Palm Sunday

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus enters Jerusalem in time for the Passover festival. Passover is of huge importance to the Jewish faith. This festival recounts the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

God’s people had been suffering under the brutal reign of Pharaoh, oppressed through forced labor and violence. Eventually, Pharaoh even ordered all male babies to be killed.

The people cried to God for help, and God heard their cry. God sent Moses who spoke on behalf of the people. At first, Pharaoh was stubborn and unwilling to let his slaves go, but when one plague after another befell his land, he finally allowed the slaves to leave Egypt. Under the leadership of Moses, the people started their journey to the Promised Land.

But then Pharaoh changed his mind. He and his army went after the slaves. Suddenly, God’s people found themselves stuck between Pharaoh’s army on one side and the sea on the other. They thought they were lost. Yet God saved them: In an amazing show of power, God split the sea so that God’s people could cross to the other side. When the army pursued them, the water returned, and the army drowned. God’s people were saved, rescued, liberated, and on their way to the Promised Land.

This experience of the saving, liberating power of God stands at the core of Passover. It celebrates the might and covenant faithfulness of God who frees his children from slavery and oppression.

When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, God’s people are once again oppressed. This time it’s the Romans that make life hard for the Israelites. The Roman Empire controls all aspects of life in the Holy Land: economically, politically, and culturally. The vast majority of the population suffers. Taxes are so high that more and more farmers lose their land and slide into poverty.

The Romans know that they aren’t popular, and that resentment and rebellion are bubbling under the surface. Thus, if there is even a whiff of rebellion they act with swift brutality and arrest, torture, and crucify anyone who seems to resist them.

In that kind of atmosphere, the Passover story gains enormous meaning. Here are the people of God, exploited and brutalized by the Roman occupation. Now they are celebrating a feast that reminds everyone how God liberated his people before, and how God can do that again. Hope for liberation is in the air.

Since the temple in Jerusalem lies at the center of Jewish ritual life, many people travel to the city for Passover. Three times as many people as normal crowd the city streets.

Imagine the scene, then: an oppressed people longing for liberation; an authoritarian regime holding on to power with brutal violence; a city full of pilgrims for a festival that celebrates God’s power to set his people free. What an explosive situation.

This is the atmosphere Jesus enters when he rides into Jerusalem.

We can imagine what this must have looked like to the Romans: A man comes riding, surrounded by excited people who loudly cheer him, wave palm branches, and call him “king”. That smells like insurrection. No wonder the Pharisees urge Jesus to silence his disciples. This is dangerous. This entrance and this excitement of the crowds could be the spark that ignites the powder keg of tension in the city.

To the Romans, Jesus’ procession looks like rebellion. To the Pharisees, it will cause problems. To the crowds, it brings hope of freedom and redemption. But how about Jesus? What is Jesus trying to say with this entry into Jerusalem?

Today’s gospel reading begins with the words, “After he had said this”. What had Jesus said? He had told a parable about a king who exploits his servants and kills his enemies. Jesus tells this parable because, according to Luke, he was close to Jerusalem and because people thought the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. (Lk 19:11)

Jesus approaches the capitol city Jerusalem. People assume he is going there to challenge the political and religious powers and to establish the kingdom of God. In answer to these expectations, Jesus tells a story about a king who rules with power and might, brutality and oppression. As if Jesus is saying, “Is that what you imagine? That I would enter Jerusalem and kill my enemies? That’s how the rulers of this world act. Is that what you expect from me?”

And then he rides into Jerusalem, not on a war horse, but on a donkey which doesn’t even belong to him and which had not been broken in yet. He doesn’t have amazing saddle gear but just sits on his friends’ cloaks. All this refers to a text from the Prophet Zachariah who predicts a mild, humble king. Jesus is this king, the gospel tells us.

Who lines the roads? I had always imagined the whole city being there and welcoming Jesus with shouts of Hosanna. However, Luke doesn’t actually say that. According to our text this morning, those shouting and waving that day are the multitude of the disciples. It’s not the whole population of Jerusalem; it’s not all the pilgrims in town for Passover. No, it’s just Jesus’ disciples.

Those who greet Jesus with joy are those who have already met Jesus, have already heard from Jesus, have already experienced his healing power, have already internalized his message of God’s grace.

The city is crawling with people. In that crowd, most people probably don’t even notice Jesus entering Jerusalem. His disciples, though, they notice. They rejoice. They shout full hope and excitement. They wave their palm branches for joy.

The disciples shout, “Blessed is the king, who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” When was the last time peace and glory were proclaimed? At Jesus’ birth, when the heavenly host sing of it.

At Jesus’ birth, it was shepherds in the fields and wise men from the east who recognized in Jesus the source of peace. When Jesus enters Jerusalem, it is his disciples who recognize him as the humble king that brings peace and glory into the world.

Jesus’ peace is different than the peace people are familiar with. The famous ‘pax romana’, the peace of the Roman Empire, was not a real peace. Sure, there was no war. But that was the case only because the emperor’s power kept a lid on all resistance. The author Tacitus wrote at the time, “The Romans rob, slaughter, plunder – and they call that ‘empire’. Where they created desolation, they call it ‘peace’.”

The peace Jesus brings is different. It is God’s shalom. It is more than just the absence of war and violence. It is the well-being of all people. In God’s peace, all people can live freely and safely. Everyone strives to live in harmony with others and to make sure all have enough to eat and a roof over their heads.

How lovely it would be if we could experience that kind of peace! Who doesn’t long for a world where such a peace reigns?

In the news, we see images from Ukraine and Gaza. Terrible what is taking place there. The violence, the destruction, and the oppression remind us of the fate of God’s children under Pharaoh in Egypt and under the Roman Empire in Israel. Christians in Ukraine and Gaza are hoping with longing for the power of God to liberate them; for the peace Christ brings.

We have the same longing, right? We long for peace in our families, in our politics, in our workplaces, in our nation, in our world.

Today, we welcome Jesus. Today, we join the disciples along the road because we see something in Jesus not everyone sees. We are followers of Jesus who have experienced his love, his healing, his encouragement, his comfort, his guidance. We have learned that Jesus isn’t like other rulers. He will not just replace a brutal regime with his own.

Instead, he comes humbly and unarmed. He comes not to rule, but to serve. He doesn’t kill his enemies but rather suffers death himself. His peace is not being imposed with power from on high, but grows from below, whenever his disciples join Jesus’ procession; whenever we follow Jesus’ example and act humbly and reject power and serve our neighbors.

Every time we do that, God’s peace grows among us. Every time we do that, a child of God is liberated. Every time we do that, pharaohs and emperors and rulers lose a bit of their influence. Every time we do that, we help someone to shout joyfully, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” Amen.