There had to be more than 100 of them - Israeli soldiers walking through the Jaffa Gate as Ruth and I stepped out of the Christian Quarter of Old Jerusalem on a sunny March afternoon five years ago. We might have mistaken them for a Scout troop had it not been for the Uzis slung over their shoulders. They were relaxed, casual, as they walked the cobbled street that leads to the Temple Mount.

    Located on the west side of the city, the Jaffa Gate was the gate through which Jewish and Christian pilgrims entered the city on their way from the Mediterranean port city of Jaffa. Although this gate and the walls themselves were built in the early 16th century by the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, in my musings, it is the gate through which Pilate and his legionaries entered the city in the week before Passover nearly 2,000 years ago.

   Dom Crossan and Marcus Borg paint a vivid picture of the scene in their book The Last Week. In Jesus' day, the holy city's population ballooned from 40,000 to 200,000 as pilgrims from across the Roman Empire came to commemorate Passover, the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. As a show of force and to bolster the Jerusalem garrison,  Pilate and a small army of soldiers made their way into the city from the port of Caesarea Maritima.

   It must have been a grand entrance with Pilate on horseback followed by perhaps a century of men (80 men) in battle gear - shields, bows, daggers, swords, lances. These professional warriors were the epitome of power and control, skilled at keeping the peace by all means necessary. 

   As next Sunday's scripture reading - Matthew 21:1-11 - tells us, the procession entering the city from the east was so very different. Down from the Mount of Olives rode Jesus on the back of a borrowed donkey. Before him were folks cheering, shouting "hosanna," and laying branches and cloaks on the street before him.  The air was filled with joy and hope.

   I wonder - in which procession am I? Am I a part of a military-industrial complex that survives and thrives by keeping others down, by exploiting them, a society/culture that believes that might makes right, where the concept of justice means "just us?" Or, am I a part of the other crowd, the one that practices nonviolent resistance to evil, embraces peace, that seeks to lift others up and to let them know that they are God's beloved?  

   In truth, I think there's a bit of each procession going on inside of each of us. We may want to be in the procession that longs for a better day and is willing to work for it . . . but there's something very seductive about possessions, power and prestige, isn't there? 

Church of Bethphage mural depicting Jesus' entry into Jerusalem