Behold Your King Comes Unto You

Behold Your King Comes unto You

Matthew 21:1-11

Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday begins what we call “Holy Week.” It was a week of very high drama. The entire gamut of emotion was evidenced, great fear, great suffering, great confusion, great sorrow, and finally, great joy. It joins the week of creation as being one of the two most important weeks in human history. It actually begins with the anointing of Jesus for burial by Mary of Bethany. Even though Matthew does not mention the anointing until later in the week, John clearly locates it on the evening before the triumphal entry. The anointing of Jesus with the expensive spikenard becomes the occasion of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The reason Matthew locates the event later is because he wants to make the association explicit as the next event he records is Judas going to the high Priest to betray Jesus. We must remember that the Gospels follow a combination of temporal and logical arrangement. So the events are not necessarily in chronological order. John uses the chronological order and shows us the connection of Mary’s anointing to Judas’ betrayal by naming Judas as the one most offended by the act. As the Hebrew day begins at sunset, this anointing initiates the drama that follows. It tells us that Jesus came to Jerusalem to die and not yet to reign.

So when we come to Palm Sunday as it is called, we are informed that there was quite a difference in the expectation of Jesus and that of the people. The people would come expecting a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and set up the Messianic kingdom. Surely the One who could raise the dead and heal the sick could overthrow the Romans. He could speak the word, and the Romans would fall over dead. Jesus certainly was capable of this. Ironically this is demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane as recorded in John’s Gospel. But instead of killing the soldiers when Jesus replied “I AM” they only fell backward. With all the heavy armor on, they would be like turtles on their backs. It would have taken several seconds to get back on their feet, plenty of time for Jesus to have escaped with his disciples into the desert. But Jesus came to Jerusalem to be rejected and put to death, not to kill Romans.

On the morning, Jesus departed from Bethany and joined the crowds on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to Passover. Jesus sent his disciples to get him a donkey to ride on, in particular, a colt that had never been ridden. A colt is terrified to be ridden as it has not yet been broken. Matthew’s gospel adds the detail that they were to take the colt’s mother which might serve to calm the colt. Jesus could, of course, as the donkeys maker have calmed the colt in his own power, but it appears He chose to let the colt’s mother do that. Jesus anticipated the owner would confront the disciples about it, so Jesus reolied that the master needed it. So they let the colt and its mother go.

Matthew says that this was done to fulfill the words of the Prophet. “Behold your king comes to you, humbly, sitting upon a donkey, the foal of a donkey.” Matthew stresses that Jesus’ life was the fulfillment of Scripture even as the other gospels. What we get from this is that Jesus is identifying Himself as the promised King. The Jews clearly understood this claim. But they did not understand the nature of this kingship. Perhaps if they reflected upon the text, that this King did not come upon a regal white horse, but a humble donkey. All they could see was a Messianic King who would overthrow the Romans and set up an everlasting kingdom.

They show their understanding by strawing their garments upon the colt and upon the ground before Jesus. It is also said they cut palm branches off the trees and waving them, hence the name “Palm Sunday.” The palm branch was the symbol of the Hasmonean kingdom which started after the victory of Judas Maccabeus over the Greek forces of Antiochus Epiphanes. This was the last time they were a sovereign nation. Rome absorbed Palestine into their Empire and set a non-Jewish king, Herod, to rule over them. When we add that this was the week of Passover in which Israel celebrated its liberation from Egyptian slavery, we can see a perfect storm of misinterpretation. What Jesus came to do and what the people thought Jesus came to do were completely at odds.

Jesus is escorted into the city with the joyous shouts from the 118th Psalm. “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest! The 118th Psalm is an interesting psalm. It does contain the joyous hosanna. But it also talks about rejection as well. The stone the builders were about to reject was to become the chief cornerstone. Even this psalm testifies to Jesus’ sacrificial death. He was indeed a king, just not the one they expected. Soon they would choose Jesus Barabbas rather than Jesus Christ. He was more the expectation of the people. Barabbas came and started an uprising against Rome and was arrested. It is interesting that Bar Abbas means “Son of the Father.” This title fits Jesus Christ as well, and that rightly.