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Viewpoint from Revd Dr Steven Sivyer 05/05/2023
 Revd Dr Steven Sivyer
Team Rector (Designate) of Flegg Parish Churches
Assistant Rural Dean of Great Yarmouth Deanery
The King of Kings
“Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey”
The prophet Zechariah wrote of the event when Jesus entered Jerusalem 500 years later, which we remember on Palm Sunday. This was a statement of Jesus’ kingship; openly accepting the adulations of the crowd lining the road as he proceeded towards Jerusalem, but they turned and Jesus was dead within a week
In Dorothy Sayers’ ‘The Man Born to be King’, both Jesus’ and Pontius Pilate’s processions converge. Pilot’s is the official procession, coming up with all the trappings of state power, with organised legions of soldiers and chariots to keep order at the Passover. Jesus’ procession contains a single donkey and a ragged bunch of cheering followers. The superior Pilot pauses as Jesus goes through the gate. He watches patronisingly, for this Messiah is no threat to the power of Rome. Jesus’ procession didn’t look like a military operation. Compare to the amount of planning and preparation that King Charles’ coronation had, which included more than 7000 troops. Yet, Jesus’ procession is still celebrated and re-enacted every year by people across the world
The crowds shouted “Hosanna” meaning ‘Save us’, but they did not understand what they needed saving from. They believed they needed saving from the Romans, the occupying super-power of their day, but Jesus understood that they needed saving from sin. The crowds turned because Jesus was not going to save them in the way they had predetermined. Some 200 years earlier, Judas Maccabaeus removed the remnants of Alexander the Great’s reign from the Temple, but the Greeks were replaced by the Romans as the super-power. Had Jesus removed the Romans, it would have given the Israelites temporary reprieve from occupation (for the Roman Empire was in its final centuries) but it would not have conquered the eternal consequences of sin. Jesus came as a servant king, demonstrating the reign and love of God
Like Pilate looking on, Jesus’ life looks a complete failure to some people; but consider this: 2000 years later, Pilot is one of the most famous Romans, more famous that many of its emperors, but he is only remembered because of Jesus and the role he played in his death. History has proven that Jesus’ way was right!
King Charles recently gave Maundy Money to Martin Moore, a former Churchwarden at Filby, and serving people is now integral to ruling, based on the model of the kingship of Jesus, and it was to Jesus that King Charles swore his allegiance. Jesus is not only a king, but the one whom kings look to as their king
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