The Great Procession

 

 

 

 

John: The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 

Matthew: When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage...

Mark: When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany...

Luke: When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives,

Matthew: Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them…

Mark: he sent two of his disciples and said to them…

Matthew, Mark and Luke: "Go into the village ahead of you,

Matthew: and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.

Mark: and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.

Matthew: If anyone says anything to you,  

Luke and Mark: If anyone asks you,

Choir and Mark: ‘Why are you untying it?’

Congregation and Luke: “Why are you doing this?”

Matthew and Luke: Just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.”

Mark: They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street.

John: His disciples did not understand these things at first; but…

Matthew: This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying:

John: As it is written:

Choir and Matthew: “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Congregation and John: “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

Mark: Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.

Matthew: They brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

Mark: Many people…

Congregation and Matthew: A very large crowd…

Matthew and Mark: spread their cloaks on the road,

Luke: As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.

Matthew: and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

Mark: and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.

Matthew: The crowds that went ahead of him

Mark: and those who followed were shouting:

John: They took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting: 

All: “Hosanna!”

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

All: “Hosanna!”

John: "— the King of Israel!”

All:  “Hosanna!”

Matthew: “…the Son of David!

All: “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Luke: As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

All: “Hosanna!”

Luke: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Matthew: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying,

Congregation: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Luke: Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Mark: Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple…

John: His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.

 

 

Reading the scripture dramatically can shed new light on an old, familiar story, don’t you think? I wonder what stood out for you in hearing it this time.   For me, it was the fact that 3 out of the 4 gospel writers talk about people spreading their cloaks out on the path of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem!   Luke’s gospel gives no mention to the palm branches, or branches of any kind. He does remind us though that all along Jesus’ route into Jerusalem, people kept spreading their cloaks. The church has for centuries, in hymnody and liturgy, opted to emphasize the palm waving on this, but what about these cloaks? Call my observations mere academic trivia if you will. But, in any drama, the props matter, do they not? Imagine Dorothy without her Ruby Slippers! Imagine Macbeth without his dagger! Imagine Tony Soprano behind the wheel of a Honda Civic instead of a souped-up Suburban!   Lest I get carried away, imagine Palm Sunday without the donkey, without the palms, and I would add, without the cloaks!   Especially in this drama, where Jesus himself is evoking an ancient script from Zechariah, the props matter greatly. 

The donkey, we know, is a prop. Processing into town on a donkey was Jesus’ way of communicating to the people that their long expected Messiah had arrived, that the King of all earthly kings, as it was written in the prophet, would be humble and peaceful, with no need for chariots or warhorses. Jesus’ chosen mode of transport becomes all the more dramatic when we realize that his procession was not the only one going on in town on that first Palm Sunday. 

New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan recently teamed up to write a fascinating account of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem. It’s called, The Last Week. In it, they tell us that “two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. One was a peasant procession; the other an imperial procession.  From the East, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives.” We know how this story goes. But apparently, “on the opposite side of the city, from the West, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea and Samarea, [also] entered Jerusalem [that day] at the head of a column of imperial calvary and soldiers. … Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s, the power of empire.” Borg and Crossan further describe the militaristic procession as “a visual panoply of imperial power: calvary on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.” Talk about props!

The peasants, on the other hand, used whatever they could to pave the way for their king – some branches removed trees and the very shirts off their backs.  In retrospect, we can imagine these different manners of political demonstration playing out from a bird’s eye view of Jerusalem, the dust clouds rising up and moving through the streets. The contrast is stunning, isn’t it? We can imagine the explosive tension building in the city as they each arrive in its heart. The question then as now is, which procession are we in? 

Elie Wiesel once said in an interview: “I think the Messianic concept, which is the Jewish offering to mankind, is a great victory. What does it mean? It means that history has a sense, a meaning, a direction; it goes somewhere, and necessarily in a good direction—the Messiah.”[1] It was just such a Messianic concept that would have been running through the minds of those Jews who chose to gather along the road from the West. The crowd was ripe with expectation. Could this really be the one? Our Lord and Savior? The Messiah that would give ultimate meaning and direction and purpose to our lives? The crowds began to sing and shout – Hosanna – which in Hebrew means “Save us, we pray!” When the crowd showed up on the road to the Mt. Olives and laid down the palms and their cloaks before Jesus then, it was their way of saying, “We believe in you! We accept you as our Messiah. You are the one who can save us from our oppression and give our lives meaning. You are one who can fulfill our dreams and make the dreams and visions of the prophets come true.” There was a great deal at stake in the laying down of these palms and cloaks. They were more than mere props. They were, for one thing, signs of great respect, the best the peasants could do to roll out the red carpet for this counter cultural, anti-establishment, anti-military, royalty. But it was more than respect for this authority of a decidedly different stripe.  

