Good morning everyone.
As I have continued my study of Matthew, I have reached the triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Matthew 21 and I wanted to share some thoughts about it. You are probably familiar with the story. Jesus sends two of his disciples into the village to get a donkey and her colt. Jesus rides into Jerusalem and the crowds come out placing their cloaks and palm branches in the road so that Jesus could cross over them on his borrowed donkey. As he did they shouted things like, "Hosanna to the Son of David!," and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
There is a lot going on here. First, Jesus is showing himself to be king. He is entering Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, which says:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Jesus knows this prophecy and by riding into Jerusalem in this manner is declaring himself to be king, the fulfillment of this scripture.
The people have apparently caught because the are receiving him with their cloaks and palm branched the way that they would receive a king. Plus they were shouting "Hosanna!" as Jesus rides in. According to Biblestudytools.com, the phrase "Hosanna' means something like "Praise God, we are saved." This crowd in Jerusalem really believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that he was on his way to save them. Meaning that he, as their king, would drive the Romans out once and for all and that he would return Jerusalem to the glory that it had in the days of King David.
We all understand, now, that this was not the kind of king that Jesus was going to be. He is a spiritual king, not a physical one. He did not return Jerusalem to its former glory. What must the following week been like for these people, when nothing went according to the visions that they had in their heads at this moment. This Jesus did not drive out he Romans, in fact, the first thing he does is overturn tables at their own temple, stirring up trouble with his own people, not the Romans. Eventually this king is executed by the Romans he was supposed drive out. Nothing matched their expectation.
But I want us to imagine for a moment that Jesus came into Jerusalem and did exactly what the people were expecting that he would. How would things have been different. Jesus drives the Romans out and assumed a position of kingship in Israel. Israel resumes it former glory, perhaps becoming even greater than before, matching Rome in power. This certainly would have been welcomed by this crowd. He would have even won the Pharisees over most likely, and Jesus would have gone down in history as the greatest Jewish king ever, surpassing even David.
But what would this mean for us. It would be a great story for the history books, but not such a great story for our spiritual well-being. We understand now that because of Jesus' death on the Cross, we have hope and a future in heaven. Without that death, we do not. So ultimately things are better off for all of us that Jesus went against everyone's expectations and did not become an earthly king. I have thought this a lot recently as some things have not turned out the way I expected them too, and the way they turned out were deeply concerning to say the least. Maybe you can identify. So never-the-less, no matter what happens, I must choose to trust God in circumstances like these, because Jesus is still King, and God is still in control, and things will ultimately work out for my best interests. I hope this helps you in some small way when the circumstances don't make sense and you can't see where God is going to trust Him any way.
Tom
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