The Two Processions

On a spring day in the year 33AD, two very important but very different processions entered the city of Jerusalem. It was the week of the Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year. Ever since that day, Christians have celebrated those processions as Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. We are mostly familiar with the procession of Jesus on his donkey. But there were two processions that day and they could scarcely have been more different. One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial one.

From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his handful of faithful followers. Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth; his message was about the KIngdom of God, and his followers were from the same peasant class. They had journeyed to Jerusalem from Galilee, about a hundred miles to the north.

On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, entered at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus's procession proclaimed the Kingdom of God, PIlate's proclaimed the power of empire, Pax Romana. They could hardly have been more different. One was a peasant procession following a leader on a donkey, the other a Hollywood style spectacle of troops, horses in a veritable riot of colour. These two processions embody the central conflict of the week that led to Jesus's crucifixion.

Pilate's military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology. For Rome's Jewish subjects, Pilate's procession embodied not only a rival social order, but also a rival theology. Jesus's procession on the other hand was a nonviolent witness to the power of God made great in weakness and humility.

The personal and political meanings of Holy Week are captured in two nearly identical questions: do you accept Jesus as your 'personal' Lord and Saviour? And do you accept Jesus as your 'political' Lord and Saviour? The Good News of Jesus which is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, involves both questions.

Holy Week and the journey of Lent are about that alternative procession and its alternative journey. This alternative procession is what we see on Palm Sunday, an anti-imperial and nonviolent procession. Now as then, that procession leads to a capital city, an imperial centre, and a collaboration between religion and violence.

Now as then, the alternative journey is the path of personal transformation that leads to journeying with the risen Christ, just as it did for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Holy Week, as the annual remembrance of Jesus's last week, presents us with the always relevant double question: which journey are we on, which procession are we in ?