The shouts of “Hosanna” that reverberated throughout the streets and off the city walls of Jerusalem caused Jesus’ adversaries to sense defeat. In the minds of the teachers of the law, this grassroots Messianic movement no longer claimed merely the allegiance of a handful of Jewish peasants; rather, the message and mission had captured the imaginations of the world. According to the Pharisees, the Way of Jesus had gone global- or at least Gentile- and they had no choice but to throw their hands up in surrender.
That is, until Friday. Apparently the pep rally of Palm Sunday didn’t stifle the energies and strategies for too long.
Still, that’s not what bothers me about this text. I am not even as unsettled by the pressing realities that only a few days later the same hallowed Jerusalem walls reverberated a different word- “crucify!” After all, the fickleness of humanity is fairly constant.
You see, we can do nothing. Our efforts are in vain. Try as we may, the world remains broken. Lions devour lambs. Drones and threats of terror are preferred over pruning hooks and plowshares. Political and religious rhetoric push people farther apart instead of pull friends and foes together. Reconciliation across racial, economic, geographic, denominational and ideological communities appear more improbable than generations before. Children become collateral in both neighborhoods of privilege and villages drenched in oppression. Hosanna?! Look, the world has gone after power and dominion no matter what the cost. Will deliverance ever come?
Nevertheless, cynicism will not become my central discipline during this sacred seven-day journey. This Holy Week, I will instead sit with a revised echo of the Pharisees as my eager and hope-full prayer for the world (and our churches) to indeed go after this Jesus. In the presence of so much unrest throughout our local and global communities, I will dare to open my eyes and look to see evidence that we are not and will not be overcome by darkness. I will hold on hope for the possibility- nah, probability- that just maybe we can and many are doing something as those who pursue the One who promised not to condemn the world but to save and make it right again.
I will pray expectantly, not only for the church, but also for the world caught in between beauty and despair. I will pray for a world whose Lord is the Christ and promised future is reconciliation. I will pray for the world to go after the dreams of God and the rhythms of love and redemption. I will pray for the church and churches to take the lead and (continue to) do the same.
I will believe in the resurrection even when Twitter feeds, news outlets, and unending stories of injustice near and far tempt me to abandon the greatest of all Christian hopes.
I will trust the story of Easter as affirmation that even when the world fails to go after Jesus as Lord, Jesus indeed goes and has gone after the world which he loves.
After all, this kind of belief and trust in Life’s great triumph over death and all its friends is the only advantage we have on our pilgrimage from streets draped with palms to a tomb we pray will be empty so enough.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4, pp. 102-103.