This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 4/13/25, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: Luke 19:28-48. You can listen to the audio, or keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text.)
Today is Palm Sunday. It’s the beginning of Holy Week in the liturgical Christian tradition. It’s a time when we’re invited to remember the climax of Jesus’ ministry, his death, and his resurrection.
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday because it’s the day we remember Jesus’ entrance into the city of Jerusalem. Up until this point, he had been traveling around in the hinterlands of Roman Palestine, but in our reading for this morning, Jesus finally goes “up to Jerusalem.”
The Jews of that time viewed Jerusalem as the center of the world. So it didn’t matter which direction you approached Jerusalem from; you were always going “up” to it. Jesus was entering into the holy city, the city of David, the city of peace. (The word Jerusalem literally means “the foundation of peace.”)
Jesus’ movement to Jerusalem is clearly an escalation. He’s been getting into trouble out in the provinces, but now he’s emerging from the margins and moving into the center. The powers that be can no longer ignore him. It’s do-or-die time. In fact, as we know, for Jesus it’s do-and-die time.
Everyone knows what it means for Jesus to enter Jerusalem. Someone like Jesus doesn’t just casually make a visit to the holy city. This is a march on Washington. This is Caesar entering Rome. The people are looking to Jesus as a possible savior, a messiah, a king who will restore hope and freedom to Israel. A man who will stand up to the Roman oppressors and restore the kingdom of God from Jerusalem.
The way Jesus enters Jerusalem signals to us both that these expectations are present, and also that Jesus takes them seriously. Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the east, reminding people of the prophecy of Zechariah, who foretold that God would fight on behalf of Israel, and that on that day the Lord’s feet would stand on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:3-4). When Jesus processes into the city riding a young colt, the connection is obvious to everyone who sees it. The prophet long ago proclaimed:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
– Zechariah 9:9-10
Jesus is the king of Israel, triumphant and victorious; humble and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey. This is a weird image, for sure. Because normally kings ride on war horses. Normally kings go to battle on behalf of their people. But the king promised to Israel is one fitting the name of Jerusalem – he will be a king of peace, cutting off the chariot and the war horse, smashing the bow and commanding peace to the nations. The prophet promises that on that day this dominion of peace will extend from the River to the sea, and to the ends of the earth.
The people understand this. The crowds are crying out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” But some of the Pharisees in the crowd are alarmed. They call out to Jesus, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” The Pharisees understand how dangerous this prophecy is. They know that this road leads to direct confrontation with the might of the Roman legions. But Jesus is undeterred. He knows the road he is riding on. Jesus answers them, “I tell you, if these [people] were silent, the stones would shout out.”
I love this line. I love how Jesus involves the whole creation in this powerful moment of Jesus’ arrival – the coming of the Day of the Lord. Heaven and earth bear witness to the return of the king.
But this is not the return that the people were expecting. It’s not the re-inauguration of the Davidic kingship that virtually everyone assumed the Messiah would bring. We get our clearest clue to this as Jesus crests the hills to the east of Jerusalem and the city comes into view. Looking over the city from the heights, it says that he weeps over the city. He weeps like a person at a funeral weeps over the body of a loved one. This isn’t a single tear rolling down his stoic cheek. This is an ugly cry. Jesus sees the city of peace, and he’s gutted.
He says, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Jesus predicts that the city of peace will soon become the site of warfare; that the city will be put to siege, and that the Roman conqueror will level the city and leave it in devastation. All because the people of Jerusalem did not recognize the time of their visitation from God.
Then Jesus enters into the temple precincts, the most holy part of the city, fulfilling the words of the prophet Malachi, who said, “the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. … But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Jesus cleanses the Temple of the merchants who were there buying and selling, conducting the business of religious ritual. Jesus replaces their commerce with his teaching, and for a time he is there every day, teaching in the heart of Jerusalem. The leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him, but they couldn’t get away with it for now – because the people were spellbound by what they heard from Jesus.
We know that soon the religious leadership will succeed in having Jesus put to death by the Romans, but for the time being the Lord is teaching the people in the Temple. We also know that Jerusalem will not respond to its day of visitation from the Lord, and that – long term – destruction is coming.
