Self-Giving/ Palm Sunday 2025

You are the absolute best! I love you so much. I hate you. You are the worst. My youngest feels things in a very big way, and lately she undergoes feelings of love and dislike at opposite ends of the spectrum multiple times each day. It doesn’t take much for her to swing from love to contempt. Things can turn on a dime.

And I wonder, is Holy Week any different?

Today is Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday. In the lectionary, it is often written as palm/passion Sunday, almost as if one fades into the other quickly. As pastors, we are faced with a choice. Do we celebrate with the praise of hosannas or the passion in the crucifixion? Which is the more appropriate choice? Perhaps if we are honest with ourselves, we are a mixed bad landing somewhere between love and hate, caught between peace and the pursuit of power.

Luke’s gospel highlights this strange back and forth. While we don’t have hosannas and children here, we do have throngs of loud praises shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” This isn’t a quiet text. It is so loud that some Pharisees try to get Jesus to settle things down.

But Jesus isn’t phased and says that even if the parade were silent, even if there were no hosannas, no loud shouts, no songs of praise, and even if no one made a peep, the very stones would cry out in praise.

Speaking of crying out. Immediately after this, Jesus looks around at Jerusalem and begins to weep saying “if you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” The Message translates this as “If you had only recognized this day, and everything that was good for you!”

Things have taken a turn. One minute people are praising and the next Jesus is weeping. Can you imagine Jesus looking upon us and asking “What are the things that make for peace?”

Palm Sunday responds to this question with two different visions and two different parades, almost like a tale of two kings. At the time, Jerusalem was overcrowded with Jews who have made a pilgrimage to celebrate the Passover, to remember God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and hoping that God would deliver them again, this time from Roman occupation.

On one side of town from the west gate, there would have been a Roman military procession. This kind of procession or victory march would have followed successful (and likely violent) military exploits. The general would have led the procession on his war horse and would have been dressed in armor with his army behind him carrying their weapons. Lastly, prisoners of war would have been straggling along as a visible representation of spoils of war and a sign to any who might wish to speak against the Roman empire. People would gather along the sides to sing out and claim their leader as their savior. This is the kind of king portrayed in the parable prior to this passage. The parable of ten pounds portrays a king who is calculating and seeks revenge. The last sentence we hear before Jesus’s entry is the voice of this ruthless king saying “but as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them- bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.” This is peace by threat and power by force. This is a “I’ll send a battalion to kill your friends and family if you don’t kiss the ring” kind of king. This peace is that of Pax Romana, or Roman peace, the peace at the hands of the empire.

And then there is Jesus coming in through the east gate. No armor. No army. No weapons. No war horse. Just Jesus open and vulnerable, riding almost embarrassingly on a young donkey, probably looking oversized on it with his feet scraping the ground and his tunic dragging in the dirt. People throw down their cloaks and raise up their palms. Jesus’s entry fulfills the prophet Zechariah 9:9-10 which says “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be form sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” Kent McDougal says “He comes not on a tank but a tractor because he comes into his kingship peacefully and comes to bring a kingdom of peace. Zechariah reminds us that the kind of peace this king will bring will be of a different sort. It won’t be about building a more expensive or larger military but will demilitarize Jerusalem, allowing her to live up to her named destiny ‘Jeru-shalom,’ the City of Peace.”

Everyone was praising Jesus, but they thought Jesus was going to just be bigger and badder than Caesar, using Caesar’s means of war to produce peace. Fight fire with fire sort of thing. They were hoping Jesus would use the power of the empire to overthrow Rome. That was the only kind of power they knew. But Jesus held a different sort of power. Emerson Powery describes Jesus’s own “deeds of power” as dunamis kind of power. This is the Holy Spirit power behind all of Jesus’s ability to heal, to cast out demons, to raise from the dead, to turn water into wine, to restore and to redeem. The power of the empire will always be self-serving, but the power of the kingdom of God will always be self-giving.

Jim Harnish says the people “wanted a “strong man,” a bully, an authoritarian, a dictatorial leader who would bring down the government, run off the foreigners, and make their nation great again. But that wasn’t the Savior God sent.” Because that isn’t how God saves.

Jim Harnish says it best in talking about how God saves. He says “The peculiar story we tell this week demonstrates the way God saves, not through the exercise of loveless power, but through what appears to be powerless love. God saves, not through the myth of redemptive violence, but through the model of redemptive suffering. God saves, not by rearranging of the world’s political power players, but by a radical reorientation of the human heart. God saves, not by destroying those who oppose him, but by forgiving those who nailed his Son to a cross.  God saves, not by escaping death, but by going with us all the way to the grave.” The peace of Christ doesn’t give us a king who threatens us, but a God who loves us, even unto death. This is Pax Christi, the peace of Christ offered to the world.

William Carter tells the story of visiting a small chapel that sits halfway down the Mount of Olives. “It is called Dominus Flevit (Latin for “the Lord weeps”). It is the traditional location where Jesus wept over the city. Pilgrims gather there to share the Eucharist as they move toward Jerusalem. As they view a city still divided, with people of different faiths squabbling over the same real estate, they pass the bread to the words, “This is my body, broken for you.” Then they share the cup of wine, saying, “This is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins.” It is a moment to recall the great cost of reconciliation, as God sent Jesus into the world to bring all back to God’s powerful love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “The wish to have everything by one’s own power is false pride…”

At the end of the week, we will once again be faced with our own false pride. Holy Week reminds us that we were never capable of saving ourselves, and that only Christ can guide us to the things that make for peace.

So for now, let us ring out our Hosannas, crying “God, save us.”

Let us carry the banner of Pax Christi, the peace of Christ to a weary world that needs it.