Mark 11.1-11 (NRSV):
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples
and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as
you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been
ridden; untie it and bring it.
If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’
They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,
some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’
They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.
Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.
Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he
had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to
Bethany with the twelve.
Have you ever been involved with arranging an event where an
important guest is to be welcomed? There is much preparation to be done; decisions
to be taken over who will and will not greet them. It must also be decided how
their presence in your midst will be announced to those outside, for there will
always be others who will also want to catch a glimpse of your invited
celebrity. But of course this then leads to the question of ‘crowd-control’! And
in the midst of all these decisions, you then have the list of requirements of
that individual, or their entourage, to deal with. And if you are very unlucky,
then that entourage will want to scrutinise all of your planning down to the
detail of which crockery you’ll be use for tea. There is no doubt about it,
welcoming a celebrity is a minefield, but it is also a crowd puller! And if it
is a crowd you want, then a celebrity you must have! Yet, this was not what was
going on in Jerusalem. Jesus wasn’t exactly an invited celebrity; demonstrated
by the fact that it was him who did all the planning of how he was going to
make his grand entry. And that grand entry, well, was not exactly grand, more a
little ad hoc. However, as with everything Jesus did, it was more carefully
planned than it seemed on the surface and in this case in more ways than one!
Firstly, however, he was a crowd-puller: the streets were
lined, flags were flying—well leafy branches—and there was much cheering and
jubilation! The description of the scene, not just in the gospel of Mark but
within all the gospels, reminds me of the film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. Now in
light of John Lennon’s controversial comment about the Beatles being more
popular than Jesus, a comment which was maybe taken slightly out of context and
he did apologise for eventually, the film may not be the best choice of analogues
that I could have made. However, the film although primarily about the manic
nature of life on the road as a pop group, demonstrated how much the Beatles’
lives were plagued by hordes of screaming fans. They could not go anywhere
without being chased by a group of teenagers. People were infatuated with them.
And this still happens to this day. There are those who will camp out on the
streets of London overnight just to be able to get a glimpse of Will and Kate!
Those that travel half-way across the world to stand at the back of a crowd and
wave a banner! And this is what was happening on the streets of Jerusalem.
People may not have been waiting for hours on street corners for Jesus to come
by, but when they heard he was coming they were rushing to be there. They were
going to be one of those who could say ‘they were there’, ‘they saw him!’
‘Hang on a minute’, say the commentators, this kind of
welcome was not uncommon in Jerusalem at that time. Although the gospel
descriptions speak of a welcome we would associate with a big celebrity
entering our city; for Jerusalem this was a ‘norm’ as they were always coming
out to welcome any pilgrims entering their city. They would wave branches and
festoon the pilgrims way. They would shout blessings upon the pilgrims in
welcome. And, although Mark doesn’t quite put us at the time of the Passover in
chapter 11, the way the story unfolds in Mark’s telling suggests Jesus’
triumphal entry was at the time when Jerusalem would have been welcoming many
pilgrims into the city. However, it may have been Passover; Jerusalem may have
been welcoming its many pilgrims; but the blessing that the crowds shouted at
Jesus was not quite the blessing upon Jesus that would have been shouted at
normal pilgrims. Actually, it wasn’t really a blessing at all—it was a proclamation!
The crowds were proclaiming Jesus as Lord! The festivities may have had the
look of a pilgrim’s welcome, but it was more than that. In what the crowds
shouted there were royal undertones, and overall Mark’s telling points the
reader towards something more political, as well as something with a level of
meaning that clearly the crowds to do not understand and nor do those who
accompany Jesus.
Now, if Jesus was a big celebrity character as his ability
to draw crowds would suggest, maybe what the crowds were shouting in Jerusalem
came from the fact they had just got a bit carried away. How easy is it to say
something in the heat of the moment, and then later realise that wasn’t quite
what you meant to say? Hindsight is a great thing, but as John Lennon
discovered, it is very hard to back track on a comment made in the heat of the
moment, especially when its meaning has been misinterpreted. However, biblical
scholarship is fairly certain that the gospel writers did not document events
in ways that did not have some deeper meaning within their portrayal of the
Jesus story. Admittedly, though, we don’t always see that meaning at first
glance! All the same, in the context of what happens next in Mark’s story, the
shout of the crowds is not just political, but also comical and dramatic. It
sets up conflict, establishes confusion, reminds us that maybe we haven’t quite
got our heads around this and neither have those whom we are reading about.
