The King Has Come!

Introduction

I have never really been much into Science Fiction movies or films about spaceships and aliens, but with my little bit of knowledge I know that in the scene when the aliens land their spaceship and make first contact there is one phrase that tells you what kind of alien science-fiction movie it is going to be. Is it going to be war of the worlds, or something more casual and perhaps humourous? That phrase is, “we come in peace!” How relieved the people in those movies are to hear those words because they know that a space-traveling group of aliens surely has more advanced weapons and technology than us mere earthlings. When their wrath could destroy the planet, there is nothing better for those characters to hear than, “we come in peace.”

In our text today, much like a science-fiction story, we read about the official and public arrival of a visitor that is not of this world. He is a King who has come to earth to claim his Kingdom. What kind of king will this be? What will this alien person’s arrival look like? Today we will see that this King has come, and he has come in peace. While most kings come to claim their new kingdom with a war horse and a great show of force and glory, this King has come to earth with a rule of peace and humility; he has come not to conquer us through war, but to rule us through peace.

A Steed For The King of Peace

Text begins as Jesus’ great journey from Galilee to Jerusalem has finally reached its end.

Jesus has taken the 17 mile long journey from Jericho, where he healed the two blind men, and is approaching Jerusalem from the East. Now, Jerusalem is situated in a very high area, and the journey from Jericho to Jerusalem had Jesus climb 3000 ft in elevation up to a mountain which is part of a series of ridges that surround Jerusalem, with the city nestled up in between these high ridges. To get to Jerusalem from the east side, one would need to climb up a ridge called the Mount of Olives, on which the villages of Bethphage (house of olives) and Bethany. Bethany is where Jesus’ would stay during his time in Jerusalem before the crucifixion and is where his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were from.

When Jesus reaches the village of Bethphage, he sends his disciples on a mission to get a young donkey. The detail that this colt was tied with its mother means that it was an unbroken young donkey which had never been ridden before and still relied on its mother. The disciples are to bring both, although other accounts only mention one animal. This is because the mother donkey was needed to keep the young donkey calm while it was being ridden, since it had never been ridden before. The owners of the donkey, whether by supernatural knowledge or by some unmentioned prior communication, would allow the disciples to take them when they mentioned the Lord’s need of them and would willingly send them.

Here, Matthew notes a biblical significance to this by quoting two passages of Scripture. His quote begins with a reference to the second half of Isaiah 62:11

Isaiah 62:11 ESV

Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”

followed by the main substance of the quote from Zech 9:9

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Both of these texts have to do with God’s coming salvation for Israel. Isaiah 62 looks for this salvation and the coming of the Lord to be with his people. Zechariah 9 is a chapter that begins with a focus on God’s judgement for Israel’s enemies, including the Philistines which pastor Tom spoke of last week. Verse 9 turns then on God’s attitude towards his people Israel, and specifically Jerusalem as the city which represented the community of God’s people. It speaks of God’s presence coming to Jerusalem on a donkey and, if you keep reading down in verse 10, contrasts it with horses and chariots which had so often been signs of God’s judgement against his rebellious people.

For so long, God’s people had been at war with their divine King. They had refused to trust and submit to him, and God had continually brought disastor on them in payment for their rebellion. God’s presence had become that of the war horse and the chariot. When people sat the “God of the OT” is wrathful, it is because in the OT we witness a relationship between God and a rebellious and stubborn people who refused to be the loving, holy Kingdom they were called to be to the God they had united themselves to in sacred covenant. But all that is soon to change; God himself is coming to Jerusalem, but this time not in judgement and war, but in peace.

The king on a donkey has two majour symbolic meanings. It means humility, as a King is much more likely to be seen on a great war horse or perhaps on something exotic like an elephant or maybe a litter carried by servants. Its like if a king was driven around in a Toyota Corolla. But beyond this is that sometimes a king would ride on a donkey as a symbol of peace. King Solomon rode on a mule in 1 Kings 1:33 when he was declared king during the attempted coup by his brother Adonijah. It was his way of showing confidence in his place as king, whereas a war horse would have shown a defensiveness and readiness to fight it out. It communicates that the King has no need for a horse because there is no war, and so a beast of burden, normally used for farming, signaled a time when people would spend their time in the harvest fields rather than on the battlefield. Similar to how God in Micah 4:3 talks about the nations beating their swords and speaks into farming and harvesting tools, since the tools of war are no longer necessary.

So Matthew sees this moment, and the symbolism in Jesus’ choice of a steed into the city, as fulfilment of what the prophets of old had said. Here is the Lord, Emmanuel - God with us, coming into Jerusalem; into Zion. No war horse, no army, no sword, but rather a beast of burden signaling that God has come to make peace.

