2,000 Palm Sundays Later, We Still Misunderstand Jesus
On the first Palm Sunday, Jesus forced people into a perplexing dilemma as they tried to understand His life and teaching. Was He a prophet, a triumphant king, compassionate healer, or was He a blasphemous fraud who created turmoil?
2,000 years later on this Palm Sunday on March 28th, 2021, we still are struggling to understand this Man of Nazareth.
Progressive and conservative Christians are locked in a divisive battle over who more accurately represents Jesus. Both groups claim they are the ones who faithfully emulate His life and teachings. It is the other side that gets Jesus wrong.
There is a path to a better understanding of Jesus, but it cannot be found by His professed followers as they attack, demean, and belittle each other. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Progressives proclaim an inclusive Jesus who challenges the self-righteousness of religious conservatives who, they claim, distort the message of Jesus as they exclude people Jesus would have welcomed.
Conservatives preach a holy Jesus who denounces the moral relativism of progressives who, they allege, cherry-pick the words of Jesus to make friends with the world.
Jesus often ends looking a lot like those who claim to have gotten him right. This might tell us all we need to know about the human blind spots that lead us to soften His rough edges. Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird, says, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Most of us are likely unaware of the ways we contort Jesus into our own image. We are convinced Jesus endorses our lifestyle, financial habits, private behaviors, and even our politics.
You can try to fit Jesus into a mold, but most of the time He refuses to flex. If you have a Jesus that never challenges you, you are likely ignoring the real Jesus.
A spiritual seeker might watch divided Christians and arrive at the conclusion that no one can really understand Jesus. Is the message of Jesus one of love, compassion, and inclusion? Or, did He convey a message of holiness, purity, and judgment?
I see three options in front of us that are the same choices the first generation would have had before them.
Option #1: We can walk away from Jesus because these seemingly contradictory portraits cannot be reconciled.
You might find Jesus to be a beautiful human, even compelling. At the same time, you might find other aspects of Jesus to be confusing and even offensive. You will be forced to reconcile what appears to be contradictory. I see younger generations wrestling with this very challenge right now.
Both progressive and conservative Christians lead us to believe that the path to fully understanding Jesus can be reduced to a simple unifying emphasis (ie love or holiness). You are left with an either/or stalemate when in reality the identity of Jesus is a mysterious both/and that creates tension.
Jesus is loving and inclusive, and also the holy Judge of the universe. Why should we be forced to reduce His identity to an either/or? Our attempts to smooth out the rough edges of the God-man distort His true nature.
“Why should we be forced to reduce His identity to an either/or?”
The problem is that Jesus of Nazareth does not fit neatly into the categories we have created. The Gospel accounts do reveal a Jesus who speaks of holiness, sin, judgment, and Hell. I have also poured over the Scriptural accounts of a Jesus who welcomes people on the margins, cancels debts, declares a Year of Jubilee, and demands his followers practice mercy and justice toward the poor.
I am convinced that the more that religious progressives and conservatives battle it out over Jesus, the people on the outside of the debate will conclude the differences cannot be reconciled. This will be especially true if the debates continue to be divisive and uncharitable. Jesus said the watching world would know his true followers by the way they love one another (John 13:35). Modern Christians should not be surprised to watch younger people walking away from interest in Jesus.
I was once at a conference where I had the opportunity to listen to two highly educated philosophy scholars debate. After about 30 minutes of my best attempts to engage, I decided to walk away. My head was spinning, and frankly, I just stopped caring. There was little practical application in the debate to my own life. I determined that the debate was a battle of egos and nothing more than showboating in front of a willing audience.
If I was not a Christian watching these battles over Jesus, I would likely be confused and potentially overwhelmed. Further, I would wonder how a religion of love could possibly be true if its followers didn’t even like each other.
Walking away from the conversation would be highly probable for me.
Option #2: We can reject Jesus because he is disappointing.
Jesus of Nazareth is not only a perplexing figure to understand, but he can be a real disappointment. 2,000 years ago, people celebrated him as a king on Palm Sunday, yet crucified him by the following Friday.
He disappoints people in 21st century America at strikingly similar rates as he did in 1st century Palestine.
On the first Palm Sunday described in Mark 11, the people had high expectations of Jesus. The pagan Roman Empire occupied the Holy Land, and as Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to waving palm branches, his reputation had reached epic proportions. The questions were swirling whether he was a prophet, the long-awaited Messiah, or a king who would finally deliver Israel from occupying powers.
“He was never going to be the king who led the people into their triumphant, nationalistic dreams. He never will be that kind of king, not in 1st century Israel, and not in 21st century America.”
