Matthew 21:1-11

Matthew 21:1-11 The crowds rejoice as Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey

Jerusalem was the capital of Judea.  Bethphage (pronounced Beth'-fuh-dzhee) was a village on the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem, around one mile from the Temple.  The “village opposite you” was probably the nearby village of Bethany, where Jesus will go that evening (see Matt. 21:17) – Mark names Bethphage and Bethany in Mark 11:1.

Jesus is arriving just as Passover is beginning.  Barclay says that 30 years later, a Roman governor said that around a quarter of a million lambs were sacrificed in Jerusalem at the Passover, and the Jews had a regulation that there should be at least 10 people for every lamb.  That would suggest that there could have been 2.5 million people crammed into Jerusalem – a huge crowd far beyond its usual population (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, p. 262).  Jesus has chosen to come to Jerusalem at the moment when his arrival may have maximum impact.

How does Jesus get a donkey?

There is no way to know whether Jesus arranged this in advance or used supernatural power to make it possible; but either way, what does it tell you about how much Jesus has been thinking about how to approach the final week of his life?

Jews who were expecting a messiah to come soon had interpreted Zechariah 14:4 in a way that suggested that the messiah would approach Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives on the “day of the Lord.”  That is what Jesus does.

How does Jesus enter into Jerusalem (verse 7)?

Riding on a donkey

Matthew 21:5 quotes from Zechariah 9:9-10.

Read Zechariah 9:9-10

The daughter Zion or daughter of Zion mentioned here and also in Isaiah 62:11 is Jerusalem and its inhabitants.

There is only one donkey in Zechariah, it is referred to twice in the typical Hebrew way for poetic effect.  Why would Matthew say that there was a donkey and her colt, and that Jesus sat on “them”?  Scholars have a variety of ideas: Perhaps he was interpreting the Zechariah passage overly literally; perhaps the “them” refers to the cloaks he sat on; or perhaps he rode on one and then the other.  Why would the disciples have brought two donkeys to Jesus?  Perhaps a young donkey – one that hasn’t been ridden on yet – would not be eager to be led away from its mother but follow her if she was led to Jesus.  These details don’t really matter.  What matters is this:

What is the significance of riding into a capital city on a donkey?

A conquering king would ride in on a horse.  Jesus comes in peace, not as a conquering king.

How does the rest of these two verses from Zechariah suggest to us about Jesus?  He has not come as a worldly, conquering king.  What is the nature of his coming?

Now return to Matthew 21:1-11

What do the people do?

Spreading cloaks

Spreading cloaks on the road was a way to acknowledge the reign of a new king.  This had been done for Jehu in 2 Kings 9:13 when he became king of Israel.

Matthew says just refers generically to branches from the trees, but John specifically identifies them as palm branches.  In around 142 BC, when the Maccabees overthrew the Seleucid (Greek) empire and gained independence, 1 Maccabees 13:51 tells us that in celebration of that great victory, the people waved palm branches as the miliary leader Simon and his troops entered the citadel at Jerusalem.  This was the end of the fight for liberation from the Greeks that put an end to the defilement of the Temple, which Antiochus Epiphanous had ordered.  2 Maccabees 10:1-8 describes the steps that were taken to purify the Temple, which included the waving of palm branches.  So when the people spread palm branches before Jesus, they are invoking a history of liberation.

What do the people say?

Hosanna

In Matthew 21:9, the people cry out, “Hosanna,” which is literally a cry in Hebrew to “save, I pray/beseech.”  We see this word in Psalm 118:25, where the psalmist calls on God to “save us,” followed in the next verse (118:26) by the statement, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  They appear to be clearly invoking Psalm 118:25-26.

What is the significance of the people identifying Jesus as one who can save them?

The Son of David

What is the significance of the people calling Jesus the “son of David”?

An interesting footnote is that when David declared that the king who would follow him would be his son Solomon – the first person who was the “son of David” – Solomon rode into Jerusalem on David’s mule (1 Kings 1: 32-40) – again, not the horse of a warrior.  People might also have recalled this as they proclaimed Jesus to be the “Son of David.”

What is the significance of the people proclaiming that Jesus comes in the name of the Lord?

In what ways can we embrace the words of the crowd when they identify Jesus as the Son of David, proclaim him to be the one who comes in the name of the Lord, and ask him to save them?

