On a spring afternoon, two thousand years ago, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. “Hosanna!” Amid shouts of praise to God and acclamation of His own dominion, he rode on. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Unswervingly, he proceeded the two miles from Bethany with the throng moving behind and before him. “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” Moving westward across the Mount of Olives, He looked out upon the east walls Jerusalem and the temple and the gate where he would enter. “Hosanna in the highest!” (Mk. 11:9,10). It was an hour’s journey, from Bethany to Jerusalem, and the crowd’s anticipation built with each passing milestone, until, at last, they entered the city.
Passing through the gate, Jesus and his company came to the temple itself. He went through its courts, traversed its perimeter and looking at everything, perceiving the people and their actions, observing the house of the Lord God Almighty. And then, at the height of suspense, what does Jesus do? Jesus and the twelve return to Bethany. He leaves. The crowds doubtless understood the need to find lodging, as it was late, and with the coming Passover there was electricity in the air that continued till the next day. But I would have been let down. Can you imagine? Ethel, why did we just walk one hour to Jerusalem just to see this Jesus parade around and then leave?
Why had the people swarmed around Jesus? What were the crowds looking for? We could simply say “Christ,” that is, “Messiah,” but what’s a Messiah? Who is this Anointed One?
Christ was a prophet. For nearly 400 years, since the final prophecy of Malachi, the voice of the Lord was conspicuously absent from Israel. But God promised through Moses, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him” (Dt. 18:18). So Christ would be not merely a prophet, but the prophet, who would speak to God as Moses did: “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Dt. 34:10). Christ would restore intimate connection to God.
Christ also was political liberator. Judea was under Roman occupation. Although the Jews had some autonomy under the occupying authority, they were, in their minds, not free but under the power of pagan foreigners. The political Messiah would free God’s people from the rule of the enemy.
Christ was the son of David. The removal of the Roman Reich would leave a political vacuum. Christ would restore the kingdom of Israel and would thus need to be its rightful heir. God promised to David.
“The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him wit the rod of men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever” (2 Sa. 7:11b–16).
Messiah would have an everlasting kingdom, the perfection of his father David’s reign.
So then, the crowds, did they find what they were looking for in Jesus? Was Jesus prophet and king? The disciple’s response to Jesus’ inquiry, “Who do people say I am?” reveals part of the story. “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, on of the prophets” (Mk. 8:27,28). The people from early in His ministry acknowledged Jesus as a prophet. Even after the crucifixion, the disciples on the road to Emmaus said of Jesus, “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people” (Lk. 24:19).
But the suffering and death of Jesus killed any faith that Jesus may have been the son of David, who would restore the kingdom of Israel. Isaiah’s prophecy must have been wrong:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders… He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever” (Is. 9:6,7).
It’s impossible for Messiah to rule, since he died before he could establish the kingdom and pass it to his heir. And then there’s the matter of an heir. Jesus was unmarried and childless. If Messiah’s offspring were to continue to govern the realm—assuming that Jesus even had one—, He failed in that regard was well.
We’re forced to say that the crowds didn’t find what they were looking for in Jesus. He seems to have failed to establish the kingdom; and although He was a great prophet, He died like the prophets of long ago.
But, as in C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there’s more.
“Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward” (Ch. 15).
Jesus is the Christ despite the appearances of failure to the eyes of men. There is, in Lewis’ words, “magic deeper still.” Do you recall the Scripture Jesus used when he asked, “Whose son is the Christ?” “The LORD says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Jesus challenged the people to acknowledge that Christ must be great David’s greater son. Yet He was also pushing them further. The Psalmist continues: “The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:1,2,4). David’s son would be king and priest?! It was unimaginable!
Had the people “looked a little further back,” had they been in tune with God’s designs, they would have seen that Messiah would be not only prophet and king, but priest as well! For God told Moses:
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5,6).
Christ is the true Israelite, perfectly living and embodying all the Law and the Prophets. And Christ is the true Solomon, the expected son of David. He brings together into Himself things earthly—the kingdom—and things heavenly—prophecy and priesthood— and makes them one.
Because Christ Jesus was priest, as well as prophet and king, His death was not the failure and ending of His ministry, but its very aim and purpose.
So what are we looking for? What is it that Jon Mark, etc., wants in Christ? During Holy Week, as we meditate on our Lord’s final hours, who is it that we hope Jesus will be? Are looking for a fleshy Jesus, a good teacher and a prophet to tell us what God has to say, or a ruler to subdue the world around us? (And boy, could it use subduing.) Or do we hope for a spiritual Jesus that is all that and more, who is priest as well, who sanctifies the struggles and trials of our life to make them an offering to God, who blesses us to become increasingly more who we were made to be?
The fleshy, prophet and king Jesus is easier to deal with, because we can reject and kill him. But the spiritual, priest Jesus can’t be shaken; He overcomes death and the grave, turning the Valley of Tears (Baca) into a place of springs and filling the dry places with pools of water (cf. Ps. 84:6).
As you proceed into Holy Week, I pray you will join me in asking (for the first time or the eighty-fifth), “Who is the Christ I am looking for?” And that honestly, genuinely, and with faith, we will fully accept the Christ of God, Jesus our Lord, wherever his journeys take Him and us, to Jerusalem and to mount Calvary.
