'And when He was come nigh, even now at the descent of
the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the
disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud
voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;
38. Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the
name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the
highest. 38. And some of the Pharisees from among the
multitude said unto Him, Master, rebuke Thy disciples.
40. And He answered and said unto them, I tell you
that, if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out. 41. And when He was come
near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, 42. Saying,
If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy
day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now
they are hid from thine eyes. 43. For the days shall
come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench
about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in
on every side, 44. And shall lay thee even with the
ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall
not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou
knewest not the time of thy visitation. 45. And he
went into the temple, and began to cast out them that
sold therein, and them that bought; 46. Saying unto
them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer:
but ye have made it a den of thieves. 47. And He
taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and
the scribes and the chief of the people sought to
destroy Him, 48. And could not find what they might
do: for all the people were very attentive to hear
Him.'--LUKE xix. 37-48.
'He went on before.' What concentrated determination, and almost
eagerness, impelled His firm and swift steps up the steep, weary
road! Mark tells that the disciples followed, 'amazed'--as they well
might be--at the unusual haste, and strange preoccupation on the
face, set as a flint.
Luke takes no notice of the stay at Bethany and the sweet seclusion
which soothed Jesus there. He dwells only on the assertion of
royalty, which stamped an altogether unique character on the
remaining hours of Christ's life.
I. The narrative brings into prominence Christ's part in originating
the triumphal entry (vs. 30-34). He sent for the colt with the
obvious intention of stimulating the people to just such a
demonstration as followed.
As to the particulars, we need only note that the most obvious
explanation of His knowledge of the circumstances that the
messengers would encounter, is that it was supernatural. Only one
other explanation is possible; namely, that the owners of the animal
were secret disciples, with whom our Lord had arranged to send for
it, and had settled a sign and countersign, by which they would know
His messengers. But that is a less natural explanation.
Note the remarkable blending of dignity and poverty in 'The Lord
hath need of him.' It asserts sovereign authority and absolute
rights, and it confesses need and penury. He is a King, but He has
to borrow even a colt to make His triumphal entry on. Though He was
rich, for our sakes He became poor.
Jesus then deliberately brought about His public entry. He thereby
acts in a way perfectly unlike His whole previous course. And He
stirs up popular feelings at a time when they were specially
excitable by reason of the approaching Passover and its crowds.
Formerly He had avoided the danger which He now seems to court, and
had gone up to the feast 'as it were in secret.' But it was fitting
that once, for the last time, He should assert before the gathered
Israel that He was their King, and should make a last appeal.
Formerly He had sought to avoid attracting the attention of the
rulers; now He knows that the end is near, and deliberately makes
Himself conspicuous, though--or we might say because--He knew that
thereby He precipitated His death.
The nature of His dominion is as plainly taught by the humble pomp
as is its reality. A pauper King, who makes His public entrance into
His city mounted on a borrowed ass, with His followers' clothes for
a saddle, attended by a shouting crowd of poor peasants, for weapons
or banners had but the branches plucked from other people's trees,
was a new kind of king.
We do not need Matthew's quotation of the prophet's vision of the
meek King coming to Zion on an ass, to understand the contrast of
this kingdom with such a dominion as that of Rome, or of such
princes as the Herods. Gentleness and peace, a sway that rests not
on force nor wealth, are shadowed in that rustic procession and the
pathetic poverty of its leader, throned on a borrowed colt, and
attended, not by warriors or dignitaries, but by poor men unarmed,
and saluted, not with the blare of trumpets, but with the shouts of
joyful, though, alas! fickle hearts.
II. We have the humble procession with the shouting disciples and
the background of hostile spies. The disciples eagerly caught at the
meaning of bringing the colt, and threw themselves with alacrity
into what seemed to them preparation for the public assertion of
royalty, for which they had long been impatient. Luke tells us that
they lifted Jesus on to the seat which they hurriedly prepared,
while some spread their garments in the way--the usual homage to a
king:
'Ride on triumphantly; behold, we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in Thy way.'
How different the vision of the future in their minds and His! They
dreamed of a throne; He knew it was a Cross. Round the southern
shoulder of Olivet they came, and, as the long line of the Temple
walls, glittering in the sunshine across the valley, burst on the
view, and their approach could be seen from the city, they broke
into loud acclamations, summoning, as it were, Jerusalem to welcome
its King.
Luke's version of their chant omits the Jewish colouring which it
has in the other Gospels, as was natural, in view of his Gentile
readers. Christ's royalty and divine commission are proclaimed from
a thousand throats, and then up swells the shout of praise, which
echoes the angels' song at Bethlehem, and ascribes to His coming,
power to make peace in heaven with an else alienated world, and thus
to make the divine glory blaze with new splendour even in the
highest heavens.
Their song was wiser than they knew, and touched the deepest,
sweetest mysteries of the unity of the Son with the Father, of
reconciliation by the blood of His Cross, and of the new lustre
accruing to God's name thereby, even in the sight of principalities
and powers in heavenly places. They meant none of these things,
but they were unconscious prophets. Their shouts died away, and
their faith was almost as short-lived. With many of them, it
withered before the branches which they waved.
