Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
John 12:12–19 (NIV)
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:
“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.”
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
CONSIDER THIS
There had been many celebrations in Jerusalem before leading up to the Passover, but this one was different. Reports of the great miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:32–54) circulated through the crowd and continued to spread the word among the people. After a supper was held at Bethany in his honor (John 12:1–2), Jesus made his way to Jerusalem. This would be a triumphal entry, a grand entrance, and it was so significant that all the Gospels report it. With stories of his death-to-life miracle in the air, Jesus was greeted by a great crowd and the people took palm branches and shouted: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” What an acclamation! What a day this was!
The shout, the praise of the people, was an echo from the book of Psalms: “LORD, save us! LORD, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you” (118:25–26). There are three parts of these two verses from the Psalter that are of interest to us. The first part, “LORD, save us” or as the Aramaic phrase would put it, “Save us now,”1 corresponds to “Hosanna,” a word that, by the way, is used much differently today, often as a general expression of joy without the specific call for redemption. The second part of this praise, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD,” could have been said of any holy man or woman who loved God, the Holy One of Israel. There’s nothing unique here.
Third, however, notice that Psalm 118 does not contain the last praise offered by the people: “Blessed is the king of Israel.” That tribute or honor is indeed unique, set apart, and it could not have been spoken about just anybody. But what kind of king did the people have in mind: someone who could feed the masses, raise the dead, or throw off the yoke of Rome? Someone who could smooth out the inconveniences and annoyances of life? Would the crowd have been so energetic and lavish in its praise if it had understood just what kind of king Jesus offered himself to be? Aware of it or not, the people who gathered that day for the upcoming festival would see this distinct kingship, which does indeed have roots in Jewish tradition as we will see shortly, displayed right in front of their eyes!
Earlier, after Jesus had fed five thousand people near the Sea of Tiberias (John 6:1), some of the folk had wanted to make him king, but Jesus, rightly understanding their motivation, withdrew from them. Now in Jerusalem, and through his actions of finding and sitting upon a young donkey, Jesus was demonstrably willing to be acknowledged as a king, as a ruler. Indeed, he was well aware that by these actions he was fulfilling a specific prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9: “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.” The language of our text in John, which is reminiscent of this passage from Zechariah, is however slightly different: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” The elements of Daughter Zion, a king, and the donkey’s colt are all there in both passages but only the gospel account mentions, “Do not be afraid,” as an added word of encouragement. Such reassurance would be needed.
Though Nathanael had already acknowledged that Jesus is the king of Israel: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel” (John 1:49b), the disciples struggled to understand the significance of the donkey riding and the proclamation of the crowd. In fact, our text indicates that they “did not understand all this” (emphasis added). The meaning, the substance, of all that was happening along the road that day had escaped them. Since Jesus rode atop a donkey’s colt and not some sleek, dark stallion, which would be the preference of military leaders, he entered Jerusalem giving yet another hint, another clue, as to just what the kingdom of God is all about. Jesus, like the Jewish prophets before him, demonstrated humility, a value whose celebration would be a puzzle to both Greeks and Romans alike. In fact, neither the Greek nor the Roman pantheon of gods ever praised the worth of being humble, lowly, or meek. These gods, often driven by animated lusts, had nothing to do with such mean things.
Again, from all the gospel accounts, it appears that the disciples, surprisingly enough, were slow learners and at times even remarkably dull, especially in terms of grasping what the kingdom of God entailed. Such honesty adds to the trustworthiness of the gospel narratives. To illustrate, after Peter had confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and after Jesus had taught about his upcoming suffering, rejection, and death, Peter then rebuked him. In his thinking at the time, what did suffering, rejection, and death have to do with God and the kingdom? It simply didn’t compute. Isn’t God the greatest, the highest, the most exalted, and the coming kingdom therefore simply glorious? Aren’t better things ahead?
Even in terms of the other two followers who made up the inner circle of the disciples beyond Peter—James and John Zebedee—serious misunderstanding and confusion were evident in terms of the kingdom of God. Thinking about the coming kingdom in a very carnal, worldly way, James and John were preoccupied with their own position within it: “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory” (Mark 10:37)—a veiled request that not surprisingly caused sharp division among the rest of the disciples when they learned of it. In fact, they were indignant. So then, though Peter, James, and John were among the inner three, and though they alone were with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, even they grappled, on some levels, with the identity of Jesus and just what kind of kingdom he was offering.
Since the crowd that had been with Jesus when he raised Lazarus from the dead continued to spread the word, many people, who were simply there to attend the festival, went out to meet Jesus. Such a flocking to Christ, caused by the singing of his praises, disturbed the Pharisees. No doubt in a fit of jealousy, which helps to explain their energetic response, the religious leaders cried: “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” The irony here is obvious. These religious leaders had tried to stop Jesus, but they failed miserably. In their zero-sum world, if Jesus advanced, they could only decline. In the days ahead they would have to do something about that.
THE PRAYER
Lord, we all dream. We all have ideas of how things should be or could be. Help me see who you truly are and understand the kingdom you bring to earth through us. As I shout joyfully, “Hosanna!” let me also pray earnestly, “Save us now,” in every circumstance.
