Wednesday Evening

September 21, 2005

Mark 11:1-11
“Hosanna”

Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

       Only Jesus can help us in times of trial and tribulation, and although we shift gears from concerns over Katrina and Rita back into the Scriptures, it is only right that we do that. This is the source of all of our strength in every circumstance of life. In chapter 11 we come to the point where Jesus enters into Jerusalem, and of course He will not leave Jerusalem.  This is the final week of Jesus’ ministry.

       Turn with me to Mark, chapter eleven, and we will read together the opening eleven verses. Before we do so, let’s come to God in prayer.

       Our Father in heaven, we bow in Your presence. We thank You for the Bible, that enormous gift that You’ve given to us. We pray that we might treasure it; that we might always hide it within our hearts, that we might not sin against You.  Turn our eyes toward Jesus. Help us to look full in His wonderful face, that the things of the world may grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.  Come, Holy Spirit, and illuminate these words that You caused to be written. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

       This is God’s holy and inerrant word.

       “And as they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, and said to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. And if anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it;’ and immediately he will send it back here.’ And they went away and found a colt tied at the door outside in the street; and they untied it.  And some of the bystanders were saying to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ And they spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. And they brought colt to Jesus and put their garments on it; and He sat upon it. And many spread their garments in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before, and those who followed after, were crying out,

                    ‘Hosanna!

                    Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;

                    Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;

                    Hosanna in the highest!’

       And He entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking all around, He departed for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.”

       Thus far God’s holy and inerrant word.

    Alea iacta est – the famous words, of course, of Julius Caesar – “The die is cast,” as he crossed the Rubicon with his tremendous army, coming back to Rome and sending a signal throughout the Empire, but certainly to the city of Rome, that sent the Emperor Pompeii fleeing and ultimately to his death in Egypt; and it would be the rise of Julius Caesar as the Emperor of Rome.

       They had crossed the Rubicon, and in many ways, Jesus is crossing the Rubicon.  He is coming to Jerusalem...Jerusalem, which will be the source of all of His final trouble that will lead to His eventual death in a week’s time.  It’s a new section in Mark’s gospel.  It’s Holy Week.  It’s Passion Week. This is Sunday, Palm Sunday.  Jesus and His disciples have come at last to Jerusalem, and there’s a note here even on a cursory level that everything that happens has intentionality about it. There’s nothing that happens here that is meant to be interpreted as a chance occurrence, a whim.  Jesus is in full control of what is transpiring in this week that lies before Him.  He’s taking the initiative from the very start, sending disciples ahead to find this colt and bring it back for whatever purpose, as we shall see in a moment, but sending the signal that He’s in control of this. He’s thought about it, planned it...of course, from all eternity.  John Murray says, “He took His soul in one hand and His body in the other and tore them apart.” 

       Great crowds are gathered at Jerusalem. It’s Passover.  Passover was one of the three great mandated celebrations where the diaspora Jews would come back to Jerusalem.  Passover especially was the largest of the celebrations, festivals, that Jews from distant parts would come.  If Josephus is to be believed (and he’s not always to be believed!)...but, if Josephus is to be believed, the population of Jerusalem could well swell to over two and a half million.  Normally, it would be just over half a million.  So Jerusalem was, then, a relatively...we would probably think of it as a small town, but it was a relatively small city, but it’s full of people preparing for Passover.  Some are in a state of great excitement.  We don’t know how many – probably not a lot, otherwise the Romans would probably have done something about it from the very start...they were very vigilant about Jewish uprisings during some of these celebrations, and particularly Passover – but some of them, a large crowd, we read in verse 8, had come together.  Perhaps some of them had seen what John records that had taken place in Bethany: the raising of Lazarus. If they hadn’t been at Bethany, they would certainly by now have heard of the raising of Lazarus, so there’s an enormous amount of excitement.

       What are we to make of this story, Palm Sunday? When Thomas Cranmer, in the sixteenth century, middle of the sixteenth century, was putting together The Book of Common Prayer, the collect, the prayer suitable for Palm Sunday stressed that the one great thing that we are to learn from this passage is the example of His great humility. Now, no doubt that is indeed one of the lessons that we are meant to learn. Jesus in humility coming into Jerusalem, and we, His disciples, are likewise to be humble. But I want us to focus not on that so much (although I think it is a part of this story); I want us to focus on two other considerations that come to the surface as we look at this passage together. 

