The "Triumphal" Entry
How Palm Sunday's hidden politics change our understanding of Jesus' mission
In all four gospels, we are told very similar versions of a strange story: Jesus, having spent most of his time in Galilee up to this point, has decided to go to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. Having reached the outskirts of the city, he stays the night in Bethany, likely in the home of his good friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Jesus proceeds to tell some of his disciples to go into town and rent an upper room for them (the upper room being the location for guests or large gatherings in most Jewish households of the time). He also, strangely, tells them that they will see a donkey, specifically a young donkey colt, and that they are to untie it and bring it back to him. If the donkey’s owners ask what they’re doing, they are simply to say “the Lord has need of it.” Surprisingly, this works perfectly.
As if the donkey thing wasn’t strange enough, we are then told that on the following day Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of this young donkey, and there are crowds of people waiting for him. These people are waving palm branches and laying them down for the donkey to walk over. They’re also shouting this word - “Hosanna” - which has a very strange meaning in this context. Where did these people come from? How did they know that Jesus was arriving, and why would they care? And what’s the deal with these palm fronds?
Before we answer any of those questions, it’s worth finishing the story. In Matthew, Mark and Luke’s account of this procession, Jesus finishes the day by going into the temple, and driving out a collection of money changers and vendors who were making a profit off of people’s piety. It is the single instance of “violence” (if we can call it that) in Jesus’ actions on earth, as in some versions of the story he grabs a whip and literally tosses their tables over, driving the offenders out of the temple court altogether. This procession and succeeding drama in the temple courts sets the stage for a week of political intrigue that will lead to Jesus’ betrayal, trial and crucifixion immediately after Passover.
What is happening here? If, like me, you grew up in church hearing this story every year, maybe marching in with palm fronds to your church on Palm Sunday, it’s easy to forget how strange it all seems when you look at it objectively. But there is a key to understanding this story, and it’s one that is often forgotten or conveniently left out of most sermons - Jesus’ actions that day, and the actions of his supporters, are explicitly political, and they are intended to make a political statement about both who Jesus is, and who the Roman Emperor is not.
You see, in the time of Jesus the Roman triumph was becoming a regular part of imperial politics. A triumph was a very specific civil and religious ceremony undertaken to commemorate a great military victory. When an emperor had done something triumph-worthy (or wanted people to think they had), there would be a grand parade in the streets of Rome, with Roman citizens lining the streets and hailing the emperor as a great figure. Often these triumphs would be accompanied by some great public work commissioned by the emperor to commemorate their achievement - a column, arch or the like that bore inscriptions and images detailing the emperor’s great victory.
In almost every way, Jesus’ entry to the city of Jerusalem mimics and mocks the Roman triumph. Jesus rides into town from just outside the city, his procession visible from a distance as he would have descended the Mount of Olives on his way towards Jerusalem. Bethany, where Jesus stayed the night before, is just on the other side of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem, making it easy for a few eager disciples to let waiting crowds inside the city know he was on his way in the morning. But unlike the Romans, who rode in on a great war horse, Jesus rides a humble donkey. And very specifically, the young colt of a donkey - probably barely strong enough to bear the weight of a grown man, and certainly the opposite in every conceivable way to a magnificent steed.
Let’s pause on the donkey for a moment longer, because it does have one more element of symbolic significance beyond mocking the emperor’s steeds. John and Matthew both quote directly from the Hebrew prophet Zechariah, who wrote,
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”- Zechariah 9:9
Sometimes, the New Testament’s use of Old Testament prophesies can seem a bit contrived or arbitrary, but it’s pretty hard to overlook this one, since Jesus seems to go out of his way to fulfill these words. We will talk more about the Messianic element of Jesus’ triumphal entry, but even before we get there it’s worth looking at the rest of that prophecy from Zechariah, specifically chapter 9 verse 10,
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.- Zechariah 9:10
Much like the Roman emperors, who claimed a divine mandate to rule over the known world, Jesus’ choice of a donkey was seen by his disciples as an explicit claim to divine lordship over the whole world - from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth. So while there is a humble element to the donkey, and it is fitting that Jesus’ messianic mission is fulfilled through such an unorthodox choice, Jesus’ message was loud and clear to those on Messiah-watch: I am he.
