Triumphal Entry of Love & Peace-  Luke 19:28–40

We gather today on the threshold of Holy Week, a time when the great archetypal drama of descent, death, and resurrection unfolds once more — not only in the story of Jesus, but in the landscape of our own souls. Palm Sunday begins this journey with paradox: a triumphant procession of a king, yet one who comes in humility the name of peace and love.

This morning’s Gospel reading from Luke 19:28 - 40 offers us the familiar scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem, welcomed by crowds with shouts of joy. But Luke’s version is subtle, distinctive, and with its own nuance. If we pause and look closely, we may find that this is not just a story about the past — it’s a parable for our times.

Interestingly, unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke does not mention palms, nor does he refer to the people shouting “Hosanna.” Instead, the people shout, “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” an echo of the angelic chorus at Jesus’ birth earlier in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 2:14). Peace at the beginning. Peace at the end.

This is one of Luke’s key perspectives. His Gospel, more than the others, highlights Jesus as a prophet of peace and inclusion — someone who consistently uplifts the poor, welcomes outsiders, and critiques the powerful with both compassion and clarity.

Only Luke tells the story of the Good Samaritan the despised outsider who reaches out compassionately across the ethnic and sectarian divide
Only Luke includes the Magnificat, Mary’s song proclaiming that the proud will be scattered and the lowly lifted.  
Only Luke gives us the story of Zacchaeus, the rich man who climbs a tree to see Jesus and then gives almost all of his wealth away.

And so when Jesus rides into Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel, he is not a warrior Messiah nor a celebrity preacher. He is a messenger and a bringer of peace. He comes not on a war horse, but on a borrowed colt – he does not even own the donkey he is riding. He comes not to dominate, but to demonstrate a different kind of power — the power of humility, of solidarity, of love in action.

In exploring this passage, it helps to remember the context. This was the time of Passover — a festival that recalled the ancient liberation of the Hebrews from the oppressive Egyptian Empire that held them as slaves. But in Jesus day they were once again a captured people – dominated and oppressed, but this time by Rome. Passover was therefore had very real political overtones. Revolutionary fervor ran high as many longed for freedom and a new liberation from their oppressors.  

Marcus Borg a biblical scholar tells us that in this volatile situation in Jerusalem at the time of Passover, in a dramatic display of Roman power and authority, Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor,  would have processed into Jerusalem from the west with all the pomp and ceremony of a Roman military parade, banners flying, soldiers armed, and imperial power on full display with an increased military presence to quell any potential rebellions.  By contrast, Jesus enters Jerusalem from the east in a very different procession riding on a humble colt. 

Marcus Borg suggests that this stark contrast was not accidental. Jesus’ entry is a counter-procession, a kind of street theatre, one that draws on Jewish prophetic tradition as Jesus enacts a different way of being in the world – a procession of peace not through power and the sword, but a procession for peace through humility, integrity, solidarity and love.  He was inviting his own people to put aside the way of revolutionary violence that would only bring upon itself more violence and to walk a different path a revolution of integrity and love. 

As we explore Luke’s narrative we see that it is rich with references to the Hebrew Scriptures:

- The choice of a colt “on which no one has ever sat” (v. 30) echoes the purity laws for sacred use in Numbers and Deuteronomy. This is no ordinary animal. It’s a symbol of something new and pure, something set apart. Jesus enacts and embodies a deeper meaning of purity – the heart that refuses the way of violence and domination.  Another interesting interpretation of the donkey is the it represents our animal nature that has been tamed and purified and put in the service of a greater cause. 

- This image of a humble king riding on a donkey comes directly from Zechariah 9:9  
  “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey…”

But here’s what comes next in Zechariah:     “…He shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea.” 

For Zachariah, the one who comes in humility is the one who brings peace — not through force or violence, but through inner strength, through divine-centered action, integrity, selflessness, suffering love.

