[from Christianity Today]
Palm Sunday celebrates the day Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Test your knowledge of that day’s events, recorded in all four Gospels, with these true or false statements.
1. According to the Gospels, the people waved palm branches when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
1. False (Matt. 21:6, Mark 11:8, Luke 19:36, John 12:13). None of the four Gospels say the people "waved" branches but that they spread garments and branches in Jesus’ path. Only John mentions palm branches, a tree not native to Jerusalem.
2. The date of Jesus’ triumphal entry-five days before Passover-was a special holiday in his time.
2. True. It wasn’t called Palm Sunday in Jesus’ day, but each Israelite family chose the lamb they would sacrifice for Passover on the tenth day of the month. As the people shouted "Hosanna," they didn’t realize they were choosing the Lamb of God as their sacrifice.
3. By their actions, the people were publicly proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.
3. True. When Solomon was anointed king, he rode into the city on a mule, to the shouts and praises of the people (1 Kings 1:43-45). Zechariah prophesied the Messiah would arrive the same way "gentle and riding on a donkey" (Zech. 9:9).
4. The fact that Jesus rode a donkey portrayed him as a warrior king.
4. False. Conquering kings would ride war horses; the donkey symbolized peace and humility (Zech. 9:9, 10). Jesus’ entry was a stark contrast to the war-like Romans, whose military presence was very visible.
5. The shouts of "Hosanna!" meant "Praise the Lord!"
5. False. The Hebrew word Halleluia means "praise the Lord;" Hosanna means "save us!" or "save!" The Palm Sunday crowd falsely assumed that Jesus would bring political liberation.
6. The route Jesus chose for his triumphal entry was down the side of Mount Zion.
6. False. Jesus rode down the Mount of Olives offering him an excellent view of Jerusalem, which is built on Mount Zion. According to Zechariah 14:4, Jesus will again stand on the Mount of Olives at his second coming.
7. When the people spread branches and garments in Jesus’ path it was to pay him honor.
7. True. The people were boldly declaring that Jesus was their king, an accusation eventually written in condemnation above his cross. It was common in Bible times to spread garments in the path of princes and kings, especially at their coronation (see 2 Kings 9:13).
8. The shouts of "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" were words of a Jewish hymn.
8. True. The phrases "Hosanna" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" both come from Psalm 118: 25-26, one of the "Hallel" or praise psalms (113-118) used every Passover. These Jewish hymns would be as familiar to the Jewish people as Christmas carols are to Christians.
We have been talking about the various paradoxes of Christian faith. Two weeks ago we talked about Good Works of Faith. Last week we discussed finding Freedom in Obedience. Next week we will be talking about Dying to Live. Today our topic today is Jesus as a Humble King.
There is a story called “Baucis and Philemon” in Greek mythology. It is about Zeus and Hermes disguising themselves as poor travelers. They put off their royal – actually heavenly – robes. They leave Mt. Olympus and wander around earth to see how people treat each other.
I want you to notice how different the popular image of the Greek gods was from the image of God proclaimed by the early church. Look at how different this so-called incarnation of Zeus is from the real incarnation of Jesus.
Zeus came because he wanted to see what was going on. It is clear that the Greeks did not think of their gods as all seeing or all knowing. Jesus did not come to find out what we were doing with our lives, but to show us a better way to live.
When Zeus came to earth, he was only disguised as a mortal, he was not truly mortal. When I was a kid I watched Superman on TV. Clark Kent would wear his super uniform under his clothes. By putting on a pair of glasses, he became unrecognizable, but he was still Superman. If you shot Clark Kent, the bullets bounced off. He appeared to be just another person, but his nature was still Superman. Zeus was like Clark Kent. He appeared to be mortal, but he never really was.
