Holy Fools
Scripture Reading: Mark 11:1-11
“Is the US on the Brink of Another Civil War?” asks an editorial on CNN’s website. “The Threat of Civil Breakdown Is Real” says an article on Politico. And from NPR: “Imagine Another Civil War, But This Time in Every State.”
Those aren’t simply histrionic headlines meant to garner clicks. According to a new national survey, 75% of respondents believe that the future of democracy is at stake in November’s presidential election.
More disturbing still, a growing percentage of Americans now believe that political violence is sometimes acceptable. While alarming, the growing acceptance of political violence is not exactly surprising. There has been an undeniable coarsening of our political discourse in recent years. It used to be that you never heard heckling during the State of the Union. Now it’s routine. And I fear that we’re becoming desensitized to rhetoric that not too long ago most of us would have found shocking and unacceptable. When migrants are described in dehumanizing terms, and political opponents are characterized as “vermin,” the violence implicit in such language can easily lead to real bloodshed.
On a lighter but still troubling note, political battle lines are even being drawn in the dating world. An article published last year in The Atlantic notes that “dating apps and websites report a growing share of users setting political criteria for matches.” According to a recent survey referenced in the article, two-thirds of young singles aged 18 to 30, liberal and conservative alike, would be reluctant to date someone of the opposing political view.
The crowds that line the streets leading into Jerusalem who are cheering and welcoming Jesus believe that their world is about to be turned—not upside down, but right-side up.
Nor has the church been a rock of refuge from the shifting political fault lines that quake below the surface of the culture. We have red churches and blue churches, and that animal so increasingly rare as to be on the verge of extinction, the purple church.
It’s easy to think that we are living in unprecedented times, or at least a time of such tumult and upheaval not seen since the 1960s, or perhaps even the 1860s. I wasn’t around for either of those eras. Therefore, so that we can all be on equal footing, let’s go back a bit further to a time even more volatile than our own—first-century Palestine.
After five weeks in the Old Testament we return to the New Testament today for Palm Sunday. I’m sure that many of you know the outline of the story. Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheering crowds and shouts of “Hosanna!” The crowds wave palm fronds to welcome Jesus as he rides through the streets on the back of a donkey. There’s a genuine excitement in the air.
In fact, it’s more than mere excitement. The atmosphere is less St. Patrick’s Day Parade and more revolutionary fervor. The crowds that line the streets leading into Jerusalem who are cheering and welcoming Jesus believe that their world is about to be turned—not upside down, but right-side up. They believe that they are in the presence of their deliverer, their savior. Their shouts of “Hosanna” literally translate as “Save us.”
Save us from the humiliation of living as subjects of Rome. Rome that taxes us to pay for the “pleasure” of living under Roman rule. Rome whose pagan gods are an affront to our religious sensibilities. Rome whose legions line our streets enforcing Roman rule at the point of sword and spear.
Let’s note that Jesus comes to Jerusalem, along with thousands of other Jewish pilgrims, for the Passover, the Jewish festival that commemorates the liberation of Israel from the hand of another oppressive regime, Egypt. Maybe, just maybe, some are thinking, God will deliver his people once more.
None of this is lost on Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who oversees Jerusalem and the surrounding region. As the face of Roman authority, what Pilate wants more than anything is to maintain order. He doesn’t want to see any trouble, no hint of uprising, no spark of disobedience that could flame into outright revolt. That’s why the hill outside Jerusalem is lined with crosses on which those who dared defy Rome spend their final agonizing hours, their grotesquely tortured bodies serving as a punishment to themselves and a warning to others.
Jesus, we should note, is keenly aware of the powder keg that he is parading into. Since he began his public ministry after his baptism in the Jordan River, everything has been leading to this…every parable he told, every healing he administered, and every exorcism he performed. All were leading to a final showdown in Jerusalem, as he had told his disciples several times. Jerusalem has always been the endpoint.
