Entry of the King of Peace
Palm Sunday
Philippians 4:4-9; John 12:1-18
When Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem, He used a method that was somewhat similar to those used by the ancient prophets: when people cannot listen, hear, even when they do not want to listen, they will still look at actions, at displays, at dramatic illustrations.
The prophet Jeremiah, in order to arouse the conscience and consciousness of the Jewish people about their slave status, put a yoke on his neck and carried it among people (this was 600 years before the birth of Christ).
Undoubtedly, the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem a week before Easter had all the signs of a royal entry – masses in the thousands of people on the sides of the road to Jerusalem greeted enthusiastically, shouting in his honour:
"Hosanna! - Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" (John 12,13)
Thousands of people waved palm branches, many people spread their clothes so that even the donkey on which Jesus rode could walk over those clothes. It is also valuable to understand the entry of Jesus specifically on a donkey. To us, from the point of view of our current understanding, the entry of the king on a donkey looks like a caricature spectacle, something like a parody. Could kings then have ridden donkeys? Wasn't there then a more decent, more representative way of riding, like, for example, riding on horses or on chariots?
In those ancient times in the east of Asia, as well as in the neighbouring countries of Africa, when kings went to war and returned as conquerors through military force, they entered on horses - on horseback, or on gilded chariots.
But when a ruler entered the city (or any area in general) for peaceful purposes, he rode in on a donkey. Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem as the king of peace, as the ruler of human souls, who was destined to serve people. Prophet Zechariah (9.9), hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ, prophesying the arrival of the King of Peace, peace, stated:
"Say to the daughter of Zion: Behold, your King is coming to you! He is submissive and
sat on a donkey, - on a donkey, a son under the yoke" (Also, Matthew 21:5).
Jesus, fulfilling the will of the Heavenly Father, humbly went to his Kingdom to sow and establish peace in human souls, to sit on his throne-cross of suffering on Calvary. A donkey is a submissive, subservient animal, a lowly animal. And He rode on a donkey with humility, so that later He would drink the cup of suffering.
The crowds of people who joyfully and enthusiastically greeted Jesus with a palm branch, of course, did not know that He was going to such a Kingdom, that He was going to occupy His throne on the cross of suffering. But Jesus, as the Son of God - a man of God, was aware of his mission. He spoke to His disciples the day before:
"Behold, we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the high priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and they will hand Him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock Him, and they will spit on Him, and they will scourge Him, and they will kill Him, - but on the third day He will rise again." (Mark 10:33,34)
That is why in that royal meeting of Jesus, when he entered Jerusalem, "sorrow and joy embraced", as our proverb says. Jesus saw not only the present, but also the future - the following days of Thursday and Friday. He also saw the fate of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, which was awaiting punishment and ruin, therefore, entering Jerusalem, He:
“wept over it saying: ‘If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’” (Luke 19:41-44).
The people whom Jesus visited in Jerusalem, although they welcomed him as a king - an earthly ruler - did not understand his divine mission. The people's imagination could only grasp that there would be a king of Israel and, thus, there would be a kingdom of Israel. There would be no enslavement to the Roman state.
When the same nation learned that Jesus is not the king of Israel, that His "Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), they were disappointed and, at the persuasion of the high priests, shouted: "Crucify Him!" and: "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15).
But we, the followers of Christ, know the completeness of the mission of Jesus Christ: we know that He entered Jerusalem for the sake of our salvation, that He progressed to suffering, torment and death to defeat that death, to defeat unrighteousness, and then to rise from the dead, so that God would triumph in our hearts. And, thus, we, with the branch of our native willow, welcome Jesus as the King of Peace, and joyfully and sincerely sing:
"Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" (John 12:13)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.