It is often suggested by people within our modern culture that Jesus was originally viewed by the early church as a moral teacher, with the idea of Him as divine coming later. This view is simply wrong. One of the earliest heresies in the church was called Docetism. It was the wrong headed notion that Jesus was like Clark Kent. He may have appeared to be human, but he was truly divine. He only appeared to eat, or sleep. He only appeared to suffer and die on the cross. According to this heresy, because Jesus was God, he could not have been human. It was not Jesus’ divinity that people questioned. It was His humanity that they could not comprehend.
You may have seen in the news last week that a new gospel called the Gospel of Judas Iscariot has just been authenticated. The news reports were confusing. Maybe I can clear things up a bit.
First, in this case, "authenticated" only means that scholars have agreed that this is not a modern forgery. They are not attesting to its authorship. This particular manuscript, the only existing copy of the Gospel of Judas, was created in the early forth century. By the way, it was discovered more than 40 years ago. It was well known to scholars and assumed to be authentic, mostly because there are references to a Gospel of Judas in the writings of early church fathers. The actual Gospel of Judas was probably written in Greek in the middle of the second century.
I have read most of the Gnostic gospels, but I had not read this one until this week. I can’t read Coptic, and this was the first time that a translation has been available.
No serious scholar believes that the Gospel of Judas was written by Judas or even that it reflects early traditions. Instead, this was one of several phony gospels written in support of the early Docetic heresy. It presents Jesus as a divine being who is disguised as a person.
According to the Gospel of Judas, the crucifixion was the moment when Jesus cast off his disguise as a human and became His true self, the resurrected Christ. Judas made this happen, so he is the hero of the story, not the villain. Theologically, this stuff is nuts, and historically it tells us nothing about the first century of Christianity, but because it resents a contrarian’s view, it is getting plenty of press.
Jesus truly became human. He did not pretend humanity, he lived it. He experienced life with its trials and temptations. He experienced more suffering than any of us have suffered. Nothing could be further from the story of Zeus.
But one of the most significant differences between the myth of Zeus running around disguised as a human and the Gospel truth of Jesus living life as a human has to do with servanthood. Zeus pretended to be a person in low position, but that was just a part of the disguise. When Jesus lived a life of humility and service, he was not disguising the divine nature. He was revealing it. We don’t think of God as humble or as interested in service, but God is all about sacrificial love. As our lives grow closer to living out the image of God in which we were created, we find ourselves increasingly humbled and increasingly concerned for others. The greatest sign of religious maturity is not some hyper-spiritual haughtiness. It is a servant’s heart. Who is closer to the divine? Is it Mother Teresa among the outcasts of Calcutta, or is it a TV Evangelist? God is found in the humble servant.
Our core problem in understanding Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey comes from our problem in recognizing God as humble. The people lining the streets that day were not looking for a spiritual savior, but a political one. They wanted a conquering King who would free them from Roman rule. The disciples, possibly more than others, were subject to this view. At least two of the twelve, Simon and Judas, were Zealots. The zealots were first century terrorists who were conducting an ongoing insurrection against Roman rule. In addition, James and John clearly believed that some sort of new political order was about to be established. Remember that they argued about the pecking order in Jesus’ political administration. They did not understand. But worse, they envisioned a victory of prestige and power, not because that was God’s will, but because that was in their own best interest.
There is a mental hospital in Ypsilanti Michigan. That is not unusual. And it is not unusual to find a patient at a mental hospital who believes that he is Jesus Christ. The unusual thing about the institution in Ypsilanti is that they happened to have three patients with the same delusion of godhood at the same time. This gave a therapist there an opportunity to try a new form of therapy. The therapist was Milton Rokeach and he wrote a book called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Rokeach’s unique idea was to keep these three patients together as much as possible. They slept in the same room. They ate at the same table. They attended group therapy sessions together.
Rokeach’s idea was that Leon, for example, would see that Joseph and Clyde were not God, but also see that he was no different from the other two. Each, it was hoped, would gain a perspective on their illness based on seeing that illness in others. It didn’t work. Each of them was too delusional to make the connection. Still, it did lead to some interesting conversations. Rokeach would ask Leon how he knew that he was Jesus. He would say that God had told him so. Clyde would pipe in and protest, “I did not.”
