A sermon delivered on Sunday, April 13, 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley.

When a single preacher says something from the pulpit, people will say, “He or she is only preaching.”  When two preachers who don’t know one another say the same thing on the same day, well it then becomes prophetic. This is what happened to me today.  

I wrote today’s sermon some six months after the confrontation in Charlottesville between Christian Nationalists and Civil Rights protesters back in 2019. I was reworking it for today’s message as similar issues are going on in our country. Like I do every Sunday, I finish reviewing my message and read the headlines from several sources to see what is happening in the world. Well, I was scanning the New York Times and saw an op-ed piece by Episcopal priest, Andrew Thayer, whose premise in his article was exactly what I had written for today some three years ago. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t. The deal is this: God is being prophetic.^[1]

Sometimes, people need a wake-up call to jar them out of complacency. We take things for granted. Our country has done that with our civil liberties and the Church has done so with the Christian faith. We’ve grown so familiar with the Triumphal Entry that we often forget how disruptive, how controversial, and how dangerous it really was. It wasn’t a peaceful parade. It was a moment when two kingdoms—two visions for how the world should be clashed and confronted each other. On one side: the empire of Rome and its local collaborators, built on control, fear, and inequality. On the other: a man riding a borrowed donkey, proclaiming a different kind of kingdom—a kingdom of grace, inclusion, justice and truth.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he wasn’t just visiting, he was claiming the city s his own. His very presence was a challenge to the powers that be. And his first act? Marching into the Temple to flip over the tables of a faith gone off the tracks.

 Do we truly understand Palm Sunday? Do we see what was at stake then—and what’s still at stake now?

Let us listen now to the Word of the Lord, from Luke’s Gospel:

Luke 19:28-40 (NRSV)

 ²⁸After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.²⁹When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”³⁴They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” ³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Let’s take a closer look at what Jerusalem was really like when Jesus entered the Holy City.

Just like today, people were divided—by religion, by politics, by wealth, by tribe. There were conservative and progressive factions within Judaism. There were nationalists like the Zealots, there were those who tried to stay quiet and just keep the peace, and then there was the vast number of poor folks who comprised the majority of people. There was Rome—an occupying force—and also the Jewish religious elite who had made their own compromises to survive within it.

There was ethnic division, religious discrimination, and class-based exclusion. There were backroom deals and political power brokers making decisions that impacted everyday people who had little say in their own futures.

In short: it was a world not so different from ours.

And it’s into that world Jesus comes riding—not with a war horse, but on a donkey. Not with armor and soldiers, but with humility and truth surrounded by throngs of ordinary folk. His entrance is not just about fulfilling prophecy—it’s about declaring a whole new way of being human, a whole new way of living in community. His entry is a protest. It’s a public witness. It’s an act of holy defiance.

We tend to sentimentalize Palm Sunday, don’t we? We picture children waving palm branches, singing “Hosanna,” and smiling. But the real Palm Sunday was electric. Think Charlottesville. It was dangerous. Jesus was making a statement—and everyone knew it.

He was physically declaring, “There is another way.”

The first thing we need to remember about Palm Sunday is this: Jesus’ descent from the Mount of Olives was every bit a political act. Not partisan politics, but something even more radical—he was making a public, prophetic statement that challenged the foundations of the existing political and religious order.

It looked like a parade, but it was really more like a protest march. Think Selma. Think Gandhi walking to the sea. Think Dr. King in Memphis. This wasn’t about celebrating past victories—it was about confronting present injustice and revealing a new kind of kingdom.

And Jesus wasn’t the only one entering Jerusalem that week.

As biblical scholar H. Stephen Shoemaker notes, there were likely two processions into Jerusalem that day. From the west came Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, riding in with the full spectacle of imperial might—war horses, chariots, and armed soldiers. Rome wanted to make a statement, especially during Passover, when Jewish memory of liberation from Egypt was at its highest. Pilate came to remind the people who was really in charge.^[2]

But from the east came another procession—humble, almost absurd in contrast. Jesus, riding a borrowed colt. No weapons. No armor. Just cloaks and palm branches, and the cries of ordinary people daring to hope that maybe, just maybe, God’s promised kingdom was finally breaking in.

It was a moment of contrast. Two empires. Two kingdoms. Two processions. Two definitions of power.

Pilate embodied Pax Romana —the peace of Rome, peace maintained by violence, hierarchy, and fear.

Jesus embodied Pax Christi — the peace of Christ, peace grounded in justice, compassion, and the dignity of every person.^[3]

Shoemaker puts it like this: Our challenge is to show how the gospel of the kingdom has political implications but transcends our everyday political loyalties. In other words, he says, “If we take the gospel seriously, then living it out will reshape the world around us.”

Today, we face a similar divide in our own nation. The language might be different, the setting more modern, but the battle lines are familiar: Pax Republican or Pax Democrat. So often, it’s our politics that shape our faith, rather than our faith shaping our politics.

But Palm Sunday calls us to something deeper. It calls us into a third way— Pax Christi. Not the peace derived from fear, power and control, but the peace of radical grace, costly love, and unshakable justice.

Whatever your party, your policy preferences, or your voting history—none of it matters if your life and mine aren’t first shaped by the ethics of Jesus. If our faith doesn’t come before our flag, then we’ve missed the point of the gospel.

The early Church understood this. In the first few centuries after Christ, it wasn’t Roman political movements that changed the world; rather, it was groups of small communities of believers, living differently from everyone else around them. They shared what they had. They cared for the sick and the poor. They welcomed the outcast. They turned the empire’s values upside down simply by embodying the way of Jesus. During this time, the Roman Empire was in decline; the Christian Empire was in the ascension.

We’ve seen it in our own lifetimes, too. During the Civil Rights Movement, it was the Church—Black churches in particular—that became the moral engine of change. During the Cold War, it was the underground Church in Eastern Europe that overturned communism – that sparked what became known as the “Velvet Revolution” – not through violence, but through faithful resistance and bold witness.

Jesus’ descent into Jerusalem wasn’t just the beginning of Holy Week. It was the launch of a movement—one that would change the course of human history.

So, let me ask us today: Are we still part of that movement?  Or have we become too comfortable, complacent, and complicit with the status quo? Have we given up thinking that our voice, our actions will or can make a difference?

Are our choices shaped more by partisan, economic, or nationalistic loyalties or by the radical teachings of Jesus? Beloved, Palm Sunday is a day of Jesus is calling for fellow revolutionaries.

If we want to know what real revolution looks like, we don’t have to look far. Just listen:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  
  • Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  
• • Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.  
• • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  
• • Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.  
• • Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  
• • Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  
  • Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing what is right, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.^[4]

This is the way of Jesus. This is what the revolution looks like. So, Church—are you ready? Are you ready to be part of the movement again?  Are we ready to lay down the flags of empire and pick up the cross of Christ?  Are we ready to reject the din of culture and choose the path of the donkey-riding king? Lest we forget, there are two groups at a parade. There are those in the parade and those watching it. Palm Sunday is Jesus’ invitation to fall in behind him and join the parade of justice and grace he is leading. 

© 2025 Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, NY 12801. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, New York and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission. All rights reserved.

^[1]  Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession, by the Rev. Andrew Thayer, The New York Times, Sunday, April 13, 2025, 6:00 a.m. ET. See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/opinion/palm-sunday-protest.html. 

^[2] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Bartlett (2009-10-12). Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide (Kindle Locations 5617-5622). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

^[3] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Bartlett (2009-10-12). Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide (Kindle Locations 5631-5632). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

^[4] Matthew 5:1-11, the Beatitudes.