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| "The Triumphant Entry" by He Qi |
Luke 19:29-44 is here...
Here it is: Today is the day when
it all begins, when the first domino is tipped over and events fall into place,
one after another after another.
Jesus is approaching the holy
city, Jerusalem. The celebration of Passover, the holiest week of the Jewish year,
approaches. The moment is now.
For those who follow Jesus, who
have been following him from the beginning, we almost can’t conceive of their
anticipation. This is the moment on which all their hopes are set, on which
their world will pivot. Jesus will enter Jerusalem triumphantly, proclaimed
king by the people, hopefully upsetting the applecart of that petty tyrant
Herod and certainly giving a good kick in the shins to that enormous, dreadful superpower,
Rome. Jesus is king. The people are singing it, echoing the angel-song from the
very day of his birth. Even the stones are ready to shout it. Jesus is king. Now is the moment.
But…it is a smallish procession,
really. A man on a donkey, some people waving palms at him. Like us. Hopeful,
but uncertain. There are naysayers, those who would hush the exuberance. “Can’t
you shut this thing down?” they demand. Jesus is steady. “Nothing can stop
this,” he tells them. The first domino is tipped over, and one after another,
after another… events will unfold.
But then, even the steadiness of
Jesus evaporates, like mist on the Mount of Olives in the heat of the day. As he approaches the
beautiful, the holy city, the city where his ancestor David sat on the throne,
he begins to weep. “If only,” Jesus keens. “If only…”
David wept too. That mighty king,
that flawed man through whom God gathered the people together. There came a
moment in David’s reign… and it was near the end, his power was waning… there
came a moment when David wept over Jerusalem and all it meant to him.
Difference was, David was fleeing the city as the rebels made it their
stronghold. And David wept for the loss of his own power, for betrayal at the
hands of a son. And for his own failings, too. For the very actions that had put
him in that position, things undone that should have been done, things done
that could not be undone. David fled up the Mount of Olives and he wept for the
loss of his kingship.
Jesus is not weeping over his
betrayer… not yet, at least. Jesus is weeping because he knows well that he
offers a model of kingship which will not be embraced, will not be understood,
and which, in a very rapid series of angry responses, the human powers and
principalities will do their best to crush.
Jesus looks at Jerusalem and he
sees a time when the temple will be nothing but rubble, and the people, like
David, will try to flee to the hills, to no avail.
Jesus looks at Jerusalem, and he
sees the end. Jesus looks at Jerusalem, and he sees a world that is not ready
for a God who is love.
And yet. And yet.
There is a tiny little video that
is making the rounds these days… The music behind the images is John Lennon’s
“Imagine,” one of those songs so familiar that we sometimes can’t hear the
lyrics. But it is not the music of the video I want to share; it is the images.
They all take the form of news stories. They all say, one way or another, “If
only.”
Someone unfolds a newspaper, and
it reads “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 84, Champions Immigration reform.” And
there is a picture of an 84-year-old Martin Luther King.
And then a magazine spread. “Anne
Frank wins Nobel Prize for her 12th Novel.” And a photo of Anne
Frank, who also happens to be 84 years old.
And then a white-haired,
83-year-old Harvey Milk, with a caption telling us that he is “expanding LGBT
rights globally.”
And on and on. A 49-year-old
Daniel Pearl winning the Pulitzer Prize. A 63-year-old James Byrd, who, instead
of having been dragged to his death behind a pick-up truck, has rescued a girl
from a burning building. A 36-year-old Matthew Shepard leading an anti-bullying
coalition. A 90-year-old Yitzhak Rabin, honored for ushering in a 20-year-era
of Israeli- Palestinian peace.
Imagine a world, the video ends,
without hate.
Imagine a world, Jesus might say,
where God is love.
Imagine a world, Christians all
over the world say, today, in which Jesus is ruler.
Now is the moment. Today is the
day when the first dominoes could tip over, and events could fall into place,
one after another, after another.
Imagine a world in which that
weeping king rules our hearts and our lives and hate is no more.
Just imagine.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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