Intro – The triumphal entry
Jesus comes into town, riding on the back of donkey. There are two distinct groups who make his presence felt. There are the Northerners who have travelled with Jesus. The Galileans, including his disciples, with their provincial accents. This group have had exposure to so many things, including trade, other cultures, agriculture and (above all) the teachings and the power of Jesus ministry. This group are travelling with Jesus in annual pilgrimage at Jerusalem to the Passover. It’s this group, Jesus’ greatest fans, who are making all the noise in this procession. Later in the week, this group will be in deep shock and mourning when it all goes pear-shaped.
The second group are the rest of them. These are residents of Jerusalem and visitors to who have had little contact with Jesus. They turn out to see what all the fuss is about. Later in the week, it is mainly this group who will turn against him.
Mark captures this wonderful event happening in the afternoon of the Sunday before the Passover. He doesn’t particularly emphasise the triumphal side of it all, rather he writes of the quiet determination of Jesus’ approach that day. He writes this…
{11} Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Getting ready.
I am going to a wedding in a couple of weeks. Not just any wedding, but my son’s marriage to his fiancé Alison. It’s happening a long way from here, in the small country town of Dookie in Victoria. It’s been coming for a while now. Sam and Alison met at Uni in Wagga when they were both students there and they became good friends, then fell in love. The rest is history – which is still being written. When they were engaged there were all sorts of arrangements to be made. They had to find a minister (tick), then they had to get a church building. Alison’s home church at Dookie was too small for all the people they wanted to have there, so they looked at alternatives in Shepparton and Benalla, then decided on the Dookie church hall.
So many things have to come together for a wedding. Just ask the Kells or the Morrisons (they have just been through it). And it all has to happen with an understanding of “place”.
I had a conversation with Sam and Alison in planning the service which had to suss out the geography of what I expect to see when I get there. I tried to imagine the size and layout of the hall. What the aisles might look like; how much light there was; whether the band could fit; and whether there would be a projector.
Even though I had heard from them about these things, I know I will value the Thursday down there ahead of it, as I watch people move pews into the hall and work through the setup at the rehearsal, just to see how it is going to go together.
Richard Hanna is going to take photos at the wedding. Recently he had to go down past there on a business trip, and he stopped at Dookie – and spent some time there checking it out. A photographer has to think about space, and light. What will be needed and what won’t. What access is there and alternatives for what he might guide them to do, and where to take photos. You can hear about all this stuff over the phone, you can even check out snaps of how it looks. But, when it comes to planning ahead of the action, there is nothing like being there. Being there to see and to plan and to think in special terms.
• School teacher. On the first day in a brand new school. What do you do?
• Trainer. Going to a new place, about to speak to a whole different group of people. What is the routine you go through?
• Other occupations.
Something struck me from the reading for this Sunday which I had never seen before. It was the line which Mark uses AFTER all the Hosannas had been shouted and sung…
Jesus rode through the great city up the temple mount, with the crowds singing the Psalms of Ascent, with snatches from them that we shared this morning – and then gets to the temple. Then you read…
{11} Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
How odd. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
All that energy, all that momentum building up. Jesus with the crowd shouting praise, singing psalms, making an entry. And what does he do? He gets off his donkey, looks around at everything. Then goes back out to Bethany again.
What is this about?
I want to say that there is a whole lot wrapped up in those few words.
“He looked around at everything”
As he arrived at the temple’s forecourts, what would Jesus have looked around at?
(MAP HERE)
He had followed the way of the pilgrim, through from the entry from Bethany, past the Garden of Gethsemane, across the Kidron Valley, through the city gate, through the streets.
As he rode through those streets, Jesus saw so many people going the same way as him. Pilgrims from every corner of the known world flooding the city, all with their eyes up to the temple mount.
Jesus would have looked up…
High on the hill, to the great temple - dominating the city, steeped in history. White limestone, gleaming in the spring sunshine. Hundreds of years of history going back to time immemorial. Centuries of conflict and celebration over this place.
And as Jesus rode higher and higher, through the shouts of “hosanna” in the song of ascents they had sung on the way up the hill, he would hear other sounds. The sounds of trade. The sound of a stock market – a real one. Stock (sheep and pigeons mainly) in home made pens and cages, being readied for sale, and tables with religious souvenirs and wares. Some people had travelled far and the money changers were there, ready to make a quick profit as they are at every international airport today. But these were profiting from people’s religious devotion.
