Carey's Bible Study Notes
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triumphal entry
life of christ: Mark 11.1-18; John 12.1-19
the triumphal entry
introduction
When we come to the story of the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday), we are entering the last week of Jesus� life and public ministry on earth. This week is the pivotal week in the history of the world. The writers of the Gospels understood the significance of this week. Martin Wrede (German theologian) claimed that the Gospels were nothing less than Passion Narratives with extended introductions. The amount of time the Gospel writers devote to this week reveal the amount of significance they attached to this week. For example, if Mark had devoted as much time to the rest of Jesus� life as he did to this one week, the Gospel of Mark would number 9000 chapters as opposed to the 16 it now contains. Mark alone would take up 450 books as opposed to the 66 now found in the entire Bible.
As we look at the Triumphal Entry, we will draw upon all 4 Gospels and their contributions to this event. Each one by itself does not do adequate justice to the Triumphal Entry. Drawing upon all 4, however, gives us a much fuller picture of what happened that day and that fateful week.
preparations for the triumphal entry (Mark 11.1-6; John 12.1-11)
If you read just Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you would come away with the impression that Jesus had spent all the 3rd year of His public ministry beyond the Jordan River in Perea and that at the last moment He had come to Jerusalem. Two weeks ago we studied though that approximately 1-2 months prior to this week, Jesus had come to Bethany in order to raise Lazarus from the dead. This event had a profound impact upon Jerusalem. Whereas most of the Jewish religious leaders led by the high priest Caiaphas decided that Jesus now had to die, many in Jerusalem were greatly impressed by this miracle. In fact, Jesus on the Saturday before Palm Sunday arrived in Bethany to spend more time with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. While Jesus was there, crowds came from Jerusalem to get a look at this one who raised a man from the dead. Not only did they want to get a glimpse of Jesus, they wanted to see Lazarus, the resurrected man also. Lazarus� popularity sky-rocketed after his resurrection to such a degree that the Jewish religious leaders decided they needed to kill Lazarus also. As far as the Jewish religious leaders were concerned, things were in a tailspin. They felt that judicial murder was the only way to stop all this.
The next morning (Sunday), Jesus instructs 2 of His disciples (unnamed) to go to the village of Bethphage which was located on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, untie the young colt of a donkey, and bring it and its mother to Him. He commands them that if anybody interrogates them as to what they are doing, they are to inform them that the Lord has need of the donkey. When the disciples go fetch the colt and its mother, they are confronted by some bystanders. When the disciples respond like Jesus had commanded, the bystanders allow the disciples to take the 2 animals.
The question we need to ask is why all this emphasis on this event. Simply getting a donkey occupies six verses alone in Mark the shortest Gospel. Mark relates this story in order to show that Jesus is the Lord who is in charge of what is about to take place. From a human perspective the next week will be of tragic proportions. The truth though is that all is operating according to God�s will and plan. Throughout Jesus� ministry and even during this last week, the Jewish religious leaders attempt to kill Jesus. Jesus will die though only when the Father decides He will die.
the triumphal entry (Mark 11:7-11; John 12:12-19)
When the disciples return with the 2 donkeys, they place their outer garments to serve as a saddle upon the young colt and then allow Jesus to mount the colt. At this point the crowds begin to praise Jesus. Several different factions make up this crowd. First of all, in the crowd are people from Galilee, the main area where Jesus had conducted His public ministry. For 3 years they had seen Him perform miracles in Galilee and had heard Him teach in an authoritative manner unlike any they had heard before. Once before they had tried to crown Him Messiah, the King of the Jews (John 6:15). Now they escort Jesus into Jerusalem publicly announcing Him as the Messiah, the King of the Jews. Another element in the crowd witnessed Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. For the past year Jesus� popularity had been on the wane after the Sermon on the Bread of Life (John 6:66). Lazarus� resurrection changed all that. With their own eyes they had witnessed the resurrection of a dead man, an event which was supposed to occur only with the coming of the Messiah. They too publicly pronounce Him to be the Messiah. The third element in the crowd comes from Jerusalem. They have heard the story of Lazarus� resurrection, and they too come out to greet Jesus. Matthew says that the city was stirred by Jesus� entry. The word translated stirred here is the word we use for earthquakes or seismic events. The whole city was in an uproar over Jesus� arrival.
