Palm Sunday: Satire and Civil Disobedience
I tend, on occasion, to get bored with
Christianity. And I wonder sometimes whether Christianity really, after all,
has any relevance to the unfolding of social history, with all its violence and
hostility.
Then Palm Sunday rolls around.
Let me ask you to think that Palm Sunday
exhibits two “disciplines” too seldom considered as fundamental to being human
in the world:
satire |ˈsaˌtīr| noun
the use of
humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize stupidity,
particularly in the context of politics
civil
disobedience |ˈsɪvɪl ˈˌdɪsəˈbidiəns| noun
the refusal
to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of
political protest
The context for Jesus’ so-called “Triumphal
Entry” into Jerusalem, remembered on Palm Sunday, was the celebration of the
Passover. Jesus and his disciples were preparing to participate in this annual
feast, and this annual feast was a sort of paradigmatic anti-imperialist
celebration: to again become a people who had seen the horse and rider of
Pharaoh cast down, his warriors thrown into the sea, and themselves delivered
from the bondage of slavery.
And by Jesus’ day, of course, Pharaoh had
been replaced with Caesar. There is always another pretentious power quick to
fill the vacuum left when the most recent one bites the dust. So now it was
Rome. And the natives in Jerusalem would often get restless at Passover time,
ready for this God who had promised deliverance to act again in a great display
of magnificent power to overthrow the powers. And this Jesus seemed to be a
good candidate as the newly anointed one to accomplish such a deed . . .
Read more at
https://www.tokensshow.com/blog/palm-sunday-satire-and-civil-disobedience
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