A NEW KIND OF KING

'All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which

was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter

of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and

sitting upon an ass.'--MATT. xxi. 4, 5.

Our Lord's entrance into Jerusalem is one of the comparatively few

events which are recorded in all the four Gospels. Its singular

unlikeness to the rest of His life, and its powerful influence in

bringing about the Crucifixion, may account for its prominence in

the narratives. It took place probably on the Sunday of Passion

Week. Before the palm branches were withered the enthusiasm had died

away, and the shouting crowd had found out that this was not the

sort of king that they wanted. They might have found that out, even

by the very circumstances of the entrance, for they were profoundly

significant; though their meaning, like so much of the rest of

Christ's life, was less clear to the partakers and spectators than

it is to us. 'These things understood not the disciples at the

first,' says John in closing his narrative of the entrance, 'but

when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that they had done

these things unto Him.'

My object in this sermon is not at all to attempt a pictorial

treatment of this narrative, for these Gospels tell it us a great

deal better than any of us can tell it after them; but to seek to

bring out, if it may be, two or three aspects of its significance.

I. First, then, I ask you to consider its significance as an

altogether exceptional fact in Christ's life.

Throughout the whole of the preceding period, He had had two aims

distinctly in view. One was to shun publicity; and the other was to

damp down the heated, vulgar anticipations of the multitude, who

expected a temporal king. And now here He deliberately, and of set

purpose, takes a step which is like flinging a spark into a powder

barrel. The nation was assembled in crowds, full of the unwholesome

excitement which attended their meeting for the annual feast. All

were in a quiver of expectation; and knowing that, Jesus Christ

originates this scene by His act of sending the two disciples into

the village over against them, to 'bring the ass, and the colt the

foal of an ass.' The reasons for a course so entirely opposed to all

the preceding must have been strong. Let us try to see what they

were.

First, He did it in order to precipitate the conflict which was to end

in His death. Now, had He any right to do that? Knowing as He did the

ferment of expectation into which He was thrusting this new element

of disturbance, and foreseeing, as He must have done, that it would

sharpen the hostility of the rulers of the people to a murderous

degree, how can He be acquitted of one of two things--either singular

shortsightedness or rash foolhardiness in taking such a step? Was He

justified, or was He not?

If we are to look at His conduct from ordinary points of view, the

answer must certainly be that He was not. And we can only understand

this, and all the rest of His actions during the fateful three or

four days that followed it, if we recognise in them the fixed

resolve of One who knew that His mission was not only to live and to

teach by word and life, but to die, and by death to deliver the

world. I take it that it is very hard to save the character of Jesus

Christ for our reverence if we refuse to regard His death as for our

redemption. But if He came, and knew that He came, not only 'to

minister' but 'to give His life a ransom for many,' then we can

understand how He hastened to the Cross, and deliberately set a

light to the train which was to end in that great explosion. On any

other hypothesis it seems to me immensely hard to account for His

act here.

Then, still further, looking at this distinctly exceptional fact in

our Lord's life, we see in it a very emphatic claim to very singular

prerogative and position. He not only thereby presented Himself

before the nation in their collective capacity as being the King of

Israel, but He also did a very strange thing. He dressed Himself, so

to speak, in order to fulfil a prophecy. He posed before the world

as being the Person who was meant by sacred old words. And His

Entrance upon the slow-pacing colt was His voluntary and solemn

assertion that He was the Person of whom the whole stream and

current of divinely sent premonitions and forecasts had been

witnessing from the beginning. He claimed thereby to be the King of

Israel and the Fulfiller of the divine promises that were of old.

Now again, I have to ask the question, Was He right, or was He

wrong? If He was right, then He is a great deal more than a wise

Teacher, and a perfect Example of excellence. If He was wrong, He is

a great deal less. There is no escape from that alternative, as it

seems to me, but by the desperate expedient of denying that He ever

did this thing which this narrative tells us that He did. At all

events I beseech you all, dear friends, to take fairly into your

account of the character of Jesus Christ, this fact, that He, the

meek, the gentle, said that He was meek, and everybody has believed

Him; and that once, in the very crisis of His life, and in

circumstances which make the act most conspicuous, He who always

shunned publicity, nor 'caused His voice to be heard in the

streets,' and steadfastly put away from Himself the vulgar homage

that would have degraded Him into a mere temporal monarch, did

assert that He was the King of Israel and the Fulfiller of prophecy.

Ask yourselves, What does that fact mean?

