March 28 -- Palm Sunday

This week's lectionary texts: Psalm 118:1-2 and 19-29, and Luke 19:28-40 or John 12:12-16.

Growing up Catholic, I remember spending one Palm Sunday gathering with the rest of the congregation in the parking lot of our church. Someone had started a huge bonfire on that chilly morning, and as we all huddled together, everyone was handed a palm frond. After some initial prayers, the priest then led us into the sanctuary, singing and waving our green leaves.

I have to confess that as a child, I was much more fascinated by the actual palms -- their bright colors, the way that you could peel off the edges into little strings -- than by their symbolism. Indeed, the whole story of Palm Sunday seemed strange to me: Jesus riding on a donkey? The residents of Jerusalem welcoming him with palm branches? It all sounded a little silly.

Now, the story of Palm Sunday still seems a bit strange, but in a different way. Namely, how could Jesus be so warmly welcomed one moment, and less than a week later have been sentenced to death, crucified, and resurrected?

This week's lectionary texts do not quite get at the question of how things took such a sudden turn. But they do offer reflection on the ways in which Jesus is continually portrayed as someone who upends expectations and changes our perspective on what it means to be powerful.

As the psalmist writes in Psalm 118, God is good; God's "steadfast love endures for ever" (Psalm 118:1). He offers a stirring image for entering into God's presence:

"Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it." (Psalm 118:19-20)

Paralleling the psalmist's words, John and Luke offer us their own interpretations of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. As Luke writes, two of the disciples are sent ahead to find a young colt and to bring it to Jesus for his entrance into the city. As he rode along, "people kept spreading their cloaks on the road," and the disciples "began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!'" (Luke 19:36-38).

While Luke omits any mention of palm branches, John writes that as Jesus entered the city, "a great crowd" appeared, taking "branches of palm trees and [going] out to meet him," shouting praises to the Lord (John 12:12-13). Here, John references the prophet Zechariah, explaining that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a young donkey to echo what had been written: "Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9).

Indeed, the texts we read this Palm Sunday are full of fascinating -- and sometimes unintuitive -- happenings. Jesus is the son of God, but he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey -- hardly the most noble of animals. He is welcomed with praise and excitement by the palm-carrying populace -- but condemned by them just days later. The psalmist seems to echo these seeming contradictions when he writes, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (Psalm 118:22).

Jesus is constantly causing us to readjust our expectations, to realize that things are not always what they seem. Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of praise, only to see his entire life upended just a few days later, we too may experience upheavals in our lives. Things can go from good to bad in an instant; they can just as quickly go from bad to good. Life is unpredictable, and the story of Palm Sunday shows that Jesus can empathize with us when things don't go as we expect them to.

The photograph above was taken in Mexico several years ago. I was sitting near a palm tree, when I noticed a tiny nest woven into the branches. Every few minutes, a little head would poke out and chirp, and, without fail, a bigger bird would eventually return with a new tidbit for its baby. This went on for at least an hour as I watched, totally transfixed. It was a beautiful example of the care of a parent for a child, much like God cares for us, even in the midst of confusion or uncertainty.

We all know what happens after Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem that day -- he will come face to face with his own death, a death advocated by the men and women who had just welcomed him with palms. How rapidly things changed. But through it all, God is constantly there, constantly caring for Jesus, as God constantly cares for us. As the psalmist simply and powerfully puts it, "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever" (Psalm 118:29).

Photo by the author.

Palm Sunday -- Seeing Zechariah in the Triumphal Entry

Passages: Matthew 21:1-11 and Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29. See also: Zechariah 9 and 14.

Jesus enters Jerusalem

Seeing Zechariah:

Today’s lectionary presents us with Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem in Matthew 21. In the passage, onlookers laying their cloaks and branches down in front of the donkeys shout “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” These words are found in our other lection for the day, Psalm 118. Also quoted in this passage is Zechariah 9.9: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” By quoting Zechariah, the Gospel of Matthew draws attention to the scripture, and close examination of the text reveals other parallels between Zechariah and the Triumphal Entry. So much so, that I would suggest adding Zechariah 9 or 14 to the lectionary for this week (today’s liturgy omits the Old Testament and Epistle lection).

Zechariah is a prophetic text written after the First Temple period, and is the main Hebrew scriptural source for Matthew’s narration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Zechariah means “Yahweh has remembered,” and can be seen as a reminder to continue traditions from the first Temple period into this new era. Zechariah, although presented as one text, is commonly broken up into 1 Zechariah (ch. 1-8) and 2 Zechariah (9-14). 1 Zechariah visions a future of peace and prosperity for Israel, with an emphasis on the role of the priestly order. 2 Zechariah, on the other hand, is disillusioned with this priestly order, and puts forth a vision of peace and prosperity established by Yahweh himself. It is fitting then that the Gospel of Matthew, which depicts the priestly order of the Pharisees as calculated and corrupt, quotes from the beginning of 2 Zechariah, when Yahweh rides into Jerusalem “righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9.9 NIV).

There are two other powerful allusions to 2 Zechariah in “Triumphal Entry.” According to Matthew, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem begins in “Bethpage on the Mount of Olives” (Mt. 21.1 NIV) the same place where the Lord arrives in Zechariah 14.4:“On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives” (NIV). Although not in our lectionary, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem climaxes with Jesus expelling traders from the temple and turning over the money-changers tables (Interestingly, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus visits the temple but takes no action, leaving and coming back later to “cleanse” the temple). This strongly echoes the final lines of 2 Zechariah: “And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite (or merchant) in the house of the LORD Almighty” (Zechariah 14.21).

The Gospel of Matthew goes to great lengths to demonstrate Jesus’ continuity with the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish tradition, and today’s lectionary is no exception. Perhaps most confusing – but quite interesting – is that Matthew adds another donkey to the processional. Jesus asks his disciples to bring him a donkey with her colt (offspring) and then mysteriously rides “them” into town. Mark, which was written before Matthew and most scholars agree that the author of Matthew had access to Mark when compiling the Gospel, only has one donkey. So do the Gospels of John and Luke. But Matthew adds an additional donkey, and then says that he sat on “them.” Unless Jesus was a larger man than depicted in every single painting of him ever painted, this is a physical impossibility. Why would Matthew complicate the processional like this, especially when he has a source that tells him there is only one donkey in the processional? We can’t know for sure, but the most likely answer is because Matthew interprets two donkeys present in Zechariah 9, and wants the entry to fulfill the Zechariah prophecy to the letter. While the thought of the author of Matthew “fudging” the text to make it better fit a prophecy may be somewhat distressing, it does show us exactly how important Zechariah and exhibiting Jesus’ continuity with Hebrew Scriptures is.

Some paintings of the scene based on Matthew have Jesus riding the mother donkey, with her child following nearby. This is one way to reconcile the impossibility of Jesus riding both donkeys simultaneously, but the ambiguity should alert us to the highly formative role 2 Zechariah plays in the formation of our Palm Sunday narrative.