Which Jesus do we choose?

It’s a dramatic day today, with two very different scenes: in the first act, the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the crowds shouting Hosanna! and spreading palm branches before him; and in the second, the long night of Jesus’ arrest and trial and his torture and death. In the first story it’s all bright sunshine and singing, lots of hubbub and excitement – a great parade, all the rowdiness of crowds outdoors. Jesus is poised, giving orders to his disciples to procure a donkey, claiming the symbolism of the old prophecies of the Messiah king. We sang one of our loudest and most confident hymns, ‘All glory, laud, and honor,’ and we marched along with our palm branches. Everything looks great.

But we won’t get to relish this scene for very long, for in just a little while we’ll hear the second act. We already have omens of it: Isaiah talks about one who is beaten and despised; the psalm cries out, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble.’ We’ll end our service today with Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, his trial before the religious leaders and the Roman governor, his best friend deserting him, and all those crowds of people who had just been shouting for joy now shouting for him to be killed. And Jesus will be tortured and mocked by the soldiers, and be crucified and die.

It’s a lot of story to take in in a short space of time – and it’s a lot of emotional ground to cover. Jesus looks very different from the first act to the second – in the first, he is telling his disciples exactly what to do and looking authoritative; in the second, he is silent except for two enigmatic answers to the high priest and Pilate. And yet in both scenes Jesus seems to be choosing to act as he does. He chooses quite deliberately how and when he will enter Jerusalem. And when he is arrested as expected, Jesus seems to choose to go willingly, and not to defend himself against the attacks. In act one he chooses action, and the crowds like that: the powerful ruler, coming to be their king, fighting all the forces aligned against him. In act two, he chooses not to act – and the crowds don’t like that at all. When given the option, they shout out that they want the criminal Jesus Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus called the Messiah. And as Jesus hangs on the cross, he is mocked by three different groups of people, all of whom say something like, You could save yourself and you don’t – why not? obviously you’re a fraud after all. What fools we were to think you were powerful.

So we’re faced with those two pictures of Jesus: Jesus the all-powerful, and Jesus the vulnerable. I think we still don’t like the second picture very much. We like superheroes. We like tough guys and charismatic people with big egos. We want our stories to end with power, and for any pain along the way to be erased in the glory of the happy ending. And so we often see this image of the silent Jesus standing before the crowds and invest it with that kind of power. We read the happy ending back into the scene and say something like, well, he knew he’d be resurrected and it would all work out, he knew God was bigger and tougher than these guys in front of him and that they would get their comeuppance – or even, he didn’t really suffer the pain that much, because he was God. We make him out to be that muscular Jesus of the movies, and give thanks that now because of his toughness we all get to live free. That’s the way we like it.

Yet Jesus breaks his silence in this story only to cry out words that come from Psalm 22, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ – before crying out once more and dying. Jesus experiences actual pain and suffering, actual weakness and vulnerability, actual death. Clinging to the idea of a powerful Jesus doesn’t mesh with the rest of his teaching, what he said to his followers time and time again: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…for those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’ Jesus teaches throughout the gospels that powerlessness and vulnerability, willingly and freely choosing that vulnerability, is how we follow him. Looking out for number one and dominating others aren’t values Jesus ever teaches us or models – no matter how much we see those ways celebrated in the world around us. Jesus teaches and models the exact opposite: Lose your life for my sake, and you will find it.

To all of us crowds Pilate calls out, Is this the Jesus you want? ‘Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas, the revolutionary leader, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?...Which of the two do you want me to release for you?’ Which of the two do we want?