This passage contains the key theme quote for Book V: "Your king is coming to you, humble, and seated on an ass" (21:5) - 'Your Humble King.' Matthew has indicated ways in which His Kingship is to be acknowledged in major areas of life: marriage and family (the sections on divorce and children 19.1-12), wealth and possessions (the rich ruler, and camels through needles' eyes, 19:13-30), work and status (the parable of the 11th hour workers and the power bid by James and John, 20:20-28); and he rounded that section off with the healing of two blind men, suggesting thereby that we need the Lord's healing touch to open our eyes if we are to see our way. Now he records how the humble king lays claim to His inheritance, is rejected, and goes by way of the cross to His crown and His kingdom. Three actions of the Lord's are recorded in 21:1-22:
1. He rode into the city on an ass - He is King
2. He cleared the traders out of the Temple - He is Judge
3. He healed the lame and the blind - He is Saviour
He had told the disciples He "must" go to Jerusalem (16:22). That word always denotes a Divine Imperative; this was an obedience He was giving to His Father.
i. It applies to His acted claim to Kingship as much as to the laying down of His life; "going to Jerusalem" involved both. We must see the two in balance: it was as much His Father's will that He should lay claim to lordship over us as it was that He should lay down His life for us.
ii. This incident marks a complete reversal of policy, so to speak, on our Lord's part. Until now He has always been careful to avoid a confrontation with His enemies (we have seen how frequently Matthew records that when such a confrontation threatened, "Jesus withdrew from there ..."). Now He comes right out in the open and flings down the gauntlet. His hour has come.
There is no doubt Jesus staged this entrance into the city with planned deliberation; the 'password' He gave the disciples to say to the owner of the colt has to mean that Jesus had made a prior arrangement with the man.
It is noteworthy that in that password Jesus refers to Himself as 'the Lord' - the only time in Matthew's Gospel that He did so. It underlines the theme of kingship in this whole episode. Jesus was laying claim to sovereignty.
But for all its bold daring, it was a humble action. The Old Testament prophecies Matthew quotes tell you that. They are a blend of two:
i. Isa. 62:11: "Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold your salvation comes.'"
ii. Zech. 9:9: "Behold your King comes to you, triumphant and victorious, humble, riding on an ass." Zech. 9:10 makes the point that it is as King of Peace He will come: "I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and he shall speak peace to the heathen."
The ass, the workaday burden bearer, was a symbol of peace as the horse, the charging steed, was a symbol of war. It was the commonest beast of burden; not the sort of animal kings normally used in triumphal processions to commemorate military conquests. There was no pomp and ceremony in the way Jesus staged His entry into the city; there were no armed guards or uniformed retinue. He was not even dressed for the occasion. All He wore was the home-spun garment the soldiers would later strip from Him. It is a 'Folksy' Festival this, a 'People Movement.' Jesus is not in the world for its elite classes, but for all men.
This is possibly the only occasion where Jesus set Himself quite knowingly and deliberately to fulfil a prophecy. Most other times His actions, whilst they were a fulfilment of prophecy, were not calculated to be. This one was - and for a reason.
It was an action in the Hebrew tradition of prophetic symbolism. The Hebrew prophets did not always rely on words alone to convey their message; they conveyed it too by meaningful dramatic actions. Jeremiah, for example, believed that Babylon was soon to conquer Palestine and enslave the Jewish people. So he made bonds and yokes and sent them to the Kings of the little surrounding kingdoms, Edom, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, then wore a yoke round his own neck in the public square (as though he were to do it in the City Mall). Words had failed, so he used drama. (Jer. 27) Hananiah, a lesser prophet of the time, replied in kind. A shallow optimist, he elected to show Jeremiah how wrong he thought the prophet was by coming up to him, taking the yoke forcibly off his neck and breaking it. There! (He died within a year.) Agabus communicated in much the same way in Acts 21:10-11. "Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"
So Jesus is laying an acted claim to Kingship. He enters the city exactly as prophecy said He would. It was very much in the idiom of His people and His time.
It is interesting too that He should have arranged for an animal "on which never man had sat." * Again, in the tradition of His people's faith that meant it was used for a sacred purpose. The red heifer used in ceremonies of cleansing must be a beast "on which the yoke had never come." (Num. 19:2) The cart on which the Ark of the Covenant was carried had to be one which had never been used before. (I Sam. 6:7) ** No profane hands must have defiled it.
The peoples' action in laying out their clothes was an act of homage. When Jehu was anointed King over Israel, "They hasted, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the stairs, and blew with trumpets, saying, 'Jehu is king.'" (II Kings 9:13) Simon Maccabæus too had ridden up this very same road on a donkey when he had delivered Judæa from the tyranny of the infamous Antiochus Epiphanes, and the people had spread palm branches on the ground for him to ride on. (I Macc. 13:51, II Macc. 10:7) There is no doubt the people were paying homage to Him as to their King, to whom they were looking to be their Deliverer. 'Son of David,' the title by which they addressed Him, was a title for the Messiah which everybody knew and understood. When children echoed the cry in the Temple later in the day, Jesus commented very simply that it was the truth about Him.
