in Modin fled into the desert, and a war broke out. Mattathias’ son Judas fought against Antiochus and his army, made his way to Jerusalem, won the city back and restored the temple. The fighting to liberate the land continued for some time. Then 20 years later Simon, a brother to Judas, finally liberated the people of Israel and destroyed all forms of pagan worship.

And what do you do when you are finally victorious in battle? You celebrate.

History records the celebration saying, “… the Jews entered Jerusalem with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel” (1 Maccabees 13.51).

Now that we’ve rewound the clock a bit, let’s fast forward back to Jesus and his entrance into Jerusalem. The people of Israel were once again oppressed by a military super power - no longer Antiochus, but Caesar. Not the Seleucid Empire, but the Roman Empire.

The people longed for deliverance; they were desperate to be liberated once again. And then Jesus arrived on the scene. He and his disciples marched toward Jerusalem, and the people ”took palm branches and went out to meet him …” (John 12.13). And what was on their mind? A desire to see the enemy crushed and removed from Israel.

Amidst the cheers, the palm branches, the shouts, the arguments and the nerves of those anticipating war at any moment … Jesus wept for the city and for those walking beside him. No one could have ever guessed what would transpire that week. Jesus would not go down as a war hero. He would be remembered as a lamb that was led to the slaughter. The people who cheered him on that day would be left to wonder if Jesus really won anything. They expected Jesus to respond the way kings have always responded - with war and violence. He surprised everyone then, and he still surprises us today.

We must never forget the way of Jesus is not the way of the Empires – not then, not now. I suspect that just as people in Jerusalem on that day experienced a letdown we would too. My suspicion is that we would have been there waving the Palm Branches with everyone else with a lust for blood on our minds.

I say that, because in so many ways we still do this today. How often do we hold onto bitterness, anger and unforgiveness? How often do we wish ill on those who have wounded us or intend to do us harm? How often do we identify an enemy and wish the powers that be in our world would crush them and remove them?

For all those feelings we possess and struggle to let go of, may we simply remember this: Jesus wept for those who wished him ill. He wept because he wanted their best. He wept because he came to give them life and they wanted nothing to do with it. May this story be, for us, both a comfort and a challenge as we encounter the heart of Jesus, and may, like him, we weep for world.