All Hail King Jesus

 

Mark 11:1-19

The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

The traditional calendar for the events of our Lord’s last week of ministry looks like this:

Sunday	Triumphal entry into Jerusalem
Monday	Cleansing the Temple
Tuesday	Controversies with the Jewish leaders
Wednesday	Apparently, a day of rest
Thursday	Preparation for Passover (evening)
Friday	Trial, and Crucifixion at 9am-3pm
Saturday	Jesus rested in the tomb
Sunday	Jesus raised from the dead

 

At last Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, where his final days are taken up with the growing hostility of the Jewish leaders there and with his teaching about judgment.

As instructed by Jesus, the disciples brought a colt to him and threw their cloaks over it. Jesus sat on it and entered Jerusalem. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is always interpreted by pointing to Zechariah 9:1-13. In Zechariah, Israel’s king is pictured returning to Jerusalem after a military victory. Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Jesus’ riding on a colt, entering Jerusalem shows that he is the Messiah, that’s God is returning to Jerusalem to become king over Israel and the nations. Jesus is laying claim to David’s throne.

About a century and a half before Jesus’ time, the Jewish national hero, Judah Maccabee rode into Jerusalem following his victories against the Seleucid armies. The people welcomed him with joyful shouts of praise. Once there, his first act in Jerusalem was to cleanse the temple of the pagan pollution visited on it by the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanies.

Judah started a Jewish royal dynasty that lasted hundred years. Yet the worldwide kingdom expected by Israel did not materialize with Judah Maccabee. And so the Jews waited for another king to establish the universal kingdom promised to David and the prophets, a king who would follow in the footsteps of Judah Maccabee and truly fulfill the prophecies of Zechariah.

And some other “kings” had come, following Judah in this practice, laying claim to the throne of Israel. But none of these had brought God’s kingdom with him.

Against this background, Jesus’ claim to Davidic kingship cannot be clearer. He enacts this same ride into Jerusalem, coming as Messiah to claim the throne of Israel, to bring the kingdom that Judah Maccabee could not bring.

The crowds in Jerusalem understand this action and greet the arrival of Jesus with shouts, welcome, and praise. They also lay their outer garments on the road, and then add festal branches.

The shout “Hosanna!” means “I beg, deliver us now!” and comes from Psalm 118:25-26. Of course, Jesus knew that the people were quoting from a messianic psalm, but he allowed them to go right ahead and shout. He was openly affirming his kingship as the Son of David.

However, we also note that Jesus sat on a colt which was meant for kids to ride. A king would normally ride on war horse as he enters the city. This is somewhat intriguing!

Matthew, writing to Jews who expect a military Messiah, stresses in his account that Jesus comes as a gentle and humble king. He quotes Zechariah: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey (Matthew 21:5).

The animal chosen for this entry is a humble creature of burden rather than a royal steed suited to military conquest, for Jesus comes in peace. The people of Jerusalem “do not recognize ….God’s coming” (Luke 19:44) because they misunderstand the nature of his kingship which is “one of humility and service rather than political conquest.”

Jesus was God’s anointed King and Savior. He was both majestic and humble. His conquest would be spiritual and not military. In a few weeks, the gospel would “conquer” some five thousand Jews and transform their lives (Acts 4:4). Christ’s “triumph” would be the victory of love over hatred, truth over error, and life over death.

Neither the crowd nor the disciples (John 12:16) understand what kind of king Jesus is. Nonetheless, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem deliberately challenged the religious leaders. This set-in motion the official pot that led to his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The Jewish leaders had decided not to arrest him during the feast, but God had determined otherwise, The Lamb of God must die at Passover.

Application

As we arrive at Jerusalem with Jesus, the question presses upon us in our own following of Jesus and loyalty to him, is the cost of discipleship.

Are we going along for the trip in the hope that Jesus will fulfill some of our hopes and desires? Are we ready to sing a psalm of praise, but only as long as Jesus seems to be doing what we want? Are you one among the crowd or a disciple of Jesus?

Are we ready to go out of our way to honor him, finding in our own lives the equivalents of “cloaks” to spread on the road before him, and “branches” to wave to make his coming into a real festival? Or are we just living a quiet, deserted Christian life, distant from the people of God and God’s ministry?

Are we ready not only to spread our “cloaks” on the road in front of him, to do the showy and flamboyant thing, but also follow him into trouble, controversy, trial and death?

Are we ready to put our property at his disposal, to obey his orders even when they puzzle us – “a king on a colt”? Let’s crown Him king of our lives!

Jesus Enacts Judgment on the Temple

Luke 19: 41-44 record, as the shouts of the crowd died down, to everybody’s astonishment and embarrassment Jesus burst into tears. Through his sobs he uttered a prophetic lament over the city, predicting its destruction because it did not recognize the time of God’s visitation.

