Jesus' Triumphal Entry

I have stood on the Mount of Olives and seen the place where Jesus made his so-called Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. If you go to Jerusalem today you can still see the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives with some olive trees that may date back to the time of Jesus.

Beyond the Garden you can also see the Golden Gate. This gate stands over the approximate spot where Jesus would have entered Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. The present Golden Gate was built around AD 640, but at its base are stones dating to the time of Nehemiah. The story is told that the Muslims sealed this gate because of the Jewish prophecy that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem through this gate. Something tells me that this won’t stop Jesus when he comes back!

Also on the Mount of Olives is a Jewish cemetery. The graves are very simple in appearance, being of plain rock in very sandy soil. The Jews do not bring flowers to these graves. Rather, they place a small stone on top whenever they visit. Some of these graves and tombs are reputed to date to Old Testament times. Many Jews have wanted to be buried here because they believe the resurrection will begin here when the Messiah comes, according to Zechariah 14:4.

We read about the story of the Messiah’s visit to Jerusalem 2000 years ago in Matthew 21:1-11. Listen for God’s word to you…

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
“Tell the daughter of Zion,Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

One of the most striking things about this account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is that it reveals that Jesus apparently planned his own parade. Jesus tells his disciples to go to the village ahead of them and get a donkey and colt tied there. How does Jesus know there will be a donkey and a colt tied up in the village ahead of them? Presumably Jesus knows this because he has arranged with one of his friends in Bethphage or Bethany (Mark mentions the names of both villages) to have the donkey ready for him to ride. Perhaps the phrase “the Lord needs it” was a sort of password Jesus had given to the friends in order to identify his disciples and let the friends know it was alright to let the donkey and the colt go. Mark and Luke mention that no one had ever ridden on the colt. Presumably that’s why Matthew mentions the colt being with its mother; it was still so young that it didn’t want to be separated from its mother. Such an animal, which had never been ridden, was thought by the Jews to be especially appropriate or pure for religious purposes.

Why did Jesus ride on a donkey into Jerusalem? He did this in order to proclaim publicly that he was the Messiah, the Son of David, destined to sit on David’s throne. When David wanted to publicly proclaim his son Solomon as his successor he had Solomon sit on his own mule (1 Kings 1:33, 44). Furthermore, in ancient times if a Jewish king was coming to make war he would ride on a glorious charger. If he came in peace, he would ride on a donkey. Jesus is supremely the Prince of Peace who comes in peace, who alone can bring peace to our troubled world.

Matthew tells us that this took place to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. Matthew uses this fulfillment formula twelve times to relate something from the life and ministry of Jesus back to the prophecies of Hebrew Scripture. The first time Matthew used this fulfillment formula was in 1:22 in reference to the virgin birth. The last time Matthew will use this formula will be in 27:9 in reference to the thirty silver coins paid to Judas for his treachery.

It is quite possible that Jesus had Zechariah 9:9 in mind when he chose to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. He was deliberately presenting himself to the Jews as their Messiah. And he was doing so at a most appropriate time.

Thirty years later a Roman governor took a census of the lambs slain in Jerusalem on Passover. The number he came up with was close to a quarter of a million. Passover regulations required that there must be a group of ten people for each lamb slain. That means that thirty years after Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover two and a half million Jews were gathering in the city for this special holiday. Jesus was deliberately presenting himself as Messiah in his country’s capital at a time when millions of Jews from all over the Roman Empire would hear of his claim.

So how did the people respond to Jesus’ demonstration? First of all, they spread their cloaks on the road in front of Jesus and the colt he was riding.

A story is told of the famous explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, walking with Queen Elizabeth I through London one day. As the story goes, they came to a place in the dirt road which had been made rather muddy by the rain. It is said that Raleigh quickly took off his coat and laid it on the ground so that the queen could walk over the muddy patch without getting dirty.

If this really took place, what does such an act convey? It conveys the value which Raleigh gave to Queen Elizabeth I. By laying his coat on the ground for her to walk on he was symbolically saying, “Everything I have belongs to you.”

That, in essence, is what the Jews in Jerusalem were saying to Jesus when he rode into the great city on a donkey. Something similar had taken place in 2 Kings 9:13. When the prophet Elisha had Jehu anointed king the people responded by spreading their cloaks on the bare steps in front of Jehu. Then they blew a trumpet and pronounced, “Jehu is king!”

The second thing the crowd did was to cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. John mentions that these were palm branches—thus we get the name “Palm Sunday”. These palms would have been brought from nearby Jericho since they were not native to Jerusalem. Had the disciples prepared for just such an action? It would seem so.

This too had royal implications. Two hundred years before Jesus, Judas Maccabaeus arrived in Jerusalem after conquering pagan armies and he too was greeted with palm branches (1 Maccabees 13:51). Obviously the Jews who greeted Jesus upon his entry into Jerusalem wanted him to be like Judas and drive the pagans (the Romans) out of their city.

A third thing the crowd did was to shout. And what did they shout? Hosanna means “save now!” This was a cry for help which people in distress would address to their king or their god. It is really a quotation from Psalm 118:25-26,

25 O Lord, save us; O Lord, grant us success.

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

From the house of the Lord we bless you.

Psalm 118 was part of the Great or Egyptian Hallel (Psalms 113-118), a group of psalms with the theme of thanksgiving for deliverance, traditionally associated with Passover. These psalms were chanted as the Jews approached Jerusalem for the festival. But the Jews were also sending a coded message to Jesus with this particular phrase. The message was simple: “We want you to save us now from the Romans. Now is the moment!” Calling Jesus “son of David” was about as specific as they could get in honoring his messianic claim.

Jesus was indeed about to save his people, but not in the way they expected. The meaning he attached to his “triumphal entry” was quite different from what the Jews wanted.

One can imagine, given Jesus’ actions and the crowd’s response, that the city was indeed stirred. People who didn’t know what was going on understandably asked, “Who is this?”

I believe that is one of the most important questions we can ever ask and answer, “Who is this Jesus?”

The crowds answered the question by saying, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

That answer was correct but I believe it was insufficient. Jesus was from Nazareth, though he was born in Bethlehem as Matthew is at pains to point out. Jesus was a prophet. However, he was much more than a prophet. Matthew arranges everything “just so” in his account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem so that there is no doubt that Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah.

We need to listen to the question of this text and render our own verdict. And if our verdict is that Jesus is the Messiah, then we too should follow him, to the cross, to the empty tomb, and beyond…

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