So let’s talk about the messianic aspect of all this, shall we? Messiah is another word that has been spiritualized so much that we may not understand the full implication of what it meant in Jesus’ day, and the ways in which Jesus both confirms and subverts messianic expectations explains a lot about what was happening on this day, and his whole ministry. While there was a great debate about exactly who and what the messiah would be like, the consensus in Jesus’ day was that the Messiah would be a strong military and political leader, a king in the model of David, who would throw out the Romans and re-establish an independent Jewish kingdom under God’s blessing.
There are numerous explicit references to this idea of the Messiah in Jesus’ procession. The crowds are explicitly calling Jesus the “son of David” throughout, establishing his messianic credentials as one in the line of David, at least spiritually if not literally. They are chanting the word “Hosanna” - a word that does not mean “praise” but “save us!” At the same time, they are waving and laying down palm branches - a nationalist symbol of the formerly independent Jewish kingdom. We have evidence that the palm branch was seen as a Jewish symbol, including the fact that palm trees were printed on Jewish coins during the 2nd century BC. So, looked at with this in mind, a massive crowd was calling out for Jesus to save them while waving around the symbol of their formerly free kingdom. It’s pretty hard to read that as anything other than their hope that Jesus would launch a literal revolution to free Judea from Roman control, and possibly from the Herodian Dynasty, too.
So let’s take a step back and examine everything we’ve said thus far. Jesus, a known wandering teacher who had built up a small but loyal following, is making a public display of his entry into Jerusalem in a deliberate mimicry of a Roman triumph. He has chosen a donkey to ride as both a mockery of the Roman emperor and an implicit signal of his messianic intentions. He is hailed with cries for salvation, and ushered into the city by a crowd waving their symbol of national freedom during a time of occupation. Is it any wonder, then, that the Pharisees are so quick to confront Jesus? Luke reports that some Pharisees in the crowd beg Jesus to rebuke his followers, but Jesus replies that “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Translation: this is happening, no matter how much you try to stop it.
As mentioned, in Matthew, Mark and Luke the next thing Jesus does is enter the temple courts and drive out the vendors there, saying they had made the house of prayer into a den of robbers. Even this has not only spiritual but political undertones. Without going into the whole story here, it’s worth remembering that the last war of Jewish independence, led by the Maccabees to oust the Greeks, had begun when the Greeks had desecrated the temple, which led the Maccabee family of priests to start a revolution. The culminating act of their successful revolt had been the cleansing of the temple. If one were so inclined, you could read Jesus’ cleansing of the temple courts as a symbolic reenactment of the Maccabean revolt.
So, Jesus’ triumphal entry is full of political symbolism. If anything, it’s hard to see the story as anything but political, once you notice all of the deliberate imagery being used by Jesus and his followers. But, we cannot read all of this without following the story to its conclusion. Jesus’ followers had their hopes dashed, and rather quickly. Within a week of his dramatic political announcement, Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed by collusion between the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman overlords that Jesus was supposed to overthrow. Sure, three days later his followers began proclaiming a strange story about his resurrection from the dead, but no great political revolution followed. It wasn’t until 70 AD that the Jews finally rose up against the Romans, and they were quickly beaten, the temple destroyed, and the Jewish population scattered.
What are we to do with this? Was all of that political symbolism a red herring, a misunderstanding, a mistake? Did Jesus misunderstand his own mission, or perhaps did his followers make something from nothing? There have been many attempts to answer this question, but I’ll give you mine: Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, and what he was doing was redefining the Messiah in a way none of his followers expected. Where his followers expected to defeat the Roman Empire in pitched battle, Jesus said, “actually, I have defeated all of the powers of the world not by strength but by weakness.” Jesus’ defeat was actually his victory - Paul tells us explicitly in 1 Corinthians 15:54-58,
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[h]
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[i]56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
An armed revolt was never going to bring down the mightiest army of the 1st century. Yet through his death and resurrection, Christianity went from a tiny sect to the official religion of Rome within 300 years. More importantly than that, Jesus understood that by his death and resurrection he would become Lord of all in a way he never could be as lord of an earthly, geographical kingdom. The Kingdom of God may not control physical territory, but it is no less a kingdom for all that - it demands our allegiance, asks us to follow its laws (which is the law of grace and love), and expects us to forswear all other allegiances on its behalf. By choosing the path of suffering, Jesus became far more powerful than any Roman emperor could ever have dreamed. By refusing to simply be a Jewish king, Jesus became king of all people. Instead of saving a few who cried hosannah that day, Jesus saved all people by his death and resurrection. This different, higher kind of politics is still counterintuitive and surprising to this day, but it is also glorious enough to make us all cry “Hosanna” to the son of David, the one who saves.