A week is a long time, they say, in politics. Anything can happen. Nobody saw Mrs May's misjudgement when she was way ahead in the polls and called a general election a year ago. In one month she lost her majority against all the predictions. The peoplehad spoken.
Jesus entered Jerusalem with a degree of fame that many politicians would envy. He was known not only in Judea but also random Greeks, as we saw last week, were wanting his autograph - or a selfie from a selfi stick nowadays.
He enters on a donkey with that fame around him. It fulfils the ancient prophesy of Zechariah, and that is his purpose - his time had come but could you possibly be more humble a leader than on a donkey! How ridiculous is that. Midsummer night's dream has Bottom, the donkey-head, as a totally ridiculous figure, and in a sense that is what Jesus is. The king, on a donkey - you could not script that comedy! Can you imagine the king of Spain or queen of England or Mrs May coming in to Brussels on a moped! This ought to be donkey Sunday, not Palm Sunday. Donkey was the choice of Jesus.
But it is the people who are determined to reverse the situation, to minimise the donkey and maximise the image of a liberating king and that is where the palm branches, the songs and Hosannas come in.
Jewish history is littered with revolution and in 141BC Simon Maccabaeus(king and priest) rides into Jerusalem, “with praise and palm branches . . . and with hymns and songs” (1 Maccabees 13.51) and his brother Judas, when he purifies the temple ten years later the people end up "carrying green palm branches and sticks decorated with ivy, they paraded around, singing grateful praises to him".
For the people welcoming Jesus, this could be a re-enacting of the historical glory. They are determined to pass over the donkey and replace it with the image of magnificent general on a horse.
Jesus knew all this. Given the fame, no matter how he went into Jerusalem, he would be hailed as the military liberator. And the people tempt him, hoping for a human reaction to this adulation and fame, they try to prop him up to be their king. They treat him as they treated Simon Maccabaeus who restores Jerusalem into the hands of the Jews, and purifies the city. They shout, according to Mark "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!". That shout simply does not in any way square with them believing he was about to give himself up to be murdered.
John sees all this. In a cryptic verse at the end of the gospel I read, John says:
Only after Jesus was glorified did the disciples realise that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
The people were doing things to Jesus to push their agenda 'Hosanna - save us' and God was saving them, like Morecombe and Wise with Andre Previn, God was playing all the right notes in the right order, but it definitely wasn't the order they wanted.
As we know, on entry into the city, Jesus does not storm the Roman garrison or Herod’s palace. That lack of action enrages the people and a week later he is crucified, a week is a long time in politics.
That week is a classic example of the will of the people and the will of God being at odds. So often the God's is completely beyond the best ever of our imaginings. We think, just like the public lining the streets, that we can bend the agenda of God to our will. Actually it is not our way, but God's way that matters and wins, and none of us has a monopoly on that. God's way, in Easter week, is the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering for others. Suffering is usually political suicide, it is counter cultural and unpopular, and in the Western world it is not something we accept. But it is the way of God.Amen.