Who Is This?
Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Justin: Well, if you couldn't tell by my shirt, it's Palm Sunday. We have been working towards this moment the entire season of Lent because today is a pretty special day. Many of you have signed up to join us at the Capitol in St. Paul this afternoon for a worship service that is going to center us in Jesus and challenge us to actually live out the ways of Jesus in the public sphere. We're going to the Capitol today to proclaim that God's politics are grounded in love and that we are called to love our neighbors by doing the things that Jesus told us to do. Heal the sick, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger.
We're going to the Capitol because we're heartbroken that white Christian nationalism has distorted Jesus to the point where it's hard for us to tell anymore the difference between the United States of America and the kingdom of God. And that has created a Jesus that justifies greed and cruelty and oppression in the name of power. And with such vastly different versions of Jesus out there, we can't help but ask the question, "Who is Jesus anyway?"
When I was a kid, I loved playing the game Guess Who? Do we have any Guess Who fans out there? Okay, great. I still love playing that game today. And so, Manuel bought a copy and he keeps it as his apartment and anytime I'm down in North Carolina visiting and we're bored, we'll play a couple of rounds of Guess Who. And we always play a round where we can only ask each other subjective questions about the person we've got. So, we'll do silly questions like, "Is your person a librarian and they moonlight as a true crime podcaster?"
And so, we'll ask each other stuff like that. And 90% of the time, our guesses are very wrong. And so, I love the big reveal where we get to see who each other had because it tells us so much about our perspectives. And he showed me his card once and it was this guy: it was Mike. And I looked at him and I was like, "I asked you if your person was a mega church worship leader who still wears toms and you said no."
And he said, "Mike doesn't go to church." And I was like, "I don't think you know Mike like I do." And so, that just goes to show how differently two people can view the same person.
And in our scripture passage for this morning, I think that's what is happening with Jesus. That's what's happening with Jesus in Matthew's version of the gospel. People are guessing who Jesus is and they're coming up with their own narratives about who Jesus is rather than allowing Jesus to shape them and who they are. And so, let's look together at Matthew 21:1-15 together. It says this:
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphagee at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied in a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, the Lord needs them and he will send them immediately."
This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: Tell the daughter of Zion, "Look, your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed. They brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them and he sat on them. And a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest heaven." When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, "Who is this?" The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth and Galilee." Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, "It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers." The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things he did and heard the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the son of David," they became angry.
So this whole city is guessing who Jesus is and for good reason. I mean, if Jesus was trying to enter meekly and mildly into the city and have a quiet Passover celebration with his friends, he really screwed up here because everything about what Matthew is telling us should lead us to believe that what Jesus is doing is intentionally drawing attention to himself.
Passover is not the time to do something radical. I mean, Jerusalem had a population of around 25,000 people. But during Passover, that number grew to over 150,000 people, people that would flock to the city for this celebration of God's liberation of the Jewish people from the hands of Pharaoh in Egypt.
And it wasn't unheard of for unrest to take place during this time. I mean, once you've got 150,000 people together all celebrating liberation while they're actively being oppressed by the Roman Empire, it makes for a great opportunity to rise up. So Rome had a heightened sense of awareness during this time and they would send in extra soldiers, extra security to make sure that any unrest was kept at bay. And so there was already this tension in the air that existed when Jesus chose to go into Jerusalem the way that he did. So Jesus enters into Jerusalem riding on this donkey in a fulfillment of a prophecy from Zechariah that talks about a coming king who will reign in peace and do away with all of Israel's enemies.
Well, if that imagery isn't already enough, the people start to wave their palm branches and they shout "Hosanna!" And that brings to mind the Maccabean Revolt that happened a few hundred years earlier when Simon and his brother Judah led Judah into a time of peace from the Seleucid Empire. They were oppressed and the Maccabees freed them. Simon led them into a political independence that they had not known in some time. And the way that the people celebrated this victory was Simon and his soldiers went through the streets and everybody waved their palm branches and shouted. And it was decreed that they would celebrate this every year, this victory, what we now call Hanukkah, right? That political victory was institutionalized in the minds of the people.
And so this imagery is deliberate on Jesus's part. He knows the message that he's conveying to the crowd and the Jewish crowd also knows the message that he's conveying as well. That's why they're shouting "Hosanna!" Hosanna means "save us now!" These are oppressed people crying out for Jesus to save and rescue them from the Roman Empire.
