'On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they
heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees,
and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of
Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when He had
found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of
Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things
understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was
glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him,
and that they had done these things unto Him. The people therefore that
was with Him when He called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him
from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met Him, for
that they heard that He had done this miracle. The Pharisees therefore
said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing! behold, the
world is gone after Him. And there were certain Greeks among them that
came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip,
which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we
would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and
Philip tell Jesus, and Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come,
that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto
you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his
life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall
keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and
where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him
will My Father honour.'—JOHN xii. 12-26.
The difference between John's account of the entry into Jerusalem and
those of the Synoptic Gospels is very characteristic. His is much
briefer, but it brings the essentials out clearly, and is particular in
showing its place as a link in the chain that drew on the final
catastrophe, and in noting its effect on various classes.
'The next day' in verse 12 was probably the Sunday before the
crucifixion. To understand the events of that day we must try to
realise how rapidly, and, as the rulers thought, dangerously,
excitement was rising among the crowds who had come up for the
Passover, and who had heard of the raising of Lazarus. The Passover was
always a time when national feeling was ready to blaze up, and any
spark might light the fire. It looked as if Lazarus were going to be
the match this time, and so, on the Saturday, the rulers had made up
their minds to have him put out of the way in order to stop the current
that was setting in, of acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.
They had already made up their minds to dispose of Jesus, and now, with
cynical contempt for justice, they determined to 'put Lazarus also to
death.' So there were to be two men who were to 'die for the people.'
Keeping all this wave of popular feeling in view, it might have been
expected that Jesus would, as hitherto, have escaped into privacy, or
discouraged the offered homage of a crowd whose Messianic ideal was so
different from His.
John is mainly concerned in bringing out two points in his version of
the incident. First, he tells us what we should not have gathered from
the other Evangelists, that the triumphal procession began in
Jerusalem, not in Bethany. It was the direct result of the ebullition
of enthusiasm occasioned by the raising of Lazarus. The course of
events seems to have been that 'the common people of the Jews' came
streaming out to Bethany on the Sunday to gape and gaze at the risen
man and Him who had raised him, that they and some of those who had
been present at the raising went back to the city and carried thither
the intelligence that Jesus was coming in from Bethany next day, and
that then the procession to meet Him was organised.
The meaning of the popular demonstration was plain, both from the palm
branches, signs of victory and rejoicing, and from the chant, which is
in part taken from Psalm cxviii. The Messianic application of that
quotation is made unmistakable by the addition, 'even the King of
Israel.' In the Psalm, 'he that cometh in the name of Jehovah,' means
the worshipper drawing near to the Temple, but the added words divert
the expression to Jesus, hail Him as the King, and invoke Him as
'Saviour.' Little did that shouting crowd understand what sort of a
Saviour He was. Deliverance from Rome was what they were thinking of.
We must remember what gross, unspiritual notions of the Messiah they
had, and then we are prepared to feel how strangely unlike His whole
past conduct Jesus' action now was. He had shrunk from crowds and their
impure enthusiasm; He had slipped away into solitude when they wished
to come by force to make Him a King, and had in every possible way
sought to avoid publicity and the rousing of popular excitement. Now He
deliberately sets Himself to intensify it. His choice of an ass on
which to ride into Jerusalem was, and would be seen by many to be, a
plain appropriation to Himself of a very distinct Messianic prophecy,
and must have raised the heat of the crowd by many degrees. One can
fancy the roar of acclaim which hailed Him when He met the multitude,
and the wild emotion with which they strewed His path with garments
hastily drawn off and cast before Him.
Why did He thus contradict all His past, and court the smoky enthusiasm
which He had hitherto damped? Because He knew that 'His hour' had come,
and that the Cross was at hand, and He desired to bring it as speedily
as might be, and thus to shorten the suffering that He would not avoid,
and to finish the work which He was eager to complete. The impatience,
as we might almost call it, which had marked Him on all that last
journey, reached its height now, and may indicate to us for our
sympathy and gratitude both His human longing to get the dark hour over
and His fixed willingness to die for us.
