Palm Sunday Musings: No King But Jesus*

Jesus' resistance rally

TODAY IS PALM SUNDAY, the first day of Holy Week

This Sunday, my post is courtesy of Day1, a national radio program formerly known as “The Protestant Hour.” In 2025, they asked me to be their Palm Sunday preacher and I was happy to do so. I’m sharing the sermon again — as it is MORE RELEVANT than ever. You can read it below, or you can listen to it on their website.

A few of you may remember this reflection — I wrote a version of it in 2023. I think I was the first person to link together the Borg/Crossan “two parades” thesis with the definition of hosanna, “save us.” Since then, however, I’ve seen the idea show up in a number of places by other writers — and it is good to know that it has caught on.

This version isn’t exactly the same as the original, “Hosanna, Not Alleluia.” The original can be found in the Cottage archive, and it appears in A Beautiful Year.

During Holy Week, I’ll be sharing some meditations from A Beautiful Year. I hope you’ll read the Palm Sunday and Holy Week chapter. It is one of my favorite parts of the book.

*With due apologies to my UK and Commonwealth readers. I hope you’ll forgive me — because I think you’ll both understand and like the sermon anyway!

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Matthew 21:1-11

When Jesus and his disciples had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!“

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

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MUSING

Being of a certain age, Palm Sunday always conjures memories of Jesus Christ Superstar. I owned the original Broadway soundtrack, an album with a simple brown cover with gold lettering that vaguely resembled a Bible. I knew all the words by heart, and especially loved the song of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho
Sanna, hey, sanna hosanna
Hey J.C, J.C, won’t you smile at me?
Sanna ho, sanna hey, Superstar

Like liturgical clockwork, as Lent turns into Holy Week, I find myself humming it over dishes and belting it out in the car. Needless to say, every Holy Week I sing it a lot.

Not until recently did I realize that I didn’t actually know what “hosanna” meant. I’d always assumed it was a synonym for alleluia, an expression of praise. But hosanna and alleluia are not the same. Hosanná is a transliteration of the Hebrew term (hôsî-âh-na) meaning “Oh, save now!” or “Please save!”

In other words the crowd at the procession wasn’t shouting praises to Jesus. The crowd was begging Jesus to save them.

Well that raises an interesting question, from what?

In 2006, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg published The Last Week. The book begins with an unforgettable image:

“Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. . . One a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers.

“Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire.”

I have no idea how many sermons have been preached on this passage in the years since the book’s publication. In the last fifteen years however, I’ve never not heard a Palm Sunday sermon allude to it, to borrow this image, or to quote this passage directly. The “two processions” have become nearly a commonplace in liturgical, mainline, and liberal churches.

This year, I’m wondering about the crowds watching the processions. Luke tells us that they are shouting blessings. But Matthew depicts the throng cheering, waving branches, and singing hosanna. The author interlaced the Jesus procession with a prophecy from Zechariah. In the Hebrew scriptures, Zechariah envisioned a humble king who arrived in Jerusalem on donkey and a colt. That king will end all war. There would be no more chariots, warhorses, or battle-bows. The king will command peace.

Of course, Pontius Pilate wasn’t a king of peace. He commanded an army on behalf of Caesar. He and that legion were there to keep the peace during the holy days of Passover — making sure that the Jews caused no trouble for the Roman rulers. As his procession made its way to the city gate, most likely no one cheered him. The crowds hated and feared him.

Perhaps a few paid supporters were sent out to shout “Ave Pilate” — “Hail Pilate” as he entered — to soothe his imperial ego. Maybe a few powerful people in Jerusalem actually approved of him, or wanted something from him, and shouted their praise from alongside the road. Chances were, however, the road to the west gate was relatively deserted as the Romans approached. The only sounds were the dreaded clomp, clomp, clomp of armored horses and chariot wheels traversing the cobblestones. Pilate, in regal splendor, probably longed to be home in his seaside villa instead of in Jerusalem, with these unruly Jews.

Meanwhile, at the eastern gate, Jesus’ noisy supporters were crying out “Hosanna! Save us! Please save us now!” They weren’t asking for some sort of spiritual salvation, for a place in heaven, or for eternal life. They wanted to be saved from Pilate, from the legion that was entering the other gate, from Caesar, from the faux peace of Roman swords. They were well aware there was no Pax Romana, it was nothing but misery and death.

Hosanna Jesus! Hosanna free us, we pray you! Deliver us! Save us from Pilate, from Herod, and Caesar and all of the misery of Rome! Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho! Now, Jesus, now!

