Palm Sunday
Sunday, March 29
Liturgy of the Palms
Read: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Matthew 21:1-11
I’m not a fan of crowds. I’m sure some of you poor souls reading this are energized by the excitement and bustle, but reasonable people, like myself, much prefer being alone in the woods to feeling like a claustrophobic penguin waddling in line. I would certainly not feel comfortable in the crowd at Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, the crowds are not large; they are πλεῖστος (pleistos), very large. This is the first time Matthew uses pleistos. Earlier in the narrative, the crowds are small, quantifiable. As the story progresses, the crowd continues to grow, culminating in a grand gathering shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
“Hosanna!” is a glorious proclamation, one that rightly guides our Palm Sunday worship, but don’t lose the threat of danger in the text. As the crowds grow through Jesus’ teachings and healings, so does the danger to Jesus. Rome is no fan of very large crowds unless they are proclaiming the glory of the Emperor or jeering at their favorite gladiatorial blood-spilling. Very large crowds are dangerous because they are a threat to power; too big a crowd of the faithful could topple even the great Empire.
It’s not only the size of the crowd that keys us into the danger. Verse 10 tells us that the city was ἐσείσθη, which the NRSV translates as “turmoil.” I would argue that “turmoil” loses some of the poetry of the word. Ἐσείσθη suggests the city itself being stirred or shaken. This is not Agent 007’s martini recipe, but something closer to someone kicking a hornet’s nest. The city itself vibrates with energy and the potential for riot and revolution. That is what the Messiah is entering the gates to do, is it not? The answer is a resounding yes, but not in the way anyone expected.
Jesus is fully aware of the hornet’s nest he is riding toward, and fully aware of the expectations, needs, and desires of the crowd. The needs of an oppressed people under the Empire’s boot are so deep that only spilled blood could possibly satisfy them. Jesus’ eyes are wide open to the death he is choosing, and to the blood he will offer for the sake of the very crowd that will abandon him.
What a Savior, giving the crowd what they need, not what they think they need. What a Lord, choosing to walk into a city shaking with the potential for violence. What a King, humbly riding a donkey toward death. What a God, the same one we pray to this day.
Matthew will use ἐσείσθη again. When Jesus takes his last breath, the veil of the temple is torn, and the earth itself is ἐσείσθη, shaken. The city once shook with anticipation and violence, and the earth now shakes in grief and recognition. What the crowd could not see on Sunday, Creation itself understands on Friday. That contrast matters. It tells us something about how easily we mistake noise for faith and excitement for understanding. The crowd’s shaking comes from the expectation of what they hope Jesus will do. The earth’s shaking comes from recognition of who Jesus truly is.
We still wave palms and cry “Hosanna,” still pray for God to shake the things that threaten us or stand in our way. Palm Sunday gently presses us to ask whether we are prepared for the deeper shaking; the kind that exposes our hopes, unmasks our violence, and remakes us through love rather than force.
The God who rides into Jerusalem does not avoid the hornet’s nest. Our God enters it, knowing the cost. And if this is still the God we pray to today, the question is not whether the world will be shaken, but whether we are willing to be.
Prayer:
Dearest Jesus, thank you for loving us enough to not avoid the difficult things. Help us to live in ways that take courage during tough times for the sake of others. Amen.
Rhett Butler ’13 is Dean of the Chapel at Huntingdon College and an Elder in the Alabama-West Florida Annual Conference.
