Holy Week Is a Long Time in Politics

Especially if you ride a donkey into Jerusalem

The week ahead is a quiet one for feast days in the Church of England. One day, I’ll write about Dietrich Bonhoeffer who is remembered on 9^th April. But today is not that day. I’d like to seize our chance to get ahead on the significance of Easter which, arguably, begins on Palm Sunday which, this year, falls on 13^thApril.

‘Easter’ is a curiously British word for this holy festival. Most countries have a word derived from the Greek word ‘Pascha’, originally from the Hebrew ‘Pesach’ meaning Passover, which celebrates the release of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Easter in France is Pâques, Pasqua in Italy and Paskha in Russia. The British word ‘Easter’ is a little mysterious and may be a reference to an obscure goddess, Eostre, worshipped in Kent in the 6^th century who was very much in the right place at the right time when it came to being immortalised. We won’t get sidetracked onto the arguments about Christians co-opting Pagan festivals. Suffice to say the date of Easter was essentially dictated by God thousands of years ago because the commemoration of the Passion of the Christ coincides with the Passover.

Easter itself is the climax of Holy Week, which starts with Palm Sunday, a story which has been celebrated with gusto for over a thousand years. Aelfric (955-1010) was an Anglo-Saxon abbot who encouraged locals to participate in reenacting the story, waving palmtwigu (palm branches) on Palmsunnandeg (Palm Sunday) like the crowd welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem as he rode on a donkey. These branches – normally pussy-willow or yew in England – were thought to symbolise the springing tree of life on which Christ died on Good Friday.

Wait. What is Palm Sunday?

Palm Sunday is clearly important, being one of the few events you will find in all four gospels, but it is a little baffling at first and second glance. John keeps the story very simple in his version in John 12:12-15:

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³ They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.”

What on earth does all that mean? Let’s break it down into the key ingredients: a donkey; palm branches; and Psalm 118.

Ingredient #1 Take One Donkey

We find donkeys rather comical, so the image of Jesus riding this humble steed seems undignified and goofy. But let’s remember that two thousand years ago, donkeys were important affordable animals. Horses were for rich people. Jesus could have ridden into Jerusalem on a huge white charger like a conquering general. He could have spoken such a creature into being or turned a donkey into one. Or into a Pegasus. But he did not. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. But why?

When John says “as it is written”, he is quoting words from Zechariah 9, written five hundred earlier after the Israelites had returned from exile in Babylon (as opposed to slavery in Egypt centuries earlier). Zechariah was writing at a time when the exhilaration of rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple was starting to wear off. In the cold light of day, Israel still seemed like a lowly and vulnerable nation, surrounded by powerful enemies with very sharp swords.

If you read the whole of Zechariah 9 – and I encourage you to do so – you will find a mixture of judgment, protection and peace. A king who will rule from sea to sea is promised. He will be good news for God’s people. Bad news for all those who oppose his rule – both within and without Israel. This king is so powerful, that he doesn’t need a chariot. He can saunter into town on a donkey since he has authority in his word. Seeing Jesus – who could calm storms, walk on water and raise the dead – riding into Jerusalem on a humble beast of burden is a red flag to the authorities.

Maybe it will be okay, as long as nobody notices and starts waving nationalistic symbols like palm branches. Oh, wait…

Ingredient #2 Wave Palm Branches

Palm branches were closely associated with Israel, Just as the oak tree is associated with England. Our ancient oaks were turned into mighty ships for the Royal Navy, so palm branches were turned into shelters during the Feast of the Tabernacles to remind the Israelites of their wandering in the wilderness.

By the time Jesus was riding into Jerusalem, palm branches had become even more politically charged, having become a symbol of Jewish nationalism and independence following the uprising of Judas Maccabeus.

After the feeding of the 5000, the crowd had already tried to seize Jesus in order to make him king. No wonder the authorities are terrified of what might happen next.

Ingredient #3 Recite Psalm 118

For those concerned about rebellion, the chants of Psalm 118 put the tin hat on it. Here are some choice words from this victory song:

The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.

Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.

The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you.
The Lord is God,
and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.

(Psalm 118:14-15, 19-20, 22, 26-27)

That first verse quoted above is itself a direct quotation from Moses’s song of salvation when Pharoah’s chariots are swallowed up by the Red Sea. The Psalm is meant to make the Jewish heart leap – like an Englishman hearing the speech of Henry V on St Crispin’s Day. Psalm 118 was sung every Passover to remind them of the victory handed to them by the Lord.

All of this is heavily implied as Jesus clip-clops into Jerusalem on a donkey. Think Jeremy Clarkson driving a Churchill tank into Parliament square while loudspeakers are blaring out Land of Hope and Glory while crowds wave union jacks. I don’t think our current government would like that. That would be the day to buy shares in tear gas and truncheons.

Entry into Jerusalem Giotto (1266–1337)

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Holy Week Is a Long Time in Politics

Within a week of the crowds cheering and waving their branches, Jesus was dead and buried. Never before has the expression ‘A week is a long time in politics’ had such meaning. The crowds didn’t understand. No-one did. Not even the disciples. John writes:

At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. (John 12:16)

Afterwards, the disciples realised that Jesus had not come to restore the kingdom of Israel to the good old days of the all-conquering king David. Since the very creation of Adam and Eve in the garden, any moment of victory was spoiled almost immediately by sin, which leads to death. Jesus had come to defeat that ultimate enemy: death itself. He would do that by dying, like the sacrificial Passover lamb. But we will look at that when Easter comes.

Not long now. Lent continues. Keep going.

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