This week, Christians give special remembrance to the final events of Jesus’s life. Called Holy Week, the period begins with Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, includes the institution of Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday, turns to Christ’s death on Good Friday, and ends with Holy Saturday. These events then all lead to Easter Sunday, where the faithful celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
The intense shifts between Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday could give one whiplash. They also involve an important political, in addition to theological, teaching.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey as the people waved palm branches, laid down their cloaks, and cried out, “Hosanna to the son of David!” Drawing on imagery from the Hebrew prophets, this scene clearly evoked the entry of a king, a “son of David,” into the capital city of Jerusalem.
This moment seemed like one that poised Jesus to assume political power, one that would defeat the imperialist power of Rome and re-institute the Hebrew monarchy. It seemed like the kind of moment many Americans sometimes hope for, wherein a statesman-savior overcomes anti-constitutional and even un-American factions to restore us to our primitive, Founding purity.
Yet the story of the Gospels did not play out that way. Jesus does not take over political power. Instead, he was betrayed by one of his own disciples into the hands of the ruling authorities. First, he was taken before the chief priests and the “whole council” (Matthew 26:57) of the Jewish people. They exercise a kind of judicial power, putting Jesus on trial to ascertain whether he is guilty of any crime. Judicial power, then and now, is supposed to seek justice. To do so, the exercisers of such power must be impartial to the person tried, neither favoring him nor acting biased against him.
The Gospels tell the story of a judicial power that abdicates its role and, thus, the judges’ duty. They seek from the start to find him guilty and put him to death, including with false witnesses hurling made-up accusations. Instead of restoring justice, it seems Jesus falls prey to the unjust systems already and still in place.
Jesus eventually gets turned over to the other, more powerful political authority — the Romans. The Roman governor, Pilate, displays a kind of abdication of authority. One is philosophical. When Jesus tells Pilate that “[e]veryone who is of the truth listens to my voice,” Pilate asks, “[w]hat is truth?” Yet how can he claim ignorance of the truth when he must exercise political rule? The dispensing of justice, the essential role of a political ruler, requires a knowledge of justice’s nature of its content.
Moreover, Pilate refused to release Jesus, despite warnings from his wife and his own view that Jesus did nothing wrong. Instead, Pilate gives in to the mob, releasing a murderer, the prisoner Barabbas, instead of Christ. Moreover, he symbolically washes his hands of Jesus’ blood, despite his own clear power to kill or release this innocent man regardless of what the crowd or anyone else desired. Here, instead of Jesus’ reigning as king, we have a Roman leader unwilling to acknowledge truth, to stand up for what he believes to be the dictates of justice, or to even take responsibility for life and death decisions within his own power.
These events all lead to the cross. Jesus, who had entered Jerusalem like a king, died like a poor criminal, crucified between two thieves. When he is buried, he does not even have his own grave but depends on the charity of a rich man sympathetic to him.
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If the story stopped there, or focused on the politics of the Roman Empire, it might be seen as a footnote teaching future politicians not to be over-confident in their own potential, the ruling powers’ weaknesses, or the people’s fidelity.
But that is not where the story ends. It concludes with Easter Sunday and the resurrection of that man, God incarnate, from the grave. Easter teaches us that we should not judge true justice and power merely by worldly terms. We also should not despair when evil seems to triumph. Good will win at the most unlikely of times. And that victory, unlike those of our earthly politics, will be complete and eternal. That is hope we can rely on. Happy Easter.
Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.