David and Goliath: The Sequel?
Imagine for a moment that you are a bird flying above Jerusalem on the day that Jesus makes his entry. Below you a rag-tag crowd of Judean peasants is gathering around a man riding a lowly colt. People are taking off their coats and spreading them before the man on the colt. You have heard from other birds that this is an ancient tradition of the Judeans. In centuries past, their coronation ceremonies to welcome new kings featured the spreading of outer garments before the king’s entourage (e.g., 2 Kgs 9:13). Sure enough, the people throwing their coats on the ground are proclaiming this man to be king with loud shouts: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). The parade has the feel of a party, a festival.
Now imagine you rise higher into the sky, and the parade below becomes smaller. And a southeasterly wind blows hard across you, and you open your wings and let it carry you to the northwest of the city. When you look below, you notice another procession. Immediately the air feels cooler. This procession is quieter, dampened by fear. There are plenty of Judean onlookers, but they are not shouting. They are watching in silent apprehension. A big chariot carries a man whom you recognize to be the governor of the region, Pontius Pilate. He is surrounded by a fearsome entourage of heavily armed foot soldiers and troops mounted on horses. There is a rhythmic clanking, as their armor and weapons jangle in militant unison. From your bird’s eye view, you estimate that this procession is at least four times the size of the raggedy parade you saw earlier. You remember seeing this procession from years past at the same time of year, the Jewish Passover. Apparently the Romans think that Jerusalem needs extra attention at the Passover, perhaps because there are so many pilgrims and therefore the potential for riots. Or perhaps because there is the potential for something greater—revolution. After all, that is what the Passover commemorates: the revolutionary liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian captivity. The last thing the Romans need is these backwater upstarts thinking the same thing could happen again in their lifetime.
But this year, that is exactly what is happening. Imagine now that you are no longer that bird flying above the city. Now you are an ant wandering along the wall inside a home in Jerusalem. You hear a little boy asking his mother about the parade he has just seen and the man on the colt and the coats being thrown on the road. And the mother says something about a prophet named Zechariah, who had envisioned just such an event: “Zechariah said, ‘Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’” (Zech 9:9). But the little boy is perplexed: “How can a man on a colt with no weapons overcome the big Romans?” The mother pauses and then says, “Do you remember the story of David and Goliath?” The boy’s eyes suddenly grow large with an excitement. He remembers! Yes, little David killed big Goliath with God’s help.
Maybe the man on the colt will do the same.
Jesus Sees Things Differently
Today’s scripture is commonly referred to the “Triumphal Entry,” and with good reason. It is “triumphal”—for the crowd that receives Jesus as its new king with shouts and praise. They are all hoping that this Passover is not just a remembrance but a reenactment. They are hoping that this messiah will deliver them from the yoke of Rome, just as Moses delivered the Hebrews from the Egyptians and as little David delivered the Israelites from big Goliath and the Philistines.
But the conclusion to today’s scripture shows us a different side to the entry. While the people are celebrating their imminent triumph, Jesus has tears in his eyes. Indeed, Luke tells us that “as he came near and saw this city”—that is, before he even entered Jerusalem—his eyes were filled with tears (19:41).
What he sees is profoundly different than what Jerusalem sees. Jerusalem sees a military victory. It sees winning its way through force. It sees David triumphing over Goliath. But Jesus laments this way of seeing: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (19:42). Jesus then shares his vision of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, a vision that will come to fulfilment in about forty years.[1]
The tears of Jesus raise a big question for me. Namely, has God changed God’s ways? The people remember the mighty Pharaoh and his army drowning in the sea. They remember the mighty Goliath floored by David’s sling. They teach these stories to their children with smiles on their faces and hope in their hearts. Is it not logical to expect that God will do the same thing once more to the Romans?
A Parting of the Ways
Here is a great parting of the ways in the matter of interpretation. I will tell you the way that I choose. But you must choose for yourself.
Many Christians continue to read the Old Testament stories
of conquest as revelation of God’s will and God’s way in the world. Violence is
how God gets things done sometimes. It’s not pretty, and it’s not ideal, but it
works. It’s what worked in Egypt. It’s what worked against the Philistines. For
this reason, many Christians have justified the conquests of their various
empires. As one 16th century Spanish conquistador said, “Who can
deny that the use of gunpowder against pagans is the burning of incense to our
Lord?”[2] If
God accomplished God’s will by military force at one point in time (e.g., in
the Old Testament), then surely God does not change. Surely God might do the
same at another point in time.