       The first is that it point to Jesus of Nazareth, the true King of Israel.  The true King of Israel. There’s something very deliberate about what Jesus does here at the Mount of Olives. It’s not terribly clear exactly where they are in relation to Bethphage on the one hand (and we’re not absolutely sure where Bethphage is, in the first place), but where they are in Bethphage and Bethany.  Even the reading, at least of the New American Standard, is a little awkward in the translation of it as to where exactly they are, but He’s obviously been in Bethany. The raising of Lazarus in John’s gospel suggests He’s been in Bethany. They are on their way towards the Mount of Olives.  You can picture Jerusalem: Mount of Olives to the south, Bethphage and Bethany are small villages a couple of miles (two, three, four miles) outside of Jerusalem.  Bethany was a place where Jesus often went, the place where Lazarus and Mary and Martha lived.  It was the “Holiday Inn” for Jesus; whenever He was down in the region of Jerusalem, He stayed with this wonderful, extraordinary family in Bethany.

       But He sends two of His disciples ahead, probably to Bethphage, and there to get...well, we always think of it as a donkey, although Mark doesn’t call it a donkey; he calls it a colt or maybe a foal of a donkey. Whatever it is, they’re to bring this colt back in order that He may utilize it as a beast of burden to carry Him into Jerusalem. But why a donkey or a colt? Why not a horse?

       Pilgrims walked into Jerusalem. Jesus always walked.  He never rode on a horse or a donkey at any other period of time, as far as we know. So why is He doing this now? There’s something very deliberate about it.  One thinks of the great horses in Lord of the Rings:  Shadowfax, and Arod, and Hasufel – three of the great horses, magnificent horses.  I think my favorite moment in the movie is when Gandalf whistles for Shadowfax, and he’s down in the pasture below. In the book, he comes up with Arod and Hasufel. That doesn’t occur in the movie. Tolkien describes Shadowfax as “a horse that might have been from the earliest of time.”  So why is Jesus riding a donkey, a colt?  He’s a king, after all!  He is proclaiming Himself as the King of the Jews.

       Jesus is, of course, thinking about the Old Testament.  He’s pondering how He Himself is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.  I think Jesus was always doing that, always mulling over Old Testament passages, biblical passages that spoke about Himself. That was the burden that He had, you remember, on the Emmaus Road; to the two forlorn disciples, speaking in all the Scriptures about the things concerning Himself. Well, today it is Zechariah 9:9 that is on His mind:

 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

    He’s deliberately taking that passage now and fulfilling it in the eyes of His disciples.  Only a king could commandeer an animal like this without any suspicion that he was stealing this colt. According to two passages in the Old Testament, one in Deuteronomy and another one in Numbers, an unbroken beast of burden was regarded as sacred. The crowd saw it as a kingly gesture, because they did something that they would only do for kings: spreading their garments on the ground as an act of homage.

       There’s an interesting reference in II Kings 19:23 about Jehu.  Jehu’s fellow officers did this. “Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, “Jehu is king!” 

       The King has come to bring salvation to His people...but He doesn’t look like a king.  He’s riding a donkey.  You know, it’s comical, isn’t it? Think of it!  There’s something...my mother loved donkeys. We only had one horse – it wasn’t Shadowfax, but he was an old farm horse, you know?  One of those huge beasts.  I remember as a little child having to get up on top of a wall in order to get up on top of the horse!  But we had half a dozen donkeys. They were of no use whatsoever; it was just that my mother liked them.  And they were ridiculous!  They were wonderful, marvelous creatures with big floppy ears, and they would come up to the gate every time you went towards the gate, but to try and ride on a donkey...you’ve seen it, and you can think of sketches that come to mind.  Riding on a donkey...there’s something whimsical about it...there’s something comical about it.

