Marlin & Sally in Jerusalem: Palm Sunday Pictures

Yesterday was the yearly first Palm Sunday walk - first because Orthodox Palm Sunday is a couple of weeks away. The walk begins at Bethphage (House of Figs) and proceeds down through Lion's Gate and into Saint Anne's Church located just inside the city walls.

The walk starts just on the other side of this wall, which separates biblical Bethany from the Mount of Olives. This picture was taken from the Bethany side of the Separation Barrier, just five minutes from tradition's site for Lazarus's tomb.
And here they come - the procession proceeds down the Mount of Olives toward the Old City, let by four Israeli soldiers. Tourists often remark about how odd it is to have soldiers in full battle gear leading the Palm Sunday procession, but for locals these soldiers are just part of the landscape. They are there as a presence for the purpose of keeping order, but it does serve to put in perspective Palm Sunday in contemporary Jerusalem. You have to wonder where the soldiers were on the first Palm Sunday walk, the one Jesus led seated on the back of a donkey. Roman soldiers were there of course, watching the crowd as it made it's way toward the city of Jerusalem. These Roman soldiers worried over the crowd as well, wondering if the motley crew made up mostly of children was planning celebration or revolution. Imagine their relief when Jesus led the crowd into the Temple through the Beautiful Gate and not toward their stronghold, the Antonio Fortress, by the then Sheep's Gate. I know, it's confusing, but stay with me.
And there they go, into the Old City, and because the Beautiful Gate is no longer there, and the Golden Gate, near where Beautiful Gate once stood was closed by one of the Muslim sultan's, the crowd passes through the gate that would have led up to the Antonio Fortress, where Pilate was no doubt staying for the dangerous time of the festival of Passover. Was Pilate watching too? Who is watching this crowd? Are they dangerous too? It could be that we are a danger to the principalities and powers. At the very least, we should be. Right? Not because we would revolt, but because we follow that first parade marshal who came riding on a donkey, unarmed except for a divine, internal resolve to redeem the world by the only means possible - his own self. And if it meant suffering, then so be it. And if it meant death, then so be it. And if there was something more to come, something transcending suffering and death, something like resurrection, well then, so be it as well. A man on a donkey rode into a city rife with corruption at every level, sold out completely to violent solutions to every problem, conflicted and factioned, and the man on the donkey knew by then that only the children would understand the significance, because only the children were willing to follow a man on a donkey rather than a man with a sword.