Numerous scholars have noted that Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem is an oppositional one. Pontious Pilate would have entered the city, as well, but elsewhere and with a different sort of fanfare. While Jesus did not enter Jerusalem with warhorses, chariots, and the might of the Roman Empire around him like Pilate, expectations were almost certainly high among those in the crowd. Matthew explicitly connects the procession with the restoration of the Jewish people after a prolonged period of exile, after all.
In the text of Zechariah referenced by Matthew, we see a vision of a world that God is making right. God is toppling the empires of the day (Zech. 9:1-8). God is overturning hoarded wealth (vv. 3-4), arrogant and violent power (vv. 5-7), and the forces of slavery (v. 8). It’s hard not to think that Jesus is coming with the immediate power to overturn the social and political order right then and there. Only, that’s not exactly what happens is it?
Instead, what we look toward in Holy Week, culminating in Easter, is the inversion of how we expect these powers to work, all bolstered by the defeat of sin and death. In that way, what Jesus accomplishes actually embodies the text from Zechariah quite well. After this litany of nations getting their just deserts, one might expect quite the retributive toll. Only, that’s not exactly what happens.
Instead, we hear the promise of a king who is “righteous and victorious,” yes, but also “humble and riding on an ass (v. 9, CEB). He cuts off the chariot and the warhorse not just from Judah’s enemies, but from Ephraim and Jerusalem. “The bow used in battle will be cut off,” Zechariah vows (v. 10, CEB). The cycle of retribution and violence is broken, not continued. This promise is embodied in the defeat of sin and death at the end of this week, as well. The cycle is broken. Violence is not repeated.
The breaking of this cycle of violence and retribution is central to a Christian theology of abolition. Police and especially prisons exist as perpetuators of these cycles of violence and retribution. We will never move beyond the social ills that our criminal justice system claims to address while we continue to perpetuate the violence at the center of crime. You cannot imprison a crime, but you can commit more injustice under the guise of doing so.
This Palm Sunday, let’s acknowledge these cycles of harm, violence, and retribution. These are the things Jesus came to break. These are the cycles Zechariah said God wants broken. Let’s shatter them that we might live in the world God wants where the bows and chariots have no use to us.
Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.