Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately you will find an ass tethered,
and a colt with her.
We note first how precisely Jesus had everything planned out. There was a donkey and a colt in a specific place he predicted. He gave specific words which were adequate to address the concerns anyone might have about why the disciples were taking them. There was a specific place where he desired to celebrate Passover, and a chosen individual who would consent to host he and his disciples.
His mission as a messiah appeared to be reaching a climax as they entered the city. It must have looked to the disciples like he was in complete control and knew exactly what he was doing. And he was and did. But what he was doing was still not what anyone really expected. These anecdotes about his careful planning may have been merely several among many intended to demonstrate that he was in fact in control, particularly as it would soon appear that he was anything but. He wanted his disciples to realize that although he would be handed over it was because of a more fundamental way in which he handed himself over. His life would not be taken from him. Rather, "I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (see John 10:18). The horror that was about to unfold was no accident, but rather part of the eternal plan of God, designed to bring about our salvation.
Say to daughter Zion,
"Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.
He was not coming to begin a military conquest, as Matthew indicated by citing the words of the prophet Zechariah. It might have seemed that his supernatural insights and abilities would have been perfect for the military leadership necessary to throw off the yoke of the Romans, as though he were a modern Maccabees. But the yoke of the Romans was not his target. His strategy and tactics were rather employed to take aim at the true enemies, Satan, sin, and death itself. A good human tactician might find a way to resist an oppressive foreign rule. But only a divine intellect could ensnare death itself so as to destroy it. Let us hear a little more from the prophet Zechariah that speaks to what Jesus would accomplish and how:
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double (see Zechariah 9:11-12).
Because of the new covenant in his blood Jesus would indeed set prisoners free from the waterless pit of death. Therefore they would be no longer prisoners of the enemy, but prisoners of hope, waiting to receive double for all that they had endured and suffered.
The crowds preceding him and those following
kept crying out and saying:
"Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord;
hosanna in the highest."
No doubt the crowd recognized that Jesus entering the city in the way he did was an explicit confirmation of the fact that he was the messiah. Finally, they thought, his victory was at hand. And again, it was, but not in the way they expected. And so they shouted with joy and the top of their lungs and laid their cloaks on the path before him. And this is our tendency as well. We celebrate Jesus when he seems triumphant, his Church when it seems effective, and the way God is at work in the world when it seems direct and unchallenged. But we are often as quick to change our tune as were the crowds, as were even his own disciples.
We may go out from the Passover meal singing the Hillel songs. But when we try to endure with him in the garden we tend allow sleep to overtake us rather than remain present to him in distress. Once the crowd comes out with swords and clubs we are typically as quick to flee as anyone rather than stay with Jesus and share his fate.
Then all the disciples left him and fled.
It is hard for us to come to terms with the necessity of the death of Jesus, that our salvation had to come about in this way, rather than by some easier and more pleasant means. If he had been looking merely for a military success it surely would have been possible to keep everything positive for his allies, at least for the moment. But as he had his sight set on solving a more intractable problem more was required. He knew on Palm Sunday that those who sang hosanna would later be the same ones to shout, "Crucify him!" But these were the very people he desired to save. And it was from this fickle inability to commit themselves to the Lord from which he would save them. He had to expose the duplicitous and sinful nature of the common heart of humanity in order to bring it into the light and heal it.
Even before the Father fully vindicated Jesus through the resurrection there were already signs of hope. How could it be otherwise? By dying, the king had in fact already triumphed.
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary
was torn in two from top to bottom.
The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened,
and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
These initial signs were persuasive enough to make those keeping watch say, "Truly, this was the Son of God!" Yet even so, Jesus was still in the tomb. Life seemed to continue without missing a beat, as though the very Lord of life had not gone missing. The women, at least, seemed to sense that this was not, could not be, the end of the story.
But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
remained sitting there, facing the tomb.
For our part, we know well how the story ends. But we do well not to rush through the path that leads to that end. From staying as close to Jesus as we are able on this journey of his we hope to have new levels of love for him awakened within us. We hope to learn to be prisoners of hope even before we see that hopes realized.
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
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