Jesus Welcomed as King

Theme: The Mirror of Prophecy

 

 

And 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.

---

LESSON

Throughout the Gospel of Mark, we have seen the attempts of the crowd to make Jesus king by force, to install Him into a position of earthly prominence and power. Jesus always ran away from it, but now He walks toward it. This is the only place recorded in all of the gospels where Jesus ever sought the place of prominence. He identifies Himself as King, but one very different from the king the crowds had envisioned.

 

There were great crowds in Jerusalem at this time of year. One writer has estimated that as many as fifty thousand Jews entered Jerusalem every day during the six days of Passover. They choked the roads, filling every path, and in the midst of them is the Lord Jesus, suddenly appearing among them, riding on a donkey’s colt (11:7-8).

 

Mark, Matthew, and Luke make it clear that Jesus’ decision to ride an ass’s colt was a very deliberate one. Mark notes that Jesus obtained the colt by supernatural knowledge (vv 2-3). In oriental cities, it was very unusual to have an animal tethered outside, but Jesus knew from a distance that the animal was there.

 

Jesus instructed His followers to use royal language to obtain the animal—”The Lord has need of it” (v. 3). Jesus will soon be acknowledged as the Son of David, and now He is willing to use kingly language for this request.

 

Notice, too, that Jesus takes care to assure the owners that He is not confiscating their colt; He will return it quickly. Christ the King is debtor to no one. True, that man owned the colt because God Almighty had given it life, kept it from harm, and made it possible for the possessor to have it. Jesus had a right to claim it if He wished, but in this case the Lord is showing that what He takes on loan He gives back. Anything that the Lord Jesus Christ ever uses will come back with blessing.

 

However, suppose the man with the colt had treated the disciples the way many of us treat Jesus today. What if the response to “The Lord has need of it” had been, “Well, what is that to me? I need it myself; get going.” Do we tell the Lord that our time is our own? Are we like the man during the Depression who stopped giving his tithe to the church? His pastor asked him, “Don’t you know you owe it to the Lord?” “Yes, I owe it,” he answered, “but He ain’t pressin’ me like my other creditors.” Because the Lord doesn’t press us, we sometimes forget that what we have, toward Him is nevertheless a debt. When those outside heard that the Lord needed a colt, they let it go without a word.

 

The significance of Jesus’ riding upon an ass’s colt is that it is a declaration of royal authority. Jesus is announcing in no uncertain terms that He is the Messiah, the King. There wasn’t one person in the crowd who didn’t know Zechariah’s prophecy about the Messiah: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is He, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9). As Alexander Maclaren put it a century ago, “Our Lord deliberately dressed Himself by the mirror of prophecy.”

 

We have seen that Jesus knew that death was ahead. The moment He got on this colt and fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, He forced the hand of the rulers. They either had to say, “This is the Messiah” and bow before Him, or they had to murder Him. They had no other alternative.

 

The people responded to the sight of Jesus by immediately quoting Psalm 118 to Him. The Hebrew word hosanna is found only once in the Old Testament, in verse 25 of that psalm. We find the passage come to life as Jesus enters the city.

 

The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech Thee, 0 Lord! 0 Lord, we beseech Thee, give us success! Blessed be he who enters in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and He has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar!” (Psalm 118:22-27)

 

Hosanna means “save us!” This was the cry of the crowd. Certainly there were those in the crowd who spoke these words one day and shouted, “Crucify Him” a few days hence; but we can be sure that some of Jesus’ devoted followers were in this crowd too, people whose bodies were pulsing with strength because He had healed them. There were many in this company who were giving Jesus the full measure of their devotion, ignorant devotion though it may have been.

 

They gave it to one who rode not on a horse, but on a lowly beast. With few exceptions in biblical times, rulers rode on horses—Alexander the Great, Antiochus, the Caesars. The great Egyptian and Assyrian bas–reliefs frequently portray their kings riding in chariots, with the hooves of their horses trampling their fallen enemies. But the Lord Jesus was willing to come on the foal of an ass.

 

Proverbs about the ass from around the world confirm its humble reputation: ‘Asses die and wolves bury them.” “What good can it do an ass to be called a lion?” “An ass is but an ass, though laden with gold.” “The ass that carries wine drinks water.” “Asses carry oats and horses eat them.” The ass is a symbol of weakness, of patient humility, of gentleness. No wonder Zechariah called upon his people to “rejoice greatly” at the sight. That is our king, a pauper king, a meek and patient king, a king who delights in the reverent love of hearts, a king whose armies have no swords, a king whose eyes fill with ‘tears as He thinks of our woes, just as they did as the procession neared the city.

---

STUDY QUESTIONS