Have you found yourself swept up in a moment, so caught up in all that’s going around you that you can’t help but join in?
We’d been following him around for days—weeks, even. And on that day when he marched into Jerusalem, there was no way we could stay away.
It had all started so innocuously. So innocent. It had all started when we heard of this teacher: the one who said such amazing things, the one who did such marvelous things that we couldn't help but go see him for ourselves.
Ours was a family dependent on the land for our livelihoods. As farmers, we tilled the soil, cared for it, fortified it. As each season came and passed, we tended the land, we planted seeds, we removed the big stones that rose up through the earth, stones that appearing as from nowhere. You can bet that these stones had been there since beginning,
Stones that had witnessed the dawning of Creation.
We knew the land, and I daresay the land knew us. Our family had tended these lands from time immemorial.
But when the invaders came, they didn’t care. When the invaders came, with their machinery and warhorses; When the invaders came with their pomp and parades; When the invaders came with their promises of peace and new beginnings,
we weren't sure what to say or what to do.
They ignored the peace that was already here, ready to supplant it with their own version. The Roman version. The version perfected by empires old and new.
Our community was one of relative peace. It was a community where, yeah, sure, there was disagreement, where people
talked, where people complained. It was imperfect. I know I was imperfect. But it was not a community at war.
When the invaders came, something shifted. Something turned. Something like we had never seen before. Over years and decades, as they fortified the cities, the whole way of life changed. Instead of trading the fruit of the land for services we needed, they came carrying coins, little pieces of metal with pictures of their powerful king, silver coins with an inscription
That claimed that he was—somehow—the Son of God. (as if!)
They traded these pieces of metal one with another for meat and vegetables goods and services. And slowly, ever so
slowly, our ways were made extinct. Our ways were made extinct until our customs, our relationships with one another and the land, our relationship with the soil and with our God were supplanted. They were put aside in favour of the new religion of acquisition, of consumption.
The powerful destructive religion of the one whose picture was upon the coin.
How many of our religious leaders resisted? Some did, of course, but many got caught up in the rising tide as the world began to change. Ever more of us were left behind, and nobody seemed to know what to do. Where before we had community, more and more we were left to fend for ourselves. That's the way of things with empires. They seek to divide you, weed you out, even as they call for unity.
And that’s where he comes in. That’s where Jesus comes in. Not yet entering Jerusalem. Not yet riding on a donkey. But wandering the countryside, with his group of friends. Meeting people. Talking to people. Hearing from us. Touching us. Healing us.
Telling the old stories, reminding us of the old stories, of the God who set us in a garden to tend and to till, of the God who brought us out of enslavement time and again. Telling the stories of the God who broke the chains of bondage, the God who sets an oppressed people free, and who would do it again.
God would do it again.
With all that we had lost. With our numbers decimated. With our communities fractured, I longed for a return to a community of interdependence and care. I longed for a return to a community reliant more on the Creator’s liberation, than whatever I might do for myself at another’s expense.
I longed for a return to a community not reliant on one leader to tell us what was what and how we should be and how we should worship, but on a community seeking to live in the way of shalom, in the way of peace–dare I say it—in the way of the God who is:
The God who is present even in the midst of the mess
The God who shows up in strange and wonderful ways
The God who speaks into the reality of our lives
The God who offers healing and comfort
The God who calls us back—as God often does–
To the threefold pattern
Of weeping, confession, and resistance.
Not that we do these things on our own. We do them with one another, and in the power of the God who shows up unexpectedly—always unexpectedly whether by fire or by cloud; whether by plague or loud trumpet blast; whether by burning bush or parted sea
The God who will not be contained.
The God who will not be controlled.
The God who will not be limited
By our imaginations, or our ability to see
Beyond what we currently see
I longed for a return. And when I heard of Jesus, of all that he said, of all that he did, of the stories he told of seeds scattered wide, of God’s kingdom as invasive species, of God’s love for even the prodigal child, I knew I had to go and find him.
I knew I had to see with my own eyes.
And that’s what brought me there that day to join the crowd. To see it for myself. And that’s when I got swept up in it all.