       There’s something not right about it.  You want Jesus on Shadowfax.  You want Jesus on a steed with a pedigree, a marvelous horse with muscles bristling everywhere and shining, glinting in the sun.  Imagine Ben Hur on donkeys! Think of what the first readers of this epistle, Christians in Rome (which is where Mark intended the gospel to go)...think of what they would think as they read this. They weren’t there in Jerusalem, and they’re reading this account. They had seen emperors, they had seen mighty Roman generals come back from war and riding down on marvelous, magnificent horses, declaring strength and power and success and victory. But imagine...imagine Julius Caesar on a donkey! 

       But that’s it, isn’t it?  That’s why Luther calls Jesus “a poor beggar King.”  A poor beggar King...you see, there’s a contrast.  You know the contrast.  In the Book of Revelation, in the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation we read of One, namely Jesus, who sat on a horse, and He’s called faithful and true, and heaven erupts with shouts of “Hallelujah!”  They realize that the time for the new Jerusalem is near. A true wedding is about to take place, and all the claims of all the suitors of the bride of Christ have now been dealt with, and Babylon has crumbled (in chapters 17 and 18), and the Lamb has come, and He’s riding a horse, a magnificent horse, as it should be. And we nod in agreement; that’s how Jesus should enter the city – but not on a donkey.

       But that horse is future, because before Jesus will wear the crown of victory He must first of all bear the cross of shame.  It’s a little pointer to us of the nature of His humiliation.  It points, then, to the King that has come.

       But in the second place, it points to the worship that we should offer when we recognize Him as King. The crowds greet Him with their cloaks and palm branches, we often think...though Mark seems to think that they cut these from the fields, so it may have been sheaves of corn that they were actually waving. (Our tradition doesn’t allow us to think that way.  We think of palm branches, leafy branches of some description.) And they’re shouting, “Hosanna!” – the Greek word, hosanna.  It’s doing exactly what the English translators are doing: they’re transliterating a word, and actually they’re transliterating a Hebrew word, hashiana, and that Hebrew phrase is found in one solitary place in the Old Testament, in Psalm 118:25, where it means save; save us.  It’s a cry to God for help, but over the years hashiana came to mean not the cry for help so much as a shout of hope and exaltation: “Salvation...salvation has come!”  Psalm 118 – you understand why Psalm 118 is on their minds: it’s Passover.  What are the Psalms that are recited at Passover?  According to the liturgical tradition of Passover, it’s the Hillel Psalms – Psalms 113 through 118. We’ll come to those Psalms – well, it will probably be a new year before we get down to those Psalms, but we’re heading into those Hillel Psalms, the Passover Psalms – culminating in a climactic way with Psalm 118. Psalm 118 depicts a defeated...kingly figure, but he’s been defeated in battle, and he’s reaching the gates of the city, and he’s allowed entrance. And then a chorus of praise goes up from the priests – pronounce blessings upon the people, and everyone is invited to a feast. And that’s the Psalm that is on their minds as they see Jesus riding on this colt. The section of the Psalm that is quoted in [Mark] verses 9, 10, and 11:

“Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!”

       Remember, this Psalm is quoted in another place in the New Testament, in the First Epistle of Peter. Do you remember the section that occurs in Psalm 118 immediately before the section that’s being quoted here?  It’s very familiar to you.  It’s the section that says,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” 

And then follows the section that is actually being quoted here in Mark 11. 

       Peter loved Psalm 118.  You know why Peter loved Psalm 118: because it’s about stones and rocks, and what did Jesus call Peter?  “Rocky!”  A rock!  “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades [or hell] will not prevail against it.”  I think Peter was fascinated at the idea that here is Jesus, and He’s a cornerstone on which the entire building depends. And He’s also a rejected stone, and He’s also for some a stumbling stone; and then, for others, for Christians, He is a chosen and precious stone...a chosen and precious stone. 

       So here’s Peter citing the same Psalm, alluding...it’s a Messianic Psalm, a Psalm about Jesus.  It’s a Psalm about Jesus as the cornerstone of God’s redemptive purposes, and saving sinners like you and me. And that stone is rejected by some and stumbled over by others, and then regarded as chosen and precious by the Lord’s people.

       Do you remember what Peter says next, in I Peter 2? Turn with me to it for a second.  First Peter, chapter two, and it occurs there in verse 4 of I Peter 2:

“And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.”

