Introduction

It’s normal for political revolutions to turn out very differently from the intentions of the people who initially join them. The French Revolutionaries promised liberty, equality, and brotherhood, but their movement ended in the reign of terror. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia promised free oppressed workers from the czarist nobility, but it just created a new oppressive elite to dominate the workers. The Iranian Revolution promised freedom from the Shaw’s repression, but devolved into a repressive theocracy. Not every revolution goes how the revolutionaries expect.

In the case of Palm Sunday, we see a Revolution (of sorts) happening. Like the others, this one is different than what its followers assume. It’s not because the leader is deceitful, but because the followers simply see what they want to see. Jesus had spent several years teaching about God’s Kingdom, but the crowd—and even Jesus’ disciples—hde failed to grasp how God’s kingdom was different from the kingdoms with which they have prior experience.

Jesus’ disciples assumed he was going to Jerusalem as the king who would defeat the Roman occupiers, turning Israel into a world power, like Rome, only on God’s side. But Jesus hasn’t come to replace Rome as the world’s new tyrant. Instead, he’s come to change the nature of what ruling looks like. It turns out, Jesus and his followers have very different ideas about what he came to do.

We can disdain the disciples for not ‘getting it,’ but it’s easier to misunderstand than we might assume. Christians today do it all the time. Too often, we welcome Jesus as the king who will enable our agenda, to inaugurate our kingdom, but he comes, instead, to inaugurate God’s kingdom. It turns out what we want and what God wants aren’t always the same (who knew?). To be his disciples, we must be submit to the new kind of kingdom. As he teaches us to pray: “Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I. The Kingdoms of This World

A. The Understandable Anger of the Jews

A revolution is about setting up a new kingdom, or empire. You might wonder why that would be appealing to the Jews. It seems like the Jews had had a negative experience with just about major empire in history. They were enslaved by the Egyptians. They were menaced by the Assyrian Empire, who exiled Israel and nearly conquered them. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, taking it’s people as exiles. Then there were Persians, Greeks and Romans. It seems every time they bumped up against an empire, it was a bad time.

When you’ve been serially victimized the way the Jews were, it would be easy to fantasize about reversing roles. And When you’re God’s people, it’s easy to assume those fantasies could become a reality. You might think to yourself, “Surely God wants us to be the ones calling the shots.” 

The Jews might look to their scriptures and conclude that God’s rule would look a lot like Rome’s. A surface reading of Psalm 2, one of the most obvious Messianic texts in the OT, might give us this impression It begins with: “Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one [Messiah] (Psalm 2:1–2 NLT)` The Psalm goes on to say:

The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today I have become your Father. Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots.’ ” Now then, you kings, act wisely! Be warned, you rulers of the earth! Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling. Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities— for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him! (Psalm 2:7–12 NLT)

God will give the Messiah the nations (sounds like an empire!). The Messiah will break them and smash them, and become angry and destroy those who refuse to submit. To those who have been oppressed, this is exactly what they want to hear. “We can’t wait until our king comes and smashes the clown Pontius Pilate and that pretender Tiberius Caesar who has the chutzpah to call himself Lord!” But is this what God’s revolution comes to do?

We have to remember that the Psalmist is describing God and his anointed one using analogies that come closest to his own experience. We use analogies to describe God, comparing him to a king, a father, a lover, or a warrior We have to understand that while any useful analogy tells us something important about who God, when we take it too literally, it breaks down.

Because God is unlike anyone or anything, any comparison we make to familiar things will always fall short. So God is like a king in that he has power and that we should give him allegiance, but he’s not like a king who is fallible and mortal, or whose authority is limited to a specific geographic realm. So The Messiah will be like a king, but not exactly. It’s only when the Messiah came, that he will show all the ways the analogies didn’t do him justice.

B. The Familiar use of Power

The Psalmist’s understanding of Messianic authority is grounded in his experience of what kings are like. All of the empires that oppressed the Jews sought to extend the power, wealth and prestige of the emperor. If Pharaoh or Caesar’s army conquered new lands, the emperor would have more subjects to tax and to compel into military service, which would allow him to conquer more territory. The logic of the empire is zero-sum.

The assumption is that power must always be about coercion and extraction. We might think its good power as long as the good guys wield it. It’s bad power when bad guys wield it. The problem is, that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are, in our minds, a matter of perspective. My people are the good people, while anyone who might conquer my people are bad people.

This is the same tribalism we see at work in our politics today. Whatever my tribe does to achieve power is good, or at least justifiable. Whatever their tribe does to wrest power from us is bad and unjustifiable. When we view the world this way, we quickly embrace absurd double-standards. 

