On Palm Sunday, we almost always talk about the amazing turn of events that led Jesus to the cross. There was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem — which we remember by processing from outside into the church with palm branches. And then, almost in an instant, we turn from saying “Hosanna in the highest,” to “Crucify him,” as we read the Passion narrative. It is an incredible contrast to go from parades and adulation to crucifixion in a matter of minutes. But we do this to recollect what it must have been like for Jesus and His disciples, who experienced all of these things in just a matter of a few days. But what got Jesus to that point? What were the circumstances that caused all of this to happen?
First, there was the city itself. Historians believe that there were usually about 40,000 people living in Jerusalem at that time. But during the Passover festival, when the faithful Jews from around the area made their pilgrimage to the Temple, the population of the city could swell to over 200,000. Think about that for a minute. That would be like St. Joseph going from just under 1,000 people, to 5,000. A 500% population increase will always put a strain on the resources of a city. And resources being stretched thin will always create tension amongst city residents.
Then there was the Roman army. Rome usually stationed a cohort of soldiers in Jerusalem to keep the peace. A cohort was somewhere between 360 and 480 soldiers. So imagine being an ordinary Roman soldier stationed in Jerusalem. Not only were the language and customs of the local people strange and foreign to you, but there were only 480 of you to keep the peace among 600,000 people, most of whom hated your guts. There had to be more than a little tension among the soldiers. When you add to that, the fact that there were members of the Zealot political party running around trying to start riots so that the Romans would respond and the people could be led to rise up against them; the city was pretty much a tender box.
And the third part of this trinity of circumstances was the Temple authorities: the Pharisees, the Priests and the Scribes. Mark tells us that these folks had been watching Jesus pretty closely from the time He began His ministry, three years earlier. And He scared them. These men were the ultimate religious leaders of that day. As such, they had a great deal of power over the Jewish people. With power came wealth (or vice versa) and they had that as well. The Temple authorities saw Jesus as a charismatic rebel, capable of gathering huge crowds and then winning them over to His way of thinking. To those men, nothing was more dangerous than what Jesus represented — a world in which they were no longer necessary, much less exerting power. They desperately wanted Jesus dead, but Roman law had taken away their power to execute Him. For that, they needed the Romans. So they made a sort of unholy alliance with their sworn enemies, and called it something done for the good of all Jewish people.
And so it was that Jesus road into Jerusalem to crowds of adoring people proclaiming Him the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord, only thereafter to run into a power structure that was ready to remove Him from the scene because His very presence frightened them. But how did all of that translate into the crowds themselves turning against Jesus?
One simple answer is that the crowd that met Him when He came into town may not have been the same people who, a few days later, called for His execution. With 200,000 people in town, gathering a crowd would not have been difficult, and those who followed Jesus might well have gone into hiding when they heard of His arrest, leaving those who sided with the Temple authorities to stand outside the Governor’s palace and give voice to their desires. But there is a more disturbing possibility.
I think that the way Mark tells this story, shows that the author believed the two groups of people — those who yelled “Hosanna” and those who yelled “crucify him,” — to have been the same people. And that has implications for us all.
You see, whenever we profess to be followers of Jesus and then fail to do as He would do, we are, in a very real sense, showing that we too are members of both crowds. When we say that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and yet do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick and visit the shut-ins, we too are showing our tendency to live in both camps. And when we say that we support the ministries and good work done through our churches but do nothing to provide real support for them, we are likewise showing ourselves be on both sides of the fence.
Today we are faced with a slowing ending pandemic, an economy that is great for some and horrible for others; racial divisions that are even worse than our abysmal state of affairs; and political strife, the likes of which I have never — in almost 65 years on this planet — seen. In other words, there is a lot going on in our country that could define, divide, and destroy us. We should be looking up instead of down, looking up to Jesus for lessons on how to live, rather than looking down at this fallen world.
Jesus told us exactly how to live. He said to love God and love our neighbors — all of our neighbors — just as we love ourselves. But we, the “crowds” of humans in every city and town, just cannot seem to do it. Love God. Love neighbor. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But just get on social media, or watch television and you’ll see how bad we are about actually doing it. One minute we can hail a person or group as the “2nd coming” and the next we can verbally crucify them.
It is absolutely true that whenever we say one thing about our religious identity and then do something else, we are modern-day representatives of the crowds in the Passion story. But fortunately, that is not the end of the story. Because, as the faithful Centurion who stood at the foot of the cross said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” And for God’s Son, there can even be forgiveness of our unfaithfulness.
In the name of the God who was crucified for faithless people, Amen.
[Palm Sunday Sermon 032821, Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Mark 14:1-15:47]
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