The Things That Make for Peace

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-45

As Jesus came near to Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on the Sunday before Passover in the last week of his life on this earth, Jesus is proclaimed by his disciples as the Messiah, the anointed king entering the holy city for his coronation with the singing of songs and the waving of palm branches.

But this is not your traditional parade to welcome a new king. Jesus has arranged – it’s not clear exactly how – to ride into town not on a horse fit for a king, not in a way that demonstrates power and mastery and control, but on a young donkey. And what Jesus has in mind is certainly a text of the prophet Zechariah, who foresaw the day of the Messiah with these words:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” (Zech. 9:9-10)

Zechariah sees the arrival of the Messiah bringing not war against all God’s enemies, but peace – peace for God’s people and peace for all the nations. Jesus arrives in a way that could not contrast more with the way that the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, would arrive in Jerusalem for the Passover more or less at the same time. Pilate would enter on a warhorse, surrounded by armed soldiers, demonstrating the power of Rome.

Passover in the days of Jesus was always a fraught occasion. Passover, the celebration of God’s freeing God’s people from slavery in Egypt and from the grip of the tyrant Pharoah, of course was an emotional event in the period of Roman occupation. From what we know of Palestine in the first century, most of the revolts against Roman rule started at Passover, and all of them were brutally crushed by Roman military power. Pilate did not normally live in Jerusalem, but in the city of Caesarea along the coast near modern Tel Aviv. But Pilate made a show of coming personally to Jerusalem every year, arriving in a military parade, making a point that was crystal clear to everyone: Don’t even think about it. There is no alternative.

But as Pilate arrived in Jerusalem, entering the city from the west, on the road from Caesarea, Jesus enters the city from the east, from the Mount of Olives, announcing that the alternative has come. That the God’s alternative kingdom, God’s alternative way, the way of mutual service, the way of respect and love of neighbor, the way of peace, has now arrived. Jesus comes to Jerusalem to confront all of the powers that are opposed to God’s way, whether they come from pagan Rome or are housed in the Lord’s own Temple. Jesus enters the city almost mocking Pilate, an almost ridiculous parody of Pilate’s military parade surrounded by his army waving their swords. Jesus comes, riding a donkey, acclaimed as king by disciples from hillbilly country in Galilee waving palm branches, announcing the arrival of peace.

And as Jesus rounds the bend and the city comes into view before him, Jesus begins to weep. Because he knows Jerusalem will reject the path of peace that he has come to bring. “If only you had recognized this day the things that make for peace,” Jesus says, “but they are hidden from your eyes.” The way of peace is right here in front of you and yet you can’t see it. You are so mesmerized by the way of power, the way of a God you think you have to appease with your sacrifices and your piety the way that you have to appease Caesar, that you can’t see the alternative kingdom of God even when it is right here before your eyes.

What Luke knows, and what even the first readers of Luke knew, is that by the time Luke’s gospel is written Jerusalem would indeed choose the path of war, the path of trying to establish God’s kingdom by copying the ways of Rome, and the city would be utterly crushed and devastated. And Luke tells us Jesus knew this destruction and defeat was inevitable because the people of God had not seen the alternative way when Jesus came to offer it to them: “They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Because you did not see the alternative when God came and put it before you, you will choose a path that leads to death and misery and suffering. And Jesus weeps.

I don’t know about you, but this Palm Sunday more than most I feel that I can identify with Jesus weeping as he enters Jerusalem proclaimed as its king, yet knowing that his kingdom will be rejected. Everywhere we look we see the powers that resist God growing stronger, the forces opposed to the peaceful kingdom of God becoming more powerful. And it feels to me like the alternative kingdom of Jesus is right here yet no one is able to see it, and I feel helpless to prevent the catastrophe that is coming because we cannot see the alternative path Jesus is giving to us.

There is, of course, literal war, particularly in Ukraine. There is unprovoked aggression, unspeakable cruelty and violence against the innocent, unimaginable suffering. “They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another,” Jesus foresaw not only in Jerusalem but also in Mariupol and Bucha and the train station at Kramatorsk. Our country is supplying the defenders of Ukraine with the weapons of war to fight back the invaders and hopefully prevent even greater suffering. Even though we know that the evil on display in Ukraine cannot be defeated by the weapons of war alone, yet what is the alternative?

Then there is the impending climate catastrophe, which seems to be coming upon us even faster than expected. This week the United Nations task force on climate issued a report that said if we want to avoid irreversible damage and get off the path that leads to an unliveable planet, we must act now: “It’s now or never.” And, as someone responded on the Internet this week, the smart money is on never. We know, if we are honest with ourselves, that humanity is on a path that will lead to great suffering and destruction, but we cannot imagine the alternative, and so we continue along and try not to think about it.

Then there is Covid, the inequalities and lack of compassion in our society that have been revealed by the pandemic. Yet we are all exhausted after two years of isolation and fear, our ability to cope has been tapped out; hostility and scapegoating are on the rise. The hateful rhetoric we are seeing right now against vulnerable people like trans kids and their families, the labeling of anyone who stands up for the vulnerable as groomers and abusers – talk that in many countries has been the prelude to violence and genocide – is truly frightening right now to many people, me included. And it’s scary to feel powerless to do anything about it.

Even the church, which is supposed to embody the alternative way of Jesus, the alternative kingdom of God, doesn’t seem to have the answers. A lot of the denial and the hateful rhetoric have found a home in churches, and even in those corners of the church that do hope to remain faithful to the alternative path of Jesus, our numbers are small and dwindling, our influence is weak and waning, and I at least often feel helpless.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem for the final time, he saw God’s beloved people blinded to the alternative being presented to them, on a path that would lead them to destruction – and Jesus wept. Jesus wept for all the suffering, all the avoidable death and pointless waste that was to come, because people had been unable to see the alternative path God had come to offer them. And personally, I confess that I don’t want a Messiah who weeps. I would prefer a Messiah who acts. I’m with Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I’m not sure I’m ready to weep over what it feels like we are in the process of losing, and there is a big part of me that wants something more from Jesus than his tears.

But it’s not my job to tell Jesus how to do his job of being the Messiah. That’s the mistake the Pharisees make in the gospel reading today. The Pharisees beg Jesus to order his disciples to stop their singing, to stop announcing him as Messiah. To them, it’s dangerous. It’s unseemly. We have to recognize the hand we’ve been dealt, we can’t dream about alternatives, it’s too difficult, it’s too risky. In their pragmatism, in their desire to protect Jesus and save Jerusalem, they buy into the lie of Pilate, the lie that there is no alternative. In trying to manage Jesus and make him safe, they become just another part of the problem.

Jesus wisely refuses their request. All of creation is crying out for the alternative kingdom of God, if the disciples don’t sing the rocks and stones would do it. And Jesus intends to do something about it – but he will do it his way, God’s way, not our way. Jesus heads directly to the Temple, Jesus begins to confront our way of domesticating God, our way of knowing God that feels safe and comfortable yet is on the verge of collapsing. Jesus does this in order to set us free, as he is free, to know God in the way that he does, with confidence in God’s power to raise the dead to life, with absolute trust and faith in God’s love that does not take no for an answer and that transforms our blindness into sight.

This week we are invited to walk with Jesus directly into the belly of the beast, into the heart of all that is opposed to God and God’s alternative path of peace. So that we can be set free from the fear that prevents us from following Jesus on God’s alternative path, free to feel deeply and weep profoundly over what we have lost and might yet lose, free to carry the cross as need be, so that we can live fully as free and forgiven children of God, citizens of God’s alternative kingdom in this world and in the world to come.