Mar 25 2024 32 mins
Jesus begins the week of his passion and death with a series of enacted parables. The first is his Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem. Unlike Pilate who entered the city from the west riding a warhorse, Jesus entered the city from the east riding a lowly donkey in a deliberate embrace of Zechariah’s prophecy about a humble king who would come to teach peace to the nations. As he enters the city, the people lay their cloaks and palm branches on the ground in an act of reverence. The people proclaim "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” It is a public declaration that Jesus is the King— the Messiah. This of course upsets some of the observant Pharisees who were in the crowd. They attempt to rebuke Jesus by asking him to tell the crowds to stop their Kingly proclamations. Jesus’ answer is to say, ""I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Then in the culmination of the Triumphant entry Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, a city that has killed the prophets of God and now cannot see its own demise on the horizon. We see in this enacted parable a testimony to the way the Kingdom comes in our own lives. Jesus comes to all of us not with domination and force, but with lowly humility. Jesus reveals a God who does not delight in punishment, but weeps at our rejection of him. Do we find ourselves surrendering to worship, or rejecting this lowly King? Are we ready to spread out our cloaks and follow him into trouble, trial, and death? Or will we find ourselves—like the Pharisees— asking Jesus to be silent?