Their cry of Hosanna meant 'save now.' It is from Psalm 118:25: "Save now, I beseech Thee O Lord." 'In the highest' means, "Let our cry for help be heard in the highest heaven," i.e. in the ears of God on His Throne. "O God on High, set this man on the Throne to deliver us." Of course there would have been political as well as religious fervour in their cry. The excitement must have been explosive. This is how the people had all along wanted to stage Him. Now He was letting them do it. "All the city was stirred." Matthew's word is 'seio', seiw, from which we get the word 'seismic' to describe an earthquake. Matthew uses it, not literally, but as a figure of speech to show what a dramatic impact the Lord's entry into Jerusalem had. It 'shook' the crowded city.
The size of the crowds at a Festival time, especially that of Passover, was enormous. A Roman Governor's census, taken only 30 years later, recorded 250,000 lambs slain for Passover. Since each Passover meal required a minimum of ten people, it means that Jerusalem's population swelled to two and a half million. The accommodation houses simply could not cope with them, so country visitors in their thousands bivouacked on the slopes of the Kedron Valley. The crowds who went with Jesus into the Temple were for the most part therefore Galileans, not the same crowds that cried 'Crucify Him' in the city in the early morning a week later; that crowd was drawn from those who lived within the city walls. When they replied to the question asked of them by the city dwellers who this was, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee," they said it with the defiant pride of country folk having something to boast about to city folk. Do we ever acclaim Him with defiant pride?
He comes in the Name of the Lord to establish His reign of peace. But it must be with more than excited words we greet Him; we must give Him obedience in every part of our lives.
In the Temple, Jesus did two things:
i. Cleansed it.
ii. Healed the crippled in it.
The trade there which so offended Jesus was not itself wicked. There was a natural desire that 'clean money' be used within the sacred precincts for the purchase of the needed animals and birds. What was wicked was the way it was all handled.
Annas and Caiaphas ran the exchange business, and they charged an exorbitant exchange rate to change money from Roman to Temple coinage. They also ran a 'certification' racket. No animal could be accepted for sacrifice unless it was 'without blemish.' Care was taken that only animals and birds you bought in the Temple were declared 'without blemish.' It did not do to bring your own in the hope of saving money; some fault would be found with it for sure. Everybody knew what was going on; it was a public scandal. The 'Bazaars of Annas' they called the temple stalls.
It angered Jesus more than any other thing in His whole life.
"My house shall be called a House of Prayer for all nations," God had said (Isa. 56:7), and, "Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the Lord." (Jer. 7:11)
For that attitude not even God has any regard. In His Father's Name Jesus swept the lot out, angrily, unceremoniously. The peace He brings is grounded down in righteousness. He must remove occasions of offence.
What 'tables' must He overturn in our hearts? The sanctuary of the heart must be open to God ... and open to all men.
To the healing episode there is a background in II Sam. 5:6-10. When Jerusalem was still a Jebusite stronghold and David proposed to capture it, he was warned, "The blind and the lame will ward you off," meaning, "You are so vulnerable, and they so strongly fortified, a bunch of cripples could hold you off." There followed a bad moment in David's life. He got his own back for the insult by cruelly forbidding the blind and the lame ever to enter the Temple.
The attitude King Jesus showed was in stark contrast to King David's. Jesus welcomed the blind and the crippled there, and healed them. There is room for 'the least' in the Kingdom, children included: He refuses to silence them in God's House. He was concerned that no 'offence' be given to the 'little ones.' (Recall the stern warning He issued, 13:41 and 18:6) His anger was directed at those who put a stumbling block in their path. He is the Saviour of all.
That it is the blind and the lame He healed means He restores vision and power to us.
He is Saviour, in the same hour, note, that He is the Judge.
We should beware lest we make it hard for others, in His own House, to find God.
He "drove out those who bought and sold." But He did not drive out the crippled and the little children. *** The others, v. 17, "He left ." That is a tragic word.
If we live in the Spirit of Jesus we shall have the same sort of regard He had for the simple, the seekers and the sick.
* I heard Dr Leslie Weatherhead once cite an
American cowboy's comment on this story, "He must have had wonderful
hands." Amid shouting, milling crowds, He controlled an animal that
had never been broken in.
** Interestingly, the Philistines shared this view of the matter with
the Hebrews.
*** The Children. Cf. Psalm 8:2; for "Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that
thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger," the LXX has "hast
Thou perfected praise." Some theories of Biblical Inspiration ignore
a problem: that Scripture, within itself, does not always observe
'the inspired, original text'!
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