Mark brings the reader back to the idea, over and over again
throughout the gospel, of how much people really did not understand who Jesus
was, and to some extent how much Jesus did not want them to know who he was.
But here in chapter 11 is a turning point—Jesus in getting on that colt and
riding into Jerusalem made a statement. This action fulfilled prophesy. Jesus
was portraying himself as that messianic figure; that long awaited messenger of
God who would be the people’s salvation. And the voice of crowd would suggest
that they got it. At last the fog had lifted and they saw who Jesus was! But
did they? Or does the short-lived celebration of Jesus’ presence with them just
reinforce Mark’s message about how much Jesus and his presence among the people
was not understood? Verse 11 does not exactly state Jesus’ presence in the city
as ground breaking—he arrives at the temple and looks around, then heads back
out of the city. Where are the crowds now? If they really believed Jesus was
the Messiah they had all been waiting for, why had they not followed him and why
were they letting him leave the city?
But of course, Jesus was not the Messiah they were all
hoping for. For starters he didn’t storm the gates of Jerusalem; he quietly and
gently entered through one of the open gates at the plodding pace of a donkey.
The Jews were wanting revolution; they wanted release from the control of the
occupation of the Romans. They weren’t going to start this revolution
themselves, however, that would have been suicide. They wanted someone else to
do; someone that they would be happy to call their leader or if things went
pear-shaped, to be their scapegoat. But Jesus never towed the party-line, and
he definitely did not come to wage war or to conquer on the day he entered
Jerusalem; he came in peace. In fact, his riding on a donkey symbolised just
this. Apparently at that time, a colt was the animal princes would choose to
ride when they wished to signify peaceful intentions. Therefore, Jesus’
procession spoke of royalty, but not the royalty that the Jews were looking for
and wanted. So was this why the crowds dispersed?
Clearly, God’s definition of Messiah and the Jews definition
of Messiah did not match. The Jews thought the Messiah would be the one who
would save them from there oppressors; where in fact the Messiah was to be the
one who would save them from themselves. And that salvation was not, however, just
to be limited to those people at that time, it was to span the world and time
itself. We talk about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and for a fleeting
moment we get a glimpse of it. But Mark, in his telling of that day does not hold
us in the moment long so that we come to see that the triumph isn’t really on
that road into the city. Rather it is on the road out of the city—the road
Jesus will travel at the end of this week.
Mark shows us Jesus as celebrity, we glimpse the Jesus who
is king, but we are also reminded that Jesus was a pilgrim. His pilgrimage
though was not just to the temple, it was one of special standing that would
change the course of God’s relationship with the people of the whole world.
Today is Palm Sunday, a day where we very often get caught
up with our palm waving and our shouts of ‘Hosanna’. But the Church in its
focus on today has changed. Many congregations now only briefly wave their
palms and then moments later find themselves at the foot of the cross. They
will follow through the litany of Passion, rather than the litany of Palms. This
maybe speaks of how we tend not to spend the week travelling with Jesus as we
possibly once did—the busyness of our lives just doesn’t allow us. Yet I am
well aware that within our own tradition, journeying through Holy Week is
something that we just don’t really do. What is important is the resurrection, and
what happens before it is neither here nor there—right? Wrong—to understand, we
need to see the whole story. It is exactly this that Mark is getting at through
how he writes his gospel. It is the reader who comes to understanding, not
ultimately the characters of the story. But if I think it is so important that
we should have followed through the narrative of the Passion, why have we today
only entered through the gates of Jerusalem and got as far as Jesus’ first
visit to the temple according to Mark. Well, because there is much to learn on
each step of this pilgrimage. When Jesus pauses, we should pause too. Take in
the scene. Ask what does it mean? This final week of Jesus’ life is one that is
transforming, and the meaning of that transformation comes through every action
Jesus takes. We should, therefore, not hurry through. Nor should we go straight
from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without passing through the temple, the upper
room, the garden and finally journey the road from the city to the cross. For
it is through the whole journey that the Pilgrim Jesus, turns from Celebrity to
King—not just to the King of the Jews, but to the King of us all and the one
whom we now call Saviour and Lord.
Amen