There is something in many of us, maybe all of us, that makes us yearn to be divine. We want to be godlike, but the god that we imagine is a god of privilege and power, not a God of sacrificial love.
This pride, this envy of God, is said to be the oldest human sin. What did the serpent say to Eve in the garden of Eden? He said that this fruit was forbidden because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You will be like God. We think we want to be like God, only because we seriously misunderstand God’s nature.
We want power. We want privilege. We want people to look up to us and respect us. We imagine that we find those as we make ourselves divine.
Now we are more mentally stable than our friends Leon, Clyde, and Joseph. That means that our yearnings and ambitions and delusions are more subtle, but they are still real.
Maybe for us it isn’t pride, but a close cousin like vanity. We become preoccupied with our appearance and how people perceive us. If you have an exercise outfit made of spandex, there is a high probability that this is an issue for you. We are so concerned with how we are perceived that we spend more than we can afford on fashions, beauty parlors, and cosmetic surgeons. It diverts our energies, saps our resources, and isolates us from others. Still, this is one of the more minor of our attempts to become divine.
More difficult is the sin of stubbornness. When we view ourselves as more wise and discerning than we really are, we can become stubborn, even obnoxious, in our pursuit of truth as we see it. We shun correction. We discount the views of others, because of who they are, not because of the merits of the views themselves. We hold on to positions that we know are misguided, simply because we don’t have sufficient character to admit that we were wrong.
A related sin is judgmentalism. We know what is right and we know what is wrong. We have designated some sins as minor – the sins that we are prone to – and we have designated other as more critical. I think gluttony isn’t very serious, but consider indifference to others to be terrible. Is that a reasoned judgment, or is just that I am prone to gluttony, but not indifference?
We put on the robes of sanctimonious self-righteousness and condemn others while we excuse ourselves. Unfortunately, this tendency to sit in judgment of others is one of those sins that challenge Christians more than non-believers.
There is truth. We should never deny that. There is right and wrong. Still, the will of God always values reconciliation over condemnation. We must never say that wrong is right. It isn’t. Still, we must always seek to connect those who are far from God’s love. Solemnly announcing that someone else is going to hell is unlikely to change their direction. That means that condemnation for sin must always be accompanied with generous helpings of forgiveness for the sinner. Reconciliation is the goal. We too were far from God when God reached out to us.
On that first Palm Sunday, the people wanted a glorified king. Jesus alone recognized that this parade was leading not to a coronation, but to a crucifixion. They sought power. He sought to forgive. The sought to raise up a ruler. He knew that the suffering must precede the resurrection. He was the King of Kings, but He humbly sought to serve.
Have you ever thought what it must have been like for that donkey the next morning? It might have been like this.
The donkey awakened, his mind still savoring the afterglow of the most exciting day of his life. Never before had he felt such a rush of pleasure and pride.
He walked into town and found a group of people by the well. "I’ll show myself to them," he thought.
But they didn’t notice him. They went on drawing their water and paid him no mind.
"Throw your garments down," he said crossly. "Don’t you know who I am?"
They just looked at him in amazement. Someone slapped him across the tail and ordered him to move.
"Miserable heathens!" he muttered to himself. "I’ll just go to the market where the good people are. They will remember me."
But the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey as he strutted down the main street in front of the market place.
"The palm branches! Where are the palm branches!" he shouted. "Yesterday, you threw palm branches!"
Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to his mother.
"Foolish child," she said gently. "Don’t you realize that without Him, you are just an ordinary donkey?"
Just like the donkey who carried Jesus in Jerusalem, we are most fulfilled when we are in the service of Jesus Christ. He sought to serve and forgive, that is our mission as well. Without Christ, all our best efforts are like "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6) and amount to nothing. When we lift up Christ, however, we are no longer ordinary people, but key players in God’s plan to redeem the word. We are in service to the Servant King – the Humble King.
