Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem on a Sunday with crowds cheering on the arrival of a king. Riding on a white donkey, the crowd laid palm branches on the ground for him. Before the week was out, Jesus would be dead. Many of those who heralded his arrival would, by Friday, be cheering for Barabbas, a murderer and jeering the Messiah. Men want political solutions for spiritual problems.

Barabbas started an insurrection against the Roman occupiers. The people of Jerusalem expected Jesus to be a warrior and political operator. Instead, he told them not to give in to revenge, but to forgive and turn their cheek. He practiced what he preached and the innocent man got tortured, beaten, bruised, had a crown of thorns placed on his head and then Roman guards nailed him to a cross they'd made him carry.

Death came for the man, Jesus. Most historians do not doubt he lived. We have more written documentation about Jesus closer in time to his life than we do for many of the Roman Emperors we do not doubt lived. The New Testament is one of the best-preserved ancient texts. We have outside secular texts from Roman historians referencing Jesus and the growing crowds of believers who were ruthlessly persecuted by the Romans.

Today, in the United States, a group of Christians wants a political savior. They advance the notion of "Christian Nationalism" and want some sort of so-called Christian prince to lead us. They would turn Christ into a political project. That is the thing the crowd in Jerusalem wanted and did not get, so they went with Barabbas instead.

Just last week, in Finland, two Christians were found guilty of crimes against humanity because, over a decade ago, they published a pamphlet on Biblical sexuality that, quoting scripture, mentioned homosexuality is a sin. The crime of which the Finnish court found them guilty was originally a war crime. Finland has a state church with the power to collect taxes. In Britain, the new female Archbishop of Canterbury spoke in favor of abortion rights in the House of Lords. Britain is a Christian nation.

Nations co-opt churches. Christian nationalists look on the United States today and think it could not get worse with a national church, so we might as well have one. In this country, Christians are not going to jail for quoting scripture. In Nigeria, China and elsewhere, Christians are actually dying for professing Christ as Lord. In this country, too many people believe the gates of Hell will prevail against the Church unless they themselves lead the church into political power.

Jesus Christ rejected the political enterprise of the church in Jerusalem and the crowd turned on him and the Romans executed him, declaring him the "King of the Jews." He went into a tomb. For many historians who consider the execution of a Jewish carpenter in Jerusalem two thousand years ago a turning point for history, they stop there at the tomb. But the death of a carpenter would not have changed history had that carpenter not risen from the dead.

Christ rose and will return. In the meantime, Christians need not eschew politics. Vote and participate. If you feel strongly, run for office. We should have more people with Christian convictions in office. But Christianity and the church are not political projects and, should they become political projects, the American church would wind up like the Finnish or the British churches — sclerotic, impotent institutions doing the will of a state hostile to the things of God.

We do not need Amaziah chasing Amos out of town. We need Amos to speak to the church and to the state, calling both to God. The crowd then and now want Barabbas. Jesus wants us to remember we are pilgrims passing through to eternity. Our job is to love God and our neighbors, not to love the world so much we'd turn faith into an idol and wield the Word of God as a political instrument instead of a means to salvation. Easter is coming and this world will come to an end. Eternity matters most.

To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Yannick Pulver at Unsplash