That’s when I took my knife and cut the branch of palm, and when he came through on that donkey, I too was waving my leaves in the air. I too was shouting Hosanna, Loud Hosanna. I too was over the moon with praise for this one I knew who had come to change everything, to make all things new, to set us free.
He said such amazing things, he did such amazing things, He told stories of a world our prophets had witnessed to years and years before—a world in which a lion would lay down with the lamb. He cast a vision of something that seemed so impossible on our own. And yet with God—with God and with God’s help—well that would be something else.
I have to be honest here. There were times along the way when his teaching seemed fanciful. When his teaching seemed, well, idealistic. I certainly found myself wondering from time to time whether he had thought this through, and how he was going to accomplish these things without a revolution. Without violence. Without force.
And yet on that day. In that moment, I put those doubts aside, standing in this crowds of strangers. Strangers, who like me, had been moved by his message, his presence, and his care, too.
As I stood there in that crowd, I overheard snippets of stories of people restored to life, to community. Of communities made whole as Jesus told the old stories anew, as he invited communities to find new ways to embrace those who we had previously shunned.
I heard stories of the ways in which new life was growing out of impossible places. And this, everyone said, was the power of God. And this power, this divine power, is a power that to this day, seems greater than anything I might ask. Greater than anything I might imagine.
As he rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of him, radiant in the sun. He looked tired, but kind. Defiant and Determined. But most of all, he looked out on each of us with a look of unexpected care and love. He looked upon us as if—even in the midst of the crowds—he was taking it all in. Taking us all in. Offering prayers for us. Giving thanks for this day. And blessing each and every one.
And in that moment, we lifted our voices on high. In that moment, swept up in a sea of gladness, I could not stop myself from yelling at the top of my lungs—Blessed are you! Blessed are you! Blessed are you, Jesus, my king!
Never before had such treasonous words been on my lips. Never before had I voiced this cry of my heart. Never before had I made such a spectacle of myself, declaring as sovereign, declaring as king, one who was not the king.
In this domain, there was no king but Caesar. And yet. And yet. And yet. There was no king I’d rather have than Jesus.
There was no-one who looked at me—at us—with greater love. There was no-one who saw the beauty in us as we are, not as we could be. There was no-one else who called us blessed and beloved and enough. There was no-one else who offered love and hope and belonging, reminding us that we are not people of the curse, but a people of blessing. That we are a people chosen from before the foundations of the world to extend that blessing to one another.
Those words still ring in my heart. They still ring in my mind. With each passing day, these are the desires of my heart. That the whole world know the compassion and care of the one who rode into town on a donkey that day.
Not like the rulers of the occupying force, but as one of us. One of the people. One of God’s beloved people, trampled for far too long by the invaders and their so-called peace. Their clever propaganda covering up the war machine that at every turn was trampling our fields and our communities. The war machine that at every turn was destroying our transportation centres and trading posts, all the while trampling our way of life, and taking all that it wanted, the meagre amount that we had, to line its coffers.
Projecting an illusion of fruitfulness. In their eyes, the blessing of the gods (that is, the blessing of the emperor) knew no bounds. But for some reason, whether due to wilful ignorance or Government propaganda, they never saw the cost. They never paid attention to those of us being killed. Those of us whose lives and livelihoods were being stolen.
On that day, there were religious leaders amongst us. I had hoped that they would catch the vision, that they would see where all of this is heading, and join their voices to ours.
But instead, they spoke up, trying to calm the crowd, trying to quiet us down, trying to take the wind out of our sails. Trying to quell the protest at the unfathomable harm being done to the most vulnerable. Instead of joining in and bearing witness to the peace that we only find in God, they tried to silence us.
And I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget what Jesus did next. He looked them in the eye and said, “if these people were silent, then the rocks would cry out.”
The statement seemed so strange, and yet in that moment, I believed.
In that moment I believed that the impossible could be. That the rocks on the side of the road, the stones in my field at home, that these stones who had seen all things from the dawning of God’s Creation dream would not hesitate to cry out.
They too would bear witness to this one, this Jesus, who rode into town, calling for a return to a life and a way of being in which all people, in which all of creation, as from the beginning, were called Good, and knew it deep, deep, deep in their bones.