Now, the image of the palm branches may not have really registered with Rome, but what Jesus is doing here is absolutely sending a message to the Roman Empire. During this time, military victories would be accompanied by this huge fanfare. So the military general and his soldiers would parade through the street. They would have this big procession. People would shout and celebrate and the ruler would give a big speech. And all of that fanfare served as a sign of military strength and imperial power.
And Jesus makes a mockery of this. There's no war horse. There's just a donkey. There's no soldiers. There's just a crowd of outcasts and misfits. And the people are shouting, but it's not a celebration. It's a desperate plea for rescue. And instead of giving a speech, Jesus goes straight to the temple and causes a huge disruption by flipping over the money changers tables. I mean, this is enough to get anybody killed.
And it makes the Jewish leaders really, really angry. I know that they're painted as these horrible people in the gospels, but really, they're trying hard to keep their people safe. When Pontius Pilate became the governor, he actually took funds from the temple and tried to build an aqueduct into Jerusalem, and it caused a huge revolt. And so what he did was he had his soldiers dress in plain clothes, come into the city, and everyone in the streets were massacred that day. So Caiaphas, the high priest, who we know about because of Jesus' execution, he knows all of this. He saw his people slain in the streets at the hand of Pilate, and he wasn't about to let something like that happen again under his watch.
So Jesus is a problem because Jesus is energizing the people. This crowd is made up of blind people that Jesus gave sight to. It's made up of women that Jesus called friends. It's made up of the disciples who watch Jesus walk on water and feed thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and some fish. It's filled with people who had leprosy that Jesus was willing to touch and heal, and Jesus and these people are calling Jesus a prophet.
So who is Jesus? Well, it really depends on who you ask, right? I mean, to Rome, Jesus is just another revolutionary that will not stand a chance against their imperial power. To the Jewish authorities, Jesus is just a blasphemer and an instigator who must be stopped in order to save the people. And then to the crowd of misfits shouting "Hosanna," Jesus is a prophet.
There's truth in all of these perspectives, but none of them get to the heart of who Matthew wants us to see in his text. In the opening of Matthew's gospel, the angel comes to Joseph and says that Jesus will be Emmanuel, God with us. And then a chapter later at Jesus' baptism, the sky breaks open and God's voice comes down and says, "This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased." Then at the end of Matthew's version of the gospel, we see the resurrected Christ say that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
So if that's true, Rome has a right to be a little threatened by Jesus, and the religious leaders aren't entirely wrong to feel anxious about all of this, and the crowd isn't wrong to call him a prophet, because when God comes near, it always disrupts the systems that we've built. When God comes near, it does threaten the empires that have been built up on domination and the institutions that have been built on fear. When God comes near, every promise of stability that is not grounded in love will be brought into question, because those types of systems will never save and rescue us. They'll never deliver on the peace that they promise.
Jesus knows exactly what he's doing when he enters Jerusalem the way that he does. He's drawing attention to himself because he's revealing the kingdom of God and exposing everything that might stand against it. Jesus comes to us offering a different way, a kingdom that is built on different values with a different purpose and a different kind of hope. I mean, the values of God's kingdom are vastly different from the values of the empire. Empire always gets it wrong, right? Because it confuses domination for authority, and it turns the truth into a spectacle, and the glue that holds all of that together is fear. And it's easy to see Rome in this picture because we're so far removed from it.
I mean, I think crucifixion is the perfect example here. Their thought process is: if they can turn violence into theater, then the people will recognize who has the authority, and they won't rebel because they will be scared. This is what happens when you resist, so we're going to parade through your streets, and you are going to celebrate us, and you are going to praise us for keeping you safe. That is what peace looks like to the empire.
And I think we can see the parallels in our own city. I mean, are we going to measure authority by how many ICE agents infiltrate our streets? Are we going to measure the truth by how confidently our political leaders are going on these news broadcasts and saying that they're deporting violent criminals? Will Renee and Alex serve as examples of what it looks like to resist?
In these kinds of moments, this is where the Jesus of Palm Sunday begins to break through and shatter the illusion of power. Jesus doesn't need a war horse. He has a donkey. There are no swords, no chariots, no soldiers. Jesus rejected that kind of power in the wilderness. If you remember, Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus rejected it and said, "Get behind me, Satan." Satan offered him so much, and he reiterated over and over again that that empirical power was not the kind of power that he came for. And he reiterated that over and over. Even right before going into Jerusalem, James and John's mom comes to Jesus and says, "Will you give my sons seats of honor and glory when you come into your kingdom?" And Jesus tells her, "That's not the way that it works. I came to serve, not to be served, and I came to give my life as a ransom for many."