It’s always easiest to see the mistakes of others. So, for an example, we could look across the border and see a stunning double-standard people used to evaluate the morality of their leaders. in the 90’s, Bill Clinton’s unseemly behaviour with an intern was inexcusable to those on one side, and a nothing-to-see-here for those on the other side. When Donald Trump came to power, and his own unseemly conduct became public knowledge, those who had said Bill Clinton wasn’t morally fit to be president on account of his dalliances suddenly said that character didn’t matter in presidents. While those who had defended Bill Clinton for his indiscretions thought Trump’s were disqualifying. Such is the logic of tribalism in the use of power.

Tribalism is on full display in the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week. The Jews are abuzz with hope that Jesus will come to do to the Romans the things they hate the Romans for doing to them.

C. The Hopes of Jewish Nationalists

The story comes at the culmination of Jesus’ ministry of healing, preaching and teaching that the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven, in Matthew’s telling) had come near. Jesus was saying God was about to start reigning, but those who heard him (including his own disciples) have incorrectly inferred what that would look like.

As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into the village over there,” he said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.” 

This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said, “Tell the people of Jerusalem, ‘Look, your King is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt.’ ”

The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. They brought the donkey and the colt to him and threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it. 

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in highest heaven!” 

The entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered (Matthew 21:1–10 NLT).

Before this, Jesus has been somewhat cagey about his identity as the Messiah. He’s warned people who he’s healed not to tell anyone what happened. When Peter finally articulates what everyone else has been thinking—that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s promised king—Jesus warns him to keep it a secret. That was then.

Now, by his actions, Jesus is openly proclaiming that he is the Messiah. Normal people didn’t ride into Jerusalem, they walked. Riding would be seen as a royal prerogative. And by choosing to ride in on a donkey, Jesus is enacting the prophet Zechariah’s vision of the king entering Jerusalem. This may seem like an obscure reference to us, but judging from the crowd’s response, the significance isn’t lost on them. Or at least some of it’s significance. Here’s the passage from Zechariah:

Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt. I will remove the battle chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem. I will destroy all the weapons used in battle, and your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth (Zechariah 9:9–10 NLT).

The passage does talk about the king entering Jerusalem, but the passage also describes the king entering in peace and humility, not as the mighty conqueror the crowd seems to hoping for. They see what they want to see, and fail to look deeper. The response of the people is an allusion to Psalm 118: “Please, Lord, please save us. [Hosanna] Please, Lord, please give us success. Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord (Psalm 118:25–26, NLT). This is also ironic because a few verses earlier, the Psalmist hints at the unexpected way God’s victory would happen. In verse 22, it says, “The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.” In other words, Jesus is God’s promised king entering Jerusalem to inaugurate God’s kingdom, but the manner of his victory isn’t something that the Psalmist who wrote Psalm 2 or the crowd properly understood. They thought they understood power, but Jesus shows them a different way of understanding it.

II. The Kingdom of God

A. A Parody of Earthly Power

In their 2006 book called The Last Week, biblical scholars Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan framed Jesus’ entry in a novel way. They pointed out that Pontius Pilate came to Jerusalem for the passover, and that because his official residence was at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, he would have entered Jerusalem from a gate on the west side of the city. He would have ridden in on a horse accompanied by cavalry and a large retinue of foot soldiers, an overwhelming show of force to discourage any would-be revolutionaries.

Jesus comes into the city from the Mount of Olives, the East side of the city, riding on a donkey. Jesus riding the donkey is both a fulfillment of prophecy while also being an intentional parody of Roman power. It’s a parody, mocking Roman power by expressing how in God’s kingdom power works differently.

Jesus enters Jerusalem like a king, but precedes to act in ways no king had ever acted before. Almost 200 years before, the priest-king Judas Maccabeus entered Jerusalem to people waving palm branches (sound familiar?). He cleansed the temple that had been desecrated by a pagan king so that sacrifices could be offered again. Jesus cleanses the temple by chasing out the money changers and animal vendors, stopping the sacrificial system. The crowd welcomed Jesus as the second coming of Judas Maccabeus, and instead Jesus kind of does the opposite.

Or they see Jesus as a new Caesar—their Caesar—But instead of putting to death the Roman occupiers, Jesus allows them to put him to death. In the process the Roman soldiers dress him up in royal robes, give him a crown of thorns and mockingly call him the King, a statement that is truer than they could possibly know because of their flawed assumptions about true power.

Jesus’ power works in such unexpected ways. In John’s gospel, Jesus explains this to Pilate: “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world”(John 18:36, NLT). His followers don’t defend him with violence because his kingdom is unlike every other kingdom the world has ever seen. It isn’t based on the same coercive power that functions as the currency of all the world’s other empires. This reminds us that when we claim Jesus is king, we have to remember, just like every other analogy we apply to God, how it falls short of fully describing him. 

