Bible reading: Matthew 21:1-11.

Message.

Demonstrations, marches and protests seem to be a common feature of life today – but perhaps that’s nothing new. Here in Wales we had the Newport Chartist Rising of 1839, which sadly led to the death of up to two dozen demonstrators and the arrest and transportation of the movement’s leaders to Tasmania. Nearly a century later, in 1936, about 200 men or, as they called themselves, “Crusaders”, marched from Jarrow in the north-east of England to London, taking a petition to the British government which sought the re-establishment of industry in the town following the closure of its main shipyard.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s thousands of people marched from Aldermaston to London on behalf of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – my sister joined in one of these although I think she only attended the final rally in Trafalgar Square. The Conservative Government’s decision to replace domestic rates by a Community Charge or “Poll Tax” provoked violent demonstrations at the end of the 1980s; while the “Stop the War” protest of 2003, pleading with Tony Blair not to go to war in Iraq, was the largest demonstration in British history. I was there –it was a cold but amazing day!

There have of course been other gatherings, such as the Countryside Alliance’s 2002 protest against the proposed ban on fox hunting; the more recent tractor protests flagging up the changes in inheritance tax which, it is believed, may bring small farms to their knees; and the activities of “Stop the Oil” and “Extinction Rebellion”. And just yesterday about half-a-million people representing a wide variety of organisations and causes marched through London to protest against the rise of far-right extremism.

All those were in this country, but of course demonstrations take place elsewhere. I’m old enough to remember the 1968 protests by students and workers in France, which so nearly led to revolution; then there was Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing, brutally put down by the Chinese government but giving us the iconic photograph of one brave man forcing tanks to a halt; also the demonstrations in Prague, Timisoara and elsewhere in Eastern Europe which brought down the Communist governments. And just this year we have seen pictures of crowds in the streets of Tehran calling for liberty, only to be mown down in their thousands by the authorities (a protest which ostensibly led to President Trump’s bombing campaign –did it really?)

In Britain – though not, of course, in many other countries – the right to protest and organise protests is protected by law. Public authorities such as the police are legally obliged to help protests take place. However they are also required to uphold the law, prevent violence and keep the peace; it’s not always easy to maintain the right balance and some folk believe that recent changes to the law have been too draconian and are restricting people’s rights. You may or may not disagree; but the actions of some groups in bringing cities to a grinding halt and inconveniencing thousands of people at a time have not always helped their causes. I remember that “Marches for Jesus” back in the 1980s were seen as a wonderful witness by Christians – but not necessarily for members of the public who just wanted to get from A to B!

So why do people gather to demonstrate? I suspect for several reasons, which may well overlap with each other. Many will feel that they want to highlight an injustice or a wrong policy: they feel voiceless and hope that their action will attract the attention of the media and hence, the wider public. Ultimately they are seeking change, of an unpopular or unjust policy, even of a corrupt and incompetent government. Will the protests succeed or will they be brutally opposed? Those taking part may not know the answer to those questions and may feel that they are risking their reputations, careers or even their lives. But they are driven by passion, by a belief that they must “do something”. As far as they are concerned, causing disruption is a good thing which helps focus attention on what they are saying; they may even feel that it’s a good thing if it makes people think and shakes them from lethargy.

That was a very long introduction, but I’m sure you realise where I’m taking you. For of course we’re going to that excited crowd at the gate of Jerusalem, welcoming Jesus into the city with enthusiastic shouts and laying their palm branches on the road in front of his donkey. As someone has written, the scene – and the way we talk about it – seems to have “a cheery, birthday-party warmth to it”. The atmosphere is one of celebration and – dare I say? – even fun? We are all caught up in the happiness of the occasion. This is a day of triumph and hope.

