Have you ever considered how little we really know about Jesus? I was browsing along the shelves in Waterstones the other day - other bookshops are available - and I spent a bit of time looking at the section that contained biographies. There were lots of them, each one telling the story of someone with, to a greater or lesser degree, celebrity status. I would have learned things about the home background, the likes and dislikes, the schooling of whoever I chose to read about. There would have been a description, a photo or two of course, details of jobs, relationships, the wider family. A good biographer can really make his or her subject live on the page.
We have four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who tell us about Jesus. John was one of the twelve disciples, one of the three among those twelve who was specially close to Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel bears the name of one of the Twelve and may have at its heart words from Matthew himself. An ancient source tells us that Mark was Peter’s secretary, while Luke was of course a companion of Paul. These were all people who knew Jesus or knew people who knew Jesus. But they don’t give us what a modern biographer would give us. They don’t tell the full story. It can be frustrating - we’d like perhaps to know more.
But the Gospels are proclamation, not biography. They’re not interested in telling the sort of life story a modern biographer would do. Those sort of details are not important to them. What is important is salvation - that our own lives are saved by what this man did, by what this man gave. And the one thing they do give us in detail - along with the stories of teachings and parables and miracles and prayer - is the story of his death. We’re not told how many times Jesus may have quietly visited Jerusalem at the various times of festival; but now, as the great Passover festival draws near, the story of the death of Jesus begins in each of the Gospels with Jesus travelling with pilgrims from far and wide to the Holy City, and with the very deliberate and dramatic public entrance to the city he chooses to make. The great drama begins.
For in entering the city as he did, Jesus was openly declaring himself as Messiah. The crowds around him knew this - these would have been people who’d travelled as he had from Galilee, where they’d heard him preach, seen him heal the sick, been delighted at the power and freshness of his teaching. And now, right in front of their eyes, he was fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah, who had said that the king God would send to save his people would enter Jerusalem meek and riding on a donkey.
And this had all been very carefully prepared, by people other than the Twelve disciples. Two of them were sent to collect a donkey that had been made ready. They were expected; those standing around as they got there knew someone would be calling to collect the beast.
A clue in my crossword puzzle last week was “shout of praise”, and the answer was “hosanna”. But in fact the people shouting hosanna as Jesus rode by weren’t just shouting praise. Hosanna is more than just a sort of hooray - it’s a prayer, something along the lines of “Lord, save us!” It’s a welcome and a praise shout, but it’s also a plea to the one who is our Saviour.
These were a people living under subjugation, who wanted their freedom, who wanted the kingdom of David to be restored, who wanted the Romans out, and probably the family of Herod too, who wanted a kingdom of Israel like it had been in olden days. And probably the disciples of Jesus at that point wanted the same thing. And the people of Jerusalem itself, the people of status and influence, the Temple priests and their friends and supporters - and of course the Roman governor and his officers - these people would also be thinking along the same lines. What was this upstart claimant to the throne of David, what was he going to try to do? The Passover was a revolutionary festival, it was all about God setting his people free. A crowd of Galileans all singing freedom songs was not good news for Pontius Pilate, or for Annas and Caiaphas and their friends. They didn’t want the boat rocked.
Only Jesus himself knew that he was entering Jerusalem to die there. He was indeed coming to the Holy City to take a throne and to found a kingdom, but his kingdom would not be the one the crowds expected. He would indeed win a great victory in Jerusalem, but to all those looking on, on the day we call Good Friday, to friend and enemy alike, that victory would look like a defeat. It was impossible that the one God would send could die; it was a scandalous thing that the Messiah could be crucified. Jesus had tried to tell his disciples, but they hadn’t grasped what he was saying, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t accept it. Jesus would be more alone than anyone ever could be, on the way of the Cross. And as the shouts of hosanna surrounded him, he knew it would be the end of him, to enter Jerusalem. But he still did it.
And the manner of his entry was guaranteed to stir things up. He would go into the Temple and angrily cleanse it, throwing out the tables of the money changers and the dealers in pigeons - and in doing so fulfil another Old Testament prophecy, this time from Malachi. What we see here is Jesus being deliberately provocative. He’s forcing the hands of those who held power, forcing them to take action. For his disciples, what happened in Jerusalem must at the time have felt like utter failure, like everything going wrong. But as they reflected in the light of Easter, they would see that in reality Jesus had been in charge all along, forcing the issue.
And this begins today with the King who rides a donkey into the city he claims as his own. Just as Jesus chose to make this provocative statement, so he also chose a particular fulfilment of prophecy that says something about what he was in fact entering the city to do. A king claiming victory would surely enter the city on a warhorse, to seize what was now his, to plunder the wealth of his enemies, to take charge. These days he’d no doubt be accompanied by tanks and other weaponry: showing off his power, making clear who was now in charge.
But Jesus chose to enter his city as a servant. Conquering kings come to take what is now theirs by right of victory. But Sunday Jesus entered Jerusalem not to take anything, but to give everything.
So the story of the death of Jesus, while it’s not about filling in all the biographical details, is where we’re told what we really need to know: what changed the lives of those first disciples, and has gone on changing lives ever since. People may have expected the Messiah to come into the Holy City to exercise earthly power and authority. Some of them were longing for this to happen, others wanted to make sure it didn’t. But Jesus was riding a donkey, a beast of burden. Jesus comes as the servant-king.
He enters Jerusalem to show in God’s city the full breadth of God’s love. He comes to give it all away. He comes to lay down his life. This morning I’ve done something I rarely did as an active Anglican minister: I’ve preached a sermon on Palm Sunday. Usually on this day in my own churches I would not have preached, but we would simply have read in full from one of the Gospels the story of the death of Jesus, the story of the Passion. When you get home after this service, why not do the same? Look up Luke’s version of the Passion Story, and read it quietly and prayerfully, for this is where we discover the truth about Jesus - all we really need to know about him, about our servant-King. And having read it, just be prayerfully open to whatever God may be saying to you about living today in the light of the one who died for love of our love. And in whom we find the way to life in all its fullness.
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