Not a throne--a cross

Luke 19:29-44

            Throughout the Bible there is an ongoing tension around kings. Far back in the Old Testament you might remember that Israel had judges rather than political leaders. Then, after a time they complained until God gave them a king. First it was Saul, then David, then Solomon, others followed who are generally less well-known to us. Then, when the kingdom was toppled there were no more kings; instead, the people awaited a Messiah, who they assumed would come as a new David—a new king over the people of Israel.

            Today, we remember their coronation of Jesus as king. He comes into town on a donkey riding over the cloaks of people spread across the way. The people are cheering, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” The Pharisees don’t like this, of course, because they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, but you get the feeling that even the people who want to believe this Jesus is the Messiah are missing the point. This is a riotous crowd. How else to explain that this very same crowd—the very same people of Jerusalem—who cheer the entrance of the king on Sunday would be shouting “Crucify him!” five days later. This is the paradox of kingship in Israel: The people never know what they want.

            As it turns out, the “king” title is only fitting for Jesus for precisely the opposite reason that the people of Jerusalem were imagining. They thought Jesus was coming to fix their state through military, political rule. They looked for the defeat of the nations that surrounded them. They wanted an earthly home to call their own. They wanted a king to sit on a throne in the palace. Instead, they got a king who fixed their state of affairs not through politics but through self-sacrifice. Instead of defeating the nations around them they got a king who defeated sin itself. Instead of an earthly home to call their own they got a heavenly one. And instead of a king on a throne they got a king on a cross.

            The most human part of this is that even today many of us have days in our lives when we want exactly what Jerusalem wanted and not what Jesus was coming to give us. We want military, political right-hand power to defeat evil. Jesus gives us self-sacrificial, humble, left-hand power that accomplishes its tasks much more effectively but does not satisfy our quest for vengeance or karma.

            So we celebrate Palm Sunday, but do we know what we are celebrating? Are we all celebrating the same thing? Perhaps not.

            We love crowds, don’t we? When people come together to cheer for something it is electric, exhilarating. It almost doesn’t matter what the subject is: Sporting event, pep rally, political rally, protest, or even worship. There’s something in our human nature that connects with a crowd, even if the effect on the crowd can be disastrous. People who would never say a word against another person in public under normal circumstances find themselves screaming at umpires or politicians or the police. People who would never lift their voice normally will cheer without thinking for their favorite team. All of this is human nature. So it is that the same people who proclaim “Hosanna!” shout “Crucify!” How easy is it to discard people rather than to give ourselves that badly needed hard look in the mirror? Too often we will put our energy into whatever is convenient, expedient, and easy rather than what is worthwhile and hard. So it is that we take the one king we actually needed and nail him to a cross.

            Part of the issue stems from our poor understanding of who Jesus was in the first place. And I’m careful here to say “we” because these crowds in Jerusalem are not some group of people we can blame; they are you and me. We all crucified Christ and we do it again every day of our lives when we misunderstand or misuse Jesus for our own gain. The people wanted a king because a king would serve their own ends. A king would make them superior to their neighbors; a king would give them power. They were a relatively oppressed people under a brutal regime. They deserved power—or so they imagined. This is one of the problems with the systemic games we play. We elevate groups of individuals according to race or religion or social class or ethnic heritage or national affiliation and those new groups we lift up inevitably fall into the same practices of the previous rulers. It takes something radical to change the revolving door of power hungry despots. We need Jesus.

            This story of Palm Sunday is the same story that has been told countless times in innumerable situations in history up until the moment Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem. He walks in and is greeted like a hero like any king in any age. That all changes—everything changes—when he turns to Jerusalem and says, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (19:42). And he goes on to say that everything in Jerusalem will be lost because “you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” (19:44).

            The moment of his coronation is put aside because Jesus recognizes he does not need the kind of coronation that the people want. If they could only see the things that made for peace, then perhaps he could claim that throne. Instead, he must go to the throne the people actually need—the throne of the cross. We are members of the crowd because we too do not yet understand the things that make for peace. We too have our flaws, our selfish desires, and we too want Jesus to do things for us, to be what we want him to be. Jesus will not be controlled. As C.S. Lewis once famously wrote, “He is not a tame lion.” Jesus will forego the throne and set his face to the cross. 
             So, today is really the most awkward of all days in the church year, because here we stand in the wrong clothes for the wrong occasion wanting Jesus to be exactly the thing he is not. He is not a king like we want; he is exactly the king that we need. We might not get it, but Jesus has time for us. After all, by the end of the week the disciples still hadn’t gotten it either. So we wait and ponder and maybe, just maybe, things will start to get clearer. Jesus is king, just not the king we would choose.