Received Him, Received Him Not - Matthew 21.1-16
My Bible subtitles our story for this day, The Triumphal Entry – the traditional label for Jesus’ entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. But we notice the text itself doesn’t use that expression, and it’s worth asking, What triumph was there, in the Palm Sunday event? When John the evangelist looked back on Jesus’ life, he concluded: He came unto his own, and his own received him not. I don’t know that he was speaking of any particular moment – in fact throughout his life you can see both rejection and acceptance. Rejection? Day One: no room in the inn. Day Final: We have no king but Caesar! But if you had to choose one moment when Israel as a nation decided for or against this Messiah, it would have to be that of our text for today. Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry into the Holy City. Matthew 21, from verse 1:
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her.
Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
I suppose you could excuse the Jewish nation for not acclaiming Jesus as Messiah when he was born. They didn’t have a lot to go on. But this is 33 years later, and they no longer have that excuse. On top of all that was said and done during his three years of public ministry, all over Israel, he’s just given his own people a whopping sign. He called a dead man out of his tomb. The opposition acknowledged the force of it in saying to one another: If we let him go on like this, everybody will believe in him. So as to not let him go on like that, they plotted his death.
That was the situation, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: one segment of society believing that he was the promised Messiah and ready to proclaim him so, another segment looking for a way to kill him.
And it wasn’t just one city in Israel that was deciding. This was Jerusalem at Passover time, when the city was swelled to multiples of its population with pilgrims from all over the Jewish world (like Muslim pilgrims gathering in Mecca). So it was, in a real sense, the Jews as a people who were accepting or rejecting.
On the approach to the city Jesus and his company made a stop, and a significant one. Bethphage was on the slope of the Mount of Olives, and Jewish tradition had it that the Messiah, in his coming, would set foot first on the Mount of Olives. It was also the last stop on the way before one came in view of Jerusalem, and hence the last opportunity for some rearranging.
Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
Obviously, his riding in on a donkey wasn’t just a question of being footsore and finding something handy. There was a prophecy to be fulfilled, and a statement to be made. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Zechariah’s words foresaw a coming king, and by mounting a donkey, Jesus was proclaiming himself. At least to those who knew that prophecy, and who could accept such a king: gentle, and riding on a donkey. You don’t cut a dashing figure on a donkey, a donkey colt even less, lifting your feet to keep them from dragging on the ground. But that was Zechariah’s picture of the Messiah.
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
If Jesus was making a statement with the donkey, the crowds were making one with their cloaks. This from 2 Kings 9 (breaking into the middle of a story):
Jehu said, “Here is what he told me: ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’”
13 They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”
The cloaks laid down said, Make way for the King!
9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
Hosanna! Hebrew word for Save us! - but in this context it’s acclamation of praise, for a Savior.
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
A few weeks ago we read of another occasion where Jesus had people clamoring to proclaim him king. He’s just fed a crowd of 5000 from one kid’s lunch, and it says, they wanted to make him king by force. Free meals, freedom from the Romans, they’ll have him as their king, whether he’s willing or not. Here it’s a whole different story. It’s God’s king and kingdom they’re recognizing, that he’s coming in the name of the Lord, on his terms. Jesus fled from that first crowd. Not so today.
So, shouting praise to God, and welcome to their Messiah, the procession moves toward the city. Notice, there’s mention of crowds, plural. There were two, the pilgrim band that had been traveling with Jesus meeting the crowd from the city that heard of his approach. The two became one: one big joyous procession, shouting, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
Jerusalem was a political powder keg at that time, and you wouldn’t approach it unnoticed, if you were cheering for a Messiah. Who is this Messiah?
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Having read this far, you’d scarcely conclude with John that His own received him not. To appearances, his own are doing pretty well, and if you read on, it only gets better. Verse 12:
12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“‘From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise’?”
Jesus had done much to prepare the disciples for this trip, telling them what to expect, and that without any sugar-coating. In Mark 12:
He took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”
It’s hard to know how much of that they understood or accepted, but they did approach the trip with the air of people going to their own funeral. When Jesus proposed to them a trip to Bethany (which was close by Jerusalem), Thomas says to the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Not a cheerful prospect, this going to Jerusalem..
But now they’re there, and it’s like the clouds have blown away and the sun is shining: thousands of people acclaiming Jesus as Messiah, kids shouting it in the temple, the merchants and moneychangers thrown out of the temple and the blind and lame welcomed in for healing? And when the temple officialdom complains Jesus shuts them down. You wonder if the disciples could have let themselves hope that maybe, just maybe, everything’s going to turn out right after all. Maybe Jesus’ own people will receive him as Messiah and King. Maybe the temple will become what it was meant to be, a house of prayer and healing and praise. This was Sunday, and at least this one day it looked like it.
Friday next, Jesus would be the center of another procession, out of the city this time, carrying a cross. And instead of joyful hosannas to the Son of David, there would be angry calls of Crucify him! We have no king but Caesar!
So that’s Palm Sunday. If you didn’t have the rest of the week to correct the impression, you’d call it a glorious time, a smashing success, a triumph. The remarkable thing was, Jesus foresaw the rest of the week, with no illusions. He saw Friday coming. And still he made himself a party to this street demonstration, and accepted people’s praise. Indeed he invited it, when he mounted the donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy.
Do you wonder why? And what was the point of this demonstration? As we saw, it wasn’t something that just happened to Jesus, it was a statement he himself made, a statement that demanded a response. When a king claims as his domain the ground you’re standing on, you can’t very well be neutral. Either you’re with him, a loyalist, a king’s man, or you’re a rebel. John said, he came unto his own. And Friday the answer came back pretty clearly. Crucify him! His own received him not. But John’s verse goes on: To as many as received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become God’s children. Palm Sunday may have been a flat failure for the bigwigs of the Jewish nation. But for the kids it was wonderful. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he gave to little people, the common people, the chance to own him as Lord and King. And a lot of them did, and God made them his children.
That same choice, in fact, is before us today. Neutrality would be comfortable, but it’s not offered. We may feel a step distant from Jews that day, deciding for or against their king. But he also came as Savior – and that touches every one who needs saving. In fact, every last one of us. You’re either in the lifeboat or you’re not, as you receive him or not.
Another lesson of the day: God is God, and merits our praise, even when things aren’t going too well. Indeed, even when things are coming crashing down. The praise shouters couldn’t see Friday coming, but if they could have, should that have mattered? Should not, in fact, their praise have been all the louder – as if to say, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord? It’s more fun to worship in a full sanctuary than where two or three are gathered. But he’s still God, and still merits our praise, when we’re two or three. Two or three can shout hosanna, and God will be blessed.
Finally, and maybe most important, God welcomes our praise and worship on Sunday, even when he knows full well that before week’s end we’ll be falling flat. Jesus is still our Lord and King, even when we fail him. Turn over a few pages to the Garden of Gethsemane scene, where Jesus asks his disciples to watch with him and pray. He comes back, and they’re sleeping. He wakes them up, bawls them out, and sets them back to praying. Three times over he does this. He doesn’t say, I’ve had it with you guys, forget it.
This is a week of high holy days and special programs, designed to honor the Lord and communicate his good news. God knows the imperfection of our efforts, and even when we do pretty well he knows the mixture of our motives. Yet he doesn’t say to his people, Forget it, I don’t want to hear it. Praise the Lord, who accepts our praise and worship and prayer and service – as it comes – and at the same time is willing to take us back to the rough spots, to keep working till we get it right.