Mark 11:1-10; Joshua 4:19-23; Revelation 19:11a,16
“King Jesus rides on a milk-white horse.” The choir sings with great enthusiasm, and more than a little confusion. They know the scripture coming right after the anthem is about Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. They also know, from many years of Palm Sunday dramatic re-enactments, that there was probably another parade that same day, as Pilate, the hated Roman governor ruling over Judea, came in with his soldiers. It would have been a purposely awe-inspiring parade, with spears and swords, chariots and glitter and jewels, designed to evoke fear. The intent was to keep the people in line, to prevent anyone from being so inspired by their Passover celebration of freedom that they would try to resist Rome’s power. If anyone was riding on a milk white horse on that first Palm Sunday, it would have been Pilate. What are we doing singing about Jesus on that same horse?
Even without this anthem, Palm Sunday is confusing enough. What in the world is Jesus thinking? Is he intentionally mocking Rome? Perhaps this is one of his parables that no one can figure out—except this one is enacted instead of spoken, and with this one, the stakes are dangerously high. Jesus seems to be conveying a message about how the realm of God is different from the rule of Caesar—about how the power of God is different from the power of Caesar. But we can’t quite pin down that message: what is the power of God, expressed in an ordinary-looking person riding into town on a donkey? How is this power going to do anything in the face of the overwhelming strength of Rome? Adding to the complications of the day is that we know what happens next. Hope may flourish for a Palm Sunday parade—and then, in a few days, all those hopes are dashed as Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and crucified.
Our anthem adds another layer of twists and turns to our confusion. The donkey—symbol of God’s paradoxical power—morphs into a milk-white horse, a classic metaphor for strength and nobility. Over and over the choir sings “No man gonna hinder me.” We know that as the story unfolds in the coming week, many people’s hopes and dreams will be hindered, even destroyed. What’s happening in this perplexing anthem?
This song weaves three biblical stories together. It starts, of course, with the Palm Sunday story, Jesus riding into Jerusalem. Then it adds a layer of imagery from the book of Revelation. A hundred years after Jesus, Rome is still a brutal empire, and that brutality is often directed at Christians. John of Patmos, one of those Christians, has been exiled to a barren island. It is there he has the grand and convoluted vision that becomes the book of Revelation. His vision depicts a cosmic struggle against a massive, overpowering beast—called Babylon in the story, clearly a metaphor for the Roman empire. In the face of utter despair at the all-consuming power of the beast, Jesus appears in John’s dream, a victor riding in on a white horse, ushering in a new heaven and a new earth, the realm of God’s love and justice.
The third biblical story reflected in this anthem takes us back to the time of the Exodus. The Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt. Freed by God working through Moses, they wander through the wilderness for forty years before they are ready to claim themselves as a free people. As the culmination of their long journey, they cross the River Jordan and enter the Promised Land.
These three strands are woven together into the poetry of our anthem: Jesus on a donkey mocking the power of Rome, Jesus on a white horse overcoming the power of the beast and ushering in the realm of God, Jesus crossing the River Jordan, bringing former slaves home to a land of milk and honey.
It is brilliant poetry, emerging from the collective creativity of a community of slaves—African Americans enslaved in our own nation. This spiritual reflects their experience of overwhelming, brutal power–both the power of individual slaveholders and the force of a system that defined them as less than human. In that context, the anthem conveys a potent message: there is something more powerful than the seemingly absolute power of slavery.
This song is not an invitation to be passive. It is not about waiting for Jesus to come in on a white horse, not about the promise of heaven. It is a call to action. In many spirituals, the River Jordan pointed toward the Ohio River—a river that marked a boundary between slave and free states. The gospel way that must be trod—might that have been a hidden reference to the Underground Railroad?
The spiritual reassures its singers: Yes, there is a truth, a spirit of love and justice, a force that is more powerful than the forces of hatred, evil, and slavery, and you can be part of that spirit, you can draw strength from that force. Jesus comes on a milk-white horse to cross the Jordan River, and to accompany you across the Ohio River. God is with you when you tread the gospel way, when you walk the Underground Railroad.
For the slaves who sang it, the truth conveyed in this song was not an abstract concept. It was not an ethereal theory about the ultimate power of God’s love. It was a life-defining truth, one that gave them strength to endure and courage to risk their lives seeking freedom.
What does this truth mean for us sitting in this sanctuary today? We are not slaves; we have varying degrees of choice and power in our lives. Even so, we often feel overwhelmed by forces that seem as all-powerful as Rome or Egypt, as the beast or the overseer. We may feel engulfed by the power of addiction or mental illness in our lives or in the lives of people we love. We may feel overcome by fear of terrorism, by outrage at our seeming inability to stop mass shootings, by the persistence of racism, by despair that our nation can ever come together to solve our problems, by bills we can never seem to get on top of.
Whatever it is that feels all-powerful in our lives, the Palm Sunday message calls us to hope: because God’s love is more powerful. That call to hope becomes a call to action.
The Palm Sunday call to action is beautifully expressed by a line in our anthem: “If you want to find the way to God, the gospel way must be trod.” What is this gospel way, and what does it mean for us to tread it?
To tread the gospel way is to join in the second Palm Sunday parade, the one with the guy on the donkey and the scruffy disciples waving palms. It is to refuse to be taken in by the glitter of Roman jewels and the gleam of Roman swords. It is to choose instead to be inspired by the light of Jesus’ teachings, the beauty of waving palms. It is to join Jesus on his path, knowing the journey will be rocky and sometimes dangerous.
To tread the gospel way means seeking our own healing and freedom from the things that trap us, even when we cannot imagine how we could ever be whole and free. To tread the gospel way is to join hands and hearts with others who are seeking healing and freedom. It is to keep walking that path, encouraging, supporting, guiding people on their own journeys, until the gospel way becomes a well-trod road.
To tread that gospel way is to choose to trust in the power of God’s love and justice even when we don’t quite get it. It is to act on that choice—to make our life-decisions, large and small, based on faith that love is the greatest power there is.
That may mean stepping out of the fast track that leads to money and power, and choosing a different way of finding meaning in our lives. It means going out of our way to help a neighbor in need. It means following the lead of grieving, determined high school students, walking beside them as they demand an end to gun violence. It means calling people in power into account. It means risking our own well-being to stand up for someone who is being ignored or abused. It means persisting in our efforts to make our society more just and compassionate, even when it appears nothing will ever change.
It is risky to tread the gospel way. And it is worth it, for this is the path that leads to hope, to peace, to God. Let us walk together. Amen.