Today is No Kings Day. Millions of people around the USA are gathering to protest the authoritarian moves that the Trump administration is taking.

I am not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. I’d like to stay out of politics, but that is impossible. Whenever three people are in the same room, politics happens. People have to interact with each other.

I painted this image today as my theological reflection on what seems to be happening amongst many in the church today. It is the perennial struggle of the church. We want to defeat evil by rising up in arms and forcing people to think and act like us.

Here’s the thing. You don’t defeat evil with evil. Jesus taught us that.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. Below are the images I will use for my sermon. I share them with you as a visual meditation.

Here is my understanding of the Good News. Jesus has already defeated sin and death. The battle is over. Our job is to love one another–everybody–as Christ loved us. Period.

Lord, have mercy. 

The people in Jerusalem were quoting Psalm 118:25-26 when Jesus rode into town. Hosanna means, “Save us, please!”

Question 1: Save us from what?

Question 2: How does a crowd go from “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD” on Sunday, to “Crucify him!” on Friday?

I think they were disappointed. They were looking for a Messiah who would be like King David, or the Maccabean revolt, and defeat the Roman Empire by force.

This is the church’s perennial struggle, ever since Constantine fused Christianity with the Roman Empire. We want to convert people by force. It led to the crusades, to the Inquisition, to the colonization of the Global South and the domination of Turtle Island.

Jesus didn’t play that game.

OK, it might not have actually been on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday like this, but, between Palm Sunday and his friend’s betrayal, Jesus did some shocking things.

First, he “cleansed” the temple by calling out the hypocrisy and corruption of the religious establishment in the Temple.

Second, he challenged the Law of Moses by reducing it to two commands: Love God, Love Neighbor. That’s it. And, oh yeah, give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s. We are really good at focusing on the wrong things that don’t really matter, like Temples, Control, and who is in and who is out. 

Third, he warned his disciples that the “end of the age” is coming. The Temple will be destroyed. The disciples will be persecuted. Everything is about to change, so be ready.

It seems to me that the refrain of the Biblical witness is that you can’t defeat evil with evil. As soon as God’s people behave like Empire, the cycle of violence simply repeats itself.

Jesus showed us another way.

He took the violence upon himself.

He defeated sin and death by forgiving it.

He took death over veneance and retribution

Jesus’ death was God’s “NO!” to the cycle of evil.

Many Christians today aren’t satisfied with Jesus’ message of love and freedom. They think it is “woke” or a sell-out to the world’s systems. They really, really want a KING JESUS who rides in on a war horse and destroys all that they consider evil.

So, they turn to Revelation 19 for the answer. Here we see a cosmic image of a king on a war horse.

Granted, all the freaky cosmic images of the Revelation are intentionally vague. There is no definitive interpretation. and that’s kinda the point.

However, when I look at the image I see irony. I see a play on the warrior king that gets flipped upside down. This king doesn’t wield an actual sword. It is coming out of his mouth. The sword is his words. 

The blood on his robe is his own, spilled before he shows up for “battle.”

Combine this image with the image of Revelation 5 where the one seated on the throne is not a mighty warlord. Rather, it is a lamb that had been slain and risen to life.

This is the victory of Jesus. He has defeated sin and death. God loves creation and goes to Hell and back to redeem it. We have been set free from sin and death so that we might be able to love our neighbor, even if they are technically our enemy.

LOVE WINS!

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 118:1, 29