All the actions and proclamations of the crowd show that they think Him to be the Jewish Messiah who has come to destroy their enemies the Romans and establish Jerusalem as the capital of a new glorious Israel which will rule over the world. The palm branches which the people waved came from Jericho, known as "The City of Palms." From other outbursts of nationalism in their history, we know that the palm represented the kingdom of Israel, much like the eagle or the Stars and Stripes today represents the United States. The phrases which the crowds uttered also came to be understand as messianic. A common title for the Messiah was "he who comes," or "the coming one." For over 1500 years the Jews believed that one day a man would come who would deliver God�s people from her enemies. When the crowds shout out, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," they are proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah, the coming one. The word "hosanna" literally means "Save us!" In this context though, it means "Hallelujah" or "Praise to God!" The people praise God because He has kept His promise to David the king that one of his sons would one day reign from Jerusalem and save his people Israel. For 3 years Jesus had restrained those who proclaimed Him Messiah because they were injecting wrong content into their concept of Messiah. At this point, Jesus does not restrain them but allows them to proclaim Him publicly as the Messiah because He knows that within a week, His death and resurrection will completely alter their concept of the Messiah.
Even at this time though Jesus conveys to the crowd by riding on the colt of a donkey that He is not the kind of Messiah they are claiming Him to be. In fulfillment of Zech. 9:9-10 Jesus rides the colt of the donkey first in order to stress His humility. If He were the proud warrior desired by the crowds, He would have entered on a white charger. Instead, by sitting on a donkey He comes as the humble Messiah who will humble Himself to the point of even dying on a cross for His people. Furthermore, the Zechariah passage indicates that Jesus is coming not as the King of Israel but as the King over all nations. Although God had made specific promises to bless Israel, He had chosen Israel to be the vessel He would use to bless all nations. The Zechariah passage depicts people from all over the world coming to Jerusalem in order to worship God. Finally, the Messiah of Zechariah comes in peace, not in war.
Basically what you have here is Jesus and the crowds operating on two different levels; Jesus on the level of the Old Testament and the Jews on the level of the nationalistic Messiah they had dreamed up. Before we criticize the Jews for the way they created a Messiah to their own liking, we need to look at the way we create images of Christ which do not fit the biblical example. For example, many of us feel uncomfortable with Christ becoming angry at us His followers. When we read the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, we claim that Jesus was angry at death and sin while the context of Jesus� anger was the unbelief of Mary, Martha, and the Jews in the presence of Life Himself: "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He became angry!" There�s no mention of death and sin in this verse; John mentions only the unbelief of people who should have known better, yet since we refuse to think of Christ in these terms, we claim that He was angry at sin and death. When we do this, we are committing the same error the Jews committed.
Another example is that many Christians claim that Christ would never allow His church to go through the Great Tribulation because it is unfair. I don�t want to argue whether or not we go through the Tribulation but rather to look at one of the reasons Christians give for us not going through it. Just what Bible verse supports that claim? When you read the Bible and look at your own personal experiences, you discover that Christ does let things happen to His people which are totally unfair. The reason we are going to have judgment at the end of time is that things right now are unfair and on that last day Christ is going to make all things right. We have got to decide what is going to mold our view of Jesus, our own wishes or the Bible. What is at stake here is whether or not we will be able to have a real relationship with Him which produces an abundant life right now. Many times we don�t enjoy that abundant life because we are relating to a Christ of our own imagination and not to the Christ who really lives and gives that abundant life.
Jesus would have descended the Mount of Olives from the east and traveled across the Kidron valley in order to enter the Temple compound. Things begin to spin out of control even more for the Jewish religious leaders. As Jesus enters the Temple complex, the lame and blind come up to Jesus in order to be healed, one of the activities the Messiah was supposed to perform (Matt. 21:14; Is. 61:1). The children then pick up the refrain of the crowd and proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah. The religious leaders are beside themselves and demand that Jesus restrain the crowds from making these messianic proclamations. Jesus responds with tongue in cheek that He, like they, is out of control of this situation. If He were to stop the children from crying out, then the stones themselves would shout out His praises. The Jewish religious leaders are so frustrated that they turn on each other because of their loss of control: "You see that you are not doing any good. Look the whole world has gone after Him!" (John 12:19).
