As we prepare for Jesus’s Palm Sunday processional into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, Donald Trump makes plans for military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. While the two may at first seem unrelated, in fact Palm Sunday mocks parades like Trump’s. In his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus shows that the humble power of love will reign victorious over every weapon of domination the Empire can muster.

Palm Sunday is a dramatic act of political theater. Jesus marches into Jerusalem as a king, challenging the authority of every earthly king and even of Caesar himself. Jesus rides not on a military steed, but on a young donkey. He is accompanied not by a crack team of soldiers but by a ragtag collection of disciples, all of whom will flee his side in the days to come. Jesus comes as an alternative to the Empire, as a rebuke of military force, as a herald of peace wrought by the commitment to love without ceasing—even if it costs him his life.

The Procession of the Peaceful King

The political implications of Palm Sunday have been lost in many of our churches. We wave our palm fronds, shout “Hosanna!,” and sing “All Glory Laud and Honor,” never realizing that what we are doing is challenging the very legitimacy of the Empire. If Jesus has all glory, there is none left for Caesar. If Christ has all honor, there is none left for Trump. Palm Sunday demands a choice.

The story of Palm Sunday as told in Mark 1:1-11 draws on Old Testament prophecies to depict Jesus as a messianic king. Six centuries earlier, the prophet Zechariah had offered a messianic vision of a Davidic king returning to the throne in Jerusalem. Mark uses this imagery to frame his telling of the Palm Sunday processional.

Zechariah says,

Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech 9:9)

Mark uses the same term for a colt (polos) as does the Greek translation of Zechariah. The Zechariah passage also informs Mark’s telling of Jesus’s concern to find a donkey that has never been ridden, since Zechariah specifies that the animal should be a “new colt” (polos neos). While Mark doesn’t quote Zechariah directly, Matthew makes the connection explicit (see Matt 21:5).

In these ways, Mark casts Jesus in the role of the king predicted by Zechariah. When Jesus rides into Jerusalem in this particular way, he claims to be the legitimate “king” over and against the imperial rule of Caesar. When he processes into Jerusalem as king, he challenges the legitimacy of imperial rule over the city.

Yet the Zechariah passage also envisions the messianic king as a different kind of ruler than Caesar. He does not seize power through military domination, as does the Roman Empire. While the messianic king is “triumphant and victorious” (Zech 9:9), he wins his victory not through military power but through humility and nonviolence. Zechariah’s prophecy goes on to say of the messianic king that

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations. (Zech 9:10)

Far from entering Jerusalem at the head of a military processional, the messiah casts aside the weapons of war. He rids the world of chariots and war horses, the cutting-edge military technologies of the day. This would be like the messiah banishing the F-22 Raptor or the M1 Abrams to the scrapheap of history. This messianic king comes in peace. He does not laud himself with a military parade.

Palm Sunday as Subversion

In this way, Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem subverts the military power of the Roman Empire. The citizens of Jerusalem, and the Jews gathered from all over the Empire for the celebration of Passover, would no doubt have recognized the political symbolism of the humble king entering the city on the back of a donkey. They would have contrasted it with Roman victory parades that marched the army and the treasure of the vanquished enemy through the streets of the city. They would have understood Jesus’s humble claim to a peaceful kingship as the radically countercultural political subversion that it was.

By enacting Zechariah’s messianic prophecy, Jesus demonstrates that true victory is won not by military power but by the transforming power of a boundless love that even risks death at the hands of a violent Empire. In his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus will win victory not by inflicting death upon those who challenge him, but by giving himself over to execution in order to conquer death itself by being raised once again into new life. The Empire may wield its weapons of death, but Christ renders them impotent through resurrection life. If death has no sting, then what power does the Empire have left?

When Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, he mocks the kingship of Caesar and the military parade of Donald Trump. He shows those who wield death that they have no real standing against the One who wields the power of new life. In an explicit protest against the legitimacy of the Emperor—and of all Empires—Jesus shows that the power of death cannot overcome the power of Love.

Military Parades and Processions of Peace

This message is particularly crucial for the church as we celebrate Palm Sunday. It is no accident that Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem leads him ultimately to the Temple (11:11). The Temple was not just a religious space in Jesus’s day, but also the place where Judean society interfaced with the Roman Empire. It was the job of the chief priests to collect taxes as tribute for Rome and to keep Judea functioning smoothly as a loyal Roman province. Through the Temple, religious elites kept the Empire operating smoothly. They provided a theological rationale for the political and economic domination of the Roman Empire, which enriched the upper classes at the expense of the poor.

According to Mark’s Gospel, on the following day Jesus will return to the Temple to overturn the tables and cast out the moneychangers, rejecting the Temple’s collaboration with an Empire that enriched the few and subjugated the many. Jesus could not abide God’s house supporting imperial oppression.

So as we celebrate Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem this Sunday, we should have no illusions about where he is headed. His procession leads to our churches to see where our loyalties lie. He wants to know if we are collaborators with an Empire that wields death or if we are full participants in God’s revolution of love, which promises abundant life for all. He wants to know whether we will celebrate the Empire’s power to wield death or the messiah’s rejection of the weapons of war. He wants to know whether we will worship God or whether we will continue to submit ourselves to the deathly rule of Caesar.

One cannot attend both a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the humble processional of the king of peace. One cannot worship both God and the Empire. One cannot follow both Jesus and Trump. On Palm Sunday, we must make a choice.