We know the story so well: it's dramatic and colourful and great for action songs with the children... But there are so many layers to this story that once we know they are there, can help us understand more deeply what is happening. I'm going to try to draw on some of these layers, so that we can welcome the Kingdom and welcome the King today in 2013.
1. Embracing the Supernatural: authority and power.
The event starts with Jesus telling two of his disciples to go into the village opposite, where they will find a donkey – or two, mother and foal – tied up. Untie them and bring them, says Jesus. Now, maybe Jesus had nipped across the valley and spoken to the owner of the donkey. It's possible, but it's not what the Bible says, and the story gives the impression of supernatural knowledge. The details Matthew, Mark and Luke give have no relevance unless they are describing a supernatural event.
Now, even if I’m wrong here, the triumphal entry took place immediately after the healing of two blind man one of whom was called Bartimaeus (Mt 20. 29-33). The Kingdom Jesus brings involves the supernatural, and calls us to embrace the supernatural. The Kingdom is the power of God, supernaturally touching people's lives. It is God's rule. The two who are sent to fetch the donkey are called to be part of that: stepping into a situation, finding the donkey where Jesus said it would be, challenged and responding in a particular way, because Jesus says so.
It's as simple as that, really. We engage with the supernatural element in the Kingdom of God – the healing ministry, speaking out words that Jesus gives to us – because Jesus says so. We exercise his authority in his world. The Kingdom involves supernatural power.
And it's interesting that, having brought the donkey, the disciples know what they should do next (apparently without Jesus telling them!) and throw their cloaks over the donkey. They take the initiative. Welcoming the Kingdom means embracing the supernatural, engaging in what God is doing and taking the initiative with the light we are given.
2. Embracing simplicity: God of the poor
Gentle, riding on an donkey – for the first time in his life! Do you know, that every other land journey Jesus made, he made on foot. Jesus is a king who is himself poor and ordinary.
You know how parents can embarrass their kids. You know what I mean: “He got five A's you know; here's her graduation photo; I'll speak to the boss see if he can give you a job.” My Dad once wrote to a personal friend asking for help for me, and he also wrote to me telling me what he had done. He put the letters in the wrong envelopes. He believed in going to the top of an organisation and used to say “it's better to speak to the organ grinder than the organ grinder's monkey.” Now when I got this letter written to someone else, I said to Pam “I'll bet you my Dad has written to me that 'it's better to speak to the organ grinder than the organ grinder's monkey'.” Sure enough, he had! It was maybe a bit like that for James and John. Their Mum was asking for top jobs for her lads. And Jesus' answer: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave....
A little while later, the religious leaders would complain about the children singing Jesus praises. And Jesus answered “out of the mouths of babies you have brought forth perfect praise.”
This is the upside down Kingdom where small is great, where the first are last and the last first, where those who are struggling are blessed... and embracing that Kingdom Simplicity is another aspect of embracing the Supernatural in the Kingdom. God is able to take the children, the poor, the uneducated, and use them.. God is able to provide for the poorest, defend the weakest.
3. Embracing surprises:
Matthew points out that the prophet Zechariah had foretold that Jesus would come this way: as a humble, gentle, peaceful, compassionate King. (Zechariah 9.9) So the people were all shouting “Hosanna. O Lord save” (From Psalm 118. 25)... When the crowds saw this sight, a humble King, riding on a young donkey, they started to cut branches from the trees and strew them on the road, and to wave palm branches... and this is where we need to look at another layer, the Jewish background to the story... because what Jesus does is, a few days before the passover, to act out two other Jewish festivals:
the feast of Tabernacles ( autumn). This was when the Jews remembered living in shelters and tents in the desert. They would build shelters, roofed with leaves and branches, they would wave palm leaves, and use the words of Psalm 118. 25: Save us, we pray, O Lord! (Hosanna!)
Hanukkah (November/December: winter), when they would light the candlestick. The story behind Hanukkah was this. About 200 years before Christ, a Greek ruler called Antiochus had sacrificed pigs on an altar to Zeus in the Jerusalem temple, and then the Jews, led by a guy called Judas Maccabaeus, had fought against the Greeks and chucked them out. Hanukkah celebrated the cleansing and rededication of the temple. Guess what, they sang “Hosanna” and waved palm branches!
They were recognising that here is Messiah; here is the King; here is the Kingdom... Trouble is, they were thinking in narrowly Jewish terms. A Jewish Messiah to rescue Jewish people from Roman domination. But Jesus was concerned about the world. He hadn't come to chuck out the Romans. He had come to bring them in! The upside-down kingdom is also the inside-out kingdom. So the circles widen: two people become twelve, becomes a little crowd, becomes a huge crowd. And so they would get the point, Jesus went into the temple and drove out he people who were running market stalls, selling high quality animals and birds for the sacrifices, and changing Roman money for Jewish money for the offerings. If that wasn't bad enough, they were doing it in the “Court of the Gentiles”, the only place where “outsiders” were allowed to come in and pray. That place of prayer for all nations was filled with the noise and smell of the market. No wonder Jesus was annoyed.
And during the next few days, Jesus told a lot of parables – all about sons who won't obey and tenants who won’t pay the rent and wedding guests who won't come to the party and servants who squander their opportunities, and sheep and goats... They look to the future, the final triumph of the kingdom; but also to its impact in lives here and now. They burst through prejudice and exclusiveness, They hint that outsiders are welcome in, and that smug “insiders” may end up thrown out. They tell us the scope of the Kingdom. It touches every race and class and every bit of life and transforms what it touches. And one day it is going to triumph.
4. Embracing suffering... Atonement through pain...
The crowds were in Jerusalem for a reason. The city was filling up for the Passover. That was when they remembered the “passover lamb” – remembering the sacrifice of lambs to save people from the angel of death, before they escaped from Egypt. Jesus knows he is the Passover lamb. In his teaching about humility, Jesus had gone on to say “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20. 28b) That is precisely the impact of the Passover Lamb. It was a ransom that saved the lives of the first-born of God's people. Jesus is that Lamb. He is the One who is going to have to die to take away the sin of the world.
Nothing can compare with the enormity of that sacrifice. It's not just that Jesus died a physical death and a horribly cruel death. It's that he died in our place. It's that he knew in that death, separation from his father. He took our sin: the weight of our load of rubbish, the stink and contamination of our filth. It's almost too much to imagine.
We too often look on Palm Sunday as an ironic prelude to Good Friday. We say “How sad that the crowds who cheered for Jesus on Palm Sunday were howling for his death by Good Friday, five days later. How sad that the leaders felt threatened by Jesus' claims and put him to death”. Too often as Bible believing Christians, we say something like “Jesus was born in order to die on the Cross for our sins” – as if the bit in between hardly mattered. But Palm Sunday is the link between the “Bit in the middle” – Kingdom-bringing life of Jesus – and the Cross. We need to understand that Jesus died and rose again, to deal powerfully with our sins in order to bring in this amazing, wonderful Kingdom.
We need to embrace the simplicity, the supernatural, the surprises and the suffering of the Kingdom. Without the supernatural we become fatalistic. Without the Suffering we become triumphalist. And most of all we need to embrace Jesus. Through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, we have everything we need. Paul says “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”
Look at this King. Love this King Welcome this King.
© Gilmour Lilly March 2012
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