As Mark tells the story, we get a strong sense that Jesus is fully in control of events. Nothing is happening by chance. On the outskirts of Jerusalem, at Bethany, he sends two of the disciples on an errand to find a colt. He tells them exactly where they can find it, that it has never been ridden, and what they are to say to anyone who asks them what they are doing. Events then play out exactly as Jesus had foretold. The disciples find the colt, answer some bystanders as Jesus had directed them, and bring the colt to Jesus.
But why a colt? Why a donkey? A donkey is a working animal. Shouldn’t the heir of King David be mounted upon a regal stallion? That’s how Pilate would have entered the city. While Pilate governed Jerusalem, he didn’t live there. Jerusalem was far too hostile to Roman authority. All it would take to end his rule and even his life would be one especially zealous partisan with a bow and arrow and deadly aim.
That’s why Pilate lived in the seaside town of Caesarea, some sixty miles north of Jerusalem, a safe distance from would-be assassins. However, Pilate would come to Jerusalem for the Passover, not to worship, of course, but to make a show of force. He would come to Jerusalem on horseback, accompanied by Roman cavalry and row upon row of infantry fully armed for battle. The message conveyed would have been unmistakable: Challenge Rome at your own peril.
Pilate would have entered the city through the western gate, which was essentially the front door of Jerusalem. And at around the same time that Pilate was entering the city from the west, another party would have been approaching Jerusalem from the east. Jesus was coming to Jerusalem from Bethany, which lies to the east of Jerusalem, suggesting that he likely entered the city through the eastern gate, in effect, the back door.
Picture the scene. On one side of the city you have Pilate mounted upon his war horse accompanied by the full might of the Roman army, while on the opposite side you have Jesus perched upon a young donkey accompanied by his twelve disciples. The contrast could not be more dramatic!
The son of David doesn’t come to the holy city with an army but rather with arms that will be stretched out upon a Roman cross.
Again, this is by design. Jesus’s decision to enter Jerusalem riding a young donkey fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech. 9:9).
Jesus rides a young donkey, a humble working animal and a symbol of peace. But make no mistake. Jesus has come to do battle. He is fully prepared to enter into battle, only not with Rome but with the powers of sin and death.
This is the irony at the heart of the gospel. Jesus is indeed the savior of Israel. He is the heir of David. He is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. He is indeed the liberator of Israel, but not as the Romans feared nor as many Jews wanted. The son of David doesn’t come to the holy city with an army but rather with arms that will be stretched out upon a Roman cross. He doesn’t come to liberate Israel from Roman oppression but rather to liberate the world—Jew and Roman alike—from the tyrannical oppression of sin and death.
In other words, Jesus wasn’t the savior that anybody wanted, but he was absolutely the savior that the world needed. That goes for Jews, Romans, and everyone everywhere.
And let’s not kid ourselves. Jesus wasn’t even the savior that we wanted because we want a savior who looks and acts just like us. We want a savior who will punish our enemies, not die for them. We want a savior who will use his power for our good, not empty himself of power for some greater good. We want a savior who will fix things right here and right now, not in some heavenly hereafter. We want a savior whose kingdom is of this world. In short, we don’t want a crucified savior.
It is my contention that even those of us who identify as Christians are scandalized by the cross. The cross was a symbol of terror. Crucifixion was the most humiliating and horrific form of death ever devised. The condemned was first scourged and brutalized with a whip, then stripped of his clothing and his dignity, his extremities nailed to a wooden crossbeam, and his body hung as a public spectacle. Death was slow and agonizing and often came as a result of suffocation, when the victim no longer had the strength to arch his back in an attempt to fill his lungs with air.
My God, what abject weakness! What utter humiliation! The donkey-riding, crucified king! No wonder the Romans mocked Jesus by writing an inscription over him, “This is the king of the Jews.” No wonder his disciples fled from him as fast and as far as they could. What foolishness!
Indeed. Complete and utter foolishness as far as the world is concerned. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians: “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). To a world that glorifies winning, those willing to lose it all will necessarily appear foolish. Then I suppose, as followers of Jesus, that makes us holy fools. But what appears as foolishness to the world, to those who see with the eyes of faith, is nothing less than the power and the wisdom of God.