Yesterday was Palm Sunday, which traditionally commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. I’m a big fan of the gospel of Luke and I adore the way he tells the story. He builds the scene in Luke 19 well, with the specific story of the entry beginning in verse 28. In Luke’s gospel people lay down their cloaks as Jesus proceeds and he uses plenty of recognised traditions and linkages to Jewish scripture to establish that Jesus is the King (Genesis 49:11; Psalm 118:26; Zechariah 9:9). It’s an extremely important time in the progression of Luke’s account of Jesus.

Luke’s movement of Jesus towards Jerusalem is done very deliberately, beginning with force back in Luke 9:51. He built the anticipation of Jesus into Jerusalem extremely well – weaving that momentum right through his gospel and the anticipation of that entry reaches its high point with the people crying out with the words of Psalm 118:26. There is a sense for the reader that Jesus has arrived and something momentous is about to happen. The Kings procession is taking place and he’s about to be enthroned.

Palm Sunday is the procession of a King in the way the culture of Luke’s time would recognise it (hence the use of the enthronement Psalm), thus he has employed many devices to build the picture of this event as the moment where the people of Israel recognise Jesus as King. It’s also the way we would recognise significance – sure, there is a donkey, but people are singing out their praises and adoration, they’re laying their coats down in front of him. We would express our admiration in very similar ways, and how many of us would love to be the subjects of that sort of attention – don’t we seek it regularly?

But as we all know the story doesn’t end there and there is another procession the Christian community has given more weight to since its very early days, bringing to the fore a question about when the King’s procession to enthronement actually takes place.

In Philippians 2, Paul, in his letter to the Church in Philippi paints a picture of Jesus’ glorification and what amounts to his enthronement. He doesn’t give a mention to the events of Palm Sunday and Jesus entry into Jerusalem, rather, the focus is on his humility through the incarnation and then along his path to and through death. It’s through the Crucifixion that Paul places Jesus’ road to exaltation and glorification. It’s through this path that he is made King.

With this in mind, is the Christian procession of the King the entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday or is the actual procession of our King that walk he undertook from the moment Pilate handed him to the soldiers, through to the moment he was crucified on the cross? I think the Church has instinctively said the latter. The biblical gospels give little detail of that walk from Pilate, through the streets of ancient Jerusalem in among the crowds, the dust, and the heaviness of the moment, and to the cross. The Church has pieced together elements of that walk from the gospels and tradition and has enshrined it in a walk in Old Jerusalem called the Via Dolorosa. The Via Dolorosa, which takes people through the walk of Jesus to the cross, involving different stations along the way, has been a pilgrimage for millions for centuries. I’ve walked it three times and it has profoundly shaped my faith.

When you walk the Via Dolorosa it becomes very apparent that it is in this walk and what happened at the end of it that truly cements who Jesus is. It’s the walk to the cross that leads to the enthronement of Jesus as Lord and King of all. It’s a path that is well worn by those who bow the knee to King Jesus. This is the procession Christians have given weight to since the earliest times and it’s the path that enables us to truly echo the words of the Psalmist and say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The paradox is that this is an entirely counter-cultural procession. This is the procession of a King who is ultimately glorified by defeating evil, through bearing it – by taking the hit of violence once and for all. It is this walk that shuns our fickle desire for adulation and all that goes with it. Palm Sunday is significant in that it ties scripture together to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised King, but it is not the center of the story.

The question we should be asking ourselves during this holy week is, what does this mean for us who follow in the footsteps of this King whose enthronement procession was actually the walk to the cross and the events of the cross itself? How many of us are seeking the adulation of Palm Sunday when what the world really needs is for us to put ourselves aside and embrace the walk of Jesus embodied in the Via Dolorosa? The beauty is that what’s at the other end of that walk and the cross is the Resurrection. It’s in the procession of Jesus to the cross that we ultimately find true life that we can then offer to the world that so desperately needs it.

This week, let’s embrace the way of the cross.