Today is Palm Sunday throughout Western Christendom. We remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, hailed by the people as their long awaited king.
Five days later He would be crucified.
The Jews have always had a long memory. In the 1st century AD they could recall their Egyptian captivity, the conquest of Canaan, the times of the kings, the Babylonian exile, and their successful revolt against Antiochus IV. Now they were under the Roman yoke, the price they paid for accepting help from Pompey Magnus in a civil war. It was a light yoke, but a yoke nonetheless.
They awaited a king, a savior, Messiah. The followers of Christ understood him to be sent by God to fulfill the law and the prophets, but they assumed that would involve defeating Rome and restoring the throne of David. I think many truly believed that this restoration would begin right there in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, so the events later that week must have been shocking and demoralizing.
The Jews rebelled against Rome in AD 66. The Roman General Vespasian was sent to put down the rebellion, but returned to Rome to claim the imperial throne and left his son Titus in charge of the war. Titus sacked Jerusalem in AD 70 and destroyed the Second Temple, much in the way Nebuchadnezzar had more than six centuries before.
In AD 132, a Jewish leader named Simon bar Kochba raised an army and declared an independent kingdom. Some rabbis declared him the Messiah, believing he truly fulfilled the prophecies. Bar Kochba initially defeated the Roman legions sent by Emperor Hadrian, but the Romans eventually wore down the rebels, razing cities and towns and eradicating the population until there were few left.
Bar Kochba was killed in AD 135 and Hadrian decided to literally erase ancient Israel from the map. He renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and consolidated the provinces into Syria Palaestina, named after the Philistines, ancient enemies of Israel. The last remnants of the Jews in Israel were scattered throughout the Empire.
This is a reminder that our plans are often not God’s plans. The citizens of Jerusalem expected Jesus to fill the role of Judas Maccabeas or Simon bar Kochba, but that was not why He came. Christ was crucified and the Jewish kingdom destroyed, but in its place was made something better. Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday opened the gates of Heaven to all, Jew and Gentile alike. At His trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said plainly that His kingdom was not of this world:
So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
John 18:33-38 ESV
Empires rise and fall, but the Kingdom of God exists out of time and space. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? We could be on the verge of national revival, or we could be staring into centuries of oppression and diaspora, like the Jews in the 2nd century AD. Remember that it took 70 years for the Russian people to overcome Communism, and it took 700 for the Christians of Spain to retake their homeland.
No matter what tomorrow brings our course today is clear. We must be working today to prepare the next generations to carry on the fight for liberty, without forgetting the ultimate truth that God’s kingdom is not in this world, not even in the United States of America. Don’t let the temporal distract you from the spiritual.
Jesus is indeed king, but he is king over all space and time, not just the here and now. Our moment in history is but the blink of an eye in the great story of Creation. Remember Christ’s words in the Garden of Gethsemane:
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33 ESV
About Brian Almon
Brian Almon is the Editor of the Gem State Chronicle. He also serves as Chairman of the District 14 Republican Party and is a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board. He lives with his wife and five children in Eagle.
