Sunday, April 5, 2009

Sermon: "Pilate's Procession vs. Jesus' Procession

Scripture: Mark 11: 1-11

Reverend Larry M. Gerber

It's Palm Sunday once again. On the first Palm Sunday Jesus was a huge hit with the crowds. Compare his popularity on that day with that of other prominent leaders, and Jesus wins hands down.

Jesus as a populist or popular person somehow doesn't seem to be what the gospel is all about. A generation ago, John Lennon of the Beatles thought Jesus was a popular fellow. But then in 1966, he infamously proclaimed that he and his Beatle mates were even "more popular than Jesus."

That claim, of course, set off a storm of protest in a then more conservative post-war United States. Problem was that whether you were looking at things from Lennon's perspective or from that of, say, the average churchgoer, there really wasn't a way to check the facts of the claim. Lennon was looking at packs of screaming fans every day, while churches were not exactly being overrun by hordes of teenagers rabidly wanting to be close to Jesus.

Lennon's comment, taken in context, was really more directed as a slap at Christianity than at Jesus himself. Lennon said that "Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.", but in the midst of all the hubbub nobody seemed to want to verify empirically if what he said was actually true or not.
 
In the midst of his comments to The London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966, Lennon also said, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right ...I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity." Well, according to Google Trends, Christianity and rock 'n' roll are both still around and, interestingly, running about dead even in search popularity some 40+ years later.

On the original Palm Sunday, however, there was no doubt about where Jesus was, at least among his followers. Coming up to Jerusalem from Jericho, Jesus and his disciples would have likely fallen in with hundreds of other pilgrims who would swell the population of the Holy City from about 40,000 to more than 200,000 for the celebration of the Passover feast. Passover was a time of celebration, but it was also a time of high tension in Jerusalem. While the festival celebrated liberation from the tyranny of Egypt generations before, first-century Israel was still under foreign domination. The Roman occupation of their homeland chafed at many Jews, tempering the joy that was supposed to be part of the festival. Riots and uprisings were fairly common during the Passover, so Rome made sure that there was a military presence during that week, garrisoning more troops at the Antonia Fortress, which overlooked the temple complex.

There were two processions at this particular Passover

If residents and visitors to Jerusalem had been able to get on online in those days and run their search engines they may have run some comparisons of their own. Two prominent theologians of our day, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book The Last Week, say that on that particular Sunday people in Jerusalem would have witnessed two processions, not one - the Pilate Procession and the Jesus Procession.

Pilate. The procession of Roman governor Pontius Pilate and his accompanying military force coming into the city from the west provided that military deterrent during the festival. Googling up Pilate would have yielded some disturbing results. According to the contemporary historian Josephus, when Pilate first brought Roman troops to Jerusalem from Caesarea some time earlier, he committed an unprecedented violation of Jewish sensibilities by allowing the troops to bring their military standards and busts of the emperor into Jerusalem by night and set them up in the temple. A massive protest demonstration in Caesarea's stadium forced the removal of the standards, but only after the Jews used tactics of nonviolent mass resistance, lying down and baring their necks when Pilate's soldiers, swords in hand, surrounded and attempted to disperse them. Josephus also speaks of protests that broke out on another occasion when Pilate appropriated temple funds to build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. On this occasion, Pilate had Roman soldiers, dressed as Jewish civilians and armed with hidden clubs, mingle with the shouting crowd and attack the people at a prearranged signal. Many were killed or hurt. Pilate would certainly have had a lot of search hits, but he was not at all popular.

Jesus. On the east side of the city, though, another parade was being planned and the Bethany bloggers would have no doubt been burning up the bandwidth in reporting the arrival of one who would hopefully be a different kind of ruler. Jesus sent his disciples to get a colt, which we assume was a small donkey (Mark isn't specific). When the colt has been secured, Jesus rides it down the steep road from the Mount of Olives, across the Kidran Valley, to the Golden Gate of the city, with a crowd of his supporters shouting "Hosanna!" - a Hebrew word that mixes praise to God with a prayer that God will save his people and do it soon. They spread their cloaks on the colt and cut branches from the surrounding fields - actions that were done only in the presence of royalty. On that day and for those who were with him, Jesus was maxing out on the trend chart.

