The Path of Freedom from Palm Sunday to the Victory of Christ
Today, just as the world is beginning to recover from the economic crisis and it seemed that we would soon be able to breathe a little more deeply and live better, we have fallen victim to a new and perhaps even more complex trial – a global political crisis. One leg has barely been pulled out of the bog when the other is already sinking into it. One could spend a whole life wading through the mud, trusting in the prophecy of the folk song: “in my time I waded mud, in my time I adorned myself,” and hoping that everything will sort itself out in the cyclical flow of time and events.
But there is yet another path – to act radically. And it is a good thing that we northerners do not have blood as hot as the southerners, who in situations of great calamity, as the common saying goes, “throw open the floodgates,” and then, inevitably, both of the aforementioned crises, like rivers with banks burst by floods, merge into one and drag into their whirlpools not only individuals and social groups, but even whole nations.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he was met by the people of Israel, who had come to the city to celebrate the Passover. Thousands of people, enslaved by the occupying Roman power, divided by their religious leaders into the right and the wrong ones, met their leader with palm branches in their hands. In Eastern culture, the palm was considered a sacred tree. The meaning of the palm in the symbolism of Judaism is revealed in Psalm 92: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree.”
At last, in the very heart of the Jewish religion, in Jerusalem, the righteous one arrived, on whom the people placed great hope that he, precisely, would be the one to solve all the festering problems. A premonition hovered in the air that the time had come. Those who awaited Jesus, whom the prophet Zechariah characterizes as prisoners full of hope, cried out: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.” All who held power trembled. The mood of the people foretold the approach of an uprising. The people were ready for radical action. In Latin, the word “radical” means drastic, effective, extreme. To act radically meant to touch the very root, to touch the very foundations, in order to bring about change. The people expected radical action from their cherished hero, in order to follow him.
And Jesus acted radically. Radically contrary to the views of the Pharisees, who needed to secure religious power; radically contrary to the views of Pontius Pilate, who needed to secure political power; and radically contrary to the views of the people, who were ready for revolution. Radicalism as the people understood it would leave behind thousands of victims, destruction, ruins, devastation and death. In other words, the radicalism for which the people were primed is called war. But Jesus chose another kind of radicalism, one that would not destroy but build, that would not lay waste but renew, that would not kill but make alive. He chose not to resist evil with the means that humanity had known for thousands of years and which, when used, only multiply evil and injustice. Jesus chose to fight at the very root, in order to be victorious once and for all. Being righteous himself, he localized within himself all evil and injustice and, sacrificing himself as the final sacrifice, he stopped them, in order to open an entirely new page in the history of humanity, in which, if his radicalism were followed, there would be no more victims. If every person were to stop injustice and evil within themselves, there would be no more victims.
But history shows something else. Humanity still chooses a radicalism that is first of all ready to destroy injustice outside of itself with clubs, Molotov cocktails and tanks. And nonviolent resistance, in the form of self-sacrifice, is seen as so much feminine babbling, to be watched in uninteresting films. To defend oneself, as the majority understands it, an endless number of weapons of destruction have been manufactured. There are many professional soldiers, generals and belligerently minded citizens ready to wage war against injustice with weapons in hand. And it does not seem at all that the time prophesied in the Bible could come, when they will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” For the second millennium after Christ, humanity has been tossed back and forth between the two aforementioned options of struggle.
On Palm Sunday, the Jewish understanding of attaining freedom by violent means had its justification, for Jesus’s struggle was not yet over, his victory had not yet been experienced. The Jews still continued to offer sacrifices in the temple, to read the Torah, and to perform the rituals associated with Judaism, but they were unable to destroy evil at the root. They were unable to believe that Jesus was the awaited Messiah. They did not recognize the true God who, in the person of Jesus, rode into Jerusalem. They did not know the true nature of God and did not understand God’s true intention, even though every Jew at that time was raised in the knowledge of God. How much more, too, can we Christians of today be deceived into not recognizing God, his nature and character within ourselves, living as a minority surrounded by a secular world.
The events of Palm Sunday this year too led each of us not only to Holy Week – to Maundy Thursday, Holy Saturday, Good Friday and the feast of Christ’s resurrection as a tradition – but also to a testing of our faith, to a searching of our own heart, in order to discover whom we are ready to join today: the people with palm branches in their hands, or the radicalism of Christ. And this decision is not easy, for in one case there is the possibility of being together with the majority, but in the other, with the critical minority. In the one case, that of aggression, the changes will be even faster and more drastic; in the other, much, much slower – but at the very root, for they will come by the path of peace, like the King of Zion, peaceful, humble and righteous.
A joyful feast of Christ’s Resurrection!
Rudīte Losāne