Matthew 21:1-13
21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of
Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying
to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey
tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he
will send them right away.”
4 This
took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5 “Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a
donkey.’”
6 The
disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them
for Jesus to sit on. 8 A
very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches
from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When
Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” 11 The
crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and
selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches
of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will
be called a house of prayer,’[e] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
What I'm about to say is a sad reflection on the
churches I attended earlier in my Christian life. But I have to confess that I reached my fifties - even completing my training as a Lay Minister - without having more than a
vague idea of what Palm Sunday is really about.
I knew the Bible story, of course: Jesus entering
Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the crowds scattering palm fronds along the road
and shouting 'Hosanna'. And I knew that by coming Jerusalem he was effectively
sealing his own fate. But I never had a chance to think about what those events
really meant for Jesus, for the Church, and for me.
Part of the problem was that the churches I went
to wanted to safeguard a very supernatural view of OT prophecy. When we read a
prophecy like Zechariah’s…
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey…
...we wanted to be swept off our feet by its accuracy
as a prediction of the future. We were closed to the idea that Jesus might have
been savvy enough to read the OT for himself and deliberately model his actions
on them – and in the process we closed our ears to the message Jesus wanted people to hear.
Prophecy is certainly God-breathed, but its relationship to Jesus' earthly ministry was nonetheless bi-directional in nature. In other words, the Old Testament prophets were inspired to reveal something of how God's plan would unfold. But when Jesus came he understood the old writings in a unique way, and he modelled his teaching and actions on them. And what becomes clear when we look at Jesus’ words and actions is
the astonishing clarity, and the penetrating wit and intelligence, with which he
communicated his agenda—by drawing on the stories and symbols and imagery in
which his Hebrew listeners had been immersed since birth.
And what is startlingly clear from the story of the 'triumphal entry' to Jerusalem is
that Jesus was setting up a crisis in the lives of all who saw and heard him –
especially the self-styled men in authority.
First, everyone would have recognised the message
wrapped up in the donkey procession: Jesus was declaring himself as a scriptural
king, entering to take possession of the city that was his by right. It was a
brilliant, subversive statement about the illegitimacy of the political and
religious elite who governed the holy city.
But then, what was his first action after the
triumphal entry? No one could fail to grasp the point of his physical and
verbal assault on the corrupt Temple establishment. The overturning of the
tables is an integral part of the Palm Sunday story. It’s almost always left
out of our seasonal pattern of readings. But to separate the two halves of the
story is to miss the meaning of the whole narrative.
Jesus is presenting the leaders and people with a
stark two-way choice: Accept me or kill me. And in that ultra-sensitive
political environment, we can be sure there was no third alternative. In short, he was challenging the political and
religious establishment head-on. And as I’m sure he expected, the authorities
clung to their rarefied, privileged status. They inevitably took what seemed the
easy way out and sought his death.
In so doing, they sidelined themselves from God’s
plan for humanity. But unwittingly, they also aided and abetted Jesus’ master
plan. For in the years following his death, we see the
Temple itself – the supreme pre-Christian symbol of God’s presence in the world
– become an irrelevance. The vessel for God’s presence on earth is no longer to
be seen as a building of wood, metal and stone, but a living body: initially
Jesus’ own, then after Pentecost the entire spirit-filled people of Christ.
Stepping forward two thousand years to the
present day, Jesus presents the world with the same two-way choice. In five days’ time, on Good Friday, we
mournfully reflect on the consequence for Jesus: his agonising death on the
Cross. Then, two days later, we celebrate the victory and vindication of those
who made and who continue to make the right choice – accepting Jesus as king
and joining him in his exaltation to eternal life.
And the deep message of Palm Sunday is a
challenge to accept him as king. For let us make no mistake, the choice
confronting the world now is as stark as that which faced the people of Jesus’
own time. Now, as then, he comes to us as our rightful king, and no less a king
for all that he presents himself in humility. And the choice is the same: to accept
him as king, or to be accessories in his unjust suffering and death.
This year, as every year, we’re likely to see new
faces in church over Easter. For some of those new faces, this will be a
one-off event; others may start to come regularly. And all will receive a warm
welcome. But let us not forget what is going on in the
lives of these visitors. They are being brought to a place in their lives where
the road ahead of them divides. There is no third way ahead: they are faced
with a choice of accepting the rule of Christ or rejecting him.
Of course, everyone travels at their own pace,
and some who walk away from Jesus this year may embrace him next year or next
decade. But let us think solemnly of the crisis of identity that looms over
everyone of those visitors. And let us commit ourselves to two goals:
1.
To reaffirm our own
acceptance of Christ as Lord and King.
2.
To live up to his teaching,
so that no one hovering on the brink of turning to Christ may be put off at the
last minute by our un-Christ-like behaviour.