Jesus never quite flexed into the image 1st century Israel had in mind for him. He was never going to be the king who led the people into their triumphant, nationalistic dreams. He never will be that kind of king, not in 1st century Israel, and not in 21st century America.
By Friday of Holy Week, the religious leaders convinced the people that Jesus was a fraud worthy of crucifixion. He was so disappointing that they traded his life for a petty criminal named Barabbas. The cross was their way of saying, “We are ready to move on from the disappointment you have become.”
Even the closest followers required Jesus to come back from the grave on Sunday to eradicate their disappointment.
If Jesus were born in 21st century America, I am certain his fate would be the same. His manner and ministry would be provocative to the religious, life-giving to outcasts, and threatening to our leaders.
Oh, the buzz of excitement in expectation of what Jesus might do for America and her people!
Perhaps Jesus would help America ascend to greater might and military power, more wealth and prosperity, or to become the undeniable tech-envy of the world? Would Jesus establish US churches as models to be replicated across the world and give her pastors platforms of persuasive influence? Surely, His presence would insure that Americans would enjoy greater ease, more comfort, and profitable stock market results?
What a wonderful genie, I mean Messiah, Jesus would be for us and our great nation!
How would you respond to Jesus if he were to appear on the scene today? As we meditate this Palm Sunday, do not miss the fact that the vast majority of the people of Jesus’s day either walked away from him or violently rejected Him.
Very few people chose to follow Him because He was a major disappointment compared to what they expected and wanted.
Option #3: We can live with the tension His life and teaching create and follow Him.
The moment you think you fully understand Jesus, fitting Him neatly into your theological box, you should throw the box out. The world does not have enough books to contain the person of Jesus (John 21:25). Why would we expect anything different from the One who claimed to be God in the flesh?
Would he not be the Best of our very best? Would he not challenge the very worst in us, but do so in a way that never crushes us? Should we be so surprised that the God who is Love would choose to offer His holy life for us instead of demanding our blood? Why would we be surprised that He requires that we love our enemies and not attack them?
Some of Jesus’s most fascinating teaching follows his triumphal entry on a donkey into Jerusalem (see Matthew 21). I am reading these last words and actions before he was crucified with fresh eyes. The people wanted a king, but Jesus shows them in Matthew 21-26 what kind of amazing King He intended to be.
He flipped the tables of injustice in the Temple that oppressed the poor. “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.’” (Matthew 21:12-17)
He taught that the prayer of faith in Him could move mountains (Matthew 21:18-22)
He insulted the religious leaders by telling them that tax collectors and prostitutes were beating them into God’s Kingdom (Matthew 21:31-32)
He claimed to be the cornerstone of God’s new creation (Matthew 21:42)
He compared God’s Kingdom to a wedding banquet where undesirable street people are invited (Matthew 22:1-14)
He wasn’t phased by Caesar’s claim to power and authority (Matthew 22:21)
He gave people hope by telling them the dead really will rise again (Matthew 22:23-33)
He taught that love is the greatest command for His people (Matthew 22:34-40)
He affirmed that he was the long-awaited Messiah, the son of David (Matthew 22:41-45)
He rebuked the religious establishment with a blistering set of seven woes (Matthew 23)
He taught that He would return at the end of the age and that we must be watching and ready for him (Matthew 24)
He taught that He would oversee a Final Judgment where the sheep and the goats would be separated and known by their care of the earth’s most vulnerable (Matthew 25:31-46)
He ate a final meal with his disciples and established the New Covenant in His body and blood (Matthew 26:17-30)
“We applauded Him on Palm Sunday but crucified Him on Good Friday.”
I am convinced most of us don’t truly understand Jesus and what He desires for us. Jesus just doesn’t fit neatly into our boxes or books. His Kingdom message creates massive tension for both progressives and conservatives alike in just those few chapters of Matthew.
Progressives and conservatives would do well to sit down together to compare their portraits of Jesus. I don’t believe the whole world can contain this God in the flesh riding on a donkey, nor can one group of people fully grasp His complexity.
2,000 years ago we misunderstood Jesus. After all of the miracles He performed, His heart-penetrating teaching, and constant mercy He showed to the hurting and undeserving, we chose to crucify him.
We applauded Him on Palm Sunday but crucified Him on Good Friday.
Perhaps this Holy Week in 2021, we could sit together, progressives and conservatives eager to know the real Jesus, and embrace the tension His life and teaching create.
2,000 years later, we could follow Him with faith, humility, and love, instead of attacking each other. I am convinced this could be a path to actually beginning to understand Jesus.