And then, still further, looking at the act as exceptional in our

Lord's life, note that it was done in order to make one final,

solemn appeal and offer to the men who beheld Him. It was the last

bolt in His quiver. All else had failed, perhaps this might succeed.

We know not the depths of the mysteries of that divine foreknowledge

which, even though it foresees failure, ceases not to plead and to

woo obstinate hearts. But this we may thankfully learn, that, just

as with despairing hope, but with unremitting energy, Jesus Christ,

often rejected, offered Himself once more if perchance He might win

men to repentance, so the loving patience and long-suffering of our

God cease not to plead ever with us. 'Last of all He sent unto them

His Son, saying, They will reverence My Son when they see Him'; and

yet the expectation was disappointed, and the Son was slain. We

touch deep mysteries, but the persistence of the pleading and

rejected love and pity of our God shine through this strange fact.

II. And now, secondly, let me ask you to note its significance as a

symbol.

The prophecy which two out of the four evangelists--viz., Matthew and

John--regard as having been, in some sense, fulfilled by the Entrance

into Jerusalem, would have been fulfilled quite as truly if there had

been no Entrance. For the mere detail of the prophecy is but a

picturesque way of setting forth its central and essential point--viz.,

the meekness of the King. So our Lord's fulfilment is only an external,

altogether subsidiary, accomplishment of the prophecy; and in fact,

like some other of the external correspondences between His life and

the outward details of Old Testament prophecy, is intended for little

more than a picture or a signpost which may direct our thoughts to the

inward correspondence, which is the true fulfilment.

So then, the deed, like the prophecy after which it is moulded, is

wholly and entirely of importance in its symbolical aspect.

The symbolism is clear enough. This is a new kind of King. He comes,

not mounted on a warhorse, or thundering across the battlefield in a

scythe-armed chariot, like the Pharaohs and the Assyrian monarchs,

who have left us their vainglorious monuments, but mounted on the

emblem of meekness, patience, gentleness, and peace. And He is a

pauper King, for He has to borrow the beast on which He rides, and

His throne is draped with the poor, perhaps ragged, robes of a

handful of fishermen. And His attendants are not warriors bearing

spears, but peasants with palm branches. And the salutation of His

royalty is not the blare of trumpets, but the 'Hosanna!' from a

thousand throats. That is not the sort of King that the world calls

a King. The Roman soldiers might well have thought they were

perpetrating an exquisite jest when they thrust the reed into His

unresisting hand, and crushed down the crown of thorns on His

bleeding brows.

But the symbol discloses the very secret of His Kingdom, the

innermost mysteries of His own character and of the forces to which

He intrusts the further progress of His word. Gentleness is royal

and omnipotent; force and violence are feeble. The Lord is in the

still, small voice, not in the earthquake, nor the fire, nor the

mighty wind. The dove's light pinion will fly further than the wings

of Rome's eagles, with their strong talons and blood-dyed beaks. And

the kingdom that is established in meekness, and rules by gentleness

and for gentleness, and has for its only weapons the power of love

and the omnipotence of patience, that is the kingdom which shall be

eternal and universal.

Now all that is a great deal more than pretty sentiment; it has the

closest practical bearing upon our lives. How slow God's Church has

been to believe that the strength of Christ's kingdom is meekness!

Professing Christian men have sought to win the world to their side,

and by wealth or force or persecution, or this, that, or the other

of the weapons out of the world's armoury, to promote the kingdom of

Christ. But it has all been in vain. There is only one power that

conquers hate, and that is meek love. There is only one way by which

Christ's kingdom can stand firm, and that is its unworldly contrast

to all the manner of human dominion. Wheresoever God's Church has

allied itself with secular sovereignties, and trusted in the arm of

flesh, there has the fine gold become dimmed. Endurance wears out

persecution, patient submission paralyses hostile violence, for you

cannot keep on striking down unresisting crowds with the sword. The

Church of Christ is an anvil that has been beaten upon by many

hammers, and it has worn them all out. Meekness is victorious, and

the kingdom of Christ can only be advanced by the faithful

proclamation of His gentle love, from lips that are moved by hearts

which themselves are conformed to His patient image.

Then, still further, let me remind you that this symbol carries in

it, as it seems to me, the lesson of the radical incompatibility of

war with Christ's kingdom and dominion. It has taken the world all

these centuries to begin to learn that lesson. But slowly men are

coming to it, and the day will dawn when all the pomp of warfare,

and the hell of evil passions from which it comes, and which it

stimulates, will be felt to be as utterly incompatible with the

spirit of Christianity as slavery is felt to-day. The prophecy which

underlies our symbol is very significant in this respect.

