Sermon for Palm Sunday 2025
Preached by Canon Sue Gillingham in St Barnabas Jericho
Readings:
Isaiah 50:4-9; Phil 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40 & Matthew 27
The year is 33CE, and the month is Nisan, and we return in our mind’s eye to the first day of Passover week, later known as Palm Sunday. Pontius Pilate, fifth Governor of the Roman Province of Idumea, Judea and Samaria, has just travelled by horseback some sixty miles from his seaside residence in Caesarea to the Antonia Fortress in Jerusalem. Pilgrims to Jerusalem at Passover time had created many tensions for Pilate, who knew the Jewish people despised him: they had protested violently, for five days, when he’d taken the imperial standards bearing Caesar’s image into Herod’s Palace. They’d similarly protested when he’d used the Temple treasury to pay for the new aqueduct to Jerusalem: both times, his troops dealt with the crowd using clubs, and many had died. So anything could happen this year, with the city swelling from 50,000 inhabitants to 200,000; and now there was this preacher from Nazareth to contend with. Apparently, this Jesus Christ had recently been at Bethany, and had raised a man from the dead. He would soon be in Jerusalem, with a band of followers from Galilee and the entire neighbourhood: heaven knows what could happen.
As was Pilate’s custom on this first day of Passover week, his cavalry assembled outside Jerusalem’s Western Gate, entering the city and riding through the narrow winding streets for the half-mile or so to the Antonia Fortress. This was a demonstration of authority and military might, proclaiming the power of the Roman empire over its unwilling subjects.
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The year is 33CE, the month is Nisan, and this is still the first day of Passover week. Jesus Christ is on his way to Jerusalem from Bethany. He is riding a donkey, and he’s just halted below the crest of the Mount of Olives. His band of followers are singing a well-known Passover Psalm: ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord …Hosanna to the son of David! Hosanna, Save us!’. From this height, Jesus can see right over Jerusalem, from East to West. He suddenly pauses, and is seen weeping for this city – for its past sufferings, and for what is to come. He then rides on: this is an uneven journey, as he leads the way down the steep slopes of Olivet, across the Kidron Valley and up towards the Jerusalem walls. Now the crowds are not only throwing their cloaks in his path but they’re also tearing down palm branches and waving them like royal emblems, as if they are expecting some victory in battle. Jesus enters Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate - the very place where the prophet Ezekiel declared God’s Glory would enter Jerusalem on the day of judgement. Jesus is still riding his donkey through Jerusalem’s streets, within 400 yards of the Fortress of Antonia. Jewish onlookers would be reminded of Zechariah’s prophecy about a promised king riding into Jerusalem, humble and victorious on a colt. This is surely a portentous moment…
If Pilate and Jesus met that day in that relatively small city, history has not recorded it. Undoubtedly this extraordinary spectacle would have been told to Pilate, who would had cause to reflect on why this preacher-carpenter accepted such royal adulation. Was he the King of the Jews? What did this mean for Roman rule in this part of the Province?
Two processions. One into Jerusalem through the Western Gate, now called the Jaffa Gate; the other into the city through the Eastern Gate, today known as the Golden Gate. One procession speaks of the power of Empire; the other of the subversive nature of the Kingdom of God. One shows contempt for Jerusalem and its inhabitants; the other shows profound sorrow for those who live there and those who make pilgrimage to the city. One seeks to keep a short-term peace by force; the other was soon to demonstrate how long-term peace could only be attained by moving people’s hearts by self-sacrifice and love. Ironically, Jesus’ second procession through these streets, five days later, with his burdensome Roman cross, provoked today’s Hosanna-singing crowds to reject his model of kingship, being both embarrassed and disappointed at this humiliation.
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The year is 2025 CE, and the month is April. It is again Palm Sunday, and church congregations all over the world are enacting out their own liturgical dramas in memory of Jesus entering Jerusalem over 2000 years ago. Some are celebrating inside their church buildings; others, like St Barnabas create a visible witness by starting outside, ending with a procession back to the church – one which is cross-bearing and palm-waving, with candles, incense and song. There is no suggestion of ostentatious power: the procession imitates Jesus’s own intentions, showing that peace is possible, not through might and force, but through expressions of faith in the quiet, transformative power of the love of God. In positive anticipation of the unfolding of events five days later, the palm branches are now complemented by the processional cross. The smaller palms, shaped into crosses, also testify to the fact that this is a Kingdom of loving sacrifice, not political power.
2025 has already been an extraordinary year in its displays of military, political and economic power and manipulation. So today Jesus still weeps, not just for Jerusalem, but for the entire globe, and the many deceptive aspirations for territorial control. Jesus’ journey into Jerusalem was to expose the power of Rome, and to demonstrate that his kingdom is one of peace, justice, and universal freedom: it has no territorial boundaries and so no display of power. But today Jesus also weeps for his church, because like the Hosanna-singing crowds who changed sides so quickly in one week, his church so often seems unable to understand that the Kingdom of God is subversive: the powerless are raised up, and the mighty are put down.
Despite all this, Palm Sunday is still the day that heralded the week that changed the world. Palm Sunday is a reminder that as Christians we have to stand out for peace and justice, denouncing the love of power, and living out the power of love. Look at your palm cross and reflect on what it means: the palm reminds us of Kingship, and the cross reminds to that this Kingdom is about suffering, obedient discipleship, and loving service. It offers a subversive vision at this critical moment in history. Will you vow to be part of this Kingdom over the coming week? Will you allow this single palm cross to shape who you are, what you believe, and what you do?
‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna, Save us!’
