Triumphal Entry

The honor and shame battle begins with the healing of two blind men.  We see the King of Kings coming to His own people to clean house.  He starts by healing these blind men to show the overarching theme, blindness.  The leaders of Israel are blind.  Yet He did not come to condemn but to heal.  Even in His challenge we can see an offer.  If you will humble yourself and submit then I will heal you.  Yet over and over the leadership refused and battled it out with Jesus. 

“The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew 21:6-11 (NRSVue)

Jesus has just walked over 100 miles from Caesarea Philippi to Jerusalem.  His disciples are walking, He is surrounded by people walking, yet it is here that He decides to ride a donkey.  No where else do we see him riding on a donkey or a horse.  Commoners did not ride animals but walked everywhere, as Jesus did.  Therefore Jesus choice to ride a donkey sends a very clear message, because commoners did not ride into cities on donkeys, kings did though![1] 

“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.”

Zechariah 9:9 (ESV)

A king or general riding a horse into a city represented that a conqueror had come.  It represented victory and conquest.  A king riding a donkey into a city like this represented gentleness, kindness, and peace.[2] 

Sitting on a donkey symbolized that He came in peace.  He was not coming to conquer but to be at peace with the people.  They covered the streets with palm branches and their robes to symbolize that a King was entering the city.[3] [4] 

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” is a quote from Psalm 118 which some Jewish traditions held to be about the coming king.[5]  In that Psalm the writer says,

“Let the house of Aaron say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”

Psalm 118:3 (NRSVue)

And

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD.”

Psalm 118:26 (NRSVue)

This the Psalm indicates that the priests should have rejoiced and accepted the coming of the King!  The temple should have a place of blessing for the Messiah.  Indeed, it is straight to the temple that Jesus goes. 

“Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.” The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?”

Matthew 21:12-16 (NRSVue)

The temple is not the house of blessing, but instead is a house of robbery!  The Sadducees were set up in the court of the Gentiles to exchange money for the temple tax and also to sell clean animals for sacrifices.  Historically we know that they made a lot of money from this.[6]  Thus the King, having made known who He is comes now to clean the house. 

After cleansing the house healing comes.  He heals the blind and the lame.  Once again, we are to see the comparison with the High Priests and Scribes who objected to all this.  Whereas the blind are healed, those who are in leadership are blind, but are not healed because of their hard hearts and their rebellion.[7] 

We should compare this to David’s capture of Jerusalem and the insult that even the blind and the lame could keep him out![8]

“And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.” Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

2 Samuel 5:6-8 (ESV)

The blind and the lame rejected David, and so David rejected the blind and the lame.  Yet Jesus did not reject them, He healed them!  Here we can see that Jesus, although the son of David, is greater than David! (David means “beloved” which is why when He was baptized The Father calls Jesus His beloved son, that is, the son of David). 

“In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.”

Matthew 21:18-19 (NRSVue)

Mark has the judgment of the fig tree on the way to the temple, Matthew has Jesus judging the fig tree on the way back from cleansing the temple.  This on purpose!  They are telling you what the fig tree symbolized. 

Then He cursed the fig tree.  The fig tree symbolized Israel.  What is Jesus saying here by cursing the fig tree?

Then He is confronted by the leadership of Israel.  Here the leadership of the temple and the leadership of Israel are conflated. 

I believe the cursing of the fig tree was a prophecy of the coming destruction of the temple!

“And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Matthew 21:23-27 (ESV)

Here we see the Chief Priests and Elders, representing the Temple and the nation,[9] however, Mark and Luke add that the Scribes are also with the Chief Priests and Elders (Mark 11:27, Luke 20:1).  The Chief Priests, Elders, and Scribes make up the group that composed the Sanhedrin.[10]  It is the Priests that are responsible to keep the Temple clean and we see that it is Jesus who had to come in and cleanse it.  The Priests had not authorized such action and so they come to Him now asking by what authority He is acting.  His action implies a greater authority than that of the Priests or High Priests![11]

But there is more here!  Remember that in an honor and shame culture honor is gained or lost in public confrontations.  This group confront Jesus in public to try to take His honor away.  They had just been publicly called out and shamed when He cleaned out the temple and so now they are picking a fight to try to recover that lost honor. 

[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 775–776.

[2] Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2005), 8.

[3] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 779.

[4] Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2005), 9.

[5] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI;  Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 494.

[6] Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2005), 12.

[7] ibid

[8] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 788.

[9] Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2005), 29.

[10] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 786, 797–798.

[11] ibid