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?