When we're waving those palm branches around on Sunday morning, one of the things we have to be careful not to miss is that Jesus was intentionally setting up a comparison between the violent and powerful trend of the empire and the peaceful and grace-filled trend of the kingdom of God. Borg and Crossan see the Palm Sunday parade as a kind of pre-planned political protest, and a look at the context seems to back that up. The symbolism of a ruler riding on a donkey would not have been lost on those putting their cloaks in the road, for they would have remembered the words of the prophet Zechariah: an image of a king coming into Jerusalem with shouts of joy from the people. He is "triumphant" and "victorious" - words that Romans and other imperial leaders would have embraced - but he is "humble" and rides on a donkey instead of a war horse (Zechariah 9:9). In fact, continues the prophet, "He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem." This king is not a conquering hero who uses weapons of mass destruction, but one who will break the power of military might with humility, justice and a "peace" for all the nations (Zechariah 9:10).

Jesus' parade is thus an intentional parable and statement of contrast. If Pilate's procession embodied power, violence and the glory of the empire that ruled the world, Jesus' procession embodied the kind of kingdom that God was ushering in through Jesus' ministry of healing, his message of good news and, ultimately, his sacrificial death on a Roman cross.

Pilate and the empire he represented were the most powerful force in the region on that Sunday, but Google up "Jesus" and "Roman Empire" today and it's not even close. Jesus wins in a landslide.

The rest of Holy Week really comes down to a continued struggle for popularity. Jesus has it on Sunday but, in Mark's time line, on Monday he turns over the tables in the temple and takes a serious dip, at least among the religious elite. His verbal sparring with the Pharisees and temple officials had him charting well with the people and led the religious leaders to look for a covert way to bring him down (Mark 11:18; 12:12). "Jesus" vs. "Pharisees" is, again, no contest when it comes to trends. It's no wonder they were bent on getting rid of him.

The bigger contrast, though, and the one that we should be addressing on Palm Sunday is the clash of world views represented in the text - world views that are still at odds. The empire's world view of status, power, military might and coercion is as present and dominant in today's world as it was then. So is the desire for comfort, security, self-interest and wealth, particularly in American culture. Trend out "Kingdom of God" vs. "American Dream" and the kingdom loses big time. We may admire Jesus, but we're not necessarily ready to follow him down that road of suffering, sacrifice and servanthood that ultimately leads to the redemption of the world. As if to underscore the point, the traditional route Jesus took down the Mount of Olives went through the Kidran Valley, through an ancient cemetery, as it still does today - a stark reminder of where this particular parade will lead.

Some of those same folks who were waving branches on Sunday were gone by Friday, having abandoned Jesus to the powers of the temple and the empire. They read the trends and chose self-preservation over the way of Jesus. The question we have to ask on Palm Sunday is whether we do the same thing when following Christ becomes inconvenient at best or, at worst, seemingly impossible. Following Jesus often means sharing his unpopularity, be it at school, in the workplace or even at home.

What we have to remember, though, is that Jesus was looking to trend the whole world upward, bringing hope and wholeness through his obedience and submission to God. After all, as Paul tells us, in the end everyone will acknowledge him as the ultimate chart-topper (Philippians 2:10-11).

Our procession on Palm Sunday, throughout Christiandom, is a celebration of the humble servant, a reminder of what Jesus did for us. We still turn out in throngs to witness Palm Sunday, but what do we do the rest of the week? Do we go to dark Gethsemene? Do we walk with Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem? Do we follow him to the trial? Do we walk the path of tears to Golgatha? Do we witness his death on the cross? Or do we sleep through Holy Week and awaken to Easter Sunday when we shout: He is Risen!!"

Walk with us this week as we go to the Lord's Table on Thursday, either at 1 p.m. or 7 p.m. Sit at the table with your Lord and listen to the twelve as they talk about that Last Supper. Sit at the Table of the Lord and be served and then walk away humbled at what he did for you and for me. Then come Friday afternoon at 3:30 and listen to the choir as they bring us "The Stations of the Cross." Walk away, with a nail in your hand, into the silence of the night. Then go home in humble adoration and await the Easter Celebration by attending worship Saturday evening at 4:50 or Sunday morning at 7, 9, or 10:45.

Let us pray as we prepare to break bread with our Lord?

Sources:

Borg, Marcus, and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006.

Cleave, Maureen. "How does a Beatle live? John Lennon lives like this." The London Evening Standard, March 4, 1966. Reprinted on About.com Web Site. Viewed October 6, 2008.

Google Trends, google.com/trends.