What do you think they people are thinking about Jesus?

The Jews at that time had a strong expectation that their Roman oppressors would be thrown off by a descendant of David and that the kingdom of David would be re-established as an earthly kingdom.  Calling Jesus the Son of David and spreading cloaks and palm branches were ways of signaling that they thought he was the one who would come and establish a new earthly kingdom.

When God does something in our lives, how do we express our joy at what God has done?  Can we learn something from the people of Jerusalem?

Notice that Jesus does not correct their thinking about what kind of messiah he is.  The time will come for people to understand better who Jesus is, but for now he responds to their faith, not their understanding of doctrinal facts.  We see this in our day as well.  Christians don’t agree about major points of doctrine, which means somebody is wrong.  Jesus makes it clear in other parts of the Gospels that it is important to know the truth, but God still works in the lives of believing Christians who have conflicting views, some of which must be wrong.  Why do you think God still works in the life of people who don’t have all their doctrinal facts sorted out perfectly, and what does that tell you about God’s relationship with us?

Verses 10-11 have an interesting juxtaposition.  The “whole city” is in turmoil and asking who is the person people are making such a fuss big deal about, and the “crowd” explains.  The “whole city” would be the people who were already there and mostly knew little about Jesus, and the “crowd” would mainly be the people who had come with Jesus all the way from Galilee or had joined him on the way to Jerusalem as he traveled through Judea (see Matt. 19:2 and 20:29).  The people in Jerusalem want to know why people are so excited about this person they don’t know about.

Where do you see yourself in this story?  Would you have been with Jesus from the beginning, accompanying him from all the way back in Galilee?  Would you have been so moved by him when he came through your little town in Judea that you left town to follow him?  Would you have already been a devout person intending to go to Jerusalem for the feast, and you decided to go with Jesus when you learned that he would be walking to Jerusalem for the Passover too?  Would you have been part of that crowd waiving branches and spreading your cloak on the road?  Would you have been among the people asking, “Who is this?”  Would you have been one of the people answering the question, explaining who Jesus is?  Would you have been watching skeptically?  Would you have missed it entirely?  Where do you see yourself in this story?

What does this story of Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem say to you today?

Take a step back and consider this:

We have seen a number of instances in Matthew’s Gospel where Matthew shows us a Jesus who cares especially about the people at the bottom of the social spectrum – what we have called God’s downside-up view of the world.  Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem shows the contrast again, where Jesus’s approach is the opposite of what the world expects.  They expect a king who will establish dominion under the mantle of power; they get a servant who will establish his kingship under a mantle of peace.

John Fischer, a Christian friend of mine who was a popular musician in the Christian contemporary music scene in the 1970s and now runs an online ministry to try to extend the grace of God to people who feel left out of traditional churches, wrote an online post in which he says that the “strong, biblically-based evangelical church” he grew up in always seemed to skip over the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes (Matt. 5-7).  That is where we first see clearly Jesus’s downside-up view: Blessed are the poor; turn the other cheek; love your enemy; etc.  John wrote:

[W]e should stick out like a sore thumb in our culture right now.  The acceptable cultural milieu is currently one of separation, isolation, fear, bullying, show no mercy, take no prisoners, no sympathy, no empathy, foster hate, and a rejection of that which is different.  It is the culture of the strong man more in keeping with John Wayne than Jesus.  In fact, our culture right now is dominated by everything that is the exact opposite of the Beatitudes.  So if you want to be different, now is the time to follow Jesus, and steer clear of any movement of Christianity that borrows from the strong man tactics that are prevalent today.  That’s not Jesus; it’s John Wayne. (“John Wayne and the Sermon on the Mount”)

Jesus challenges us to turn the world’s view upside-down – to see differently, to think differently, to act differently.  He did not come with horse and chariot to force our submission to him.  He came on a donkey of peace.

We are called to follow his example.

What does Jesus’s refusal to accept the trapping of power say to leaders in our day?

How might Christians in our time be overly eager to embrace the exercise of military power?  In what ways does Jesus’s refusal to exercise worldly power challenge us?

What might we need to do differently to point the leaders of our time to the Jesus who enters Jerusalem on a donkey?

How can we join the One on the donkey who comes in the name of the Lord, and follow his way?

How can we also point the powerless of our time to the Jesus who rides on a donkey?