- And in Luke’s version of the story when the people shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”, they are quoting Psalm 118, a festival psalm traditionally sung at the gates of Jerusalem. It was a welcome given to pilgrims, but now offered to Jesus, the peasant rabbi, who turns their expectations inside out.

Luke ends this passage with a curious moment. Some religious Pharisees tell Jesus to rebuke his disciples. Perhaps they fear that such bold acclamations will stir political unrest. Perhaps they fear Jesus influence over the people.

But Jesus answers: “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would cry out.”

His words are not just poetic, but also deeply prophetic. In the Hebrew Scriptures, stones often symbolize both ‘witness’ and ‘judgment’. For example, the prophet Habakkuk once wrote:   “The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.” (Habakkuk 2:11).  What Habakkuk is pointing to is that injustice cannot be hidden forever. The earth itself testifies when peace is denied and truth is silenced. Even creation longs for liberation. As St Paul writes in Romans: “...the whole creation groans as in the pains of child-birth… in anticipation and hope for the coming renewal and the coming glory of the children of God.”  (Romans 8:18-22).

So what does all this mean for us? 

Palm Sunday invites us to ask:  What kind of procession are we part of?

Are we caught up in the noisy parades of ego, spectacle, and power?  Or are we following the quiet path of peace, the one that challenges the injustices of this world without violence, that chooses humility over dominance, compassion over coercive control?

In a world still marked by militarism, injustice, and exclusion, the message of Palm Sunday is as relevant as ever. It is the quiet revolution of love that moves gently, yet decisively, through the hearts of those who refuse to play by the rules of empire and domination.

But this is not just a drama that plays out in the external world. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom of God is within, a the Kingdom of the Heart. If we are to be bearers of peace and love in the world, the drama of Jesus processing into Jerusalem also needs to play out within each of us as well. 

We are invited to allow Christ the humble messenger of peace to enter the city gates of our own being, to lay down our cloaks — our identities, our certainties, our ego masks — and to walk with him the path of humility, self-knowledge, integrity compassion and suffering love. 

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem just after this passage. He laments that they “did not recognize the time of their visitation” — the moment when the Divine drew near in gentle humility. May we not make the same mistake.

The path ahead leads through suffering, but also through surrender, and finally, to new life.

So let us open the gates — of the city, and of the soul — and welcome the One who comes in the name of Love and Peace.

John 8:1-11 - Throwing Stones & the Mirror of Conscience

The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 is, I believe, more than just an episode in the life of Jesus; it is a timeless parable of the human condition and the divine response inviting us to reflect on universal spiritual truths. 

As we explore the story in the context of John’s Gospel, we find the story is set in the midst the Festival of Booths, a time when the Jewish people commemorated their journey through the wilderness and celebrated God’s providence. It was a festival of light and water, reminding them of God’s guidance through the desert and provision from the rock.  

Amid this celebration and a time of revelry in Jerusalem, with people longing for light to dispel their darkness, the religious leaders bring a woman caught in adultery before Jesus. Their intention is clearly not justice, otherwise they would have brought the man along with the women. Instead their intention is entrapment. They wish to trap Jesus, pouncing on the more vulnerable woman as bait for the trap, and using the law as a weapon rather than a guide to righteousness. 

On the surface, this story is about judgment and mercy, law and grace. But I believe that beneath those themes lies an even deeper spiritual truth. In what is sometimes called ‘the Perennial Philosophy’—the wisdom that unites and lies at the heart of all the deeper spiritual traditions—this story speaks of the universal human tendency to condemn others to avoid confronting our own inner darkness.  

The accusers represent the ego, that part of us that asserts superiority through judgment and condemnation. The woman on the other hand represents the vulnerable soul—caught, exposed, and shamed. And Jesus represents the awakened consciousness, that mostly lies hidden within every person, that sees through illusion seeing with deeper understanding and wisdom and which calls forth a deeper truth.  

In response to being confronted by the women’s angry accusers, Jesus stops, bends down and begins to write in the sand. In doing so, as Jesus stoops to write on the ground, he is not merely buying time or ignoring the crowd. He is I believe, grounding himself in silence and presence—reminding us that wisdom emerges from stillness, not reaction. 