But other Christ-followers have taken seriously the claim of Paul that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God,” in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:15, 19). They have taken seriously the claim of John that in Jesus, the Word of God “became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14), and that the God whom no one has seen has been “made…known” through Jesus (John 1:18). All of this to say, if you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. And when I look at Jesus, who said things like, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you,” who showed what it actually looked like to do these things, who never once returned force with force, but rather with forgiveness and longsuffering—when I look at Jesus and see the tears in his eyes, as he hears the people proclaiming him king, as he sees in their eyes dreams of an imminent conquest, it dawns on me.
This man with tears in his eyes is who God is. God is crying for our world.
This is the God who refuses to fight back. This is the God who chooses the cross instead of combat. This is the God who looks weak and foolish in the world’s eyes (cf. 1 Cor 1). This is the God whose steadfast love suffers and endures—forever. This God never intended the cross to become a standard of conquest, as Constantine made it. This God never intended the cross to be married to the flag of one nation or another. This God renounced the ways of our world to show us a different way, to show us “the things that make for peace”—things like mercy, forgiveness, patience, things like love, gentleness, humility.
This interpretation is not to say that the stories of the exodus and David and Goliath are wrong or mistaken, but rather to say that their truth is partial rather than complete. They show us the truth of God’s care for the oppressed and also the truth that those who wield power over others (like the Egyptians, like the Philistines) will inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of their own weapon—for as Jesus would say himself, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 25:62). But as for God’s role in the downfall of Pharaoh and Goliath, perhaps it is not the direct violent intervention that the original Hebrew authors depict. Rather, perhaps God is ruefully watching the Egyptians and Philistines as they employ destructive force against others and as they eventually self-destruct. (Indeed, one ancient rabbi imagines God with tears in his eyes as the Hebrews escape Egypt. He imagines that when the Egyptians drowned in the sea, the angels in heaven began to sing, but then God replied: “The work of my hands, the Egyptians, are drowning, and you wish to [sing] songs before me?”[3])
The Invitation of Jesus’ Tears
Jesus’ tears tell me that he sees the world differently than many of his followers do. His followers who dream of Pharaoh drowning in the sea, who dream of Goliath getting his due, are living lives powered by fear and resentment and anger. But that energy will not transform the pain of the world. It will only transmit it to the next generation. It dreams only of power changing hands. But the energy of domination remains. (We see this in Israel’s history. When Israel finally finds freedom and gets kings of its own, the kings and their associates end up mistreating the poor and the vulnerable as they seek more power and wealth for themselves. They even enslave some of their own people, just as Pharaoh had done.)
Jesus’ tears tell me that he sees the world not with fear and anger, but with sadness and longing. He does not want a revolution in the traditional sense. (If you think about the word revolution, it just means you end up where you started; you make a full circle.) He wants to stop the cycle of hurt and violence, of destruction and self-destruction.
Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who was murdered for his support of the poor, killed in the middle of communion by a paramilitary death squad, once said: “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.” I’m guessing the kingdom of God is one of those things. I’m guessing that’s what Jesus saw through his tears. And I’m guessing one of the truths that he saw is that there’s only one way to stop the cycle of hurt and violence, only one way to heal the world’s wounds.
It is love. A love that does not get its way, but is the way itself, vulnerable, patient, enduring. And this week, we see just what this love looks like in the flesh.
Prayer
Loving God,Whose heart breaks
For the woundedness of our world—
When fear animates us unto fight or flight,
To join one side against another;
When resentment lures us
With thoughts of revenge or revolution
Or getting our due:
Help us to see the tears in your eyes
…
And to follow the different way
That you have chosen.
In Christ, who rides humbly into the center of our hearts: Amen.
[1] In fact, the gospel of Luke
is written down after the destruction of Jerusalem, so its readers will know
exactly what Jesus is talking about.
[2] The Anabaptist Mennonite
Network, “After Christendom: Following Jesus on the Margins,” 62.
[3] Megillah 10b.26.
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