A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
10th April 2022 - Palm Sunday
John 12.12-27; 19.16b-22
The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord-- the King of Israel!" 14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: 15 "Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!" 16 His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him. 17 So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify. 18 It was also because they heard that he had performed this sign that the crowd went to meet him. 19 The Pharisees then said to one another, "You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!" 20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. 27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say-- 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.
Jerusalem welcomes a new King
A report by Simon Woodman
Your Sky-Blue News correspondent in Jerusalem
Today: Sunday, 10th April, in the 33rd year of the Common Era
This report is being monitored by the Authorities.
Today was the day when, after many years of unquestioned dominance,
the tight and cruel grip of the Herodian Regime
began to look seriously under threat.
For the past six decades, the Herod dynasty
has ruled Israel-Palestine with a rod of iron.
The heirs of the so-called Herod ‘the Great’
have clung to power through an uneasy alliance with Rome,
and a pattern of often brutal dominance
of the local religious and political leaders here in Palestine.
The military police have enforced this Roman puppet dictatorship
with an enthusiasm that has left ordinary Israelis
in daily terror of reprisals.
Economic oppression has combined with
random sporadic violence in the south,
while ethnic cleansing in the north of the country
has been widely reported, if so far unsubstantiated.
Punishment beatings and summary executions are the norm,
with even the most petty of crimes being punishable by death.
In the ten years I have been reporting from Jerusalem,
I have seen several attempts
at overthrowing the Herodian Regime,
and they have all ended in tragedy and violence.
It seems that there is little that unarmed,
everyday Israelis can do against the military might
of the occupying Roman soldiers,
and as long as the Herods remain in favour with Rome,
their future as leaders of this nation seems secure.
Not since the days of the Maccabean Revolt nearly two hundred years ago
has anyone even come close to successfully challenging
the powers of Greece and Rome in this country.
Until today, that is.
The events of earlier today
represent possibly the brightest hope
for liberation and peace in this war-ravaged land
that I have ever seen.
For the last three years or so, a man called Jesus
– a religious leader from Nazareth –
has been slowly but steadily establishing his power base.
He has publicised himself as a peace-maker,
and attracted a wide following
- and an even wider reputation -
as one of the few political figures of our time
capable of delivering on the promises he makes.
His key speeches have centred around issues
of justice, reconciliation, and peace,
and he is widely hailed as the man most likely
to overthrow the Roman occupation,
and displace the Herodian puppet dynasty.
Although Jesus has been in and around Jerusalem before,
it seems that today’s events
have marked a decisive change in his approach.
Up until this point, Jesus seems to have gone out of his way
to keep his campaign low-key.
He has kept continually on the move,
never staying in any one place long enough
to attract the serious attention of the authorities,
yet still making sufficient impact
to increase his popularity and standing
with the person in the street.
Today’s visit to Jerusalem, however, was anything but low-key:
This morning, Jesus entered Jerusalem in the style of a victorious war hero
taking possession of a captured city.
Word seemed to have got around that he was on his way,
and the jubilant crowds turned out in their thousands
to hail his arrival,
strewing his path with palm-branches
as one would do for royalty.
It seems difficult to imagine that the authorities
will allow such actions to remain unchallenged,
so it seems that Jesus is finally ready
for the long-anticipated confrontation
with the powers at the heart of the Herodian Regime.
It must surely be in his mind that the time is now right
to engage with Governor Pilate and King Herod,
and I predict that they will not give in
without a fight of some kind.
Today, however, there was no possibility of a violent outcome.
The crowds were so numerous,
and so fevered in their excitement,
that any moves on the part of the authorities
would have simply resulted in mass anarchy.
It was fascinating
to watch the representatives of the establishment
sitting helplessly by
while the mob welcomed this northern preacher
as their all-conquering king.
I have to admit, though,
that in spite of his undoubted popular appeal,
I find it hard to comprehend just how
Jesus is going to implement the promises he has made.
He has often spoken of his coming kingdom,
which he claims will be a place of peace and stability,
and this vision of a bright future
has been instrumental in ensuring
both him and his followers such wide appeal.
However, such a kingdom will surely not be established
without the shedding of innocent blood.
It is a well-known historical fact
that the replacement of one regime with another
is always a violent and bloody act,
with innocent people being hurt along the way.
Indeed, in the early days of my reporting career,
when I covered the front-line of the Roman occupation of Gaul,
I saw this scenario played over many times.
And the prospect of it happening here in Jerusalem
is something I find hard to imagine.
Yet nonetheless Jesus has marched on Jerusalem,
claiming that he is about to establish his kingdom
of everlasting peace and stability.
And it looks like the crowds are going to back him all the way,
if the demonstration of support we saw earlier today
is anything to go by.
Possibly the strength of the popular appeal
which Jesus has attracted
can be accounted for by the Israeli sense of nationalism?
Occupation has never sat easily
with the inhabitants of Israel-Palestine,
in spite of the many obvious benefits
which Roman rule has brought with it.
The Jews still hanker after a king of their own,
which they believe to be their divine right.
They look to their kings
as the earthly representatives of their God.
And it is in recognition of this
that the Romans have allowed the Herodian Regime
to rule Israel on their behalf,
in the hope that the Israeli population
will be more easily controlled by a Jewish king
than a Roman governor operating on his own.
However, Herod Antipas,
as with his ancestors before him,
has made it abundantly clear
that his first loyalty rests with the power
that keeps him in authority,
and that the fate of the Israeli people
is only of secondary concern
compared with keeping the Romans on side.
