The Return of the King

With Easter approaching I’ve been thinking about the so-called “Triumphal Entry” recorded in Mark 11:1-11. Do you remember the scene from the movie The Return of the King where at the climax of the movie the one ring of power was finally destroyed and the Dark Tower came crashing down? If you will recall, the camera in this scene alternated between showing the struggle happening inside Mt. Doom between Frodo, Gollum, and Sam, and the scene at the Black Gate of Mordor where there was a battle between the forces of light and darkness.

You may recall that the battle ended with the destruction of the ring, because Sauron the Dark Lord lost all of his power and so his evil minions ran away. The significant thing about this scene in relation to the episode in Mark’s gospel is that the good guys, the forces of light, were hopelessly outnumbered. If you are familiar with the story the whole point of bringing the army to Mordor was to distract the Dark Lord so that Frodo could get to Mt. Doom and destroy the ring. There was never any thought that the army would be successful in assailing the defenses of Mordor and defeating the Dark Lord. It was, essentially, a suicide mission.

You may wonder what this has to do with Jesus entering Jerusalem because in our imagination we see the entry as triumphant. But if we examine the scripture closely we will see that much of what we think we know about this incident never happened.

You have probably heard before that the crowd who cheered Jesus on his arrival in Jerusalem was the same fickle crowd that only a few days later would be shouting for his crucifixion. That is probably not true. The crowd that cheered Jesus probably consisted of his disciples and fellow travelers from Galilee. The crowd that cried for his execution was the Jerusalem crowd, most of whom probably didn't know anything about his so-called triumphal entry. There were two crowds.

We can see that this is true when we look at Matthew's account: "When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?' The crowds [those with Jesus] answered, 'This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.'" (Mt. 21:10-11 NIV). At the risk of seeming irreverent, this would be like a bunch of hillbillies showing up in downtown Los Angeles and somebody asking "Who is this?" and the hillbillies answering, "This is Joe, the preacher from Bumblescum, Alabama."

At this point, for most in the city, Jesus was a non-entitty. I don't think even the religious leaders knew what was coming upon them. The gospels record that some of the Pharisees tried to rebuke Jesus, but Jesus has been in conflict with the Pharisees all along. The group that is going to call for his death, the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious council, probably doesn't even know he's there yet. They will find that out in the next episode, when Jesus acts aggressively to clear the temple courts.

Why is this significant? Why is it important to see this episode in this light? Let's go back to the example I used at the beginning, where we saw the army of the West, led by Gandalf and Aragorn approaching the great and terrible citadel of the Dark Lord. The army of the west is small and pitiful in comparison with the vast forces arrayed against them. The scene of the ensuing battle shows that they were hopelessly outnumbered. No one in their right minds would believe that this army could prevail

And of course that was for dramatic effect in the movie, to make their ultimate victory even more triumphant. And we know that the army didn't prevail because of military power. But because of the sacrifice of Frodo and Sam in going to Mt. Doom and destroying the Ring. When I was in High School English I was never very good at figuring out literary metaphors and all that stuff but I don't know how you can miss this.

In the same way in this scripture Jesus and his band of misfits from the boondocks have come to challenge the status quo. They are coming to challenge the power of the religious establishment, which does not represent God's will on earth but is based on false hopes and lies. And they are challenging the might of the Roman Empire and its reliance on earthly power to maintain control over the lives and the wealth of the conquered populations. Jesus is throwing down the gauntlet and challenging the power of Satan himself. He is serving notice to Satan that his final defeat is at hand

At this point in the story, from the point of view of those who are watching, none of this can seem to be true. And if they recognize that Jesus is making this challenge, which Jesus makes certain by riding into the city on a donkey as prophesied in Zechariah (Zech. 9:9), most people must just think of him and his followers as nut jobs.

It's even more ridiculous than the scene in the movie. The crowds that accompany Jesus into Jerusalem aren't even an army. They are the poor, the outcast, the oppressed, the sinners. People from the bottom rungs of society's ladder. The powerless people. The unwashed. The street people. And that is what makes Jesus' victory so much more triumphant.

Jesus did not come to conquer the world with military might and worldly power. Jesus came to conquer the world with love. And he succeeded beyond what even his most ardent followers could have hoped. "Take heart!" He tells them, and us, "I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 NIV).

What Mark describes in these verses is not a triumphal entry but an assault. It is not an entry but an invasion. And it is an invasion of the most unlikely cast of characters, in which the most powerful structures mankind can devise crumble in the face of Jesus' self-sacrificing love.

There were two crowds in Jerusalem on the day Jesus entered. One was the crowd that was firmly entrenched in the power, wealth, and prestige of worldly institutions, and the other was a ragtag band of followers of a strange preacher from the boondocks. One represented the best of what the world had to offer in terms of wealth and power learning and religion and morality, and the other consisted of a bunch of shady characters with suspect pasts. One relied on the power of the world and the esteem of men; the other cast its hopes on the grace of God's Holy One. One crowd - the first one - was utterly vanquished. The other gained an everlasting crown in heaven.

There are two crowds today, too. Which crowd are you in? Do you want to be seen as respectable by the world? Do you want to gain wealth and prestige? Or do you want to reject and be rejected by the world, as our savior did and was, and become agents of God's justice, righteousness, and love?

Let us be pleased to identify ourselves with the world's outcasts, so that when at the end of our labors we meet our risen Lord, we can hear him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Mt. 25:21 ESV).