Luke 19:28-40  New International Version

Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King

²⁸ After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹ As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ³⁰ “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

³² Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. ³³ As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

³⁴ They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

³⁵ They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. ³⁶ As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

³⁷ When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸ “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”^[a]

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

⁴⁰ “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Stepping Stones
The Rev Dr Dianne ES Carpenter
13 April 2025
Luke 19:28-40

I always think of Palm Sunday as a day of celebration and joy, a kind of dress rehearsal for Easter. The Sunday before Easter was a story about a parade and lots of enthusiasm and excitement in the air.

This was not just any day in Jerusalem, this was the day faithful Jews tried to be in Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover. Jesus’ family had come when he was a boy, and He had wandered off to discuss theology with the elders in the temple.   This was a day when the population of Jerusalem, already a crossroads of the Mediterranean, swelled from perhaps 40,000 to 200,000 during the holidays and Passover was one of the busiest holidays.

In 2007, New Testament scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, published The Last Week, in which they suggested that the parade that heralded Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem wasn’t the largest or most spectacular parade in town during that Passover season.

Also entering Jerusalem at Passover, from the west, was the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Like the Roman governors of Judea before him, Pilate lived in Caesarea by the sea. In other words, Pilate spent most of his time at his beach house. But with crowds of devout Jews flowing into Jerusalem to commemorate their liberation from Egypt, the Roman Governors would put on a display of force, to deter the Jews from getting too exuberant about the possibility of liberation from Rome. Pilate’s procession was the visible manifestation of Imperial Roman power. Once a year, during the Passover, the Roman procurator moved his headquarters to Jerusalem in a show of strength designed to prevent any outbreaks of insurgency or violent rebellion against Roman rule. Such outbreaks were a constant danger, both because Roman rule imposed real hardship economically on their subject nations, and because, no one likes the foot of a foreign power on their necks.

In a show of military force, Pilate was accompanied by “cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.”

The sound of “marching feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums” which would have had a sobering effect on all those who saw this parade. There would have been no shouts of Hosanna as the powerful Pilate rode astride of his horse, hoping to strike fear into the resentful onlookers. As Pilate lead a regiment of his own most trusted soldiers into town; as a show of force, he did so with confidence knowing that he was backed up by several battalions of Rome’s finest garrisoned on the west side of Jerusalem ready to flood into the city at Pilate’s command.

Luke tells us Jesus came to town riding on a donkey, less impressive than a military parade.  More like the enacting of a church play hastily thrown together and written by the Prophet Zechariah than Star Wars. “Your king comes to you, triumphant and glorious, riding on a donkey,” Zechariah predicted, and Jesus dutifully acted the part. The words the crowds say are scripted also, lifted from Psalm 118, “Bless it is the one who comes in the name of the lord.  Hosanna, save us, we beseech.”

Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross after three years of ministry, miracles and multitudes. We have been placing 1 foot before the other all during lent as we’ve been facing the human condition. We have thought about our fears, our suffering, our attachment to the things of this world, our sin, our temptations and our relationships.

Today, no matter how you look at the story of Passover that year in Jerusalem we have to choose between two parades. The attraction of the power and the might of Pilate’s military parade with all its glory and wonder is still there to tempt us. The temptation to use force and violence, military might, drone technology, shock and awe, is still marching its way into the hearts and minds of so many people.

The pathways to glory still beckon. Power and might, greed and violence attract more attention and more converts than the path less traveled: Jesus versus Pilate, the nonviolence of the dominion of God versus the violence of the empire.

The city was a political hot bed of those invested in keeping the lid on things, and those ready to blow off that lid. The Jews hated the romans, and would have liked nothing better than to see them gone from their land. Romans viewed the Jews with disdain and were interested only in keeping them quiet. They were ruthless in enforcing that famous Pax Romana that held the empire together. They were not about to let a small subversive group of political or religious malcontents upset their uneasy peace in Palestine.

So for Jesus to ride into town like King David himself, on the back of a donkey, implying the ironic humility of a king described by Zechariah, and greeted to shouts of welcome and enthusiasm from the rabble, it raised the eyebrows of both the Jews who were vested in appeasing Rome, and the Romans who are vested in keeping the Jews quiet.

