Paying Attention to the "Visuals"

What is our image of Palm Sunday? Of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry? I mean the actual event. It is actually  described in very few verses in the extended narrative. The largest section in Matthew is about disciples going to get the royal donkey. Because that’s what it was. Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was the mark of a king in the time of Jesus. Our image might be more of Jesus riding a stallion, but that’s where our Popular Culture has changed the metaphor.

 In the American Western, for example, the hero does not ride a donkey.

 But here is another piece of the ‘visual’ we are given. In church, we pass out the palms (or their fronds) as reminders of the palm branches that the people were waving as they cried out “Hosanna”. But here’s the thing, the biblical description is not so much of the flag…er…palm waving, another extrapolation of how we do things in the Popular Culture versus the time of Jesus.

 The visual is of the people laying their cloaks down on the ground. And not just their cloaks, but they cut down the palm branches and laid them in the road as well. The Royal Mount, the king’s donkey, was bearing someone too important for its hooves to pass over the dirt. From the journey up to the City, through its streets, and to the temple, the visual is more comparable to ‘rolling out the red carpet’ for this most important dignitary.

 Cynics might call the Triumphal Entry an archaic predecessor of the ‘flash mob’, a supposedly spontaneous event actually orchestrated on social media. Undercutting the message of Jesus is any way, shape, or form is a popular endeavor in this age. Or this could be Jesus, recognized by the people for who he was, the Messiah, the Son of David, the one to fulfill the prophecy that there would be an heir of David to reign forever.

 Pastor Peter