People talk about the emotional rollercoasters, where life swiftly turns this way and that, up and down. You find yourself screaming from joy and then fear, needing to vomit one moment and feeling most alive the next. It’s unpredictable and unnerving. Maybe this is why many enjoy watching the same movie again and again—feels safe to know the ending.

When it comes to the Bible, we’ve bought the book and know the ending. But I often feel invited into Holy Week trying to live like I don’t know how it goes. To purposefully ride the rollercoaster alongside the disciples and Jesus—the mixture of vomit and death and life, blood and sweat and tears.

Holy Week began last week with Palm Sunday at the start of Passover week. During these last days of Jesus’s life in Jerusalem, a city of around 40,000 people, pilgrims would descend upon the city ballooning it to over 200,000. Because Passover is a historical celebration of Israel’s rescue out of slavery in Egypt and escape from the oppressors that kept them captive, there was always concern Israel would turn on Rome and revolt or start standing up for their rights against their oppressors. So Rome, which occupied and ruled over Israel, would send whomever they put in charge of the area to Jerusalem with at least 1,000 troops to police the city, to be an intimidating presence, and to keep the peace. 

On this Sunday, it was likely that Pilate, the Roman official in charge of Jerusalem, would be arriving into Jerusalem from the East out of the Mediterranean area. He would be atop his war horse wearing robes with the details of his official capacity and the backing of Roman power. Pilate’s garrison would be marching before and behind him. There were horses and men and weapons and armor. There were flags and noise and dust and everyone would have known they were coming from miles away. Within this legion held heavy intimidation and severe threat of violence should anyone try to cause a rebellion or if things got out of hand. 

On the other side of Jerusalem came a different sort of parade and noise where Jesus arrived on a donkey with the poor, marginalized, and forgotten before and behind him waving palm branches. Shane Claiborne writes that “palm branches were a symbol of revolution, flashing back to the Maccabean revolt, generations before Jesus. In fact, historians found palm branches carved into the walls of the Roman empire, like first-century graffiti.” Nothing would be adorning Jesus to prove who he was to others because he already knew who he was. He was confident in his identity and mission and he knew God’s kingdom would always stand up to and against Roman imperial power or any other kind of oppressive power that causes marginalized, poor, and ignored people to suffer. 

They shouted, “Hosanna, save us!” Hosanna means “save us!” Hosanna isn’t hallelujah. Hosanna isn’t praise and it isn’t worship. Hosanna isn’t balloons and snow cones and parades with streamers with fire works and a marching band. Hosanna is desperation. Hosanna is crying mothers and frenzied shouts. Hosanna is truth telling in the rawest form, vulnerable and exposed. Hosanna holds nothing back and isn’t wrapped in bubble wrap or sensitive to another’s emotions. Hosanna isn’t afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or manipulating a situation. Hosanna is a broken, at the end of your rope, and boldly demanding that things are finally made right because we’ve had enough! 

I don’t know about you, but mass shootings and climate change and cancer and starvation and immigration and people being disappeared and racism and all the things coming undone around me makes me cry out, “Hosanna! Save us! Deliver us! Make it right, right now!” Palm Sunday isn’t a day for cheerful parades. It’s a day of protests and signs and chanting our needs. It’s a day of demonstration and desperation. It’s a day when we speak truth to power, like Jesus, defenseless and unarmed. 

Why does Holy Week begin with such hope of things being made right to end with the One who was to make all things right being tortured and killed as a common criminal on a Roman cross? 

When tyrants lead and governments are corrupt, when police are commissioned with brutality, the disrupters and agitators must be silenced, especially before things get too out of hand. Why does this impulse to shut opposition down exist within us? We block, we cancel, we silence, we shout louder, we threaten, we kill. Rarely do we listen and seek to understand. Our fears and belief that we’re right and that they’re wrong dictate so many of our actions, causing us to justify aggression and expulsion. 

There’s a desire within most of us to turn away from the ugly and gross parts of life. We don’t want to see the suffering or confront the pain. NIMBY-ism is alive and well in the most liberal of us and if their compassion encroaches upon our comfort, things could get violent. We keep distant from the atrocities happening in our country because we believe it won’t happen to us. Undocumented people, beloved human beings are hiding and hunted and I wonder how long until bookshelves become secret doorways of protection. Well, that’s extreme, some may say. But maybe not. 

Jesus confronted our desire to avoid discomfort, to sleep or slumber through, and stay distant from the pain of suffering people when he was killed as an insurrectionist on a Roman cross. He demands that we look upon it, to see the brutality of tyranny and sanctioned governmental democide, and declare enough! Never again! Human life and well being is just too precious to allow this to continue forth! We won’t stand for it! 

Wake up!

Christians everywhere believe that when Jesus was killed on the cross, the false idea of original sin died with him and when he was raised to life, original love rose with him, waking us up to the greatest truth. The powers that say one person is more important than another, or one people group or nation is better than another has died! It’s an infected, gangrenous, rotten, corrupt, decaying form of death that Jesus has abolished and anytime we affirm arrogant pride or power, we’re affirming death. 

Jesus came to bring life, and life to the fullest! Christ is risen! The Greek word for risen is egeírō which means “to wake up,” which is our invitation today. Wake up to life to the fullest! This life looks rebellious, insisting we love our enemies, we forgive those who have harmed us, we live generously, we affirm the marginalized, we open our homes and tables, we fight for justice and equality, we listen to different beliefs, we include the forgotten and feed the hungry and visit the prisoner and welcome the stranger and house the homeless and combat hatred and greed and lust, we are content with little and release control. We arrive into every situation, fully awake, like Jesus did on that donkey—defenseless and unarmed. 

And most of the time, to wake up and live in such a way, something must die. My pride. My self-criticism. My popularity. My scarcity mindset. My indifference. My need to be right or have the last word. 

Resurrection only comes after death. 

He is risen!

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Bethany Cseh is a pastor at Arcata United Methodist Church and Catalyst Church.