Jesus is a king unlike any other. Most kings demand to be served, but Jesus comes to serve. Most kings would expect their people to sacrifice themselves for him, but Jesus instead gives himself for his people. When a new dynasty takes over, the new king typically kills his enemies, but this dynasty begins when Jesus saves his enemies. The kings of this world deliberately cultivate a sense of apartness from their subjects, creating a sense of mystique, but Jesus gives up what sets him apart, embracing the life of the poor and oppressed. When we think of Jesus as a king, we need to remember that in many important ways he doesn’t fit into the traditional kingly mold.

B. Living as People of an Alternative Kingdom

Because our King is different, as his subjects, our life together should also be different. This is why, for example, when Jesus is arrested, he forbids his followers from fighting back. Another way Jesus asks us to be different is that unlike the world’s kingdoms, we must eschew coercion When you feel like you have a righteous vision, it’s natural to conclude that spreading it by coercion is warranted. But not every vision people think is righteous actually is. The leaders of ISIS and the Bolsheviks were convinced that they were right and therefore justified in forcing their system on others. Even through Jesus is right, he doesn’t force his way onto others. 

God doesn’t coerce, He persuades. So it’s important to understand that as the church, our job isn’t to infiltrate the centres of power so that we can redirect that power to correspond to Jesus’ agenda. It isn’t to find ways of coercing people around us into making the ‘right’ decisions. Many peoples’ lives bear the scars of others trying to force them to do what they thought was right. Our job is not to force the change, instead its to embody the alternative.

The pressure is off of us. We don’t have to manipulate those outside the church into doing what we believe is right. We can just do what we believe is right, and when we do it together, we become an alternative community. Some examples: We can’t force people to honour their marriage commitments but we can model what staying committed to our spouses, even when its hard, looks like. We can’t stop people from treating outsiders badly, but we can choose to be a community that gives outsiders the respect they are due. We can’t stop people from being materialists and consumerists, but we can demonstrate what contentment looks like, and what it looks like when a community values relationships over possessions. The point isn’t to dominate, but to persuade.

When we are true to our calling to be an embodiment of an alternative community, some people won’t be interested (and there’s nothing we can do about that) but we might arouse the curiosity of others. They might wonder why we do it that way. They might see what we do and realize that’s what they want for themselves. Jesus doesn’t wag his finger, he just faithfully does what God asks and trusts that God will make that effective.

All the while we parody that world’s way of being a community. Powerful people like to be invited to dinner parties with other powerful people. But we come to a table where everyone is welcome. Powerful people have staffs to take care of their every need, but we are meant to be a community that demonstrates our greatness by serving one another. Powerful people might hold a grudge against those who opposed them, but we are meant to be a community committed to forgiveness and reconciliation. And when we parody the way the world does things, we demonstrate the wisdom of God who calls us to live differently.

Conclusion

So coming back to Palm Sunday, the crowd stood at the gates of Jerusalem, palm branches in hand, hearts full of expectation. They thought they were welcoming a revolution that would crush their enemies. They were right about the revolution… but wrong about everything else.

Because the revolution Jesus brings doesn’t run on the fuel of anger, coercion, or domination. It runs on something far stranger, and far more powerful: other-oriented, self-giving love. The crowd wanted Jesus to end Roman authority. But instead, Jesus came to end the authority of sin, death and hatred. The crowd wanted a king who would take lives to secure victory. Jesus is the king who gives his life to win it.

But this isn’t just about them; it’s also about us. Because it’s easy to welcome a king who fits our expectations. It’s much harder to welcome a king who redefines everything we think power is. It means that if we want to be part of this revolution, we don’t get to use the tools of the old kingdoms—coercion, tribalism, or domination—in pursuit of the agenda we think is right. Those are the worn-out instruments of a fading world.

Instead, we take up the practices of this new kingdom: We serve when it would be easier to demand. We forgive when it would be more satisfying to retaliate. We give when it would feel safer to keep. We welcome when it would be more comfortable to exclude. As we do, we often feel like we’re accomplishing nothing. And on an individual level that’s basically true. My efforts alone won’t change the world. But its not my job to change the world, any more than it is for a single revolutionary to topple a regime. A lot of revolutionaries working together under the leadership of a strategic leader can make the Revolution work (whether or not that’s a good thing).

A global church faithfully carrying out many individually insignificant acts under God’s all-knowing leadership, is what makes this revolution—the most important revolution—work. One life lived in this way is merely a curiosity. A community shaped by this way becomes a city on a hill. And slowly, patiently, persistently, God’s kingdom takes root not by overpowering the world, but by showing people the beauty of a kingdom they didn’t know they always wanted.

So this Holy Week, as we move toward the cross, we have to decide: Are we here for the revolution we want… or the revolution Jesus is actually bringing? Because he is still riding into our lives the same way he rode into Jerusalem, not with the thunder of warhorses, but with the quiet insistence of peace. We must receive him as he truly is, and not as we would wish him to be, then we won’t just wave branches at the parade, we will become the people of his kingdom. This is a new kind of revolution. It has already begun, and you’re invited to join.