This is radically different from the way the Jews expected the Messiah to arrive. They were very heavy with pride from the Macabean revolt a few hundred years before where the Jews had successfully fought of the Silucid dynasty and their tyranny in well-coordinated battle. They expected the Christ to come in the same way to free them from the nations that oppressed them; in this case, the Roman Empire. They expected God to come with a warhorse for their salvation, not on a donkey of peace and humility.

Morris:

(Jesus) did not interpret messianic kingship as most of his contemporaries did. He did not view it in terms of armies and battles and conquests. He saw it in terms of peace and love and compassion.

If Christ came to judge, he would judge all; starting with Jerusalem. They still did not see that their own sin was always the problem; that this was the reason enemies had overcome them in the first place. They didn’t need a God of war, they needed God to make peace with them. And here he comes to make peace.

A King’s Welcome

The crowds respond with a celebratory welcome. To those in Jerusalem unaware, the Galileans traveling with Jesus soon make it known that Jesus the prophet from Nazareth had come. The disciples began to praise Jesus as the son of David, we read in Luke’s account, and the crowds caught on. What an exciting event! They begin to praise him with the words of Psalm 118, a Psalm often sung at feasts like the Passover and the feast of booths. They sing “Hosanna” which is a Hebrew phrase that means “Save us!” and was often used in praise that God had indeed come to save them. The cloaks and tree branches prepare the way similar to how Jehu was honoured when he became king back in the OT.

In calling him a “prophet”, they may be thinking of Jesus as the one Moses had talked about in Deut 18:15

Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—

So this, alongside calling him the Son of David, shows that Jesus at last is not keeping himself quiet. He allows himself to be praised for who he really is: the promised Christ, the King who would bring God to his people and free them forever. The one who would rule on David’s throne over a Kingdom that would never end.

How different the crowds cheers would be soon, as the jealousy of the priests and pharisees would reach its limit. Judas was considering his betrayal around this time, Luke tells us, and the religious leaders were plotting his death.

How ironic this would be, and how it would show that Israel had not changed since their forefathers worshiped idols and murdered the prophets. “How long” they had cried, “how long, oh Lord, will you make us your enemy?” But when God comes in peace, they put him to death on a cross.

And yet, that gesture of peace was not wasted or misplaced. In fact, through his death, Jesus would bring about peace for his people. Thought Jerusalem would fall to the Roman army in 70 AD and become the centre of many conflicts from the crusades to the present day, true Zion would know peace with her God. As Paul says in Gal 4:26

Galatians 4:26 ESV

But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Jesus came and established God’s people as a heavenly nation, a city not on earth now but one that exists in the last day, as the apostle John prophesied in Rev 21:2

Revelation 21:2 ESV

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

This city, a city being built by Christ even today as the Gospel goes into all the world gaining citizens for its coming day of salvation, is visible today in the church. Here we gain a taste of the city. When we are obediently walking in that role, the peace of God is visible. As the angels said to the shepherd at the birth of Christ in Luke 2:14

Luke 2:14 ESV

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Who is he pleased with? Jesus, and those who by faith are united to Jesus, who obtain his righteousness on their behalf, and who wait for the day when that heavenly Jerusalem makes its home on earth. Through the blood of Christ Jesus, peace would come to God’s people and they would never again have God as their enemy. Here he comes with every good intention, knowing he must die and yet in Luke’s Gospel he mourns over the sufferings of the city that would put him to death. Your king has come, oh earth, and though you torture him, though you slander him and nail him to a bloody cross, his heart is for peace and by his death at our hands he makes peace between us and God. What depth of love this is, a peaceful King who buys that peace at so high a cost.

Conclusion: God’s Messiah Comes in Peace

The message of this text, and indeed the message of all the Gospels, is clear: God has come - God’s man has come - the God-man has come, and he comes in peace. Despite the expectations of the Jews at the time of a reincarnated King David who would violently wipe away all the sinners and establish a glorious and visible Kingdom, the King has not come on a war horse or in a battle-chariot: he came on a donkey, humble and peaceful, loving and gentle, ready to make peace with sinful humanity, on his way to the cross with tears in his eyes for the plight of Jerusalem’s spiritual blindness.

On Christmas, we remember that God became a man to bring peace to those who would believe him, who would trust him and his work on the cross for their redemption and the forgiveness of their sins. The scene of Christ on a donkey speaks the same message as the angels to the shepherds, peace has come.

What is this peace? To have our sins forgiven, to have our closeness with God restored, to be perfected by his Spirit, and to be with him with nothing to separate us from his love.

This peace extends to his church, and indeed this should always be a peaceful place. A kingdom of peacemakers, of forgivers, of servants to one another. How could we ever make war with one another when God has made peace with us.

Even today, God offers you his peace. Make no mistake, the day will come when Christ does approach the world that crucified him on a warhorse to bring justice and judgement on those who have refused his offer of peace. Today that offer stands, what does it mean to you?