So now Jesus has played his hand
and entered Jerusalem in the style of a conquering king
coming to an occupied city,
and it seems the people of that city
are ready to hail him as their true king
and to unite behind him
to overthrow the Roman-controlled state.
Jesus has already been speaking in graphic terms
about his coming kingdom,
and many people are keen to see it established
as quickly as possible.
However, my suspicion is that there is violence to be done,
before this so-called “kingdom of peace” will begin to emerge.
So, will Jesus’ peace-keeping mission be successful?
Will he be able to avoid the shedding of innocent blood?
Will those people who long for his coming kingdom
back him all the way to its establishment?
What does Jesus have in mind when he describes himself
as the “prince of peace”?
Only time will tell the answers
to these difficult and challenging questions.
We shall need to watch the events of the next week closely.
One thing we can be sure of,
and that is that Jesus never plays by the same rules
as everyone else.
So I suspect there is a lot more drama to be played out
before this kingdom he is promising finally comes into being.
John 19.16-22
So they took Jesus; 17 and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" 22 Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."
The King is Dead
A report by Simon Woodman
Your Sky-Blue News correspondent in Jerusalem
Today: Friday, 15th April, in the 33rd year of the Common Era
The events of the last few days have, in many ways,
played out their predictable path.
As many commentators expected, the northern rebel Jesus was arrested
almost as soon as he was out of sight and reach of the crowds;
and a series of hurried legal proceedings were arranged overnight
in order to ensure that his conviction was secure
according to the laws of both the Jews and the Romans.
It’s certainly been a week
that those of us who have witnessed it first-hand will never forget,
with the balance of power swinging back firmly in favour of the establishment,
and away from the people-power movement whipped up by Jesus.
But there have been tantalising opportunities for it to have gone differently:
Many are of the opinion that Jesus could so easily have escaped,
it certainly wouldn’t have been hard for him to slip out of the city,
to take refuge with his supporters in Bethany,
whilst regrouping and rebuilding his popular support base.
But even more intriguing,
it seems likely that if he had played things differently over the last few days,
he could in fact have achieved his objectives this week.
Just last Sunday, the whole city seemed on his side,
ready to rise up and overthrow
both the Roman occupiers, and the Herodian king.
There is this sense of missed opportunity among the population,
that we could, today, have been celebrating the coronation
of King Jesus, the King of the Jews,
rather than watching his public torture and execution.
There is a sense that today could have been a ‘good’ day for Jerusalem,
rather than a day of crushing disappointment and shattered dreams.
And I can only conclude that much of the blame for this outcome
must lie with Jesus himself.
It has almost seemed as though
he was wilfully choosing the way of the cross,
insisting on carrying his own crossbeam to his place of crucifixion
in a symbolic but futile show of strength and independence.
But it was surely his display of arrogance before Pilate that finally sealed his fate,
and again one cannot help but wonder what the outcome might have been
if he had chosen a path of contrition rather than defiance.
It has felt, at every stage, as though Jesus knew what he was doing,
what he was trying to achieve;
and it has become clear that his vision of a new, so-called ‘Kingdom of God’,
was not what most people thought it would be.
Far from a geo-political reality,
a new kingdom based in Jerusalem,
a renewed ‘kingdom of David’, as people had started calling it;
Jesus seems to rather have envisaged his kingdom as more of a spiritual entity,
an ideological kingdom of inspiration:
an idea that he believed could change the world.
Looking back, the clues were certainly there in his rhetoric:
his language of peace, his emphasis on love,
his uncompromising calls to repentance and sacrifice.
But even his own followers seemed to think
that this was all part of a wider plan to build popular appeal,
and ultimately to overthrow Rome.
And watching him today, embracing death without fear,
as if he had been expecting it all along,
I have to ask the question
of whether Jesus did in fact know what he was doing?
Rome has demonstrated time and again
that it is all-powerful.
Every single attempt to rebel against Rome
has led, in the end, to failure.
This empire is supreme at dominance,
and perhaps the path to its eventual defeat
lies not in a show of strength,
but through an undermining of its ideology,
a delegitimizing of its authority.
You see, even though I have seen Jesus die,
I cannot escape the conviction
that his words now have a life of their own.
It is surely not without significance that Pilate, or all people,
demanded that he be crucified with a sign above his head
proclaiming him to be ‘The King of the Jews’.
A sign written not just in the local language,
but in Latin and Greek also.
It’s almost as if Pilate’s time with Jesus has shaken him,
it’s as if he’s in some kind of awe or fear of Jesus,
and doesn’t quite believe that even crucifixion will end this matter.
And I find myself wondering what all Jesus’s talk of ‘life’ really means,
in the face of a regime dedicated to death and domination.
We are so used, in our world, to stories of horror,
and we become immune to the images of death
that we see almost every day
as yet another person is executed at the gates of the city.
So what’s so special about this execution?
What’s one more failed pretender to David’s throne?
But there is something different,
this last week has been a week like no other.
From the moment of Jesus’ triumphal entry last Sunday,
things have been so different in the city.
For the first time in generations there has been a sense of hope,
a sense that things might be different one day,
a desire to remake the world in a better way.
This kingdom Jesus spoke of, a kingdom of life, love, and liberty,
seems so at odds with every other kingdom in our world;
and yet it seems so compelling,
so inescapable, so persuasive.
It seems impossible to imagine that this vision dies this week.
I know it’s said that every good cause needs its martyrs,
and I wonder if the death of this Jesus
may not in fact be the end,
but rather the beginning,
of something new coming into the world.
Time will tell, but for now, this is Simon Woodman,
reporting from Golgotha.
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