So for Peter, one of the first consequences of this great Messianic Psalm which has come to the minds of these worshipers in Jerusalem as they see Jesus riding on this colt is fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, but it’s Psalm 118 that comes to the fore. Peter says one of the consequences of Jesus as this great cornerstone is that we should offer spiritual sacrifices to the Lord, and we are heralds declaring the praises of God, Peter goes on to say. And then he goes on to say in verse 9,

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation; a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 

       And Peter is marrying together, of course, allusions to the Book of Isaiah, but also drawing this out of Psalm 118.  Isn’t that exactly what these disciples and Passover celebrants in Jerusalem are also doing?  They are declaring the praises of God. They are declaring the praises of God.

       In one sense, there’s something not right about this picture.  I’ve been pondering it more or less all day today.  This picture of Jesus, the Creator, the maker of heaven and earth, the One who sustains all things by the word of His power; the One who will come as the great Judge at the end of the ages – and we didn’t look at Revelation 19, but it will make your stomach curdle at the thought of what awaits the wicked damned by the rider on this magnificent horse who comes in triumph at the end of the Day of Judgment.

       But there’s something here: How can Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, be riding on a donkey?  It’s comical – no, it’s tragic; it’s filled with pathos. There’s something about it that ought not to be.  You want to say, ‘Lord, not that way. The garments strewn on the back of this beast by the disciples, the garments on the road, the waving of these branches – it’s not enough for our blessed Lord.’  But this is the way of Jesus. This is why He had come. He came for the likes of you and me, us poor, wretched, miserable, condemned, Adam-inheriting sinners.  And for Him the way the Savior comes is by self-denial and self- abnegation: “He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God makes Himself of no reputation.”  And He’s saying to Jerusalem... and isn’t it a poignant thing?  Isn’t it a terribly, terribly moving thing, in verse 11, that He enters Jerusalem?  Imagine what’s going through His mind as He enters this city, this marvelous, historic city with all of its sights and sounds and smells, with all of its redemptive significance...and He goes to the temple...He goes to the temple.  He came into the temple where God was worshiped, where the Lord of glory was worshiped; and after looking all around, He departs for Bethany for the night.

       And Mark, in the economy of Mark’s style as a writer of the gospel – the words are so economical, aren’t they?  He goes into the temple and He looks around, and what does He see in Jerusalem but darkness?  Abject darkness, the kind of darkness that you and I went through a few weeks ago in the middle of the night when there was no ambient light whatsoever, and you looked around and you couldn’t see anything.  This is the city that will betray Him.  Its priests and celebrants in the temple will be leaders and the instigators of the mockery of His trial within days of this event.

“Alas! And did my Savior bleed,

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?”

    And I put it to you that once again seeing the vision of Jesus riding on this comical beast into the magnificent city underscores for us again His mission. He had come to give His life, a ransom for many.  He’d come to this world to die in this city on behalf of sinners like you and me. And I think if we had been there that day, I’m sure we would have been caught up in the enthusiasm of this crowd, too; but coming back to this two thousand years later, I think that we would bow our heads in shame and weep.

       This is what it takes to redeem us and deliver us from our sin, that we, you and I, might be presented as living stones in a temple that Jesus will build, where He Himself will be the chief cornerstone of that building. And, to change the metaphor, that we might be presented as a bride to Christ, and to be ushered into that great marriage supper of the Lamb.

       Well, this is Palm Sunday: Jesus entering the city that will betray Him.

       Let’s pray together.

       Our Father in heaven, our hearts go out to those tonight of our brothers and sisters especially who have lost so much in these last few days, and alas, for some who may well lose more in the coming week.  It is a very forcible reminder that here we have no continuing city, and we pray, O Lord, in a way that only You can do by Your Spirit, fill them with Your Spirit that enables them in faith to lay hold of these sweet promises that You will indeed bring us to that state of glory hereafter. We pray now for this word that we have been contemplating together, and ask that in Your gracious mercy You would so hide it in our hearts that we might bow and worship and adore the majesty of King Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King.  Help us, O Lord, to be better disciples for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

       Please stand; receive the Lord’s benediction.

       Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.