The Gospel of Luke amplifies Mark’s account to tell us that as Jesus came to a turn in the road and saw Jerusalem in the distance, He wept, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:42-44).
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.
Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:1-11) is a familiar story even to non–Christians. What we have come to call Palm Sunday seems to be the culmination of His earthly ministry. As believers, we rejoice to see our Lord acknowledged as the Messiah of His people. But His one moment of recognition is so painfully brief? Jesus’ identity as Saviour was veiled from the crowd at every other point of His ministry and rejected decisively by them at His death.
In quoting Psalm 118:22-23, Jesus is reminding the leaders of the scriptural greeting given to Him by the crowd at His Triumphal Entry. The Messiah, the one who would replace the evil tenants in the master’s vineyard, was, “the stone which the builders rejected”—and they were in the very act of rejecting Him. The Messiah as the Stone is set before us in two passages in Isaiah, which are then quoted in the New Testament (Isaiah 8:13-15; 28:16). This theme appears in all of the gospels and also in 1 Peter. It is understandable that Peter should have been interested in this subject—Peter means “rock,” and this was the name the Lord had given Simon.
“Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45). This statement must have been very dear to Mark, the servant and gospel writer. It summarizes all that we have seen of Jesus’ person and mission. He wanted His disciples to understand that the ransom death He was about to die would be the climax of all He had said and done. Associating with the despised and rejected, enduring the contempt of the authorities, washing the disciples’ feet, going to the cross, dying in humiliation—this was Jesus’ path to greatness. It was for a life thus lived and a death thus died that “God has highly exalted Him” (Philippians 2:9).
