Mark 11:1-11
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, [Jesus] sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’ ” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
——
In August 1963, 250,000 people marched on Washington to advocate for civil and economic rights for people of color, and Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic, “I have a dream” speech, calling for the end of racism.
In November 1969, more than half a million demonstrators marched through Washington D.C. to call for the end of the Vietnam War.
In June 1970, the first Pride marches took place, in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, marching to mark the first anniversary of the violent riots following a police raid of the Stonewall Inn the year before.
In September 1981, the first Solidarity Day march took place in Washington D.C. in support of organized labor.
In October 1997, half a million people marched in Philadelphia as part of the Million Woman March, a march drawing attention to the experiences and empowerment of African American women.
In September 2014, between three and four hundred thousand people participated in the People’s Climate March in New York City as a call-to-action on climate change.
In March 2018, students across the United States and around the world participated in March for Our Lives demonstrations urging gun safety legislation following the deaths of 17 students and staff in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
In August 2019, more than 750 Lutherans, marched from the convention center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a nearby U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services location for a prayer vigil in support of migrant children and families.
When you picture Palm Sunday - Jesus riding into the city, palms waving, people shouting - do you usually picture it as a parade?
What if you, instead, pictured it as a march?
ELCA Pastor Tim Brown writes, “Hosanna!’ they yell. ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ It sounds like an invitation to line the streets with palm branches, waving them high as the disciples throw out candy to the kids…But maybe it’s actually a march. Like, maybe the people thought it was a parade, but Jesus was actually on a march, on the move, interjecting himself into the proceedings of the world in a way that caused disruption.”
We march when we want the world to change. We march when we need the world to change. And Jesus has come to change the world.
Jesus has said as much - his first words in Mark’s gospel were, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.”
And then he’s been making that good news happen. Casting out demons, working liberation, healing the sick, stilling storms, raising the dead, teaching about faithful living, challenging the politics of faith and empire, all of it.
He’s been lifting up and living into all the hopes that the people have held about what a kingdom of God looks like and what a messiah might be.
His march into Jerusalem takes things one step further, pulling details and images from the people’s scriptures that connect the scene at hand with people’s memories and hopes of kings and anointed ones and God’s promises of victory and salvation.
The people waving branches, singing “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord?” Details pulled from the Psalm 118; a song of God’s victory over the threatening powers and principalities of this world.
The cloaks spread on the ground ahead of Jesus? An image of when Elisha anointed Jehu as king of Israel who would defeat the house of Ahab and restore faithfulness to the land.
The colt? An image from the prophet Zephaniah who proclaims: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, 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 shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus takes all of these images into himself. He marches into Jerusalem evoking the people’s hopes for victor, a king, a peace-bringer, and a savior. The people are there for it. They shout “hosanna,” which means “save us.” It’s a plea and it’s a cheer. They march along with him toward the city. They have seen what he can do. They have heard about what he is done.
They are ready for a new kingdom, something to vanquish their Roman occupation, something that will bring the lasting peace and healing and liberation that they long for.
They march along because they want the world to change.
But change is costly.
As Pastor Lenny Duncan in his book Dear Church writes, “[Jesus] walked around followed by crowds of the poor and downtrodden, who waited for him to take apart the oppressive system they all lived under. (139) But because of this, “Jesus was a national-security threat…Caiaphas and the other rules considered him a threat to the entire nation. He was under constant surveillance and was the subject of secret trials” (139), and “[Jesus] understood perfectly well that to be considered the messiah was sedition and a threat to the [very] emperor [himself]” (141).
Everything about the march to Jerusalem is a serious risk. Things there are going to get rough. Jesus’s with the religious leaders and conflicts with the empire are going to come to a breaking point. Alliances of convenience will be formed in order to shut Jesus up and shut things down. Things will end with arrest, torture, and execution.
It’s a tough, tough story.
This is Jesus, on the move for the final time, to disrupt the world and its usual doings, that the kingdom of God might continue to be revealed and established. Because people are hungry. And oppressed. They are sick. Despairing. Trapped.
Holy Week is not just a story of our own hearts, our own forgiveness, or our own devotion. Holy Week is the vocabulary of communities who are suffering and striving. It is the story of a world crying out for release. It is the story of love fighting against everything that would try to snuff it out. It is the story of power trembling and power destroying. Holy Week is a story told by those who shout, “Hosanna,” those who plead with God, “save us.” Holy Week is a story told in the voices of the courageous ones who, out of hope or despair, cling to a vision of a world that can yet be changed, that can yet be made right. Holy Week is a tragedy first, and resurrection later.
This is why we need to talk about the triumphal entry into Jeruslam, as it is so often called, as a march and not just a parade.
Jesus marches to change the world. And Jesus invites us to join him.
“Take up your cross,” he says. “And follow me.”
So why are you marching alongside Jesus today?
What are the hopes, prayers, and pleadings that you lay before Jesus like a cloak on the road?
Where are you desperate for the world to change?
That is your “Hosanna,” dear one.
Let the hungry be fed, hosanna.
Let the immigrant be welcomed, hosanna.
Let there be justice, real justice, hosanna.
Let the earth be healed, hosanna.
Let racism die, hosanna.
Let tyrants flee, hosanna.
Let love be love, and love prevail, hosanna.
Let there be healing of hearts and bodies, hosanna.
Let there be lasting peace, hosanna.
Let death die, hosanna.
Let there be only life, hosanna.
Blessed is the one who marches in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the coming kingdom of God.
Hosanna in the highest!
