You Want a Revolution

 

Propers: Palm Sunday of the Passion, AD 2021 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

For the last 50 years or so, there has been a trend in Western scholarship to present Jesus as a failed revolutionary—the idea being that He was a zealot, whose primary aim was to drive the Roman Legions out of His native land and thus reëstablish national independence, a renewed and reunited Kingdom of Israel and Judah.

This notion of a revolutionary Jesus makes sense to us because this is how we’re trained to think: in terms of power and oppression, of the empire and the colonized. The irony is that the scholars in question honestly seem to think that they’re being modern and secular in their interpretation, when in reality they’re making the same mistake about Jesus that the Apostles did, that Judas did.

For indeed, Palm Sunday is all about revolution. But it’s the revolution we need, rather than the revolution we want.

Jesus, as you may well know, was born in a hotbed of unrest. For centuries the Judean people had been kicked around by one successive empire after another. The Babylonians scattered them to the winds. The Persians gathered them home. The Greeks tried to wipe them out altogether. Yet somehow, miraculously, the people of Judah survived, whereas countless other kingdoms around them were destroyed. And there are a number of reasons for this, for the eternal endurance of the Jewish people, but they all really boil down to one: faith, in the promise of God.

They were waiting for the Messiah, had been, really, for as long as anyone could remember. The prophets and the priests and the kings of old had all failed, yet the promise remained: that the Anointed One would come, the Messiah, the Christ. And He wouldn’t be like the rulers of old.

Isaiah promised that He would be a Suffering Servant, bringing forgiveness of sins. Jeremiah told of a New Covenant, not like the old one on Mount Sinai but eternal and internal for all people. Daniel proclaimed that a God would descend from the heavens, who would appear like a “Son of Man,” but who would prove in fact to be so much more.

And Daniel also started a countdown. Or at least his interpreters did. 490 years from the time of the prophecy, and the Messiah would arrive. 490 years, which places the coming of the Christ right about AD 30, when Jesus’ public ministry began. That’s why everyone, at the time of Jesus, was keeping lookout for the Christ. Could it be him, or maybe him, or maybe that guy over there? There would be claimants to the title both before Jesus and after Him. Many messiahs, only one of them true.

A few generations before Jesus, the Maccabees, a warlike clan of priests, had managed briefly to establish independence for Israel through fire and sword and blood. When they took back the Citadel in Jerusalem they waved palm fronds in victory. A few generations after Jesus, we would see the same thing again with Bar Kochba, the messianic “Son of the Star,” who would likewise lead a rebellion, and mint palm fronds on his coins. His revolution ended in a place called the Cave of Horrors.

In our Gospel readings today, Jesus has been preaching and healing and forgiving sins for three and a half long years. And now the secret’s out. Just before this Passover, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus raised a man from the dead not two miles from Jerusalem, before an assembled throng of mourners. And because of that miracle—and so much else that’s occurred—when Jesus rides into the city of Jerusalem, He is greeted as a King, as a Christ, as a revolutionary.

That’s what the palm fronds mean: revolution, independence, liberation. And it couldn’t come at a worse time for the ruling Roman Empire. It’s Passover, after all. Jerusalem has swelled to thrice its normal size, stuffed with pilgrims from around the world. And Passover is already a holiday that celebrates revolution. It’s all about God freeing slaves and leading them to the Promised Land. The Romans don’t want a riot, let alone an uprising; it’s bad for business. But to them Jesus is just another troublesome would-be messiah, and He’ll end like all the rest, badly.

Yet here Jesus does something rather clever, and rather dangerous: He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, which is the way that kings process in peace. A king coming to a city on a horse means war; a king riding upon a donkey means peace. So the crisis is averted, for now. The people don’t yet riot; the Roman’s don’t yet kill. But He still came in on a donkey, which means He still came in as a King. And that’ll have to be dealt with. That’ll be the death sentence from Rome.

They just need to take Him quietly, in the dark, away from the crowds. And for that they’ll need some inside information; they’ll need to know where He’s hiding. In other words, they need a traitor. And they’re willing to pay him in silver.

Everyone thinks that Jesus has come to fight. The crowds who welcome Him think it. The Romans and city authorities think it. Even the Apostles, the ones with the swords, think it. He’s a revolutionary, after all, and we all understand revolution. That’s why Judas betrays Him, you know: to make Him fight, to force His hand. And that’s why the crowds turn on Him, turn on a dime, so that the same city which welcomed Him as King will crucify Him for that just a few days later.

People love a hero, but they love to watch a hero fall even more. And if we can’t have a successful revolution, well, then, we’ll take a little spectacle instead.

Jesus didn’t come to start a war. He’ll defeat Rome alright, but not in the way we expect. His revolution has nothing to do with fire and sword and blood, and it will not be satisfied with liberating one people from merely earthly powers. Jesus is not the king we wanted, but He is the King we need. And soon all the powers, in heaven and in hell, will bow to the conquest of the Lamb who was slain.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.