According to Mark, Jesus enters the Temple compound, surveys the situation, and then heads back to Bethany to spend the night. Jerusalem would have been too crowded because of the influx of pilgrims from all over the world. Also, Bethany was far safer than Jerusalem.
cleansing the temple (Mark 11:12-18)
The next morning (Monday), Jesus leaves Bethany for Jerusalem and the Temple compound where He will engage in a series of final confrontations with the Jewish religious leaders. On His way to Jerusalem, He passes by a fig tree which is resplendent with its shiny leaves. Jesus approaches the fig tree in order to see if it has produced any fruit. Seeing that it has borne none, Jesus curses the fig tree. The curse carries weight because the next day when Jesus passes by it again, the fig tree has withered. Why this outburst of anger? Jesus is not concerned about the fig tree. In fact He knew that it would not bear fruit this time of the year. Fruit-bearing for the fig tree was another 1-2 months off. Instead, He wants to draw a parallel between the fig tree and Judaism. The fig tree though beautiful was failing to carry out its most important function, to bear fruit. The same applied to Judaism. It was splendid on the outside. The Temple in Jerusalem was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The statement was that a person had seen nothing beautiful until he had seen the Temple. Yet Judaism likewise was failing at the highest level. Instead of drawing people to God, it was actually corrupt and rotten within, driving people further and further away from God. When God in Christ came to the Jews, instead of receiving Him wholeheartedly, they reject Him. Just like Christ cursed and destroyed the fig tree for failing to carry out its function, so Christ was going to curse and destroy the nation of Israel because of its failure to carry out God�s purpose for her.
This is brought out even more in the episode of the cleansing of the Temple. Since many of the Passover pilgrims had to journey a great distance to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem, they found it most cumbersome to bring their sacrifices with them. Bringing a lamb from Galilee was one thing; bringing it from Persia was quite another. The Jerusalem religious establishment helped out by selling these sacrificial animals to the pilgrims. Moreover, the OT Law specified that the people were supposed to pay a Temple tax in order to support the Temple and its maintenance. The only coin allowed for Temple use was the Tyrian shekel. Since most people used Roman coins, moneychangers were needed to convert the coins. Naturally, the moneychangers found it convenient to charge an exorbitant fee for their services.
With the exception of the exorbitant fees, these practices were not bad. What was bad was the place these merchants selected to practice their trade. For years the Sanhedrin had these merchants perform their duties on the Mount of Olives before the pilgrims entered the Temple compound. According to rabbinical sources, around this time Caiaphas the high priest allowed the merchants to perform their services in the Temple compound itself, specifically in the Court of the Gentiles, the only place in the entire compound where the Gentiles were allowed to worship God. Since Caiaphas controlled the Temple compound, he received a larger share of the proceeds of the sales than he did when all this occurred on the Mount of Olives.
Jesus enters the compound and is incensed at what He sees. He takes some cords and forms a whip, and then begins to drive out the moneychangers. He overturns their tables and drives out the cattle from the Court of the Gentiles. He then opens the cages of the doves and releases them. All the while He cries out, "My Father�s house shall be called a House of Prayer, but you have made it a den of guerrillas [warriors, a political establishment instead of a religious one]!" Since one of the functions of the Messiah was going to be the purification of Judaism, by performing this function Jesus once more is declaring Himself to be the Messiah. The only problem the Jewish religious leaders had with this was that they felt that everybody except them needed to be purified. In their view He could not be the Messiah since He had a false view of who they were.
As Jesus cleanses the Temple, He reminds us of the original purpose of God�s house of worship. Of all the titles given to the Temple, "House of Prayer" at first blush seems inappropriate. The Jewish rabbis tell us that the year before the Romans attacked Jerusalem (66 AD), the priests sacrificed over 200,000 animals at Passover. The blood flowed in the Temple. "House of Sacrifice" seems a much more appropriate title. Yet Jesus is claiming that although sacrifice played an important role in the Temple services, it was not the purpose of the Temple. The purpose of all these sacrifices was to bring a person into a deeper relationship with God which is best characterized by prayer. Prayer is not simply the act of asking God for things or of praising Him. It is the act of relating to God. It is not one indicator among many of a person�s relationship to God. In many ways it is the indicator. The quality of a person�s prayer life reveals the quality of that person�s relationship with God. The quality of that prayer life will also be revealed in the life that person lives once he gets off his knees in prayer.
For us today we have to be careful not to undermine the primary purpose of our house of worship. It is not a House of Preaching or Singing but Prayer. In fact the quality of our prayer as a church will indicate the quality of our worship services. Little power in prayer leads to little power in worship. In other words, the power we experience in prayer will determine proportionally the power we experience in our worship services.