Millions of people around the world wave palm branches and sing a song including the word “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday. Christians have celebrated Palm Sunday, or the “Triumphal Entry,” of Jesus into Jerusalem for centuries.
We’ve also been trying to make sense out of it for centuries.
The image above had been rattling around in my head for a while. In the fall of 2022 I wrote about it in a week of devos for God Pause. A member of the Cartoonist Bible Network had been urging me to draw this for several weeks. Then our pastor, Jeff Marian, preached about it on Palm Sunday 2023. And finally, Diana Butler-Bass wrote this in her newsletter on Sunday in 2023,
In 2006, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg published The Last Week. The book begins with an unforgettable image:
“Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. . . One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mouth of Olives, cheered by his followers. . . On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial calvary and soldiers.
Jesus’s procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire.”
I’ve no idea how many thousands of sermons have been preached on this passage in the years since. In the last fifteen years, I’ve never not heard a Palm Sunday sermon allude to it, borrow the image, or quote it directly. The “two processions” have become nearly a commonplace in liturgical and liberal churches.
I couldn’t not draw this image. Let’s unpack it a bit.
All four Gospels tell the story of the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey. Some have the people waving branches, some don’t. Some have the people spreading out cloaks, other don’t. Three out of four have the people shout the word “Hosanna” which means “save us!”
The one thing all the Gospels writers include is this quote from Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.” Then they add some version of “The blessed and true king of Israel” (this phrase is not in Psalm 118).
What is going on?
Who do they think Jesus is? What do they think he is going to do?
The Gospel writers do not tell us about a parade that welcomed Pilate into Jerusalem. They do tell us that later in the week Jesus was brought before Pilate in Jerusalem to stand trial. It is very likely that Pilate rode in from the western city of Caesarea sometime that week. So, like Borg and Crossan speculated, there was probably a procession like this in the same week.
Two parades.
These two parades represent two ways humans imagine the reign of God on Earth.
The Romans believed that the Casear was the Son of God. Many Romans actually worshipped him as a god. Heralds of Caesar would march into town proclaiming, “Behold the Good News of Caesar. He has brought peace on earth. Hail Caesar! Caesar is Lord!”
The Romans believed that the only way to bring peace was to dominate everyone who was different than them. The driving theme of Empire is always, “Conform or die!”
When everyone conforms and pays homage to the Empire, then there is no more fighting. This is the peace of Rome.
The way to keep the peace is to build crosses and execute anyone who resists the Empire on them.
Behold the Cross-Builders.
Jesus embodies a different vision of how God reigns on the earth.
Jesus taught us that God is love (agape) and God’s love looks out for the good of ALL CREATION (not just humans). The chief commands of the Commonwealth of the Heavens are
- Love God with your whole heart/self, and
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus showed us God’s love by
- leading non-violent, love-motivated resistance to oppressive power structures, and
- standing in solidarity with those who are marginalized by the oppressive power structures.
The “true king” rides into the capital city on the back of a humble donkey, and stands with the oppressed.
Behold the Cross-Bearers.
I love how Tripp Fuller describes this in his book The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus. See my visual notes on Chapter 8.
Pastor Jeff concluded his sermon with a simple question, “Which parade will you follow?”
He was also very honest. The truth is that we oscilate between these two parades on a daily basis. The skin suit that I was given at birth unfairly makes me the recipient of all the privileges of Empire. I am a straight white male citizen of the USA with a PhD. The only thing I lack is uber wealth (praise God I don’t have that). It is easy for me to sit in blissful complacency, thus implicit complicity, while my marginalized siblings suffer.
Hosanna! Save me. Save us, Lord Jesus.
This is Holy Week. Millions of people around the world will walk through the events of Jesus’ final week. Below is a link to a resource page that has all my illustrations of Holy Week from all four Gospels. I pray that we will be reminded and reignited with the vision of this homeless rabbi–the embodiment of the Commonwealth of the Heavens, the true king–and learn to stand in solidarity with the cross-bearers of the world, and put an end to cross-building for good.
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