For Jesus, true authority isn't domineering. It's sacrificial. And the truth can be seen in what is just and what is merciful, because the glue that holds the kingdom of God together isn't fear, it's love. And because Jesus loves, he's angry by what he sees happening in the temple courts. I mean, the temple is the center of religious life, and yet Jesus finds this sacred space turned into a marketplace. And the area where they set up for the money exchange was called the Court of the Gentiles. Gentiles couldn't go into the temple, so there was an area for anyone, people of all nations, to come and pray to the God of Israel, and Jesus shows up and finds this place as a market. And so he flips over those tables and he runs the money changers off.
But Jesus wasn't there doing that simply as an act of anger. He was sending a very deliberate message that these religious systems aren't producing the good fruit that they're supposed to produce. It's time to make foundational changes because the temple is no longer serving its purpose. In fact, Jesus says something greater, something greater than the temple is here.
And so what do we see Jesus do? He brings in the lame and the blind into the temple, two groups of people that had been excluded from the temple, and he heals them. And when children see this happening, they start rejoicing and they're glad. Children were often rejected and they weren't considered seriously, and Jesus welcomes them too. The purposes of God are being revealed in Jesus' actions here. What had become a religious system built on economy and exclusion was being turned over. The kingdom of God is at hand. And when it comes to the kingdom of God, there is a widening inclusion where people can receive mercy and receive grace and healing as we worship God together.
And that prophetic witness carries on through us, the church, the hands and the feet of Jesus. I mean, there are gay and trans kids that need to know that God loves them. There are impoverished people who don't have access to basic necessities, and they need more than our thoughts and our prayers. They need our advocacy. There are girls and women who think their voices don't matter and they need to know that God hears them too. And there are Christian leaders propping up political and religious systems that benefit them and harm other people in the name of Jesus. And they need to know that their tables are going to be flipped over because something greater than all of that is here. And I don't know about you, but that fills me with a lot of hope because I'm exhausted from the political and the religious systems that keep promising all of this hope but never seem to make good on it.
And that's nothing new, right? The crowds waving their palm branches that day, like they were exhausted too. They needed the kingdom of God to come near, just like we do. That's why they were shouting "Hosanna." A lot of times we imagine Hosanna as this joyful declaration and exclamation, but really it's that desperate plea for salvation, for help, for rescue. Save us now, the people were saying.
Diana Butler Bass, who is a Christian historian out of Virginia, she says this about Palm Sunday [in A Beautiful Year]:
In a week, we may shout our Easter hallelujahs, but the truth is that our days cry out "Hosanna." Children and teachers die in pools of blood at school. Lies pervade and divide a desperate people. The rich, still everyone share. Courts unwind decades of justice. And even a poisoned earth and sky rage against us. Pax Americana? We may have believed that once, subject to its deceptive promises, but the mass comes off and a faux peace makes itself known. A peace enforced by fear and violence. A peace of privilege and guns. Hosanna, Jesus. Hosanna. Save us now.
And of course, Jesus did save, but it wasn't through force or domination or violence, it was through sacrificial love. His death and resurrection was a display not of tweaks to our system, but of transformed hearts with different kinds of values, transformed purpose, and a renewed hope that in the end, love will be victorious.
I mean, no wonder Jesus shook up the city the way that he did. The translation I read from earlier said that when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, but that word turmoil there is seismos (σεισμός), and it means the shaking that occurs during an earthquake. And I think that maybe that's what Palm Sunday should do to us. It should shake us into questioning the narratives that we've been handed. It should shake us into reconsidering the values that we've been told make us powerful, and it should shake us into waking up and seeing how the kingdom of God is breaking through into the world around us. Jerusalem was shaken, and they all wanted to know who this guy was, and I hope that you will consider that same question. Who is Jesus?
I have a feeling that if you decide to come out to the Capitol today at two o'clock with your palm branch and you worship the crucified and risen Christ with a group of saints and sinners, men and women, rich and poor, straight and queer, women and men, black, white and brown bodies who all have a unique story to tell, then you might just discover who Jesus really is.
Let's pray. Lord Jesus, shake us this morning. We pray in our hearts and our minds to the ways that you're at work in the world. We cry out our hosannas and we know that you hear them. Continue to shape us into a people of hope, people with a holy purpose who are making your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. At God we pray your blessings on those who will be at the Capitol today. May the hosannas that we proclaim to you be heard so loudly in the Capitol that your spirit would stir change in our state for the love of the most vulnerable among us. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.