Immediately upon that vision of the meek King throned on the colt

the foal of an ass, follows this: 'And I will cut off the chariot

from Ephraim, and the horses from Jerusalem; and the battle bow

shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace unto the heathen.'

Let me beseech you, Christian men and women, to lay to heart the

duty of Christ's followers in reference to the influence and

leavening of public opinion upon this matter, and to see to it that,

in so far as we can help, we set ourselves steadfastly against that

devilish spirit which still oppresses with an incubus almost

intolerable, the nations of so-called Christendom. Lift up your

voices be not afraid, but cry, 'We are the followers of the Prince

of Peace, and we war against the war that is blasphemy against His

dominion.'

And so, still further, note the practical force of this symbol as

influencing our own conduct. We are the followers of the meek

Christ. It becomes _us_ to walk in all meekness and gentleness.

'Spirited conduct' is the world's euphemism for unchristian conduct,

in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred. The perspective of virtue

has altered since Jesus Christ taught us how to love. The old

heathen virtues of magnanimity, fortitude, and the like have 'with

shame to take a lower room.' There is something better than these.

The saint has all the virtues of the old heathen hero, and some more

besides, which are higher than these, and those which he has in

common, he has in different proportion. The flaunting tulips and

peonies of the garden of the world seem to outshine the white

snowdrops and the glowing, modest little violets below their leaves,

but the former are vulgar, and they drop very soon, and the latter,

if paler and more delicate, are refined in their celestial beauty.

The slow-pacing steed on which Jesus Christ rides will out-travel

the fiery warhorse, and will pursue its patient, steadfast path till

He 'bring forth righteousness unto judgment,' and 'all the upright

in heart shall follow Him.'

III. Lastly, notice the significance of this fact as a prophecy. It

was, as I have pointed out, the last solemn appeal to the nation,

and in a very real sense it was Christ's coming to judgment. It is

impossible to look at it without seeing, besides all its other

meanings, gleaming dimly through it, the anticipations of that other

coming, when the Lord Himself 'shall descend with a shout, with the

voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God.'

Let me bring into connection with the scene of my text three others,

gathered from various parts of Scripture. In the forty-fifth Psalm

we find, side by side with the great words, 'Ride on prosperously

because of truth and _meekness_ and righteousness,' the others,

'Thine arrows are sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies; the

people shall fall under Thee.' Now, though it is possible that that

later warlike figure may be merely the carrying out of the thought

which is more gently put before us in the former words, still it

looks as if there were two sides to the conquering manifestation of

the king--one being in 'meekness and truth and righteousness,' and

the other in some sense destructive and punitive.

But, however that may be, my second scene is drawn from the last

book of Scripture, where we read that, when the first seal was

opened, there rode forth a Figure, crowned, mounted upon a white

steed, bearing bow and arrow, 'conquering and to conquer.' And,

though that again may be but an image of the victorious progress of

the gentle Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the whole earth, still

it comes as one in a series of judgments, and may rather be taken to

express the punitive effects which follow its proclamation even here

and now.

But there can be no doubt with regard to the third of the scenes

which I connect with the incident of which we are discoursing: 'And

I saw heaven opened, and beheld a white horse; and He that sat upon

Him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth He judge

and make war.... And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with

it He should smite the nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of

iron; and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of

Almighty God.' That is the Christ who came into Jerusalem on the colt

the foal of an ass. That is the Christ who is meek and long-suffering.

There is a reserve of punitive and destructive power in the meek King.

And oh I what can be so terrible as the anger of meekness, the wrath

of infinite gentleness? In the triumphal entry, we find that, when

the procession turned the rocky shoulder of Olivet, and the long line

of the white city walls, with the gilding of the Temple glittering in

the sunshine, burst upon their view, the multitude lifted up their

voices in gladness. But Christ sat there, and as He looked across the

valley, and beheld, with His divine prescience, the city, now so

joyous and full of stir, sitting solitary and desolate, He lifted up

His voice in loud wailing. The Christ wept because He must punish,

but He punished though He wept.

Our Judge is the gentle Jesus, therefore we can hope. The gentle

Jesus is our Judge, therefore let us not presume. I beseech you,

brethren, lay, as these poor people did their garments, your lusts

and proud wills in His way, and join the welcoming shout that hails

the King, 'meek and having salvation.' And then, when He comes forth

to judge and to destroy, you will not be amongst the ranks of the

enemies, whom He will ride down and scatter, but amongst 'the armies

that follow Him, ... clothed in fine linen, clean and pure.'

'Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way when His

wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their

trust in Him.'