Palm Branches of the Rebellion

Palm Sunday has become one of my favorite liturgical holidays.

Having grown up in a liturgical church we celebrated Palm Sunday each year complete with waving palm branches.  And I understood we waved the palms because the crowd had waved them during Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Jn 12:12-15).  But I never wondered why the crowd waved palms in the first place.  And the answer is what makes things interesting.

According to Jewish tradition Jesus was not the first person to have palm branches waving as he marched into Jerusalem.  Over a hundred years prior the Jewish crowds had waved palm branches as a symbol of the Maccabean victory over the Greeks.

And so as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the eve of Passover, the great festival of their ancestors freedom from slavery in Egypt, the question for the Jews and the Romans alike is what kind of king is Jesus?  The crowd waved palms as a symbol of victory over their oppressors.  They spread their cloaks in homage to their king.  This was rebellion against Rome.

Everyone thought Jesus came to be a political king.  The Jews saw his arrival in Jerusalem for Passover as the perfect time to begin his uprising.  Little did they know His plans were so much greater.

The people wanted a rebellion.  Jesus came to start a revolution.  They wanted to seize power, Jesus came to lay down his power for us (Phil 2:5-11).  The crowd underestimated the extent of Jesus's kingdom.  And often we do too.

I like to think somehow Jesus is only king over segments of my life, my moral behavior, or the "spiritual" portions, as if his truth and his kingdom do not affect all aspects of who I am.  The truth is we all have been seduced by the appeals of empire, and have accepted the values of this world as "normal".  But Jesus is not just an addendum to my nice comfortable life.  

In reality Jesus's plans are so much greater than mine.  His ways are more encompassing than we want to believe.  I have to surrender more than I expected.  I am still learning the extent of what truly following Jesus costs.  My hope is to one day leave the empire behind completely and to be free from the propaganda.

I love that hosanna means "save now".  Here we have the crowd cheering "save now, save now" without understanding Jesus has come to die for our sins so we may be saved.  Jesus in his goodness knows what we really need.  He understands our desperation better than we do.  And he is faithful to answer us even when we do not understand.

So let us wave our palm branches in protest of the empire which has seduced us into complacency.  Let us walk in the ways of the kingdom as exiles not a part of this world.  May we proclaim truth and fight injustice, starting with the injustice in our own lives.  Jesus please "save now" because I need you to save me.