High-wrought emotion is a poor substitute for steady conviction. But
cool, unemotional recognition of Christ as King is as unnatural. If
our hearts do not glow with loyal love, nor leap up to welcome Him;
if the contemplation of His work and its issues on earth and in
heaven does not make our dumb tongues sing--we have need to ask
ourselves if we believe at all that He is the King and Saviour of
all and of us. There were cool observers there, and they make the
foil to the glad enthusiasm. Note that these Pharisees, mingling in
the crowd, have no title for Jesus but 'Teacher.' He is no king to
them. To those who regard Jesus but as a human teacher, the
acclamations of those to whom He is King and Lord always sound
exaggerated.
People with no depth of religious life hate religious emotion, and
are always seeking to repress it. A very tepid worship is warm
enough for them. Formalists detest genuine feeling. Propriety is
their ideal. No doubt, too, these croakers feared that this tumult
might come to formidable size, and bring down Pilate's heavy hand on
them.
Christ's answer is probably a quoted proverb. It implies His entire
acceptance of the character which the crowd ascribed to Him, His
pleasure in their praises, and, in a wider aspect, His vindication
of outbursts of devout feeling, which shock ecclesiastical martinets
and formalists.
III. We see the sorrowing King plunged in bitter grief in the very
hour of His triumph. Who can venture to speak of that infinitely
pathetic scene? The fair city, smiling across the glen, brings
before His vision the awful contrast of its lying compassed by
armies and in ruins. He hears not the acclamation of the crowd. 'He
wept,' or, rather, 'wailed,'--for the word does not imply tears so
much as cries. That sorrow is a sign of His real manhood, but it is
also a part of His revelation of the very heart of God. The form is
human, the substance divine. The man weeps because God pities.
Christ's sorrow does not hinder His judgments. The woes which wring
His heart will nevertheless be inflicted by Him. Judgment is His
'strange work,' alien from His desires; but it is His work. The eyes
which are as a flame of fire are filled with tears, but their glance
burns up the evil.
Note the yearning in the unfinished sentence, 'If thou hadst known.'
Note the decisive closing of the time of repentance. Note the minute
prophetic details of the siege, which, if ever they were spoken, are
a distinct proof of His all-seeing eye. And from all let us fix in
our hearts the conviction of the pity of the judge, and of the
judgment by the pitying Christ.
IV. We have Christ's exercise of sovereign authority in His Father's
house. Luke gives but a summary in verses 45-48, dwelling mainly on
two points. First he tells of casting out the traders. Two things
are brought out in the compressed narrative--the fact, and the
Lord's vindication of it. As to the former, it was fitting that at
the end of His career, as at the beginning, He should cleanse the
Temple. The two events are significant as His first and last acts.
The second one, as we gather from the other Evangelists, had a
greater severity about it than the first.
The need for a second purifying indicated how sadly transient had
been the effect of the first, and was thus evidence of the depth of
corruption and formalism to which the religion of priests and people
had sunk. Christ had come to cleanse the Temple of the world's
religion, to banish from it mercenaries and self-interested
attendants at the altar, and, in a higher application of the
incident, to clear away all the degradations and uncleannesses which
are associated with worship everywhere but in His Church, and which
are ever seeking, like poisonous air, to find their way in thither
also, through any unguarded chink.
The vindication of the act is in right royal style. The first
cleansing was defended by Him by pointing to the sanctity of 'My
Father's house'; the second, by claiming it as 'My house.' The
rebuke of the hucksters is sterner the second time. The profanation,
once driven out and returning, is deeper; for whereas, in the first
instance, it had made the Temple 'a house of merchandise,' in the
second it turned it into a 'den of robbers.' Thus evil assumes a
darker tint, like old oak, by lapse of time, and swiftly becomes
worse, if rebuked and chastised in vain.
The second part of this summary puts in sharp contrast three
things--Christ's calm courage in continuous teaching in the Temple,
the growing bitter hatred of the authorities, who drew in their train
the men of influence holding no office, and the eager hanging of the
people on His words, which baffled the murderous designs of the
rulers. The same intentional publicity as in the entrance is
obvious. Jesus knew that His hour was come, and willingly presents
Himself a sacrifice. Meekly and boldly He goes on the appointed way.
He sees all the hate working round Him, and lets it work. The day's
task of winning some from impending ruin shall still be done. So
should His servants live, in patient discharge of daily duty, in the
face of death, if need be.
The enemies, who heard His words and found in them only food for
deeper hatred, may warn us of the possibilities of antagonism to Him
that lie in the heart, and of the terrible judgment which they drag
down on their own heads, who hear, unmoved, His daily teaching, and
see, unrepentant, His dying love. The crowd that listened, and, in
less than a week yelled 'Crucify Him,' may teach us to take heed how
we hear, and to beware of evanescent regard for His teaching, which,
if it do not consolidate into resolved and thoroughgoing acceptance
of His work and submission to His rule, will certainly cool into
disregard, and may harden into hate.