But even while Jesus accepted the acclamations and deliberately set
Himself to stir up enthusiasm, He sought to purify the gross ideas of
the crowd. What more striking way could He have chosen of declaring
that all the turbulent passions and eagerness for a foot-to-foot
conflict with Rome which were boiling in their breasts were alien to
His purposes and to the true Messianic ideal, than that choosing of the
meek, slow-pacing ass to bear Him? A conquering king would have made
his triumphal entry in a chariot or on a battle-horse. This strange
type of monarch is throned on an ass. It was not only for a verbal
fulfilment of the prophecy, but for a demonstration of the essential
nature of His kingdom, that He thus entered the city.
John characteristically takes note of the effects of the entry on two
classes, the disciples and the rulers. The former remembered with a
sudden flash of enlightenment the meaning of the entry when the Cross
and the Resurrection had taught them it. The rulers marked the popular
feeling running high with bewilderment, and were, as Jesus meant them
to be, made more determined to take vigorous measures to stop this
madness of the mob.
The second incident in this passage contrasts remarkably with the
first, and yet is, in one aspect, a continuation of it. In the former,
Jesus brought into prominence the true nature of His rule by His
choosing the ass to carry Him, so declaring that His dominion rested,
not on conquest, but on meekness. In the latter, He reveals a yet
deeper aspect of His work, and teaches that His influence over men is
won by utter self-sacrifice, and that His subjects must tread the same
path of losing their lives by which He passes to His glory. The details
of the incident are of small importance as compared with that great and
solemn lesson; but we may note them in a few words. The desire of a few
Greeks to see Him was probably only a reflection of the popular
enthusiasm, and was prompted mainly by curiosity and the characteristic
Greek eagerness to see any 'new thing.' The addressing of the request
to Philip is perhaps explained by the fact that he 'was of Bethsaida of
Galilee,' and had probably come into contact with these Greeks in the
neighbouring Decapolis, on the other side of the lake. Philip's
consultation of his fellow-townsman, Andrew, who is associated with him
in other places, probably implies hesitation in granting so
unprecedented a request. They did not know what Jesus might say to it.
And what He did say was very unlike anything that they could have
anticipated.
The trivial request was as a narrow window through which Jesus'
yearning spirit saw a great expanse—nothing less than the coming to Him
of myriads of Gentiles, the 'much fruit' of which He immediately
speaks, the 'other sheep' whom He 'must bring.' The thought must have
been ever present to Him, or it would never have leaped to utterance on
such an occasion. The little window shows us, too, what was habitually
in His mind and heart. He, as it were, hears the striking of the hour
of His glorification; in which expression the ideas of His being
glorified by drawing men to the knowledge of His love, and of the Cross
being not the lowest depth of His humiliation, but the highest apex of
His glory—as it is always represented in this Gospel—seemed to be fused
together.
The seed must die if a harvest is to spring from it. That is the law
for all moral and spiritual reformations. Every cause must have its
martyrs. No man can be fruit-bearing unless he sacrifices himself. We
shall not 'quicken' our fellows unless we 'die,' either literally or by
the not less real martyrdom of rigid self-crucifixion and suppression.
But that necessity is not only for Apostles or missionaries of great
causes; it is the condition of all true, noble life, and prescribes the
path not only for those who would live for others, but for all who
would truly live their own lives. Self-renunciation guards the way to
the 'tree of life.' That lesson was specially needed by 'Greeks,' for
ignorance of it was the worm that gnawed the blossoms of their trees,
whether of art or of literature. It is no less needed by our sensuously
luxurious and eagerly acquisitive generation. The world's war-cries
to-day are two—'Get!' 'Enjoy!' Christ's command is, 'Renounce!' And in
renouncing we shall realise both of these other aims, which they who
pursue them only, never attain.
Christ's servant must be Christ's follower: indeed service is
following. The Cross has aspects in which it stands alone, and is
incapable of being reproduced and makes all repetition needless. But it
has also an aspect in which it not only _may_, but _must_, be
reproduced in every disciple. And he who takes it for the ground of his
trust only, and not as the pattern of his life, has need to ask himself
whether his trust in it is genuine or worth anything. Of course they
who follow a leader will arrive where the leader has gone, and though
our feet are feeble and our progress devious and slow, we have here His
promise that we shall not be lost in the desert, but, sustained by Him,
will reach His side, and at last be where He is.