RIDE ON, KING JESUS

RIDE ON, KING JESUS

            This traditional spiritual was my favorite one that the Sanctuary Mass Choir sang while I was pastor at Oakhurst.  It resonates deeply as we begin this Holy Week.  All four gospels have an account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem at the time of Passover.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is Jesus’ first trip to Jerusalem.  He seems to have deliberately chosen to enter the Holy City at this festival, with its emphasis on God’s freeing the Hebrew slaves from captivity in Egypt.  His followers catch the hint – it is time!  The Roman oppressors will be overthrown, the corrupt religious leaders will be thrown out of the Temple, and Temple worship will be restored to its rightful place as a sanctuary for encountering the presence of God.  His followers shout and celebrate as they enter the Holy City – “blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!”  It is time!  Ride On, King Jesus!

            The parade for Jesus enters Jerusalem from the east side of the city from the Mount of Olives, a traditional place from which the Messiah is supposed to be coming.   On the west side of the city, there is another parade, perhaps on the same day.  It is the Roman governor of Palestine, Pontus Pilate, and his Roman soldiers entering Jerusalem during the Passover festival.  Pilate lives in Caesarea near the Mediterranean coast, the capital of the province.  Yet, at Passover, he and the Romans come into to Jerusalem to warn the Jewish residents there:  “Celebrate your Passover, but be careful – don’t get carried away with the idea of freedom and liberation from captivity.  Stay within the bounds of making Passover an event of the past, and things will go fine.  Be careful – if you go outside the bounds, we will crush you.”

            So, these two parades enter Jerusalem about the same time.  Jesus, riding on a jackass, no weapons, no army, no money, just a ragtag band of followers fired up about the reign of God coming.  Pilate and his army, trumpets blaring, drums beating, calvary armed for battle, infantry ready to fight – the reps of Rome are here!

            This drama of Holy Week will have these two systems wrestle in the hearts of the people of Jerusalem and in our own hearts too.  This drama is always contemporary because these two systems are in a mighty struggle in our individual and collective hearts.  One system tells us that the center of life is love and justice and compassion and mercy.  The other system tells us that the center of life is domination and money and redemptive violence and death.   Most of us find ourselves in the middle of this struggle all of our lives, and Holy Week reminds us that we almost always bend towards the system of domination in our hearts and in our actions.  Like those first followers of Jesus, we just can’t stay with him, when the system of domination roars at us, or whispers in the night to us.  Some of us are like Judas, so disappointed in Jesus that we betray him.  Some of us are like the male disciples who promise to follow Jesus all the way but then flee in terror when he is arrested.  Some of us are like the women disciples who watch at a distance when Jesus is lynched by Rome.  No one stays with him. 

            That’s the difficult truth of this Holy Week – it is why it is always a contemporary story.  We believe in the Tomahawk missiles.  We believe in the power of money.  We believe in redemptive violence.  And, the difficult truth is exposed to us this week – we would rather kill Jesus than be transformed by his love.  This Holy Week reminds us of our captivity and the deals that we make to rationalize that captivity.   Whatever our particular rationalization – racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia, materialism, militarism (the list seems endless) – it all leads to the Cross.

            Ride On, King Jesus!  We have such high hopes for Jesus and God – and then the world intercedes:  violence, Donald Trump, rollback of the EPA guidelines, denial of climate change, the reinforcement of private prisons, and so much more.  We tend to shrink back, lower our gaze, tamp down our hopes, lose the vision.  Ride On, King Jesus?

            Holy Week does not permit hopes to rise – we must allow ourselves as individuals and communities to be exposed, so that we will understand the depth of our captivity to the powers.  Yet, Jesus does ride on, and we can give thanks for that.  He does ride on, not to the throne of Rome but rather to the Cross of Rome.  We must sit with that truth this week.  We know that’s not the end of the story, but we must linger here for awhile, in our own Gethsemane.