Using Christianity to justify violence is diametrically opposite of the message of his prophetic “street theater” on Palm Sunday, not to mention Zechariah’s prophecy.
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations. (Zechariah 9:9-10)
“As Zechariah predicted, Jesus rode into Jerusalem intent on removing the weapons of war. He would take away the battle bow, chariot, and warhorse. And in their stead, he modeled a new way of making peace.
“Palm Sunday is fundamentally about the collision of two competing approaches to peacemaking. Given the theatrics of the day, it would be easy to conclude that these conflicting ideologies were embodied by Pilate and Jesus. After all, their processions were on a collision course, and everything about Jesus’ procession seemed to deliberately counter Pilate’s. While this is true, Jesus also intentionally subverted his own people’s paradigm for peacemaking. They expected Jesus to ride into town as Judas Maccabeus (The Hammer) had once done. They hoped Jesus would wage peace with a hammer. But Jesus flipped the script.
“Jesus used his triumphal entry to subtly yet unambiguously declare that he was not the Hammer of God. He was the Lamb of God. And he calls his followers to also embrace the way of a sacrificial lamb.” Jason Porterfield in Fight Like Jesus
barney wiget 