But was it? I think that we do this story an injustice if we think of it in such a light-hearted way. Yes, the jubilation was genuine; but the event was more a protest than a parade or party. In fact we might call it a demonstration: a demonstration of the Jewish desire for freedom from the despised Romans, and of a belief that Jesus would be the person who’d lead the fight for liberation. All right, the crowds hadn’t painted placards saying, “Freedom for the Hebrews!” or “Romans out of our land”; they only had the branches they’d spontaneously grabbed from the trees beside the road. And they didn’t cry, “Who do we want? Jesus! When do we want him? Now!” but shouted “Hosanna” which, we must remember, isn’t merely a shout of praise but also a prayer: “Lord, save us!”. As Jesus’ entry took place just a week before Passover, the great feast which bound the nation together as it commemorated liberation from slavery in Egypt, this word “hosanna” had more than religious significance; it was profoundly political as well.

So Jesus entered the city, almost as a parody or satire on the way that the Roman Governor or even King Herod have done it: riding a donkey rather than a magnificent warhorse, accompanied by a motley rabble of disciples and followers rather than a disciplined military escort. What Jesus did has been called “a staged joke, an act of political theatre, an anti-imperial demonstration designed to mock Rome’s obscene pomp and circumstance”. I couldn’t have put it better myself!

So how did Rome react? What did Pilate do when faced by this act of calculated insolence? Well, as far as we know there was no Roman response whatsoever. We don’t read of soldiers suddenly filling the streets and battering down the crowds, nor of Jesus and the disciples being roughly arrested and taken away. In fact the other Gospels tell us that the only people who had anything to say were the Pharisees, resenting Jesus’ popularity and knowing that they couldn’t match it. This event gave them another excuse to plot his downfall.

But why didn’t the Romans react to Jesus’s entry, to the crowd’s adulation? You’d think that they’d have down hard on such an clear affront to their authority but, as far as we can see, they didn’t. I find this very curious and can only imagine why it might have been so. Did the Romans, recognising the tensions in Israel around Passover, say to themselves, “Leave them to have their bit of fun, it will act as a safety-valve and relieve some of the pressure”? Or did they say, “To intervene would be a disaster, we’d have an uncontrollable riot on our hands”? Perhaps they saw Jesus as a marked man: “We won’t arrest him now but we know who he is and we’ll come back for him when we’re ready”? Or did the Romans simply fail to understand what was going on: “Who can work out what those weird Jews might be thinking?” As I said, all those thoughts are mere conjecture; but they do seem to make some sense to me, at least! But there is one over-riding explanation for the Romans’ reluctance to take Jesus on Palm Sunday: not that they knew it, this was not yet – quite – God’s time.

For Palm Sunday was not, of course, an isolated event; it was a staging-post on Jesus’s journey to the Cross. We mustn’t forget that Jesus had (to quote the old King James Bible) “steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”, knowing that the time – the “kairos” moment, the right time – had come for him to die. The disciples couldn’t understand what Jesus was doing, they repeatedly pleaded with him to turn back, but he would not be deterred. He knew he had a mission to complete, one which, in just a few days, would take him from the crowd’s Palm Sunday excitement and enthusiasm to its horrifying Good Friday shout of “Crucify! Crucify!”.

Today we must remember that we are entering Holy Week, a week full of drama which includes Jesus’s rampage through the Temple, his enigmatic cursing of a fig tree, a meal in Simon Peter’s house when a women poured precious perfume over him, Jesus’s last meal with his disciples which began, much to Peter’s indignation, with him washing their feet. All that, of course, was followed by Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, his arrest, trial and eventual crucifixion. I’m reminding you of these events because in this church we don’t hold services every day of this week; indeed quite a number of you won’t be here again until next Sunday, which means you will move straight from Palm Sunday to Easter, jumping over the momentous horrors of Jesus’s Passion. Even if we can’t come to worship, we must not forget.

Palm Sunday isn’t only the entrance of Jesus into the city; it is also our entrance into this week. Let’s do all we can in the next seven days to walk in Jesus’s footsteps. That may mean joy or challenge; it may speak of success or apparent failure; it may include enthusiasm or even trauma. All those aspects of life, those ups and downs, those times of sunlight and darkness, were experienced by Jesus. We, as his followers, should not expect anything different – but we have the assurance that Jesus has walked ahead of us, and that he still walks with us. Let us enter this holiest of weeks with care, hope and joy.