Hail the King of the Jews - Mark 11:1-11

We are all well acquainted with the events of what has come to be known as Palm Sunday.  This is remembered and celebrated as the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem for what would be his final Passover meal with the disciples and the last week of his life on this earth. But while we can look at these events from the lens of history and time, for the people of that day this was just another year to come to Jerusalem to visit the temple, make their offerings and prepare to remember again one of the most significant events in their collective history.

Something that is interesting about the account that I never took much notice of before is that the crowds that recognized Jesus and began that most famous chant of Hosanna hailed him outside the gates of Jerusalem.  So often the depictions of Jesus on the back of the donkey with palm branches strewn around and cloaks on the road seem to show him inside the walls of the city but he doesn’t enter Jerusalem until after this show of affection has occurred. And I think this is significant.  Jesus is being hailed by the people of the land who have met him, listened to his teachings, and felt his healing touch.   They are the people of the villages and towns that are scattered over the land. They are the farmers, the fishermen, the trades people, the poor of the land. And they are delighted to know that they will be able to be in the same place as the One who has brought hope and light to their lives.

What they have witnessed over the last number of years has led many of them to believe that Jesus has come as the servant of the Lord their God; they remember the prophecy that there will always be a king from the house of David to rule over the nation and its people; they believe that Jesus – a descendant of the house of David through his mother Mary and his earthly father Joseph – will be that king promised to restore the kingdom of Israel. To them he is their king – the king of the Jews!

But does Jesus actually call himself a king of anyone?  The concept of monarchs who would rule a nation was ancient. The people of Israel had encountered many nations who had kings.  These figures were often believed to be divine and their rule was not to be questioned.  When the people of Israel came into the Promised Land, they were ruled not by monarchs but by judges.  The role of the judge was to maintain good order in the life of the community but they ruled in conjunction with and under the advice of the prophets who were the direct connection to God.  The people had no visible ruler over them like other peoples and that was intentional because the people needed to remember that they were to have no other gods before the Lord their God and a king who believed in his own divinity would cause them to break that commandment.

But the people felt that they were somehow less than other nations because they did not have a monarch as others did.  So God finally agreed that they could have a king. The king would be chosen by God and confirmed through anointing by the prophet.  But the king was to ever be conscious of the fact that he ruled only by the grace and mercy of God.  Saul was the first king but his missteps led to his downfall. God tried again – this time with David.  David had his faults but he always remembered that his rule was subject to the law of God.  Solomon followed his father and the descendants of Solomon followed him.  But – with few exceptions – the later kings of Israel and Judah neglected to remember that the kingdom they ruled was not their own. The end of the kings came with the exile of Israel to Assyria and Judah to Babylonia.

But there was still a hope that one day the prophecy would be fulfilled and a descendant of David would once again be king over the people.  In one sense the people were right – Jesus was the descendant of David who would rule the people but not as they might have imagined.  Jesus is a king – but a servant-king. Jesus is one who rules but not of his own will but of the will of the Father – of God.  The kingdom of God will come but not as the people might have imagined. The kingdom will come with the fulfilment of all things of which the first part was the coming of Jesus to teach, to guide and to heal. The second part would be the sacrifice of this life of the king for the salvation of the people leading them from this temporary and transient life to an eternal life with their God; and the third part would be the return of the king in glory to consummate all things and usher in the new heaven and the new earth.

And so the one who has come in the name of the Lord enters Jerusalem – the capital of the nation, the spiritual centre where the Temple Solomon built resides. After all the hoopla, Jesus enters and goes to the Temple, looks around and leaves to go back to Bethany with the disciples.  The next day Jesus would return to Jerusalem and so would begin the events that would lead to the last supper, the new way to understand Passover, the betrayal, the trial, the crucifixion, the death, and the resurrection.

Would Jesus have lived longer if he hadn’t gone to Jerusalem? We can speculate and probably imagine that he would have lived a lot longer.  After all, a crazy prophet working in the outlying areas of the country can be tolerated but not a crazy prophet who comes to the heart of the nation.

Yet as we learned last week from our lesson from John’s Gospel, Jesus knew that the time had come for him to make the sacrifice of the seed that held his life.  That seed would need to die for the new life to come.  And so he determined to go to Jerusalem and to go back to Jerusalem and take the risks that he knew he needed to take in order to fulfil the words of John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world [and its people] that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world [and its people] might be saved through him.”

AMEN