The power of love
7th April 2022
On the day we call Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem with a big crowd of followers who are shouting out that he is the king who God has sent. As I thought about this, I imagined another triumphant entrance into a capital city by another leader.
This one doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now – but it might have done. Imagine if Vladimir Putin’s army had captured Kiev, and he had ridden in triumphantly – not on a donkey or a colt, but in a tank or an armoured car – surrounded by cheering soldiers – not riding over palm leaves and coats thrown down to make a royal pathway, but tragically, in a way, over the bodies of those his army has killed. That entrance would have been a huge symbol of one sort of power – the power to dominate, the power which uses violence to get its way, the power which is the opposite of love.
When Jesus rides in through the Jerusalem streets he is demonstrating a very different sort of power. He doesn’t deny that he is a king, sent by God. He tells the Pharisees that if the crowd were quiet the stones themselves would shout out. This is a momentous day. He has not slipped quietly into the Temple courts – he has ridden in as a fulfilment of an ancient promise – he has come as the Messiah, God’s chosen one.
But Jesus will never use violence, he will never dominate others, he will never treat people as less than human. His power is soft power – the power of love – and love is vulnerable. He already knows that this symbolic action will lead to confrontation, and faced with the hard power of the religious authorities and the Roman state, he will be brutally thrown aside, his body broken, his cause apparently lost.
Jesus also knows that like President Putin, those who will condemn him are themselves imprisoned, by their fear, by their ego, by their slavery to the wrong sort of power. That’s why he will be able to stand before them in the silence that infuriates them, without flinching. But although he may be bound by ropes, he is free – free to love, free to forgive, free to give up his life. And he knows that that in the freedom of that love there will be victory. The kingdom of his Father will come. The shouts of his followers will be vindicated.
I’ve been reading a book by Rowan Williams about the cross and the resurrection, and he explains that you cannot divide the life, and the death, and the rising again of Jesus. They are all of one piece. The love he shows in his life – his radical openness to the pain of the world, the freedom with which he acts, his refusal to dominate or be silenced – all this is shown again in the way he faces his arrest and trial and crucifixion.
And the resurrection is a vindication of his way – this is a love that cannot be erased, a truth that cannot be silenced, a life that cannot simply be crushed. Love ‘so amazing, so divine’ cannot be overcome.
The palm crosses we give out on Palm Sunday are made of strips of a palm leaf twisted together. It’s a symbol of the way that Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Day are tied together – Jesus is the king who had palm leaves waved for him, and he’s also the one who’s kingship was demonstrated by being nailed to a crosson a cross, and he is the one who is still with us now because the power of love could not be overcome.
The way of Jesus is very different from the way of Vladimir Putin – and also different from the way the world often is. It’s hard to move from trusting the love of power to believing in the power of love. As we come to Palm Sunday and look ahead to Holy Week, leading up to Good Friday and then Easter Day, maybe our palm crosses can help us reflect on how we can welcome Jesus more fully into the ‘Jerusalem of the heart’ – and how we can learn to follow his way.
Think for a moment of the forces of brutality and violent power at work in the world…
Lord of love, we pray for all those who are victims of domination or violence – in Ukraine, in other parts of the world, and closer to home. We pray for peace – for security – for those fleeing violence… Lord, bring them help, and healing.
We think of those who are imprisoned by their egos and their slavery to power…
Lord of love, you forgave the soldiers who nailed you to the cross – we pray for the soldiers and the leaders and all the others who have committed violent acts or are dominating others. Show them your mercy, and a better way to live, and the possibility of freedom.
We pray for ourselves as we look ahead to this Holy Week…
Lord of love, help us to enter more deeply into the story of your self giving. Help us to understand more fully the depth of your love, and teach us what it means to follow your new way in the moments and days of our lives.