I ask you… can you imagine someone, a leader, for whom you would stand at the side of the road, take off your jacket and let them walk on it. Mind you, Jesus didn’t ask them to do this, and I doubt he would have felt especially comfortable with all the attention. A pound of costly oil on his feet in the privacy of a home was one thing, but this gesture was clearly more public. Not unlike last week’s story of the anointing though, this is another beautifully intimate act when you think about it - people willing to strip off a garment and expose themselves, not so much physically, but spiritually and emotionally. In addition to these gestures being signs of respect, they were also symbols of a painstaking hope. Tradition told them that what the Messiah would usher in was a once and future realm where there would be good news for the poor, release for the captives, where broken hearts would be mended, their beloved cities would be restored and ruled by justice and mercy instead of might. Think of how much most of our hearts are right now longing for real leadership in our country. Many of us, I know, can feel that longing in our very guts. We can assume the same was true in first century Palestine. What those folks lining the road did with their props of palms and cloaks that day was a calculated decision. They put their trust in Jesus and in what he heralded. They aligned their own particular hopes and dreams with the great hope and dream of God – for a world that knew peace, and wholeness. Shalom is the Hebrew word, and it’s far more than a greeting. It’s a state of individual and collective being.   They could have been on the other side of town.   

Friends, by joining the procession from Margaret Jewett Hall this morning, by waving our palms and shouting our Hosannas, we too have been engaging in a politically counter cultural act. Churches all around the world this morning are engaging in these liturgically staged political dramas to make clear our choice of which procession we are in. So far, we’ve joined the procession and waved our palms. But there is another prop we haven’t used yet. In front of you, you’ll find a few rags of clothing.   They are cut from the leftover cloth used in our Children’s Worship and Arts program. Near the end of the service, we’ll invite you forward to enact the gesture of laying this fabric down on a simple pathway we’ve created in our chancel.  Between now and then, I invite you to consider what is that particular longing in your guts, that hope against hope, which you are willing to add into the procession of God’s purpose. The Palm Sunday drama is for us an invitation to hang our gravest hopes on the line of God’s love, to lay our dreams down at the feet of Jesus, to hand over the illusions of power and control that we can fix our beat-up and broken world by our own efforts.   Though this Sunday should by all means be one of celebration, if we take its invitation seriously, it should also be one of utter vulnerability. When we lay down our garments, we should be laying our wounded souls bare, with an almost incomprehensible faith and trust in the power of God’s love and grace to make all things new. If we truly want Jesus to walk with us through this Holy Week, we need to prepare the way for God’s kingdom not only in the streets but in our own hearts.   If we are to turn and understand Christ’s message that the of Kingdom of God is within each and every one of us, then let us act our roles with grace and courage, and let us join the procession which proclaims the kingdom of God!     

 

 

Dan: Friends, we gather around this pathway that is laid out before us. We gather to prepare the way as much for Jesus as we do for our own entry into this Holy Week. This path on which Jesus walked, from which even the stones cried out, is the way of peace, the way of justice, the way of mercy. It is the way of God’s promise and purpose for our hearts and for our world.

 

Imagine now that what you hold in your hand is not only a piece of fabric, but part of the fabric of our spiritual lives. We are about to lay them down here as symbols of hope, emblems of respect, flags of our faith in the undying power of God’s healing love.    

 

Let us now revisit our story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. After this reading, we’ll take a few moments of silence for each of us to lay down our cloaks and place our faith, hope and trust in the pathway of God’s love, at the feet of Jesus who walks this way with us and for us. 

Mark: Many people…

Congregation and Matthew: A very large crowd…

Matthew and Mark: spread their cloaks on the road

Luke: As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road,

Matthew: and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

Matthew: The crowds that went ahead of him

Mark: and those who followed were shouting:

All:  “Hosanna!”

Congregation: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Mark: Then he entered Jerusalem...

 

 

Hymn: I Want Jesus to Walk with Me

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