Sunday On an April Sunday in the year 30, probably April 2nd by our counting, Jesus came to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. He came along the valley from the east. He was danced into the city by pilgrims. He received a hero’s welcome. People lined the roadway leading to Jerusalem. They waved branches. [At Passover Jerusalem was a madhouse of between 200,000 and 400,000 extra people. There was inadequate sanitation. And not enough food and water. They stayed for about two and a half weeks, for Passover itself and for temple services.] The ones who knew about Jesus (mostly Galileeans on pilgrimage) were singing about the coming of the Kingdom of God. There were other, better known kingdoms. That of Herod, that of Caesar (or, Rome, the empire). They were very different from the Kingdom of Jesus’ God. The Kingdom of God meant what life would be like if Jesus’ God were palpably present in it, making things happen in a new way for the poor and oppressed. It is the opposite of the kingdom of Rome. It is consequently a direct challenge to that kingdom and to every other totalitarian system. It is a promise of freedom from illness, poverty and oppression – the side-effects of the other kingdoms. The ‘kingdom of God’ was the one term that might make the Romans listen. They thought (rightly) that they were the kingdom of a (different) god. They and their 25 legions. When Jesus and his people talk about their kingdom of their God, they are saying ‘in your face’ to Caesar and his system (and all other such systems). It was not a meek and mild thing to say. It was a frontal attack on the oppressor. Right in Jerusalem. Right at Passover. Another man was arriving in Jerusalem on the same afternoon, from the west, in a military procession, on horseback, with hundreds of troops. His name was Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, or governor, appointed to collect taxes and maintain order in the remote outpost of Judea. His job depended on his keeping things quiet. He was there to keep everything (crowd circulation especially) as low-key as possible. He would have seen any popular movements as a threat to stability. He was a career man in the military, not a judge or lawyer. He resided at the seaside resort city of Caesarea. On special occasions he made the 40 mile march to Jerusalem to do crowd control. He probably hated going there. He may have heard that there was someone from Galilee who was there stirring up some crowds. He may have been ill-tempered as a result.  Joseph Caiaphas had been high priest of the temple for years, an aristocrat appointed by Rome and controlled by Pilate. He is a collaborator. If he can’t keep things quiet, Pilate will remove him from office. And probably Pilate will lose his office too. He hears about Jesus. He checks him out.. |
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