There wasn’t an ave or an alleluia to be heard in this bunch. These branch-waving protesters were begging to be rescued from oppression and injustice, shouting for liberation from the forces of violence and death.

Palm Sunday has always confused me. Because when it is depicted as a jubilant crowd welcoming Jesus, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

But when the crowd is understood as desperate subjects of a bloody empire, Palm Sunday comes into better focus. Why do they later turn on Jesus? Just a few days after what we call this triumphal entry?

Once the Roman soldiers entered the fray, and their hoped for savior is arrested, the reality of their situation sets in. No amount of palm waving hosannas can free Jesus from his Roman fate. The only thing that is left to this crowd is the hope that they can still save their own hides and look forward to some better situation when the next promising savior arrived. They really didn’t betray him. They did what fearful subjects of a brutal regime usually do — they capitulated. They capitulated to their overlords who had thousands of chariots, warhorses, and battle-bows at their command. The Romans essentially forced them to join the imperial procession.

By Friday, they weren’t begging Jesus for salvation; they were praying that they could avoid being crucified with him.

They accepted their fate under Caesar. They would be slaves of empire still. We are after all a frail and fearful people.

The story of this coming week is that Jesus will still save them, capitulaters, fearful, frightened and all. Jesus will still save them from violence and death — although not as anyone hoped or expected. By the end of the week the salvation will come when His body is broken by state torture. When He is forced to drink Rome’s bloody cup. The journey to the kingdom of God, the journey to an anti-imperial kingdom will be marked by a cross. And Palm Sunday is the first step along the way that will end with a stunning event in a cemetery garden.

And yet, even after the tomb, even after that garden: hosanna will still sound. In a week, we may still shout our Easter Alleluias, but the truth is that in our day we cry out hosanna. Children and teachers die in pools of blood at school, lies pervade and divide a desperate people, the rich steal everyone’s share, courts unwind justice, and even a poisoned earth and sky rage against us. Is this the Pax Americana? Well we may have believed that once, subject to all its deceptive promises. But the mask has come off and its faux peace has made itself known. This peace is one enforced by fear and violence and submission. A peace of privilege and guns and money. Hosanna, Jesus, hosanna! Hosanna Save us, NOW!

This year I am stricken by the bodies and the blood,. I am stricken by the price of empire. I’ve got no ave or alleluia left. But I can wave my palm in protest, and I can shout: Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho / Sanna, hey, sanna hosanna! Jesus Christ, pay attention, now!

That chorus sounds more than ever. And the road to the eastern gate beckons, opening toward the commonwealth of God. Wave your palm. Sing with me.

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🌴 Listen to “Hosanna, Not Alleluia” from Day1 here. The Day1 episode includes the sermon and a conversation with the host. Enjoy!

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INSPIRATION

Now then, put down your palms.
This is the astonishing story of ruin,
a devastating drama of weakness and failure.
Our Savior will attain no victory.
He will defy the Empire of Fear.
We will deny him.
The Empire will have its way.
We will be left with humiliation and sorrow.
Broken bread, shared with betrayers.
Spilled wine, not understood yet.
Hymns drowned out by taunts and curses.
Palms crushed under crowds chanting for death.
The Emperor’s order,
and the fear with which we put him up to it.
Blood and nails in our otherwise empty hands.
On washed feet we run away.

This is the horrible good news,
the awful grace that redeems our lives
by taking them out of our hands.
We are shattered. And in that, in that,
God is present—embodied and powerful.
Our rebellion against love is complete,
and Love overthrows it all.

The Beloved is inside our suffering and our evil
and from there, nowhere lofty, loosens it,
forgives and heals, makes of our grave a womb,
and with terrifying gentleness invites us in.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Holy Week”

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
— Mary Oliver, “The Poet Thinks About the Donkey”

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What we often call the triumphal entry was actually an anti-imperial, anti-triumphal one,
a deliberate lampoon of the conquering emperor
entering a city on horseback through gates opened in abject submission.

— Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan

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In A Beautiful Year, there is an entire section devoted to Holy Week — including multiple readings for Good Friday. If you’ve not yet started the book, Holy Week or Easter are perfect places to begin in the middle!

The book makes a wonderful Easter present.

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This kingdom needs no king.
Its laws are inscribed in the palm
of the hand that holds a soup pot.
Ideology dissolves into a tear.
The revolution is to breathe.
The radical act is to be present.
Nourish the earth with your secret joy.
Be an anarchist for love.

— Alfred K. Lamotte