Competing Processionals

by Bob Setzer, Jr.
In their short but masterful work, The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan imagine two processions entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

The first was a peasant band, cheering wildly, as their champion rode into town for the Passover festival. John’s Gospel tells us the adoring crowds cut down palm fronds to make a carpet for their advancing king (John 12:3) The crowds cried, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” (Mark 11:9-10). The object of their affection sat astride his donkey, gaze fixed ahead, stoic and silent. As his admirers would soon learn,  he was indeed a king, but not the king they wanted or expected.

On the other side of Jerusalem, approaching from the west, was a regal Roman procession. Riding a white stallion at the head of a column of cavalry and foot soldiers, was the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. Ordinarily, Pilate stayed at his sumptuous palace in Caesarea by the Sea, 60 miles away on the Mediterranean. But during the most sacred of Jewish festivals, the Passover, the locals were apt to get up in arms, stirred by patriotic hopes of liberation. So Pilate came to town with his crack Roman troops, complete with their armor and state-of-the-art weaponry, to send a clear message: challenge Rome at the cost of your lives!

Thus, what Christian tradition dubbed “Palm Sunday” began with competing processionals: Pilate entering Jerusalem from the west with his banners and golden eagles held aloft; while on the east side of the city, Jesus descended from the Mount of Olives with his ragtag bunch of fickle followers in tow.

That these two processionals entered Jerusalem the same day, perhaps at the same hour, was no coincidence. Jesus carefully planned this moment, arranging to have his humble beast of burden at the ready (Mk 11:2-7). According to the prophets, this was the chosen mount of the One who would “command peace to the nations” (Zechariah 9:9-10). Thus, the festivity of Jesus’ Palm Sunday processional was hardly a spontaneous celebration. It was a carefully orchestrated challenge to the city of God, over which he wept (Luke 19:41), and also a challenge of the imperial claim that Caesar was divine, and that his rule was the only one that mattered.

In the end, Jesus died in a collision of his procession, his proclamation of the rule and reign of God above all, and the privilege and power of a corrupt religious establishment in bed with a cruel, ruthless empire. With triumphant glee, Jerusalem and Rome thought that was the end of this nettlesome rabbi from Nazareth. But even then, in the bowels of the earth, God was fomenting a revolution.