Mark 11:1-11
Our journey this Lent started with Jesus’ temptation and the very beginning of his ministry. Today we arrive at the beginning of the end of his earthly ministry, with his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
This Lent we have been looking at our new name, our new identity as Children of God, and what it means to believe in this Jesus whom God gave because of his great love for us.
Now the gospel accounts in Matthew and Luke of today’s reading from Mark essentially tell the same story, but differ slightly in their emphases. The context is that Jesus, who has been making his way to Jerusalem for around half the gospel, has now arrived.
This morning we focus on this volatile character called “the crowd,” and what they were singing.
Now “the crowd” in the gospels are nearly always fickle. They love Jesus when he miraculously provides bread and fish, but turn on him as soon as he asks questions that demand anything from them.
But the crowd also includes all the disciples of Jesus, including obviously the twelve apostles, but also all those who truly believed, and there were many over the three years. They had heard that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, and they flocked to welcome him.
So let’s picture ourselves as part of this multitude. It is a multitude of cynics and scoffers and rent-seekers. It is also a multitude of disciples. I would also ask you to remember that of these believing disciples, not one was found to put their life on the line and stick up for Jesus in a few days’ time.
As we enter this Holy Week, I also want us to know also, deep in our hearts that, despite the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the New Testament, our faith can falter too when God does not deliver what we are expecting, and sometimes we too, can deny Christ depending on something as little as who else in the room.
Now Mark really wants the readers and listeners of this gospel to ask themselves: ‘who is this Jesus?’ He asks, ‘which part of the crowd are you? What song are you singing to our Lord Jesus in your heart?’
Now our passage starts with Jerusalem. For Jews, it’s where God chose to make his dwelling place and the centre of all spiritual, religious, and political power.
It is the place where all the Old Testament prophesies will be fulfilled - that all prophets are killed in Jerusalem, as the place where the Kingdom of God would be revealed, as the place where the coming Christ will find a wild donkey colt to ride in on, to where the Messiah will be rejected.
All prophesied in the Old Testament.
To say these prophesies were misunderstood, or misinterpreted, is to put it mildly. Everyone, even Jesus’ closest twelve, thought this King of Kings would be the kind of political king who will liberate the nation from Roman rule, a warrior King like his ancestor, King David.
Even after the resurrection and just before Jesus ascended, the disciples were still asking Jesus “Will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
But the triumph of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem points to the true way the Kingdom of God is coming. Not as a political or nationalist idea, but as a whole new covenant that will transform our hearts, where this new covenant is to be written, as prophesied by Jeremiah in last week’s reading (31:33-34).
Let’s look at a little detail now. Two disciples have followed Jesus’ instructions to fetch the donkey colt, but it is their own initiative to put their cloaks on it as a form of royal saddle. Jesus, like all who owned nothing but what they had on, only ever walked anywhere.
Only the wealthy or Kings entered the city riding anything at all, and Kings rode horses. But Jesus comes on a donkey! A serving beast of burden.
Yet he still enters as one who has already triumphed! The whole thing would be ludicrous if it wasn’t so wonderfully beautiful! He comes as the king who knows the victory has been won already by his Father, but in a way that no one could yet fathom.
When told to restrain his followers by the Jewish leaders, Jesus says “even if I could, this victory is a victory that will eventually bring about a new heaven and a new earth; all of creation will be renewed. Even if the human voice was silenced, creation itself; the rocks and stones, would start to sing” (my paraphrase of Luke 19:40).
And what a song they are singing! They sing “hosanna, hosanna,” which means “save,” or “save us”.
Now, part of the multitude is yelling out to Jesus to save them from the wretched Romans and provide them with a life of peace and plenty.
But the disciples are singing because this is the King of Kings in whom the salvation of the world rests. ‘Jesus saves,’ they sing. They know they are already saved purely by believing in him.
So this triumphant procession is not about the crowning of a new king, but the recognition of the king who has already won his victory. Even though they can’t understand how this will come about or what it means, they believe.
We are the same today. We can’t possibly imagine or understand how the ultimate fulfilment of the Kingdom of God will come about when Jesus returns.
They are singing at the top of their voices “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”
This long journey to Jerusalem is not a journey to power and glory, but as Paul makes very clear in this morning’s Philippians reading, it is an obedient journey of self-emptying all the way to death.
Jesus does not come to conquer the city, but rather to be conquered. In so doing, he somehow wins a profound and emphatic victory over death. He is the victorious Prince of Peace who redeems and transforms us by the renewing of our minds into the children of God.
This triumphant song from the multitude of disciples, including us, is a prophetic cry that, even though we won’t be able to fathom the events that happen later this week, we know it will have dealt with all things which separate us from God and from one another.
This is the power this triumphant King Jesus offers; power to know forgiveness and so forgive; power to know peace and so bestow peace.
Our King of Kings’ crown will turn out to be a crown of thorns and his throne a rugged and splintery cross. His enthronement does not come in riding a horse-drawn chariot amid the cheers of family and friends; rather, he will find his glory in being raised up on a cross amid the jeers of this very same multitude.
Through his death and resurrection, this one who refuses to be an earthly king will make his royal entry by way of a cross and empty tomb.
Let us truly open the rusty gates of our hearts today and let the Servant King in to have his way with us. Let me pray …
Create in us a clean heart, O God.
Renew an upright spirit within us.
Create in us a yearning for you, so
That Christ Jesus may be fully formed in us.
In his triumphant name, Amen.