Scripture can be found here…
Roughly three hundred years before the events we read about today, someone writing under the name of the prophet Zechariah said it all:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war-horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
~Zechariah 9:9-10
Here comes a king, and he is bringing peace.
In the first century, entrance processions of kings or victorious warriors were a familiar experience. And they stuck to a particular formula, as outlined by one scholar:
(1) The conqueror/ ruler is escorted into the city by the citizenry or the army of the conqueror.
(2) The procession is accompanied by hymns and/ or acclamations.
(3) …various elements in the procession… symbolically depict the authority of the ruler.
(4) The entrance is followed by a ritual of appropriation, such as a sacrifice, which takes place in the temple, whereby the ruler symbolically appropriates the city.[i]
All these things are present in Luke’s account of this moment, which we Christians have called “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.” It bears all the marks of the entrance of a king or warrior fresh from victory into a city. And, at the same time, it undermines those markers, because, this is no ordinary king. This is Jesus, God’s Messiah, and his purposes are very different from those of most kings, whose main concern, after all, is holding on to their power.
Our story starts with Jesus sending off two disciples—who? I wonder. They aren’t named, so I’m going to guess they’re not the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, or the other brothers James and John. Someone now in the inner circle, I imagine. Maybe Bartholomew, and that other Simon, the one they called the Zealot.
For some reason, this king will not be mounted on a warhorse. The disciples are sent into a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem to find a young donkey, a colt, and to bring it back. They are even given a response for the owner of the donkey, who will, undoubtedly wonder why these two strangers are untying it. All is as Jesus described it, and the owner, when told, “The Lord needs it,” doesn’t say another word. The owner acknowledges the authority of the ruler. They take the donkey back to Jesus, and, after putting their cloaks on its back, help him to mount it.
And the procession begins.
The people escort Jesus into the city—really, they are his disciples, but what Luke describes as a multitude of them.
The people show Jesus honor acknowledge his authority, by paving the way for him.
Now, I know your bulletins say Palm Sunday, and we have all been encouraged to wave palms, even process with them. But I’m afraid there are no leafy branches in Luke’s account, only coats, which, we’ve already seen, are used as a blanket-saddle for Jesus, but even more significantly, are thrown down on the road as a sign of the stature of the one riding into the city. And, really, coats represent a greater commitment to honoring this king. A palm branch can be found anywhere (in and around Jerusalem). In that time and place, most people only have one coat, if that, and that coat is precious, to be protected, and coaxed along to serve the wearer for as many years as possible. And yet the people honoring Jesus are paving his way with them, letting a donkey trample upon them.
And the people start to sing!
They sing what sounds like a verse from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”—except, they sing, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Then they depart from the psalm, and suddenly, we’re hearing words that remind us of the angel song to the shepherds, so long ago. “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
The Pharisees make an appearance in our story, those we’ve been conditioned to believe are out to get Jesus. But, a gentle reminder that the last time we encountered the Pharisees, they were warning him of Herod’s intent to kill him, telling him to flee. Here, it seems as if they are doing the same thing.
Jesus has been escorted into Jerusalem as a king might be… on a smaller scale, to be sure. No army. No warhorse, only his disciples—which is definitely a number larger than twelve. But it is undeniable that word of this little procession will get to Pontius Pilate, who has also had a procession into Jerusalem. We don’t read about it in the gospels, but we know about it from the historians. Pilate certainly would have ridden a warhorse, and been escorted by about three thousand Roman soldiers. The message of this heavy military presence in Jerusalem at the Passover is unmistakable. It says, “We know you are celebrating an ancient ritual having to do with escaping from slavery, having to do with freedom. But don’t get any ideas.”
Imagine what happens when Pilate hears of this procession. Well, you don’t have to imagine. Just come to our Good Friday service this week. You’ll hear all about it then.
“Rabbi,” the Pharisees beg Jesus, “stop your people.” Stop poking a metaphorical stick in the eye the prefect and the Roman Empire in general. Tell them to knock it off, they plead with him. And just as the last time he was warned to be safe by the Pharisees, Jesus dismisses their concerns.
“I tell you,” he says, “if these [my people] were silent, the very stones would shout out.”
And because I just happened to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” at EPAC the other night, I have sealed in my memory the joy with which our local Jesus sings those words. “The rocks and stones themselves will start to sing.”
God has a plan, Jesus says. And nothing—not even the might of Rome—is going to stop it.
So far, the procession has followed the model of the other ancient royal retinues very nicely. The people escorting Jesus in, signs of Jesus’s stature in the coats paving his way, joyful songs and acclamations. There’s just one left:
A ritual, that takes place in the Temple, in which the ruler symbolically appropriates the city.
Our passage ends without this happening, but it does happen. Hear these words from the gospel according to Luke, beginning at chapter 19, verse 45.
Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written,
‘My house shall be a house of prayer’;
but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.
~Luke 19:45-48
Jesus enters the Temple and cleanses it—he drives out everyone who is selling goods or changing money. Which means, Jesus has poked another big metaphorical stick in the eye, this time, of the Temple authorities. And then, instead of going somewhere to hide or lay low, Jesus makes the Temple his synagogue for the remainder of the week—he goes there every day to teach.
Jesus, in unusual but utterly kingly fashion, appropriates the city by showing his authority at the Temple.
The work of the royal procession is complete—a strategic, intentional demonstration to all the authorities, religious and civil, that Jesus is here, and Jesus has come in peace and for the purpose of preaching God’s love.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you…
And he isn’t going anywhere.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Paul Brooks Duff, “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the Greco Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 111 (1992) 66.