Many times throughout his ministry, Jesus refused public recognition for his miracles and holy works. For example, after healing the deaf man in Mark chapter 7, the Lord orders the onlookers not to tell anyone about the miracle, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it. Another example, after his first public exorcism in the synagogue of Capernaum, Mark tells us that the Lord “warned them sternly not to make it known.” And another example, in John’s Gospel, after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, the people wanted to crown him king right then and there, but he withdrew into solitude.
Why did the Lord so often guard his Messianic identity and refuse public fanfare? Part of it had to do with the expectations of many of his fellow Jews. In those days, when you said the word Messiah, it conjured up the image of a political revolutionary who would overthrow Israel’s enemies through military force. Much of Israel was expecting a Messiah King to liberate the Jews from Roman domination. So the Lord distances himself from this political, earthly understanding of being Israel’s Messiah and refused efforts to make him King of Israel.
So how do we understand what happened on Palm Sunday? As we heard in our gospel at the beginning of mass today, the Lord allowed the people of Jerusalem to give him this kingly reception: waving palms, singing sacred hymns, laying down cloaks. Palms were the symbol of military victory.
Well, there is certainly some irony to all of this. Most of these people thought that the triumphal entry marked the beginning of the end for Rome. They likely imagined that this Nazorean carpenter would soon be meeting with other revolutionaries, planning the violent overthrow of Israel’s oppressors, beginning perhaps with Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor. But, the Lord enters the holy city in triumph, not to begin a military campaign, but to signal that the time had come for his campaign against sin and death
He is a king, but not the king they expected. He is the Messiah—the anointed one of God—but he has not come to carry out the violent overthrow of our political enemies, but to overthrow evil itself, by carrying our sins with him as he carried his cross, and allowing our sins to be crucified with him in his Passion and death.
This is why we proclaim both the gospel of the triumphal entry and the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday. You cannot have one without the other. The waving of palms is a misguided gesture if you believe Christianity is about establishing an earthly kingdom through any means necessary or that Jesus came to usher in some earthly utopia or some supreme form of temporal government. No. He has not come for that.
The Messiah goes to the cross for you and me and for all people of all places of all times to pay the price for our sins, to redeem our fallenness, without which there is no hope of heaven for anyone ever, no hope of reconciliation with God, no hope of eternal life.
Again, He is a Messiah and He is a King, but it is not on Palm Sunday that his identity as messiah is most manifest, his identity as king is most glorious. To those with eyes of faith, his procession through the streets of Jerusalem, bloodied and beaten, weak and on the verge of expiring, with the burden of our sins and the sins of the world on his shoulders, is more beautiful, and more glorious, than the palm Sunday entrance five days prior.
We sing Hosanna to Him because what he does on Good Friday. Hosanna, offered to a king, not as an earthly platitude or lip service, but as divine worship, in gratitude for our salvation.
He goes to the cross to make the humble, total immolation of himself for our salvation. And this week, we at least owe it to Him, to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on Him. These are the High Holy Days of our Christian Faith. These are the days where we are to pray with the greatest intensity, fast with the greatest intensity, to show our love, to show our respect, to show our gratitude, to our King reigns not from some earthly throne, but from the cross, to our Messiah who defeats evil not through military means, but through self-emptying humble obedience to God.
He gave all, he sacrificed all, he gave the best he had, for us. May we do the same for Him this week, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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