Yesterday, most of the Christian world observed Palm Sunday (also known as Willow Sunday)!
It is significant that the 12th chapter of the Gospel of John, which introduces the event of Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem, describes several nuances that lie in the background and allow the reader to better understand both what has been and what might happen next. The text – John 12:1–18.
Chapter 12 begins with Jesus’s visit to Bethany. We are reminded that it was there that Jesus performed his greatest miracle – he raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus of Nazareth has been hard to predict and practically uncontrollable, because in raising Lazarus he did not consult anyone as to whether society wished to receive its dead back. When a person passes away, everyone comes to terms with it. This is how society functions. We do not expect the dead to rise, but if there is one who shatters even this fundamental stability, what at all in this world can be predictable? Most biblical exegetes regard this very event of the resurrection of Lazarus as the last straw in the cup of the religious elite’s anger, prompting them at last to decide to silence forever this troublemaker from Nazareth who disturbs the social order and the status quo.
Then the evangelist tells us that it is Mary who anoints Jesus for death. Here the evangelist reflects a paradox – the one who snatched his friend from the clutches of death is himself anointed for death. How will it all end? Will the one who demonstrated his superiority over death be able to overcome his own hour of death? The paradox is heightened by several parallels between the death of Lazarus and the death of Jesus: the number ‘three’ – three days in the tomb followed by resurrection; three hundred denarii, the value Judas places on the anointing oil that could have been sold instead of being squandered on the anointing of feet; and thirty pieces of silver that Judas receives (in the Gospel of Matthew) for betraying Jesus.
The narrator complicates the course of events, for he reveals that it is not only Jesus whom the chief priests plan to kill, but also Lazarus, who is evidently a living example of the wonderworker from Nazareth’s audacity, of people’s faith, and of the overturning of the status quo. After all, in the opinion of the chief priests, Lazarus should have remained in the tomb. They will see to it.
Against this whole backdrop, the beautiful event unfolds – Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem. People of simple faith and children greet their king, spreading palm branches and crying “Hosanna.” They, unlike the leaders of their religion, see in Jesus of Nazareth the king of peace. And … he rides on a donkey. The religious elite, on the other hand, see in Jesus of Nazareth not only a rebel who is dangerous because he is unpredictable and uncontrollable; they see in the manner of Jesus’s arrival a parody of how it would be fitting for anyone worthy of honor to arrive. A donkey would not befit such a person. If Jesus really were who he claims to be, he would have to affirm his high status by arriving in a chariot accompanied by horses. We can only imagine the anger of the Pharisees and priests at seeing that, despite Jesus arriving on a donkey rather than on a horse, people follow him; therefore, the people see in Jesus an authority, a leader who has won their trust through his informal behavior, which often irritated the Pharisees.
Again the evangelist presents this series of events to us in the form of paradoxes – those who have the power and the ability to hear and see the Son of God before them neither see nor hear him; those who have no power, who in the Gospels are often the outcasts, the sinners, the sick, the poor, those without a sphere of influence, the women and children, clearly see in the person of Jesus the King of Peace, the Redeemer and Savior of the world. Jesus of Nazareth, who is also the Son of God and God in the flesh, is in the Gospels not a king on a horse, on a throne, in a palace and with a royal guard that makes his presence inaccessible to ordinary people. God in Jesus of Nazareth is where there is the least formality, closer than close. We must come down from our metaphysical notions of God in order to meet this God who walks the streets, touches the unclean, speaks with women and overturns stereotypes. He is Emmanuel – God with us.
Aļesja Lavrinoviča