Today is Palm Sunday- the day the crowds greeted Jesus with cheers and shouts, with spreading their cloaks on the ground, with waving branches and smiling faces. Jesus entered the city on a donkey--meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the Roman rulers entered the city on white horses-symbols of power and authority. What kind of a leader enters a Jerusalem, the city of kings, on a work animal, on a steed owned by peasants--and a borrowed one at that?
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors- that the King of Glory may come in!
Who is this King of Glory?"
These words from Psalm 24 force us to ask- who is this king of glory? What kind of king? and where's the glory?--because shortly after the triumphal entry, things go downhill fast-- Jesus is arrested, betrayed, put to death in a public and shameful way by the Roman authorities--
and yet--in his weakness, Christ shows what kind of King he is, what kind of God He is--a God of power and might, but not the power of oppression or violence. A power that knows what it is to suffer, a power that knows sorrow and grief.
A power that overcomes all that in death. A power that brings life and light where there is only, seemingly, death and darkness.
"Who is the King of Glory?
The Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory"