This past week, I received what came across as a heated and an angry email. It was quite overwhelming with certain words capitalised which gave the effect of feeling a little like I was being shouted at over email.  I should add that it had nothing to do with either Dromore or Banbridge but rather a wider Presbytery and denominational issue. My initial feeling was to get into reactive mode and I realised that I needed to take a step back a breathe a little so that I could respond, not out of emotion, but with a clear head with some deeper understanding. 

 In all the deeper spiritual traditions, silence is often seen as the doorway to truth. In that moment of writing on the earth, Jesus grounds himself, finds his center, and in doing so embodies the still point where reaction and judgment ceases and where clarity, awareness and insight begins to dawn.  

The words Jesus finally speaks, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone”, are not a rejection of justice or righteousness but an invitation to self-knowledge. Jesus, in effect, holds up a mirror to the accusers, inviting them to see their own participation in the brokenness of the world.  It is a truth that St Paul expresses in a different way when he says in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God”. We all have our failings and weaknesses, but when we stand ready to hurl condemnatory stones at others we tend to weigh up another’s weakness against our own strengths conventiently forgetting those places where we too fall short. 

In response to Jesus invitation for those without sin to throw the first stone, one by one, the accusers leave, confronted not by Jesus but by the light of their own conscience – the light of God within them that they had failed to access. This is the deeper spiritual insight: transformation begins not by condemning others but by confronting our own illusions. The ego wants to project its darkness outward, but the soul must reclaim that darkness, to own it, acknowledge it in ourselves, and to allow it to be transformed by the light of Divine love that is our truer and deeper nature.  

As the story unfolds, when the woman is left standing alone with Jesus, he asks her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” And she replies, “No one, sir.”  And Jesus responds, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”  

Notice the profound truth here: grace precedes transformation. Jesus does not first demand that she change and then offer forgiveness. He forgives her without condition, inviting her to let go of the false self that seeks fulfilment in all the wrong places and to awaken to a new way of being.  In the book of Romans, St Paul expresses this truth in a different way when he says: “Christ died for us, while we were  yet sinners”. And earlier in John’s Gospel the writer of John has Jesus say:  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”John 3:17. Divine grace precedes transformation. 

Interpreting the story from this perspective, Jesus embodies the divine awareness that sees through the illusion of separateness. In this story, the woman and her accusers are not fundamentally different—they are all caught in the web of ignorance, clinging to judgment and shame. The awakened heart sees beyond those divisions and knows that condemnation only deepens separation.  

And so this story challenges us to see ourselves in both the woman and her accusers. Even though we may struggle to admit it, both live inside of us. The perennial wisdom calls us to examine where we still hold stones of judgment, where we project our darkness onto others rather than owning it within ourselves. But in addition to the woman and her accusers who dwell as hidden parts of ourselves, sometimes denied and sometimes expressed, the awakened consciousness of Christ that embraces both without condemnation, is also present within each of us

Lent is a season to awaken to the truth that divine grace is already present, waiting for us to see through our illusions and receive it. As we drop our stones of condemnation, we find that we, too, are forgiven and set free. In that realization, the inner light of true wisdom and compassion can shine forth—just as Jesus declared immediately after this story: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).  John O’Donohue writes  “The soul redeems and transfigures everything because the soul is the divine space.” - the place from which the Light of God shines forth. 

To live from this light means letting go of the ego’s need to condemn and embracing the soul’s capacity for true insight, wisdom, love and forgiveness. 

It means recognizing that every act of condemnation and judgment is rooted in fear and every act of true wisdom is rooted in Divine Love.  

In this Lenten season, as next time we find ourselves ready to pick up stones to entrap, accuse and condemn,  may we gently question our quick judgments and blanket condemnations, that we might open ourselves to receive grace, and become bearers of the light that awakens and transforms.  

Amen.