More than at any time in living memory, America finds itself in its own Palm Sunday experience. The crowds are looking desperately for a political savior. Everyone can sense that the status quo is breaking down, and we fear what comes next. We want something firm to hold onto. We are looking for an adult in the room, and we are ready to hand that person unchecked power. Just save us!
In the midst of our social and political ferment, Jesus has arrived, too. He is in our midst teaching us day by day. He has unveiled the truth about our society, for anyone who is willing to see it. Unfortunately, very few people are interested. In spite of our deep need, and in spite of the fact that Jesus is here to guide us, America does not recognize the things that make for peace. Our nation insists on pursuing a path that leads to destruction.
For those of us who seek to follow Jesus, this is a horrifying position to be in. Because we stand with Jesus on the Mount of Olives, we can hear him weeping. We are denied any false hope of salvation for our country, because we know that our city, our nation, our global society has turned away from the things that make for peace. Yet at the same time, we are part of this nation, we are citizens of the city that is under a verdict of destruction.
We are in the midst of Jerusalem, standing with Jesus our teacher. We are sharing the victory announcement of God, being called and calling others to repent, turn our lives around, and seek the humble way of the donkey-riding king who breaks the bow and commands peace to the nations. We see the destruction that is coming, and we know that there is a way out. And yet all signs point to the conclusion that our nation will not choose the way out. It has been hidden from their eyes.
Jesus’ position, standing on the Mount of Olives, is excruciating, because he can see – but no one else can. As modern-day followers of Jesus, we are called to stand on the heights with him, joining in his grief, weeping over our city. The things that make for peace have been hidden from America’s eyes, but we can see it. We can see it, and it hurts.
Like Jesus, we are called to move into the center, into our society’s equivalents of the Temple. We are called to share the word of God with those around us, before it’s too late:
Time’s up! Repent, and believe in the victory announcement. The kingdom of God has drawn near.
We are called to stand, not only in the midst of a society that has lost its way, but also in the midst of a church that has been profoundly corrupted and led astray. In the days of Jesus’ ministry, it was the Temple and the Jewish religious institutions that had fallen, becoming co-opted to the imperial powers and obsessed with legalistic rule-following, ritual, and purity codes.
In our day, we are a group of Jesus followers in the midst of a wider church that has in many cases enabled the rise of evil, and nurtured false prophets who are leading our Christian brothers and sisters into outer darkness.
The church in America has chosen the way of human kingdoms and coercive power rather than the way of peace. It has chosen the path of wealth and access rather than Jesus’ way of humility and gentleness. The church in America has been blinded to the things that make for peace. The church in America is caught up in the sins of the city where we are in exile, and it will be judged along with that society in whose wickedness it has participated.
Time’s up! Repent, and believe in God’s victory announcement. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is not the power of the Pentagon, the idol of the White House, or the political justice of the Supreme Court. The kingdom of God has drawn near, and it is the shalom of God in the midst of a society bent on self-destruction.
Standing with Jesus, we know that the cross is coming. In the week ahead, before we get to Easter, we will remember his suffering and death on the cross. We know that after the cross, and the tomb, comes the resurrection. We hope to rise with Jesus, to take part in his resurrection. But even after the resurrection, Jerusalem is doomed.
The church is born and grows in the midst of that city that is destined for destruction. The mustard seed grows amidst the rubble. The kingdom that we seek is one which, in the words of the early Quaker James Nayler, “delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end.”
We are the people of God. We are participants in the resurrection. We are a colony of heaven, and our hope is not in the ragings of the nations, but in the shalom of our God as revealed in the broken body of Jesus. We have no illusions that God will exempt us from the suffering that is coming on the face of the earth. We disciples are not above our master, who endured the cross.
But we do have hope. There is a Spirit which we feel that delights to endure all things, and encourages us in our endurance. We have eyes to see. We know the time of our visitation, and we are responding. God, help us to see and hear and respond in these days!
Let’s throw off the dread and fear that hangs heavy. Let’s move beyond the clamoring of the crowds for saviors of violence and wealth. Let’s join with Jesus in weeping over our beloved nation. Let’s follow Jesus into the heart of the Temple where he is teaching, sharing the urgent news of God’s kingdom, before the day of visitation is over.