KING JESUS
John 12:14-15
Jesus, having found a young donkey, sat on it. As it is written, ‘ Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King comes, sitting on a donkey’s colt.’
There is an ancient saying that there is a huge difference between the two things when somebody is a donkey of the kings or somebody is the king of the donkeys, but in both cases he is a donkey.
We know that the protagonist of the Palm Sunday is Jesus, but there is someone else present too with a major significance in the story, and it happened to be a donkey or rather a colt of a donkey.
If you think that an animal is just an animal, please think it twice.
We all know that donkeys have a very special psyche, called extreme stubbornness or independent wisdom as we wish to call it, but some of the donkeys can even speak as well.
According to the 22nd chapter of the Book of the Numbers written by Moses or the circle of Isaiah in the 8th century BCE, the donkey of a Midianite Prophet called Balaam, was able to see the angel of God standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand, as it is written that "standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and the donkey turned out of the path, and went into the field. Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the path. (...)
Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw Yahweh’s angel standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face."
Thus the donkey in the Gospel story must not be negligible, especially because the Gospel is underlining its significance as a visible sign of the Messianic event prophesied by Zechariah and quoted by Matthew that “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
It is repeated by John as well that " Don't be afraid, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King comes, sitting on a donkey's colt."
From the Gospels it is obvious that Jesus deliberately reenacted this prophecy choosing a donkey as his mount, and the whole Palm Sunday prosession served as a live tableaux, presenting the fulfillment of the Zecharian prophecy to the crowd.
It was definitely a royal march, intended to claim the throne of Jerusalem.
The attending people well understood the symbolism it represented as it is written in the Gospel of Luke, that many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields and they greeted him as King, or more precisely as the Messiah King, as they shouted that “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
The Christ title might be not only a heavenly defined divine term, but projecting it to the Earth it is also a human term. However, the Son of David as a Messiah title in the Gospel story of the Palms Sunday procession, according to the Gospel of Matthew, is exclusively so Jewish as the five books of Moses is Jewish.
For Christianity, Christ is the omnipresent King of the Earth, ruling on behalf of God, for the Jews, the Messiah is the King of Israel, anointed by a prophet, appointed by God. Around Easter we are a little bit preoccupied with the Messianic title and the arrival of the Messiah King.
Nonetheless, it was known to everyone at that time, that in order to gain a minimal credibility from the general society of old, especially from the elites, any Messiah claimant must have had a real royal pedigree according to the tradition and even to the prophecies, which meant that the upcoming Messiah King was assumed to be a real Royal descent from a real, historical, Jewish, royal family.
That is why the very title of the Son of David meant a descendant from the Royal House of David, and it became a requirement to be named as Messiah, as it is depicted in the prophecies.
According to the Gospel of Matthew the crowd greeted Jesus as a Son of David, shouting that “Hosanna to the Son of David!” a title which Jesus himself never used, but the title of the Son of Man. Nonetheless, Matthew agrees here with Matthew, when in his Gospel he also provides the genealogy of Jesus descending from King David through King Solomon and Bethsabe, giving proof that Jesus had the required pedigree.
However, in a debate, Jesus, himself, challenged this view, when once “the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘Of David.’ …
He said: “If then David calls the Messiah Lord, how is the Messiah his son?” No one was able to answer him a word, neither did any man dare ask him any more questions from that day forward.”
This gospel event was taken by some people as a hint that maybe the blurry genealogy chart provided by the Gospels was not a factual statement, but it served to hide protect the family members of Jesus from further persecution.
If the Davidic family tree chart had been a cover, as some Bible scholars speculated, then maybe Jesus had a real, contemporary royal connection, through his mother.
It may sound absurd, though Pontius Pilate made the written reason of the execution nailed onto the cross, that this is Jesus Nazarenus, the King of the Jews. According to the Gospel, the leaders protested at Pilate, why he wrote the King of the Jews, and why not that he claimed to be the King of the Jews?
Pilate answered them, saying, that I wrote what I wrote, like officially asserting the royal status of Jesus. The debate, of which royal house Jesus really and historically came from, belongs to the earthly debaters.
As followers of Jesus, who is our King and Friend, Redeemer and Savior, we can just humbly stay with the Gospel of Luke, saying that "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!"
As it is also repeated by John today, that "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!"
May the Lord be Blessed by the Holy Spirit in a hopeful and powerful renewal of life in the year of 2024 on the very Palms Sunday and always, AMEN
