“There’s only so long Babylon can stand. Only so long until the King rides in.” – Mitch Wong
I can’t help but think of the irony of Palm Sunday falling the day after nationwide “No Kings” protests. Nation after nation, empire after empire, we as humans have looked to our rulers to help us. Or, we’ve looked to rebel groups to overthrow our governments and bring about a lasting peace. In my new home commonwealth of Virginia, voters are being asked to redistrict maps in order to combat Republican redistricting in other states. The logic is that in order to combat unfairness, we have to engage in unfairness. When one side goes low, we have to match energy. An eye for an eye; tit for tat.
To be a Christ follower is to pledge allegiance to a new Kingdom, and to serve in a new kind of Kingdom. In the Kingdom of God, there is one King who has already saved us and who has arrived, not with flashing lights and glamor, but on the back of a donkey no one else has ridden. The King is not someone who brags about his riches, but who is born to us in the feeding trough of barn animals.
Our world is obsessed with leaders who get the best sound bite or dominate their enemies in the most brutal display of power. Against that backdrop, Christians are to follow the leader who leads the most humbly, who asks people to keep his miracles and power a secret.
We spend so much of our time on earth arguing about which leader will ultimately save us, and then just as much time feigning disappointment when our messiahs lead us down the path of warfare and economic ruin. We crave rescue and we look to be rescued by human hands incapable of saving us.
As Jesus rides triumphantly into Jerusalem, claiming his Kingship as the right hand of God and Prince of Peace, the people around him call out Hosanna or Please deliver us. The people of Jesus’ day were hungry for rescue and salvation. They, like us, are desperate for the oppression of their empire to cease. And yet, in a week’s time, they’ll be the same voices calling to crucify Jesus when his plan for salvation lies in surrender instead of a violent coup. We think that we want salvation in getting even, when really we want salvation by giving up control.
The story of Palm Sunday is crying out for rescue and then being humble enough to be rescued by a God who knows us better than we know ourselves, who sees the entire world at once. We lay down our control in the form of the best coat we have so that the Son of Man might desecrate it with the hooves of a donkey.
I serve only one king, and he is a king who demands quiet adoration over statues and christened buildings. I lay my life down at the hands of my enemy rather than fighting back with their same weaponry, hoping that in my hands, the tools of warfare will become instruments of peace. I give up warfare altogether, trusting that victory is found in how much life I bring to others, not how much death I bring with my sword.
Deliver us from the empire, King Jesus. Deliver our minds from allegiance to lesser gods. Deliver our bodies from Pilate’s sentence. Deliver us from the arrogance of fire, which we think fights fire, but really just burns everyone including ourselves.
No King but Jesus. No way of victory but the cross. Amen.
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Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He sells poetry art here, published a collection of poems titled Weak Eyes, and masquerades as the spoken word artist Liihey. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
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