We are now two months away from the extended weekend of celebration for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I don’t know if there are any street parties planned where you live. Here in the parish of Old St Pancras there will be a thanksgiving service at St Mary’s Somers Town, and similar events will be taking place up and down the country, not least in St Paul’s Cathedral of course.
And I expect we’ll hear Handel’s wonderful anthem, “Zadok the Priest”, which was written for the Coronation of George II in 1727 and sung at every Coronation since. The words of course are: “Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King. And all the people rejoiced and said, God save the King.”
What the anthem doesn’t say is what Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet did next, which is that they put King Solomon on a donkey, to be precise, King David’s mule, and led him into Jerusalem, because his anointing took place outside the city.
Whatever form the Jubilee celebrations take, locally or nationally, I don’t think any of them will feature the Queen getting on a donkey. A gilded state coach is more likely, or at least a Bentley. Just occasionally Her Majesty ventures onto trains as well. But donkeys seem to us to be a decidedly un-royal mode of transport.
Not, however, in the Bible, as we have seen. And when Jesus gets on a colt, which is a young donkey, the crowds recognise immediately the Royal claim that is being made, and they go wild and start acclaiming him as their king.
Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, which we heard before the procession this morning, is short but packed with detail, as Mark usually is. In the space of ten verses there are at least six different claims that Jesus is Messiah and King.
Apart from King Solomon, there is the prophecy in Zechariah which Matthew and John, but not Mark, mention in their accounts of Palm Sunday:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
So, riding a colt is a sign that Jesus is claiming kingship of Jerusalem; but we see immediately that it is a strange kind of kingship, one marked by humility. A colt, a little donkey, is about the lowliest animal that anyone could practically ride. So it is a sign which both proclaims kingship and subverts the idea of domination based on power and strength. Zechariah’s prophecy is about a King who will destroy the weapons of war, who will bring an end to violence and instigate the reign of God’s peace.
But there are other Old Testament donkey references, too. Mark’s account tells us that the colt was tied up. Of course, it would have been anyway, to stop it wandering off, so why does Mark go to the trouble of mentioning it? Well, at the end of the Book of Genesis, as Jacob lies dying, he utters mysterious prophecies about his descendents, the twelve tribes of Israel. Of Judah he says:
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and the obedience of the peoples is his.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine.
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and the obedience of the peoples is his.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine.
So a tied up colt is a reference to the Messianic King who will descend from Judah in the line of David. Even in that little detail Mark is telling us more about who Jesus is claiming to be.
Also, we are told that the crowd spread their clothes before Jesus. And in the Second Book of Kings the same thing happened after Elisha anointed Jehu as King of Israel following the disastrous reign of Ahab and Jezebel. So Jesus is proclaimed as a righteous king, whose reign will be of a different kind to the corrupt and violent rulers currently in charge of Jerusalem.
Even the way that Jesus gets hold of the colt tells us something. It isn’t given to him; he requisitions it. “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.” In the ancient world, requisitioning means of transport was a royal prerogative, and the mere fact of doing it was making a royal claim.
And the crowd respond with cries of “Hosanna” and “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”. “Hosanna” was originally a word of prayer and acclamation used by the priests in the temple rituals, and “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” is from Psalm 118, originally a blessing uttered by the priests over pilgrims on their arrival in the temple.
But by the time of Jesus both of these had acquired Messianic overtones. They were greetings, not just for anyone, but for the long awaited Messiah.
Mark’s Gospel doesn’t hold back on making the point. In his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus is abundantly, almost excessively, being acclaimed as King and Messiah, the long awaited ruler who will bring in God’s Kingdom of justice and peace.
And so Holy Week opens. And it is the key to understanding the whole of what happens in Holy Week. From the Last Supper, through Good Friday, to the resurrection, Jesus is King and Messiah, and is showing what that means.
He is King, without violence, a King revealed in humility and service, the King of Peace. He is the Lord’s anointed ruler, the Messiah – but anointed with ointment for his burial. Anointed as the Priest who will put an end to sacrifice by his offering of himself. And he is the King who will conquer death by his own death, and reveal his kingdom through the resurrection.
As we follow the great events of this greatest of weeks, we will see all these aspects of Jesus. Holy Week is an opportunity for us to draw close to Jesus once more, to acclaim him as King, Priest, and Messiah. It is an opportunity for us to be conformed more closely to him in his suffering and death, that we might share in his resurrection. And it is an opportunity for his Kingdom of justice and peace and self-giving love to be made more real in our lives.
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