Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday B March 25, 2018
Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31: 9-19 Philippians 2:5-11 Mark 14:1-15:47
Lectionary Link
Today in the Palm Sunday event and in the reading of the Passion Gospel we can highlight two different crowds. The original crowd when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem might have been a very enthusiastic naïve crowd. Perhaps they were the country bumpkins from Galilee who came to Jerusalem for the Festival and they wanted to make the case for their favorite son Jesus of Nazareth. They perhaps were trying to send a message, not to the Roman surrogate authorities, but to the Jewish religious establishment who negotiated the terms of relationship of the Jews with the Roman authorities.
The Passion crowd in the trial of Jesus were a different crowd; they had a different agenda. It could be that they had a legitimate agenda. The Jews were not in control of Jerusalem, or their own homeland. The religious leaders had to negotiate the terms of their religious freedom with the local authorities who represented the Caesar of Rome. What did Rome do for Jerusalem? They financed the large public works projects in Jerusalem, including the temple complex. What did public works projects do? They provided jobs for lots of the populace. And Jesus was presented as an instigator who would upset this sensitive compromise that existed between the Jewish religious and political authorities and the Roman authorities. This crowd, therefore, did not cry, "Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." This crowd said, "He makes himself a king and so he is a threat to Caesar; and we have no king but Caesar, Crucify him!"
Yesterday, we experienced crowds of people who poured onto the public streets everywhere in our country and world in a March for Life. And as adults we perhaps are cynical about these naïve young kids sending a message to the adult world, "You need to do better in taking care of us and making us safe." The kids are saying to us, "You have failed to make us safe." There were kids who seemed to have resurrected from the killing floors of the Parkland Florida high school. They rose from among the bodies of their dead classmates with grief, anger, and resolve to send us adults a message about our failure.
The Passion Crowd who cried about Jesus, "Crucify him," were a savvy political crowd. Jesus represented the naïve idealism of the country folk who were forgotten and who wanted to be treated differently. Jesus represented people who wanted to know that God loved them and respected them and they wanted to know that the religious leaders loved and respected them too.
The savvy political crowd in Jerusalem saw the Jesus Movement to be a threat. And we find the collision between the naïve notion of being a king versus the real political notion of being a king. The early church is built upon the naïve and idealistic notion of what king is. The conflict between two notions of kingship is found in the two words used for king in the New Testament Greek language. Christos and basileus.
Christos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Meshiach, the word Messiah. Basileus is the Greek word for a great king like the Emperor Caesar or a lesser king like King Herod. Basileus is also the translation of the Hebrew word for king, Melek. King David was both a Melek and a Meshiach. He was a political king and a divinely anointed messiah.
When the Jewish religious and political authorities interrogated Jesus, they asked him if he were the Christos? Are you a Messiah type of king?
But when they presented Jesus to Herod and Pilate, they presented him, "not as Christos, Messiah King," but as a "basileus" king, one who would be a political threat to the Caesar. They presented Jesus as a pretender king who would be a threat to overthrow the Roman authority in Palestine. And this became the telling reason why the Roman's crucified him.
The Passion Story highlights the dichotomy between "Christos" and "Basileus." Frankly, the early church promoted Jesus in the more naïve notion of the "Christos" or Messiah king. The early church said the Messiah king was a "suffering servant king," the one who was written about in the prophet Isaiah.
What is it that made this naïve idealistic suffering servant king successful? The Roman Armies and the religious and political authorities in Jerusalem could not prevent the post resurrection reappearances of Jesus Christ to his followers. They killed Jesus out of this world but he was reborn in resurrected appearances to those who experienced and saw him a new way. Jesus, as this naïve country bumpkin idealistic Messiah king created a new experience of a parallel existence for people to know. All of this happen when the Caesar of Rome continued to be the basileus or king of the world.
Make no mistake, the Caesars of the world of money and power still have the visible control of our world, even though they sometimes can be shamed into doing the just and right thing. We hope that the cynical power and politics and the lobbying money that controls most all the political outcomes does not overcome the naïve hope and idealism of our children who are asking to be safer in our world. We hope that we can actually guilt the powers that be to do the right thing, even when they don't want to.
And on this Passion Sunday, let us remember to keep alive this idealistic hope of the suffering servant Christ, the king, on the Cross who reigns in a real parallel world of faith which can influence the real world of our politics and in our every day life in each of our local neighborhoods.
Let's believe in the suffering servant Christ, the king, who reigns from the cross, because not even Roman political power could prevent the Risen Christ from becoming known and experienced. But that's next week's story. And you all come back. Okay? Amen.
Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31: 9-19 Philippians 2:5-11 Mark 14:1-15:47
Lectionary Link
Today in the Palm Sunday event and in the reading of the Passion Gospel we can highlight two different crowds. The original crowd when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem might have been a very enthusiastic naïve crowd. Perhaps they were the country bumpkins from Galilee who came to Jerusalem for the Festival and they wanted to make the case for their favorite son Jesus of Nazareth. They perhaps were trying to send a message, not to the Roman surrogate authorities, but to the Jewish religious establishment who negotiated the terms of relationship of the Jews with the Roman authorities.
The Passion crowd in the trial of Jesus were a different crowd; they had a different agenda. It could be that they had a legitimate agenda. The Jews were not in control of Jerusalem, or their own homeland. The religious leaders had to negotiate the terms of their religious freedom with the local authorities who represented the Caesar of Rome. What did Rome do for Jerusalem? They financed the large public works projects in Jerusalem, including the temple complex. What did public works projects do? They provided jobs for lots of the populace. And Jesus was presented as an instigator who would upset this sensitive compromise that existed between the Jewish religious and political authorities and the Roman authorities. This crowd, therefore, did not cry, "Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." This crowd said, "He makes himself a king and so he is a threat to Caesar; and we have no king but Caesar, Crucify him!"
Yesterday, we experienced crowds of people who poured onto the public streets everywhere in our country and world in a March for Life. And as adults we perhaps are cynical about these naïve young kids sending a message to the adult world, "You need to do better in taking care of us and making us safe." The kids are saying to us, "You have failed to make us safe." There were kids who seemed to have resurrected from the killing floors of the Parkland Florida high school. They rose from among the bodies of their dead classmates with grief, anger, and resolve to send us adults a message about our failure.
The Passion Crowd who cried about Jesus, "Crucify him," were a savvy political crowd. Jesus represented the naïve idealism of the country folk who were forgotten and who wanted to be treated differently. Jesus represented people who wanted to know that God loved them and respected them and they wanted to know that the religious leaders loved and respected them too.
The savvy political crowd in Jerusalem saw the Jesus Movement to be a threat. And we find the collision between the naïve notion of being a king versus the real political notion of being a king. The early church is built upon the naïve and idealistic notion of what king is. The conflict between two notions of kingship is found in the two words used for king in the New Testament Greek language. Christos and basileus.
Christos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Meshiach, the word Messiah. Basileus is the Greek word for a great king like the Emperor Caesar or a lesser king like King Herod. Basileus is also the translation of the Hebrew word for king, Melek. King David was both a Melek and a Meshiach. He was a political king and a divinely anointed messiah.
When the Jewish religious and political authorities interrogated Jesus, they asked him if he were the Christos? Are you a Messiah type of king?
But when they presented Jesus to Herod and Pilate, they presented him, "not as Christos, Messiah King," but as a "basileus" king, one who would be a political threat to the Caesar. They presented Jesus as a pretender king who would be a threat to overthrow the Roman authority in Palestine. And this became the telling reason why the Roman's crucified him.
The Passion Story highlights the dichotomy between "Christos" and "Basileus." Frankly, the early church promoted Jesus in the more naïve notion of the "Christos" or Messiah king. The early church said the Messiah king was a "suffering servant king," the one who was written about in the prophet Isaiah.
What is it that made this naïve idealistic suffering servant king successful? The Roman Armies and the religious and political authorities in Jerusalem could not prevent the post resurrection reappearances of Jesus Christ to his followers. They killed Jesus out of this world but he was reborn in resurrected appearances to those who experienced and saw him a new way. Jesus, as this naïve country bumpkin idealistic Messiah king created a new experience of a parallel existence for people to know. All of this happen when the Caesar of Rome continued to be the basileus or king of the world.
Make no mistake, the Caesars of the world of money and power still have the visible control of our world, even though they sometimes can be shamed into doing the just and right thing. We hope that the cynical power and politics and the lobbying money that controls most all the political outcomes does not overcome the naïve hope and idealism of our children who are asking to be safer in our world. We hope that we can actually guilt the powers that be to do the right thing, even when they don't want to.
And on this Passion Sunday, let us remember to keep alive this idealistic hope of the suffering servant Christ, the king, on the Cross who reigns in a real parallel world of faith which can influence the real world of our politics and in our every day life in each of our local neighborhoods.
Let's believe in the suffering servant Christ, the king, who reigns from the cross, because not even Roman political power could prevent the Risen Christ from becoming known and experienced. But that's next week's story. And you all come back. Okay? Amen.
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