“Kingly Blessings” Colchester Federated Church, April 13, 2025, Palm Sunday (Luke 19:28-40)

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday.  During this week, we walk with Jesus through some of the highest and lowest moments of his earthly life.  We travel with Jesus from this Palm Sunday processional to the Upper Room for the Last Supper.  We witness Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and giving them a new commandment—to love one another just as he had always loved them.  We go with Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane and witness the trials leading to his crucifixion on Good Friday.  We wait with grieving hearts on Holy Saturday, hoping for a miracle by Easter Sunday.  Every year we hear the old, old story.  Every year in our reflection and sharing as a Christian community, the old story becomes new once again.

The week begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  If we look carefully at how Luke tells the story, we may notice that palm branches are not even mentioned.  Instead, people spread their cloaks on the road before Jesus as he rides the colt down the Mount of Olives and up to the Temple as a sign of respect.  Jesus is welcomed with shouts of “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord.  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”[1]  Our Gospel story ends with some notes of fear that foreshadows events to come.  Because the story ends with the Pharisees complaining about the Palm Sunday parade by saying, “Teacher, scold your disciples!  Tell them to stop!”  Though Jesus answers, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.”[2]

After saying that even if the crowds were silent the stones would shout, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem.  Then he cleanses the Temple (the holiest place in the Holy City) by driving out those who had made God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers.  If we listen to what’s underneath the praise, we can feel the tension.  Jesus questioned the Temple sacrificial system and what it takes for a person to be righteous.  New Testament scholar Marcus Borg explained, “The effect of the purity system was to create a world with sharp social boundaries: between pure and impure, righteous and sinner, whole and not whole, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile.”[3]  Jesus waded into these religious and political questions that defined the times.  Jesus called for peace.

We can picture an excited crowd shouting, “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”[4]  To give the Pharisees some credit, there was understandable fear here.  Perhaps they worried that this moment was too political and the Roman Empire in all its military might would retaliate.  After all, the Romans were in Jerusalem in full force during Passover, and there was no disturbing the peace of Rome.  The crowds are shouting, “Blessings on the king” and “Hosanna!” in some versions of the Palm Sunday story.  One can imagine how this might sound to Roman ears.  Because “Hosanna” roughly translates as “save us.”  The crowd is calling Jesus the king and asking him to save them.

Many New Testament scholars understand this Palm Sunday parade to be political pageantry.  Jesus was defying the expectations people had of him as the Messiah who had come to save them.  Remember, one of the expectations that people had of the Messiah was that he would be the ancient version of a superhero, a supernatural figure who would come to secure the victory of the Jewish nation over its oppressors.  Others thought that the Messiah would be a powerful spokesperson from God, greater than Moses even!  Some believed that the Messiah would be a priestly leader who could provide authoritative interpretation of God’s law.  Finally, there was the belief that the Messiah would be a David-like king—a political leader who would again establish Israel as a sovereign state.  But no one thought the Messiah would suffer and die on a Roman cross.[5]  In some ways, Jesus’ followers have been trying to make sense of his life and death ever since.

Palm Sunday is one of those moments in our Christian tradition that can make us think about power.  Who has power and who doesn’t have power in the story?  What does power do to some people as we look at the world around us?  Power can be simply defined as the ability to direct or influence other people’s behavior or the course of events.  There are many kinds of power and places where power is wielded.  Power is employed in our government at all levels—local, state, national, and international.  There are power dynamics present in how companies are structured let alone the military where there are clear rankings of individuals who hold positions of power.  Think about the idea of the chain of command where authority flows from the top down.

Power dynamics are present in our families and in our interpersonal relationships.  We know that there is power present in institutions like religious organizations and educational institutions.  Just think of power dynamics when a student is sent by a teacher to the principal’s office for misbehaving.  And then parents get notified by the principal about the issue that has come to light with their child.  We can think of power when it comes to our society when we consider categories of human difference like race and class and gender and orientation and nationality and educational levels and so on.  Sometimes we may not consider the issue of power consciously, but every day we navigate a world where power dynamics are present.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus is declared to be the king who has come in the name of God.  The crowds are elated as he rides that colt down the Mount of Olives and up into the Temple.  Folks even lay their cloaks on the road before Jesus as a sign of respect.  If there was ever a time when Jesus could have orchestrated an armed revolution against the Roman Empire and overthrown the oppressors of his people, it might have been this day and this moment.  It would seem that even the possibility of this made some of the Pharisees understandably nervous.  Though Jesus finished the Palm Sunday processional by weeping over Jerusalem and saying, “If only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to peace.”[6]  This is a stunning moment in Jesus’ life and ministry. 

It would be the Apostle Paul who would one day reflect that “power is made perfect in weakness.”[7]  Sometimes in our lives we are in positions of power and sometimes we are not.  It matters how we understand power and it matters how we use our power.  It matters that as Christians we remember that we are following in the footsteps of the One declared the Prince of Peace.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Luke 19:38, CEB.
[2] Luke 19:39-40.
[3] Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, 52.
[4] Luke 19:38.
[5] Dr. Benjamin Valentine, Systematic Theology II, Andover Newton Theological School, Spring 2008.
[6] Luke 19:42.
[7] 2 Corinthians 12:9.

Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash