Ashes to Glory

Details: 01 April 2011

The Entry

Each year the entire season of Lent liturgically tends toward its finality in Holy Week and Easter Week. The beginning of that part of the liturgical year is marked by our recollection of the triumphant and messianic entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. However, it is spiritually helpful to begin to keep this in mind even during the earlier weeks of Lent. Gilbert Keith Chesterton once managed to place some of the memory of that event into the mouth of a beast in his poem "The Donkey": "I also had my hour, one far fierce hour and sweet. There was a shout about my ears that day and palms before my feet".

Treating the importance of that entry of our Savior into the holy city, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make Him king, He chooses (before His passion) the time and prepares the details for His messianic entry into the city of His father, David (Luke 1:32; Matthew 21:1-11; John 6:15). Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem manifested the coming of the kingdom that the King-Messiah was going to accomplish by the passover of His death and resurrection. Jesus went up to Jerusalem voluntarily, knowing well that there He would die a violent death because of the opposition of sinners (Hebrews 12:3). (He is) welcomed into His city (on that occasion) by children and by the humble of heart."

José Granados notes, "The scene certainly presents a novelty with respect to the rest of the public life of Christ. Having repeatedly refused to be acclaimed, having pledged to silence many of those He healed to prevent them revealing that He was the Messiah, the Master now orchestrates this triumph of palm branches and hosannas. This new way of proceeding must not, however, lead us to forget the continuity of the scene with the rest of Jesus’ life. The tenor continues to be that of profound obedience to His Father, expressed in attentive listening to the ancient Scriptures in which the voice of God is revealed. What Jesus effects in entering the city is in fact a prophetic sign that recapitulates key Old Testament themes. Only by reference to these can we make sense of certain enigmatic aspects of the scene: the donkey on which Jesus is mounted and the cry of hosanna with which the people receive Him. All attempts to interpret the heart of the preaching of Jesus, need to take into account this episode."

In his new book, his second volume of "Jesus of Nazareth", (published in English by Ignatius Press), our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, begins that work by a rather extensive treatment of the triumphal entry. He follows most commentators in seeing that Saint John in his Gospel relates three passover feasts celebrated in Jerusalem by Jesus in His earthly life (John 2:13-25; 12:1; 13:1), the last being the "great passover, the reason for our celebration of Easter, which is the Christians’ passover". The three Synoptics, however, "contain just one passover feast, that of the cross and resurrection. Indeed, in Saint Luke’s Gospel Jesus’ path is presented as a single pilgrim ascent from Galilee to Jerusalem." "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51).

Jerusalem

From the time of King David who founded the city, devout Jews, including those of our Lord’s time, always have had a profound, sentimental, and theological attachment to Jerusalem. Psalm 137, recited by the Hebrews in the years of their Babylonian exile, represents this attitude: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws if I do not remember you, if I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy." To this day, Orthodox Jews at the conclusion of their annual passover "seder" say to each other: "Next year in Jerusalem!"

It is clear that our Savior, God incarnate as a devout descendant of Abraham, shared in His human nature that great Jewish love for the city of His ancestor, David. Our Lord on one occasion said, "Nevertheless, I must go my way today and tomorrow and the next day, for it cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you would not! Behold your house is left desolate to you, and I say to you that you shall not see me until the time comes when you shall say: Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord" (Luke 13:33-35; Matthew 23:37-39).

There is an old Jewish midrash which says of Jerusalem: "The Creator allotted ten measures of beauty to the world, and of them Jerusalem received nine. The Creator allotted ten measures of wisdom to the world, and of them, Jerusalem received nine. The Creator then allotted ten measures of suffering to the world, and of them too, Jerusalem received nine!" Granados remarks, "History seems to have confirmed this special joint assignment of glory and pain to the capital of Judea. The city has become a symbol of impossible aspirations and an icon of peace that is forever being disrupted by political and religious conflicts. In fact it was already thus when Jesus entered that city mounted on a donkey and acclaimed by the multitude. An analysis of this moment can help not only to bring us closer to the mystery of Christ, but also to enable us to interpret the significance of His action in the political and religious heart of the Jewish society of His day, and thus illuminating our own cultural situation."

The Donkey

In the time of Christ there was a general law in force in the Roman Empire called "angaria", which empowered higher public officials to requisition an animal or demand manual labor from anyone if those authorities were to need it to carry out their official duties. (See the Simon of Cyrene incident -Luke 23:26.) Evidently our Savior invoked this law in His own regard when He gave His two disciples instructions to requisition the colt of an ass for His purposes (Luke 19:29-35). As He began to fulfill the prophecy of Zachariah (9:9; Isaiah 62:11; Matthew 21:4-5), Jesus first paused to weep over Jerusalem as he caught sight of the city on His trip there from the Mount of Olives near Bethphage and Bethany. In poignant and moving words He addressed His holy city in a most touching way: "If you had known this in your day, even you, the things that are for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a rampart about you and surround you and shut you in on every side, and will dash you to the ground and your children within you, and will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation!" (Luke 19:41-44).

The Prophet Zachariah identified the horse with warrior power (Zachariah 9:10). It was in contrast with this that "the long awaited Messiah does not come into Jerusalem on a horse, a sign of power, but on a donkey, an emissary of peace. He is not a warrior Christ, but One Who will preach the kingdom of God as tranquility and peaceful order. The humility of His triumphant entry proclaims that His is the kingdom of the little ones, the meek who imitate His own divine meekness" (Matthew 5:4; 11:29; 21:5; 2 Corinthians 10:1; Psalm 45:4; etc.).