Sunday of the Passion
Zech
9:9-12
3/28/21
Life in
Jerusalem and Judah around 520 B.C. was a discouraging time. The southern kingdom of Judah has been
conquered by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. The Babylonians had destroyed the
amazing temple that King Solomon had built. They had torn down the walls of
Jerusalem. They had taken all but the
very poorest of the land into exile in Babylon.
Yahweh had
promised through the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah that he would bring the
people back to the land. The exile
dragged on. But then, unexpectedly, Yahweh fulfilled his promise. The Persians led by Cyrus defeated the
Babylonians in 539 B.C. The next year,
Cyrus issued an edict that allowed the Judahites to return to their land and
rebuild the temple.
After
decades living in Babylon, not everyone decided to return. They had developed a
life in that land and did not want to leave it in order to return to the
unknown situation in Judah. However,
many did and what they found was discouraging.
Other peoples had moved into the area and were a threat to the Judah. The city of Jerusalem had no wall to protect
it. Judah was no longer its own nation.
Instead, it was one small province in the massive Persian empire.
The people
started in on rebuilding the temple. When the foundation was laid, those who
remembered Solomon’s temple wept because the replacement was going to be so
much smaller and inferior to what had been destroyed. Work made little progress. Around 520 B.C.,
eighteen years after Cyrus had issued his edict, the temple remained
unfinished.
God sent
the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people to finish the
work. Zerrubabel, a descendant of King
David, was the one appointed by the Persians to oversee the affairs of the
Judahites. Through Zechariah, Yahweh told the people that Zerrubabel was a
reminder of how God would fulfill his promises about David.
It was in
this setting of discouragement that Zechariah wrote the words of our text. In the preceding verses, Yahweh had said that
he would defeat the enemies of his people.
He said, “Then I will
encamp at my house as a guard, so that none shall march to and
fro; no oppressor shall again march over them, for now I see with my
own eyes.”
How was this going to happen? Zechariah went on to write in the words of
our text, “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.”
This was good, though puzzling, news. Judah’s king was coming, and this could only
be the Messiah promised by God. He would be righteous and have salvation. He
would be mounted on a donkey, which in itself was not surprising since this
type of animal had long association with royalty in Israel. But he was also described as “humble.”
This was not a description one expected of a mighty king who would bring God’s
rescue.
It was more puzzling still, because of what Zechariah
went on to say: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse
from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak
peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the
River to the ends of the earth.” This king was going to be the instrument
through which Yahweh was going to bring peace and rule over all.
In the reading outside church this morning from the
Gospel of John we heard, “And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is
written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting
on a donkey's colt!’” Jesus and the
other Passover pilgrims had been walking.
But now as he prepared to enter Jerusalem for his passion, Jesus
arranged it so that he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. He took care so that his entrance fulfilled
what Zechariah had written.
Jesus was certainly righteous. As the Son of God who had entered into the
world in the incarnation, he had no sin.
During his life he had perfectly fulfilled his Father’s will. He did indeed have salvation. He had come to Jerusalem at the Passover to
bring salvation for all people.
He was the son of David, the
descendant of the king who fulfilled God’s promise about the Messiah. The
donkey was entirely consistent with this.
But Zechariah had described this Messiah as humble. The kings of Israel’s past certainly didn’t
ride donkeys into battle. When they went forth to conquer they rode in a
chariot or on a war horse.
It is in the description “humble”
that we understand what the donkey means.
Jesus arrives in Jerusalem to bring salvation. But he does not come in
the might and power that the world expects. Instead, he comes humbly, mounted
on a donkey. The means by which he
arrives tells us about the way he is going to bring salvation.
Jesus came to Jerusalem at the
beginning of Holy Week to conquer. He
came to conquer sin, death and the devil. But the way in which he would do this
did not look like victory. It did not
look mighty and powerful. Instead, Jesus
had come to suffer. He had come to be
humiliated. He had come to die a
criminal’s death on the cross, even though he was completely innocent.
Greeted by the cry, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”, on Good Friday he would
instead hear the cry, “Crucify him!” Yet
this was the very purpose for which Jesus had come to Jerusalem. Matthew tells us, “And as Jesus was going
up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to
them,
‘See, we are going
up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests
and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him
over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he
will be raised on the third day.’”
Our Lord did this because from the
moment of his baptism he had taken on the role of the suffering Servant. Though righteous and without sin of his own,
he had come to suffer and die for our sins. He had come to drink the cup of God’s wrath
that we deserved.
This is not what we would expect.
And the manner in which Jesus won forgiveness for us brings with it
implications that we don’t like. In Matthew’s Gospel, immediately after
predicting his passion for the first time, our Lord went on to say, “If anyone
would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Jesus walked the way of the
cross. And he has told us that those who
follow him must also expect this. The apostle Paul said the same thing when he
told the Philippians, “For to you it has been
granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for
His sake.” There is always the
temptation to avoid the cross. There are
times we remain silent when we should speak up.
There are times when we go along to get along, instead of acting in a
way that confesses the truth of God’s Word.
In the
humility of his suffering and death, Jesus Christ has won forgiveness for these
ways that we fail. But that is not all he has done. Holy Week begins today. It ends with Jesus’
dead body buried in a tomb. But God’s saving action did not conclude at the end
of seven days. Instead, it moved on to
the eighth day - to Easter Sunday - to a day of new creation as God raised
Jesus from the dead. Through his Spirit
God the Father raised Jesus with a body transformed so that it can never die
again. He defeated death and began the
resurrection of the Last Day.
The
resurrection of Jesus gives us the living hope that enables us to face the
challenges posed by this world. The Spirit who raised Jesus has made us a new
creation in Christ through the water of Holy Baptism. He leads and strengthens
us to take up the cross and follow Jesus.
We do so in the knowledge that the final victory is already ours,
because we belong to Christ.
In our
text today Zechariah writes, “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.” Jesus came to Jerusalem as the
righteous but humble king who brought salvation through his suffering and
death.
But
the prophet goes on to say, “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea
to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Forty days after his resurrection, our Lord
Jesus was exalted as he ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand
of God.
Yet
this is not the end of his saving work.
In the reading of the Passion of Our Lord in Matthew’s Gospel we heard
Jesus say to Caiaphas, “But I tell you, from now
on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power
and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
The risen Lord who ascended will return in glory on the Last Day. He will bring the peace about which Zechariah
spoke. He will enact judgment against
all the enemies of God’s people, just as Zechariah said. There will be
absolutely nothing humble about his coming on the day when raises the dead,
gives us a share in his resurrection, and renews creation. Those of us who
believe in the Lord who entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday will rejoice as we
say, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
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