As he dismounted, and the sound of the singing stopped, Mark simply tells us that Jesus looked around.
He looked around at the court of the Gentiles, and he prepared what he would do the next day, Monday. He looked around at the traders and money changers making a profit from people who simply wanted to get near to his heavenly father. I can imagine the anger rising in his throat as he mentally noted the entry and exit points, where the tables were, who was where and he planned the means of making a point that history would never forget. He looked around, as he mentally rehearsed turning over tables, driving these thieves out and preparing preach with power about what this place was meant to be.
He looked around knowing that doing this would set the powers that be after him. Such a spectacle at such a time could not be ignored.
The whole city fell away from the temple set high over it. From there, Jesus “looked around” and I wonder what he saw.
Did Jesus see the street of where (on Thursday night) he would meet with his disciples in an upper room and break bread with them?
Did Jesus’ eyes trace the road back out the city gate, through the Kidron Valley, and up to the Garden of Gethsemene, on the Western Edge of the Mount of Olives. Did he ponder what awful anguish that small knoll of trees, right there in the distance would hold for him?
Did he spy the path from there that he would stumble, bound in chains, shoved by soldiers to the house of the High Priest for his illegal night trial?
Would he note the layout of the land that he would walk on Friday? To Herod’s palace, then to Pontius Pilate, shuttled from one authority to another. And would he look out beyond the gate on the other side of the city, with a bare skull shaped hill called Golgotha – a place of desolate death and punishment. Would he see through the tears at the thought of the deep sadness of such a week?
Would he look to a little patch of clearing in the distance, which he knew to be a garden? A space where an unused tomb would hold his corpse, and a new day, a new week – less than seven days away, would see a whole new beginning?
I wonder about those words of Mark “he looked around.” They say a great deal to me.
They say to me, that this week was going to be no fluke. It was going to be no accident. This entry into Jerusalem was a carefully staged event to mark a well planned intervention of the son of God in the history of the world.
I have been re-reading an excellent book by Max Lucado called, “And the angels were silent: The final week of Jesus”. He writes this about that journey into Jerusalem that Jesus made…
With the final mission before him, he stopped his disciples and told them for the third time of his conclusive encounter with the enemy. "We are going to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be turned over to the leading priests and the teachers of the law, and they will say that he must die. They will give the Son of Man to the non-Jewish people to laugh at him and beat him with whips and crucify him. But on the third day he will be raised to life again."3
Note his detailed knowledge of the event. He tells who—"the leading priests and teachers of the law." He tells what—"they will give the Son of Man to the non-Jewish people to laugh at him and beat him with whips and crucify him." He tells when—"but on the third day he will be raised to life again."
Forget any suggestion that Jesus was trapped. Erase any theory that Jesus made a miscalculation. Ignore any speculation that the cross was a last-ditch attempt to salvage a dying mission.
For if these words tell us anything, they tell us that Jesus died... on purpose. No surprise. No hesitation. No faltering.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way he dies. And the way Jesus marched to his death leaves no doubt: he had come to earth for this moment. Read the words of Peter. "Jesus was given to you, and with the help of those who don’t know the law, you put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But this was God’s plan which he had made long ago; he knew all this would happen."4
No, the journey to Jerusalem didn’t begin in Jericho. It didn’t begin in Galilee. It didn’t begin in Nazareth. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem. The journey to the cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the garden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.
As we begin this Holy Week together, we anticipate what is going to happen, because we know the story. We have heard it many times before…
But we do well to remember that, before it all began – Jesus anticipated too. As he arranged for that donkey to be ready, as he stood on the temple mount that afternoon, he looked around – carefully planning the events which would take place.
And, as I think on that, it really disturbs me. Pain that comes quickly and unexpectedly is bad enough – a twisted ankle or bee sting. But anticipated pain? Going to the dentist for root canal work, or facing surgery – is not something I rejoice in. Yet such things pale into insignificance in the light of what Jesus was planning on, was working toward that week.
And Mark wraps it up in those few words…
“He looked around at everything…”
So much had happened before this moment. And, though the week would be short, there was so much yet to do. And Mark writes…
…but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
