Description
Four Palm Sunday dialogues - looking at the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem from the perspective of 4 individuals involved in the first Palm Sunday. Namely; A bystander, A religious leader, A disciple, & Jesus. A possible order of service as first used also included.
Extract:
An ordinary man or woman
Where ever Jesus had gone, he'd caused a stir. The ordinary people loved him, would almost do anything for him, to rise up against the Romans certainly, to love their enemies, well no! Let me explain.
We had been used to ruling ourselves, did a fair job of it on the whole, reasonable taxes although there is always someone who grumbles about paying anything, let alone a tax. Then the Romans came and ended all that! But they could not end the hope and desire for self rule. We've had more than our share of uprisings and freedom fighters, and the taxes have just got higher every time. So people are more disgruntled than ever.
Some of our people, if we can call them that, saw an opportunity to get rich on the back of Roman rule. The Romans needed people to collect taxes from us if we trade or travel, so they commissioned Jews to be Tax collectors on their behalf. Easy, the Romans only wanted there set taxes, the collector could charge what he liked and keep the difference! The Romans just don't care about us and turn a blind eye to overcharging.
Then this Jesus came along, quite a character. A self styled wandering Rabbi with no place called home. I've been to listen to him a number of times and heckle if I minded to. I soon saw it was no good to talk back to him! He always had an answer and a good answer to boot.
He put those Religious leaders in there place! He once called them 'white walled sepulchres' all clean on the outside and dirty connivers inside! Now that did go down well with everyone except the leaders of course!
Jesus gave us food once, when we had gone a days walk into the wilderness to find him. I still can't get my head around that. He only had a few loaves and fish, and he fed over 5000 men, let alone the women and children as well. Ah well, the food was good, really good on a hot day.
He told us to love our neighbours. Well most of my friends would do that for their neighbours, except to old Mrs nosy parker down the lane. But what this Jesus said seemed to make sense. But then he asked us to love even wider than our neighbour, to love our enemies if we really want to be perfect as God is. Now that caused a right uproar!
Some were shouting, impossible! Others were shouting us to be quiet, they wanted to hear more. It did quieten down a little and he spoke further: about walking the extra mile, of giving your shirt as well, when asked for your cloak. Well there are some very poor people who you would agree to be generous to.
Though many had been made poor and destitute by our extortionate taxes! It just seems so unfair. Now thinking about that, it's funny he's hardly said anything about the Romans and their actions at all. We needed something to brighten up our hard lives, and Jesus managed to do it again.
He came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. We all knew what that meant, a King of Peace. Our King for the day! Such laughter, singing and dancing in the streets, people throwing their cloaks and palm branches down for him to ride on. Of course many forgot he was peaceful, they thought he might just be our King to get rid of those dammed Romans! I was not so sure, and feared a worse fate.
A Jewish Temple Leader
This was how most of us felt. We had hoped, perhaps forlornly that Jesus would not come into Jerusalem now; a week before the Passover festival with everyone who was someone coming in from the country districts to celebrate. Of course the riff raff also came to make a denarius or two by selling, stealing and offering themselves to others.
But how Jesus came into Jerusalem was the real sign of danger to come. Riding on a donkey! The symbolism was obvious to everyone; he claimed to be a king, of Jerusalem of the temple! Oh yes, King over the temple was his claim.
He had come in once before and overturned all the money tables in the outer court, saying it was a disgrace to God our father. How could he say that? The temple trade ensured the temple was guarded, cleaned and open for anyone, with the right money of course, to come in and make their sacrifice. We kept the Temple open.
Riding on a donkey, a sign of peace, no, of war on us! Of course if he had come on a horse, then he would have claimed to be a king to remove the Romans. What a disaster that would be, the Romans would win by brute force, everything in Jerusalem would be destroyed and us with it. That would be the end.
Of course we knew the mood of the ordinary Jew, we had our insiders; the majority wanted rid of the Romans, anyway they could. It would only take a small push and rebellion would occur. But Jesus had come on a donkey. At least he had the sense to do that and not on a horse.
If we did nothing to stop Jesus, we would have abdicated responsibility for the Temple, and the people with Jesus would rule it. We would lose everything overnight or perhaps gradually. Our position and power to keep the peace between the people and the Romans would have gone. If Jesus was the new Temple power, the Romans would quickly choose him to negotiate with, a man of peace! Now that would be an interesting spectacle to watch, from a position of safety of course. But I would be without any means of support for my family and people would laugh at me. No! We will have to stop him, if he does not go!
It will be Jesus' next step that decides what we need to do. How to trap him would be the problem and before the main festival to avoid any fuss.