April Fools and Palm Sunday
April 2nd, 2007
There’s a certain symmetry about yesterday’s concurrence of Palm Sunday with April Fools. The conjunction offers heightened satire and spice.
Jesus, king-on-a-donkey, riding on a carpet of raggedy cloaks and palm leaves placed by peasants, must have appeared a fatuous spectacle. A great April Fools joke. Jesus the jester. Jesus, like Shakespeare’s Falstaff, an unwitting mocker.
But not so unwitting as to fail to time his entrance with Pilate’s Royal Parade on the other side of the city.
The Imperial Roman parades were always scheduled for Jewish religious celebrations, like Passover. The intention was to dominate and intimidate the common Jewish citizenry.
On this Passover however, Jesus was on the other side of Jerusalem collecting, including, inspiring, and enlivening the crowd. Sitting on a colt, he remained at eye level with the unwashed.
Concerning the gentry, a powerless, uncommonly naive, clown-king. To the oppressed, the occupied, the impoverished, a deliverer that could be identified with.
Technorati Tags: Palm Sunday, April Fools, Christianity
Entry Filed under: Atonement, Christianity, Violence
The Veranda collapsed under the weight of a winter snow, so I built a Front Porch.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Len Hindle | April 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
the fool on the hill of Golgotha is indeed wiser and stronger the emperor who put him there
2. Len Hindle | April 2nd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Hi Steve
I like your salon pictures. It would be nice to know who the individuals are (cousins, neices, grandaughters, wife etc. etc. I think I recognized Grandma)
The pictures remind me of a wonderful one you had on your blog profile in the past. I think it was of you in a back alley (?) sitting in a chair reclaimed from a nearby dumpster. It was priceless. Do you still have it and can you get it on the salon someday?
God Bless you and yours
3. Len Hindle | April 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
the ‘fool’ in the back alley, sitting in the beat up sofa chair may yet prove wiser than ye olde Lord of Black Harbour
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