Yes, Jesus WAS a political Messiah!

On Palm Sundays in the past, Pastor Phil Kniss has said that Jesus was NOT a political Messiah. This morning he repented of that. Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was nothing if not political. Jesus set it up that way. Now people may have misunderstood the nature of Jesus politics, thinking of earthly politics. "Political" is the way humans organize themselves socially. Pastor Phil said, "The church is a political entity." He went on to further explain that statement and differentiate the politics of the Body of Christ from the politics of this world. The politics of Jesus is "depth politics", attempting to reshape how people define the "good life", and has no relationship to partisan politics. One result of Jesus' politics is that the crowds that cheered him in Mark 11:1-10 very quickly faded away or turned against him. The politics of Jesus are not well received by the powers of this world. It is the power of self-sacrificing love as opposed to the power of the sword. Jesus began the work of forming a people around a cross-shaped covenant. During Holy Week we must sit with the knowledge that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was a parade headed directly toward the sacrifice of the cross. Both Isaiah 50:5-8a and Philippians 2:5-11 remind us of this.