A SUBVERSIVE PARADE - It is Palm Sunday. It serves as the gateway to what is probably the busiest week of the church year — Holy Week.
The Gospel for today is, in fact, the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a baby donkey as it is told in Matthew 21:1-11. It was a parade with cheering and delight and pomp—who doesn’t love a parade… right?
Let us remember the context of this story for a moment. Jesus is going to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. This was a festival celebrating when the Israelites were saved from slavery in Egypt. Now, while the Israelites may not have been enslaved to Rome in Jesus’ time as they
were to Egypt so many centuries before, they certainly did feel the oppression and exploitation of the Roman government. One way Rome demonstrated its dominance each year was to have Pilate or some similar official ride into Jerusalem on a war horse a few days before Passover. This was used to remind the Jewish people that Rome was in charge now and they better remember it.
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