Empire vs the people. Power vs Resistance. Change vs status quo.

No wonder the pharisees tried to quiet Jesus’ followers when they got carried away, throwing their confetti and laying their coats on the ground and waving their palm branches welcoming King Jesus. 

“Rabbi,” they shouted to him, ‘tell your disciples to shut up.  Get them to stop.” but Jesus answered their cries. “I tell you if these disciples were silent even the stones would cry out.”

The steppingstones of life-the choices and the footing they represent, cry out for fruition. There is a certain inexorable quality to what unfolds from this point on.  Jesus is a man determined. He has a cause, he becomes a cause, an unstoppable cause whose momentary stopping and ultimate unstop ability is the salvation of the world.  Even the stones cannot keep from crying out that certain truth.

And I wonder what he meant, maybe all nature would cry out beginning with the bruised cobbles beneath the prancing war horses’ feet. Or maybe the inanimate objects would protest because how would you silence them?

In a city like Jerusalem or Boston or Worcester or maybe even Hyannis, there are many shouting sounds: sirens on their missions of intervention, rushing to the scenes of holdups and domestic violence, of muggings and accidents.  The ambulances speeding their way to people hit by cars, bicyclists careening into taxis, heart attacks at home, strokes silently striking down the unsuspecting, and drug overdoses snatching away our youths.

There are arguments on the street outside apartment windows.  A marriage coming apart.  Children waiting for the bus, impatient at the delay, and boom boxes and cars that have audio systems so reverberant they shake the windows and vibrant tires. The city has many sounds but so does the world. Far away from here, there are cries and people blown apart by bombs, targeted by drones and maimed by mines. Soldiers making daily rounds try to keep the peace while we as a nation cause stock market anxiety. The sound of war in many places shatters the silence of the night and turns laughter into tears and joy into sorrow.

The very stones cry out as earthquakes topple buildings and tornadoes level the landscape. Sometimes the earth is full of wailing as if all of us were at that wailing wall in Jerusalem, at the Temple’s foundation, as we bob and weaved and pour our hearts out for the ones we love and for this broken world.

Two processions—which shall we participate in? Sometimes it’s really difficult to know which parade to join, which bandwagon to hop on. It’s so easy and so tempting to join the wrong ones and so hard, sometimes, to even gain access to the right procession.

It’s so easy to simply get caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowds and join the processions which has the loudest brass bands or the most elaborate floats or the greatest number of celebrities or the most charismatic leaders. It’s easy to miss the counter-procession that is taking place on the other side of town—the one where Jesus is riding on a humble donkey, claiming a dominion, not by violence, but by courageous loving, serving and accepting his place among the victims of imperial power. In so doing, for those with the eyes of faith to see it, Jesus bears witness to the futility of the world’s kind of power in establishing God’s peace, God’s shalom, and points Christ’s followers to a different way.

The dominion of God is nothing remotely like the kingdoms or empires with which we are all too familiar. Power does not come from domination or oppression, but rather flows from love and service. Leadership requires servanthood and grace. Peace is won without a sword, without persons claiming greater value than another.

Holy Week reminds us how easily we are distracted and fooled by fancier parades and promises.

In a few moments we will hear again the story of how our salvation was wrought by the death of a man who was all goodness and light. All kindness and peace. As he rides into the city today and faces the crowds that will welcome him with Hosannas, he knows that at this very moment in some carpenter shop in a military barracks, cross beams are already being hewn, and nails are already being forged.  The crowd will soon shout, “Crucify” and another injustice, the great injustice of this world will be done.

There are still a few stepping stones and Rivers to cross. Jesus will clear the temple of commerce…  Celebrate the exodus Passover with his disciples… Be arrested, and interrogated, accused and sentenced… by Herod and by Pilate.

But come next Sunday, after the events of these days, there will come another shout, a joyful expression of resurrection, the truth of which even the stones will speak, when the stone is rolled away from the tomb. The stepping stones become the shouting stones when God’s people are silenced.