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, [Jesus] sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’ ” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
——
In August 1963, 250,000 people marched on Washington to advocate for civil and economic rights for people of color, and Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic, “I have a dream” speech, calling for the end of racism.
In November 1969, more than half a million demonstrators marched through Washington D.C. to call for the end of the Vietnam War.
In June 1970, the first Pride marches took place, in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, marching to mark the first anniversary of the violent riots following a police raid of the Stonewall Inn the year before.
In September 1981, the first Solidarity Day march took place in Washington D.C. in support of organized labor.
In October 1997, half a million people marched in Philadelphia as part of the Million Woman March, a march drawing attention to the experiences and empowerment of African American women.
In September 2014, between three and four hundred thousand people participated in the People’s Climate March in New York City as a call-to-action on climate change.
In March 2018, students across the United States and around the world participated in March for Our Lives demonstrations urging gun safety legislation following the deaths of 17 students and staff in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
In August 2019, more than 750 Lutherans, marched from the convention center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a nearby U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services location for a prayer vigil in support of migrant children and families.
When you picture Palm Sunday - Jesus riding into the city, palms waving, people shouting - do you usually picture it as a parade?
What if you, instead, pictured it as a march?
ELCA Pastor Tim Brown writes, “Hosanna!’ they yell. ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ It sounds like an invitation to line the streets with palm branches, waving them high as the disciples throw out candy to the kids…But maybe it’s actually a march. Like, maybe the people thought it was a parade, but Jesus was actually on a march, on the move, interjecting himself into the proceedings of the world in a way that caused disruption.”
We march when we want the world to change. We march when we need the world to change. And Jesus has come to change the world.
Jesus has said as much - his first words in Mark’s gospel were, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.”
And then he’s been making that good news happen. Casting out demons, working liberation, healing the sick, stilling storms, raising the dead, teaching about faithful living, challenging the politics of faith and empire, all of it.
He’s been lifting up and living into all the hopes that the people have held about what a kingdom of God looks like and what a messiah might be.
His march into Jerusalem takes things one step further, pulling details and images from the people’s scriptures that connect the scene at hand with people’s memories and hopes of kings and anointed ones and God’s promises of victory and salvation.
The people waving branches, singing “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord?” Details pulled from the Psalm 118; a song of God’s victory over the threatening powers and principalities of this world.
The cloaks spread on the ground ahead of Jesus? An image of when Elisha anointed Jehu as king of Israel who would defeat the house of Ahab and restore faithfulness to the land.
The colt? An image from the prophet Zephaniah who proclaims: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, 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 shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus takes all of these images into himself. He marches into Jerusalem evoking the people’s hopes for victor, a king, a peace-bringer, and a savior. The people are there for it. They shout “hosanna,” which means “save us.” It’s a plea and it’s a cheer. They march along with him toward the city. They have seen what he can do. They have heard about what he is done.
They are ready for a new kingdom, something to vanquish their Roman occupation, something that will bring the lasting peace and healing and liberation that they long for.
They march along because they want the world to change.
But change is costly.
As Pastor Lenny Duncan in his book Dear Church writes, “[Jesus] walked around followed by crowds of the poor and downtrodden, who waited for him to take apart the oppressive system they all lived under. (139) But because of this, “Jesus was a national-security threat…Caiaphas and the other rules considered him a threat to the entire nation. He was under constant surveillance and was the subject of secret trials” (139), and “[Jesus] understood perfectly well that to be considered the messiah was sedition and a threat to the [very] emperor [himself]” (141).
Everything about the march to Jerusalem is a serious risk. Things there are going to get rough. Jesus’s with the religious leaders and conflicts with the empire are going to come to a breaking point. Alliances of convenience will be formed in order to shut Jesus up and shut things down. Things will end with arrest, torture, and execution.
It’s a tough, tough story.
This is Jesus, on the move for the final time, to disrupt the world and its usual doings, that the kingdom of God might continue to be revealed and established. Because people are hungry. And oppressed. They are sick. Despairing. Trapped.
Holy Week is not just a story of our own hearts, our own forgiveness, or our own devotion. Holy Week is the vocabulary of communities who are suffering and striving. It is the story of a world crying out for release. It is the story of love fighting against everything that would try to snuff it out. It is the story of power trembling and power destroying. Holy Week is a story told by those who shout, “Hosanna,” those who plead with God, “save us.” Holy Week is a story told in the voices of the courageous ones who, out of hope or despair, cling to a vision of a world that can yet be changed, that can yet be made right. Holy Week is a tragedy first, and resurrection later.
This is why we need to talk about the triumphal entry into Jeruslam, as it is so often called, as a march and not just a parade.
Jesus marches to change the world. And Jesus invites us to join him.
“Take up your cross,” he says. “And follow me.”
So why are you marching alongside Jesus today?
What are the hopes, prayers, and pleadings that you lay before Jesus like a cloak on the road?
Where are you desperate for the world to change?
That is your “Hosanna,” dear one.
Let the hungry be fed, hosanna.
Let the immigrant be welcomed, hosanna.
Let there be justice, real justice, hosanna.
Let the earth be healed, hosanna.
Let racism die, hosanna.
Let tyrants flee, hosanna.
Let love be love, and love prevail, hosanna.
Let there be healing of hearts and bodies, hosanna.
Let there be lasting peace, hosanna.
Let death die, hosanna.
Let there be only life, hosanna.
Blessed is the one who marches in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the coming kingdom of God.
Hosanna in the highest!
Amen.