When Jesus warned the city of judgment, he was weeping over it in love. Divine judgment is a solemn, awesome reality. But the God who judges is the God who weeps. He is not willing that any should perish. And when in the end his judgment falls on anybody, God’s eyes will be full of tears.

Jesus later went to the temple and “looked around at everything”. Then, because it was late, he and the disciples went out of the city for the night.

The Jerusalem temple is the single most important symbol of Judaism, the place where God dwells among his people. There sacrificial system allows an unfaithful Israel to repair the breach made in the covenant relationship by sin. Beyond this, the temple is loaded with religious, political, economic, and social significance; above all, it stands as the center of Jewish hope for the coming kingdom.

As Jesus was out of the city for the night, he had time to reflect on what he had seen and what had profoundly shocked him, namely the commercialism of the temple of God, the very center of the religious life of Israel.

The business of the money changers related to the half-shekel temple tax and to the merchants who were selling cattle and sheep for the sacrifices. This lucrative business had become a monopoly in the hands of the high priests and had led to the gross exploitation of poor pilgrims.

The tragedy is that this business was carried on in the court of the Gentiles in the temple, the place where the Jews should have been meeting the Gentiles and telling them about the one true God. Any Gentile searching for truth would not likely find it among the religious merchants in the temple.

So on the next day, Jesus entered the temple area. He made a whip of cords, which it seems clear he used on the animals, not on human beings. In addition, he overturned the tables used by the money changers, and the vendors of doves. He also prevented people from carrying merchandise through the temple courts. He temporarily shut down operations in the temple, possibly prefiguring the ultimate demise of the temple.

The Christ who rode into Jerusalem in humility, and who wept over the city on account of its willful blindness, now brandishes a whip, a symbol judgment. It is only after we have seen the tears in his eyes that we are ready to see the whip in his hand. This was Jesus’ way of announcing God’s condemnation of the Temple itself and all that it had become in the national life of Israel.

Jesus’ words interpret his act: the temple is to be a house of prayer for all nations (Mark 11:17), the place to which all people will come to acknowledge Israel’s God (Isaiah 56:7-8). But the authorities had turned God’s house of prayer in to a den of thieves.

After that Jesus remained in the temple and used it as a gathering place for those who needed help. He healed many who were sick and afflicted, and he taught the people the Word of God.

God has chosen the people of Israel to dwell among the nations so that all nations can enter the covenant with God, but the temple Jesus enters now functions in a quite different way, supporting a separatist cause, cutting Israelites off from their neighbors.

And the chief priests and scribes were using the temple and its religious services to “cover up” their sin and hypocrisy, making the temple “a den of thieves.”(Mark 11:17)

When we see Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in this context, it becomes clear why the Jewish leaders begin to look for a way to kill him. Not only is he challenging their treasured wealth, status and aspirations, and announcing the destruction of their most cherished symbol; he also is doing these things in the name of the Lord, their God! He is acting as if he is God’s chosen Messiah.

Though the Pharisees, Sadducees, and others who vie to lead Israel can agree on nothing else, they do agree that this man Jesus threatens their whole way of life with his claim of the coming kingdom. This man has to go. In order to save guard their own agenda, the religious leaders set out to destroy Jesus—the true temple of God.

Jesus said, “The son of man came to give his life as a ransom for many.” He used sacrificial language to describe the death he would die, the death through which God’s sovereign and saving presence, that is, God’s kingdom, would come to its full effect. Jesus is the true temple: he is the Word made flesh, the place where the glory of God has chosen to make his dwelling.

So judgment on this temple must take place so that a new “temple,” Jesus’ resurrection life in the renewed people of God (cf. John 2:21), can become the light for the nations that God intends.

We also note that the cleansing of the temple action is framed by Jesus’ curse on the unfruitful fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21), a messianic and prophetic action that symbolizes judgment on an unfruitful nation. Israel had failed to be fruitful for God. In the Old Testament, the fig tree is associated with the nation of Israel (Jer. 8:13; Hos 9:10; Nah 3:12).

Mark makes it clear that the fig tree is a dramatic acted parable, indicating the meaning of what Jesus was going to do in the Temple.

Application

Before we quickly condemn the Jewish religious leaders for their sins, we should examine our own ministries to see if we are making merchandise of the gospel.

Do the outsiders in our community think of our church as house of prayer, where they can connect with God: receive his Word, receive his healing touch, and have faith in him, worship him? Are we, who claim to be God’s people producing fruits? What kind of fig tree are we, bearing fruits or withered?

Are all nations welcomed in us? Do we go to church and participate in religious worship just to give people the impression that we were godly?

If the Lord Jesus were to show up in our house of worship, what changes would he make?

Do we set out to protect our own agenda, to the extent of hurting the body our Lord Jesus—the church?