Genghis Khan or Jesus Christ?

Genghis Khan or Jesus Christ?  - (Palm Sunday - Matthew 21:1–11)

In a press conference last week, Benjamin Netanyahu remarked, “History proves that… Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan… if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good.” The words sparked an immediate reaction, with some hearing in them a hard realism about the world, others troubled by his dismissal of the way of Christ.

Netanyahu later clarified that no offence was intended, but that he was arguing that moral strength alone is not enough without military power in today’s security environment.

And yet, even with that clarification, the question still remains: Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan or to the crucified Christ? 

And it is precisely into that question that the story of Palm Sunday speaks.

There is something both joyful and deeply unsettling about Palm Sunday and Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Cloaks are thrown on the road, branches are waved, voices cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” It feels like a coronation ceremony.

And yet, within days, the mood will shift. The same city that welcomes Jesus will reject him. The same voices that praise will fall silent or even turn on him.

But Matthew is not simply recounting an event here. He is shaping a vision of discipleship. Writing to a largely Jewish Christian community, he draws deeply on the Scriptures of Israel to help them, and us, see what kind of king Jesus is, and what it means to follow him.

Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and sends two disciples to fetch a donkey and a colt. This is no small detail. It is a planned, deliberate, prophetic act.

Matthew tells us this happens to fulfil the words of Book of Zechariah:

“See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,

Now in the ancient world, kings rode warhorses into battle. A donkey was something else entirely, a sign of humility, of peace, of a different kind of authority. And so Matthew again, as he has done from from the very beginning of his gospel, shows that Jesus is redefining kingship.

He does not come as the conqueror many expected or longed for. Not as a military liberator. Not as one who will meet violence with greater violence (as many of us, if we are honest, secretly desire in our own hearts), but as a king whose power is expressed through gentleness, integrity, humility, courage and love.

And Matthew’s Gospel is written to create and shape disciples of Jesus, and so he wants his readers to understand: if this is your king, then this is also your way.

The crowd, of course, has its own expectations. They cry out words from Book of Psalms: “Hosanna… Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  They call him “Son of David”, a title rich with hope for national restoration, for deliverance, for the fulfilment of God’s promises…. And they are not completely wrong. But they do not yet see the whole picture.

Because the king they welcome will not overthrow Rome in the way they are hoping for.
He will not secure victory through force and violence. He will not become Genghis Khan in order to defeat Genghis Khan.

Instead, he will walk a path that looks, to the logic of the world, like weakness, but in truth, it carries a power that can change the course of history. Jesus is planting small seeds, mustard seeds, of transformation. Seeds that, over time, begin to challenge the very values upon which the Roman Empire itself was built: power, spectacle, domination, and violence.

And in time, those seeds begin to bear fruit. For example, in the year 391 AD, Christian monk named Telemachus travelled to Rome and entered the great Roman Colosseum where crowds had gathered to watch gladiators fight to the death.

As the spectacle unfolded, Telemachus ran into the arena and stood between the fighters, and is said to have cried out: “In the name of God, stop!” The crowd roared in anger. And in the chaos, one of the gladiators struck him down, killing him there in front of them all. And yet… something shifted, 

The story tells that the crowd fell silent. One by one, people began to leave. Something in that moment, something in that act of costly, self-giving courage, pierced through the hunger for violence… a quiet turning of hearts in the crowd.  And from that time on, the games began to lose their hold. The tide had turned.  It is a small story, almost hidden in the vast sweep of history. And yet it points to a deeper truth: that the way of Jesus can, in time, overturn even the most brutal systems. But it is a way that is not without cost.

And here, quietly but profoundly, the image of Isaiah’s Servant of God or Suffering Servant passages come into play. Though not quoted directly in this passage, the echoes of Book of Isaiah are unmistakable.

The one who comes gently, riding on a donkey, is the one who in Isaiah 42 does not cry out or raise his voice in the streets (Isaiah 42)… the one who according to Isaiah 53 will be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows.

Matthew has already linked Jesus with Isaiah’s Servant of God passages earlier in the Gospel. Now, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, that identity comes into sharper focus: The king is the servant. The one who is acclaimed will be the one who suffers. The one who is hailed as Son of David will reveal his kingship not through domination, but through self-giving love. This is the paradox at the heart of Matthew’s Gospel.

And so the question raised at the beginning begins to take on a different light. If the world says that only ruthless power prevails… if history seems to favour the strong…then what are we to make of a king who chooses this path?

Is this naïve? Is it impractical? Or is it, in fact, the deepest truth about the nature of God and the shape of reality? Is it the way that brings the Way of Heaven to the Earth? 

Because here is the quiet challenge of Palm Sunday:Jesus does not simply reject violence when he tells one of his companions in the Garden of Gethsemane to put away his sword. He refuses to become what he opposes. He embodies a way of being in the world that does not mirror evil, even in the act of confronting it.

At the end of the passage, the whole city is stirred and asks:  “Who is this?” And the answer comes: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” It is a true answer, but not yet a complete one, because Matthew leaves the question open, not just for Jerusalem, but for us.

Who is this?
Is he a prophet?
A teacher?
A symbol of goodness?
A the king who redefines power…?
the servant who reveals the heart of God…?
the one who shows us that true life is found not in grasping, and controlling but in doing justly and walking humbly with one’s God.

Often, like the crowd, we want a God who will fix things quickly, triumph visibly, and confirm our assumptions. But the Way of God revealed in Jesus comes gently, quietly, subversively, riding not on a warhorse, but on a donkey.

And so we too stand where the crowds once stood: caught between two visions of how the world works: One says that history is ultimately shaped by those who are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough to prevail. The other is revealed in the quiet, unsettling figure who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, who refuses the sword, who walks the path of self-giving love even to the cross.  And this way of Jesus can be seen to be echoed in other religious traditions as well, most notably in the Buddhist concept of the Bodhisattva, those who practice not just for their own spiritual awakening, but who dedicated themselves to the spiritual awakening of others, even when it is costly to do so. 

As we enter this Holy Week, we are not asked to settle that question in theory, but to live it in practice, in the choices we make, the spirit we embody, the way we interact with both friend and enemy.

For in the end, the question is not only about empires or nations, but about the very shape of our own ordinary lives:

Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan… or to the crucified Christ?

And perhaps just as importantly: which one are we becoming?