(Image courtesy of www.virtualkhan.com/)When as a boy I was first read this story from the Bible, I envisioned the whole city of Jerusalem gathered at the city gate, cheering Jesus. That was not the case. True, it was not just a few friends who welcomed Jesus into the city of David. Combining the evidence of the four gospels, we can see that there were two groups of people involved: a group that traveled with Jesus from Bethany to Jerusalem, and a second group that came out of Jerusalem to greet him. We can also see from the narrative that among them were not only friends of Jesus but his critics (see v. 39). It was a mixed group, not huge, but enough to attract attention.
But let's first back up and begin where Luke does in this text. It is Passover time (Hebrew pesakh)! Bands of happy pilgrims are traveling along the routes of Palestine, converging from north, east, south and west on the Holy City, to buy their lambs from the temple, rent quarters for their groups, prepare the meal, and celebrate together in family groups the memory of their formation as a free nation. You remember the event they were remembering. It is told for the first time in Exodus 12. The descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were numerous, but were slaves in Egypt, not yet a nation, only a minority group within Egypt of the pharaohs. God sent Moses to them to announce his plan to deliver them by his mighty miraculous power from slavery and to lead them to the Promised Land. On the night before they left Egypt God commanded them to celebrate the miracle in advance—before it even happened. This was an act of faith—believing that on that night God would slay the firstborn son in every Egyptian household (including the king's) and force the king to order their release. The celebration took the form of a family feast on a lamb, from this time onward called the Passover Lamb (pesakh). Passover was a happy festival, and one of three such festivals when every Israelite male with his family had to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate there.
So Jesus and his friends were not alone on the roads that day. But as they approached Jerusalem from the east, in the vicinity of Bethphage and Bethany, he sent two of his disciples ahead to secure a donkey for him to ride. This was not because he was tired, but because he was telling another parable—this one an acted out one. He was going to portray to the bystanders as he entered Jerusalem for the last time in his life the meaning of his three-year public ministry. The script for this little drama was a prophecy found in the Book of Zechariah (Zech 9:9): "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, yes, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
As with his spoken parables, this acted out one was subtle, allowing those with perception to see and understand, but not blatantly obvious to the disinterested and censorious. The parable was Jesus' favorite way of teaching, because it allowed him to reach those whose minds and hearts were attuned to God's frequency, but to confuse and confound his critics. To openly claim to be Israel's king would have opened Jesus to the legal charge of treason by the Roman authorities. True, he would eventually be unjustly executed on this very charge ("he made himself a king"—"we have no king but Caesar"), but it could never be proven out of Jesus' own mouth. And his "kingship", as he told Pilate, was not an earthly competitor of Rome. Still, now he made his true identity known in a protected and indirect way to those who mattered to God.
First, the donkey had to be secured by his disciples and brought to Jesus. Then he mounted it and rode into the city. What a picture! On the one hand (since it was after all a donkey, not a war horse) a sign of his peaceful kingdom (no necessary threat to Roman rule), and on the other hand a clear statement of the fulfillment of ancient prophecy given to this very people by their God. These symbols might have meant nothing to the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, but they ought to have meant much to Jewish worshipers who knew their Scripture.
His followers strewed his path with branches of trees and with their own garments. This was a clear act of homage to a ruler. And they cried out to celebrate, using the words of the Hallel, the series of six Psalms (113-118) traditionally sung by pilgrims at the three major festivals of the Jewish year (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles): “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Psa 118:26 = Luke 19:38).
Although these words were part of the normal use of the Hallel, in this situation they could be construed as a special welcome and acclamation of the Messianic King, entering the Holy City. For this reason some critics in the audience asked Jesus to silence the singers. His reply was, as usual, a profound one: "If these were to be silent, the very stones of the City would cry out!" The Holy City herself, symbolizing to all present the very home of God, could never allow God's Son to arrive un-welcomed! What a statement! And what a rebuke! Jesus had not scripted the crowd's reaction, but God did.
But following Jesus' rebuke of those who would silence the City's welcome of her King, Luke immediately shows his tender love for that city and for the nation it symbolized. On only two occasions the gospels tell us that Jesus wept: at Lazarus' tomb (John 11) and on this occasion. His tears were not scripted. Like Jeremiah, often called "the weepeing prophet" because he wept for the fate of Jerusalem, destined to be destroyed by the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar, as part of God's plan to punish her for her disobedience and idolatry, Jesus too expresses the feelings of God Himself. For although God had to punish Israel by the Babylonians, and will have to punish the Jewish nation again in AD 70 by the Roman armies, He does so with a sad and heavy heart. For God loves his people. Jesus shows Jerusalem in this moment how God feels about them: loving them, yet forced to judge them for their refusal to listen to his prophets and finally his own Son, the Messiah.
The tragic words "all of this awaits you, because you failed to recognize the time God was visiting you" are Jesus' last words to the city as a whole before his utterances from the cross. Opportunities come and go. A window of opportunity was beginning to close for Israel. But after the cross and the empty tomb a new window of opportunity would open for the whole world, an opportunity to trust in the crucified and risen Savior. It is our opportunity today. Yours, mine, that of your family, that of your acquaintances. Let us not miss it.
No comments:
Post a Comment