Matthew 21:1-11
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Most of us believe we can’t get to Easter Sunday without a Good Friday. That is, in part, why we read the Passion today instead of simply focusing on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. But I wonder if we might be a little misguided in that belief. Granted, there is no resurrection without Jesus’ death, and the cross helps us to see clearly that this was a politically motivated execution. But how we understand Easter Sunday—and the gift of salvation offered to us—can only be fully grasped through the lens of Palm Sunday.
To understand why Palm Sunday is necessary for Easter, we must first understand what salvation means. The word salvation comes from the Latin salvatio, meaning “to save.” To be saved is to be delivered from danger; it is a kind of freedom. But there is more at stake than simply being rescued. Salvatio is related to the word salvus, which means “safe” or “whole.” Salvation, then, is not only deliverance—it is restoration. It is the making whole of something that is incomplete.
Taken together, we begin to see that salvation is more than deliverance from sin; it is a liberating act by which we are made whole. And it is precisely this longing—for liberation and wholeness—that pulses beneath the surface of Palm Sunday.
As Jesus enters the city riding on a donkey, the crowd spreads their cloaks and palm branches on the road. They shout:
Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!
They are in turmoil—excited, curious, even a little desperate. Hosanna may sound like a shout of praise, but it is rooted in a people longing for liberation from an occupying force. Hosanna literally means, “Save us.”
Save us, O Son of David!
In the highest of heaven, save us, we pray!
Their cry is urgent. It is a plea. And I wonder if the best way to make sense of what follows is to see it through the eyes of Judas Iscariot.
To understand Judas, we have to step back into the long memory of a people who have known more threat than peace. In 586 BCE, nearly six hundred years earlier, Judea—the Southern Kingdom and home to Jerusalem—was conquered by the Babylonians. Though the people were eventually allowed to return and rebuild the Temple, they remained under imperial rule: first the Persians, then the Greeks, and now the Romans.
During the time of Greek rule—about 150 years before Jesus—a priest named Mattathias and his sons, most notably Judas Maccabeus, led a revolt. The Greeks had desecrated the Temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar. Though animal sacrifice was part of Temple worship, pigs were unclean under the Law of Moses. Worse still, the priests were forced to eat the sacrifice.
This act sparked a rebellion that lasted nearly ten years. For a brief moment, the people knew liberation. Judas Maccabeus, known as “the Hammer,” even minted coins stamped with palm branches as a symbol of that freedom. Palm branches—symbols of liberation.
Much like today, children were often named after a family member or for revered figures, and so there were many boys named Judas in Jesus’ day—not because they were related to Judas Maccabeus, but because their parents dared to hope. They hoped that one day the yoke of oppression would finally be broken. That hoped that one day they would no longer be under the influence of an empire.
By 63 BCE, Rome had defeated the Greeks and taken Jerusalem. Rome allowed a degree of religious freedom, but at a cost: heavy taxation, economic strain, and the constant presence of soldiers with near-absolute power. It was not peace; it was control.
Judas Iscariot bore the name of a national hero, and it is not hard to imagine that he also bore the same longing: overthrow the empire—by whatever means necessary.
So I wonder what Judas saw when he first met Jesus. Did he believe, at last, this was the liberator—the one to save Israel. Perhaps he had been waiting his whole life for this moment—and now, as they entered Jerusalem to crowds laying down cloaks and palm branches, welcoming Jesus with near riotous energy as if he were the king—Caesar himself—all he needed was for Jesus to give the word.
Everything is in place. This pageantry of a parade is a mockery of Rome and their parades in which legions of soldiers preceded Caesar who would make a grand entrance into a conquered town, the last to arrive, mounted on a white stallion—a statement of power and authority. Jesus’ entrance subverts that image, and the people respond enthusiastically to it. He need only give the word. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he simply rides through the streets—humble, unarmed, mounted on a donkey. It is a political statement, yes—but not the one that the people, that Judas, were hoping for. There is no call to arms. No uprising. No revolution.
The crowd disperses. They go home disappointed. Disillusioned. This man they cried out to for salvation—this man who stirred their deepest longing—seems like one more disappointment in a long line of disappointments.
And Judas? Judas would have felt this even more deeply. He had left everything to come and follow Jesus. He had invested his life in him. His hopes. His dreams. And now…nothing. A donkey ride into the city. The moment full of possibility, gone. Jesus had the people in the palm of his hand. But from Judas’ perspective, there is no fight in him.
So what would you do? What would you do if you were desperate for liberation? If you longed for your people to be made whole again? If you could almost taste victory? What would you do?
Would you force the moment? Would you take matters into your own hands? Would you do whatever it takes to bring about the freedom you believe God desires? Would you find any means possible to liberate yourself and those you love from this prison of oppression? To set the captives—the people of Israel—free? What would you do?
Because we know what Judas does.
Tomorrow, his hope will flicker again when Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers in the Temple. On Tuesday, he will hear Jesus challenge the religious authorities, and he will begin to wonder: does Jesus know who the real enemy is? Not the scribes and Pharisees—does he know the real enemy is Rome?
And when Jesus refuses to act, Judas will make a choice. A terrible choice. A choice born, perhaps, not simply of greed or betrayal—but of desperation. Of disillusionment. Of a longing for salvation that looks very different from the one Jesus offers.
He will force the confrontation. He will hand Jesus over—perhaps hoping that, at last, Jesus will act. Can we blame him? Not agree with him. Can we understand his motivation?
Because if we are honest, we know this place. We know what it is to want God to act—and to act now. We know what it is to long for salvation on our terms. We know what it is to be disappointed when Jesus does not meet our expectations. Palm Sunday confronts us with a difficult truth: the salvation we long for is not always the salvation God gives.
The crowd cries, “Hosana,” Save us,” and Jesus answers—but not with a sword. Not with an army. Not with violence or war. He answers with a cross. And that is why we cannot skip from Palm Sunday to Easter without lingering in this moment—this moment of misunderstanding, of misplaced hope, of desperate longing. Because if we are not careful, we will stand with the crowd, waving our palms, crying out for salvation…
…and miss the very Savior in our midst. And our hosanas will become shouts of crucify him.