SECTION XVI.

THE ENTRANCE OF THE MESSIANIC KING INTO HIS CITY AND HIS ROYAL RESIDENCE, THE TEMPLE; AND THE UNFOLDING OF THE GRAND OUTLINES OF HIS ROYAL COURT ON EARTH, IN CONTRAST TO THE PRINCELY SYSTEM OF THE OLD WORLD.

(Matt. XX. 17-xxi. 16.)

Our Lord's disciples had, in earlier days, alway thought that His last decisive entrance into Jerusalem would be a stately, royal procession, transcending all that had ever taken place, the highest realization of all Messianic ideals in the theocratic-worldly sense, and that then the kingdom of the glory of the Messiah would be at once unfolded. Even yet, when the decisive journey of Jesus to Jerusalem was about to begin, they were not cured of this expectation, although Christ had at various times announced to them His sufferings. Hence, at the beginning of this journey. He took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and gave them now the definite announcement, 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him: and the third day He shall rise again.' That was the programme of His royal procession according to His own view in contrast to their ideal. He should experience twofold treachery: first. He should be betrayed by one of the disciples to the council, and then by the council, as representing the Jewish people, to the heathen. And so He should also receive a twofold sentence: on the part of the chief priests and scribes, condemnation to death; and on the part of the heathen, to be set at nought by mockery, scourging, and crucifixion. This contrast between the real roj'-al procession of Christ and the worldly expectations of the disciples respecting it, was now unfolded in various transactions, in which the great distinction between Christ's royal regime in this world and the usual system of royalty of the old world is presented to us in the most telling contrast.

First, as to Christ's princely throne, and the highest places of honour around it. — When He had repeated that awful announcement more definitely than ever in the circle of the disciples, there were found bold spirits who intimated that they would consider it a high privilege to link most intimately their destiny with His in meeting these dangers. Then came to Him Salome, the wife of Zebedee, with her two sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a favour of Him. This was acknowledging Jesus as the Great King who was just about to take possession of His throne. The aspiring boldness of Zebedee's sons already offered Him the token of homage by this falling down before Him, and requesting a favour. 'What wilt thou (then)?' asked Jesus of the suppliant mother. She saith unto Him, 'Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy kingdom.' Jesus perceived the bold and noble sentiments of the mother and her sons; but He saw also that they had no idea of what they were asking, namely, in the first instance, the positions of the two thieves who should be crucified along with Him (see above, vol. iii. p. 6). 'Ye know not what ye ask,' was His reply, addressing the sons themselves as the real petitioners. 'Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?' They doubtless understood that He thereby announced the heaviest suffering; nevertheless they answered, 'We are able!' He perceived their willingness to suffer, and declared that in due time they really should suffer with Him, saying, 'Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but,' added He, 'to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father.' As their proposal bore a double meaning, without their knowing it, since they did not yet distinguish between the time of the suffering and of the glory of Christ, so His answer also had to be dark. It bears reference, at the same time, both to His crucifixion and to His exaltation — to His throne on Calvary, and to His throne in the kingdom of glory. In relation to both. He could designate the Father as the real disposer of the places in question, since from Him are the historic destinies as well as the original destinations with respect to the heavenly glory. Thus, then, did Jesus express Himself regarding the places on His right and on His left, in contrast to the princes of this world. He bestowed a great favour upon the petitioners by refusing their petition, wherein they unwittingly asked for great suffering. Thus He is more gracious in refusal than an earthly prince is even in bestowal. And while they send forward all the people fit for war, when matters come to a contest of life and death, Christ will not take even His most faithful ones prematurely with Him into the death-struggle. And it is highly worthy of observation, that He will not act of Himself in disposing of the first places in His kingdom, but waits for the decision of the Father on this point; that He knows Himself to be conditioned in all respects by the Father's overruling power, while worldly princes often lay claim to the most absolute power in all affairs of state. That He thought of such a contrast, is plain from what follows. When the other ten disciples heard of the request of James and John, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto Him, and made to them the following disclosure: 'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief (a prince) among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto (to reduce men to servitude), but to minister, and to give His life a ransom (a price of redemption from slavery) for many.' This is the constitutional principle in the kingdom of Christ in contrast to the State-arrangements of worldly empires; and it also indicates the deep-lying contrast between Church and State (see above, vol. iii. p. 8-9), which can be removed only in the perfection of the kingdom of heaven.

The court of the Messianic King exhibits itself in the following facts. When the great procession began openly and solemnly to set out from Jericho (where Christ had joined the Galilean and Perean pilgrims who were attached to Him), with a great multitude of adherents accompanying Him, He was suddenly stopped by two beggars. Behold, two blind men sitting by the way, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, 'Have mercy on us, O Lord, Thou Son of David!' The multitude] rebuked them because they should hold their peace; but they cried the louder, uttering the same words. The people who surrounded the Lord were certainly not offended because the blind men addressed Jesus as the Lord, the Son of David, and so acknowledged Him as the Messiah. But it seemed to them offensive that the royal procession of the Messiah should still stop for the sake of two beggars. They would not have the Lord annoyed on this His day of honour with such paltry petitions, and so, courtier-like, they repelled the petitioners with lordly pride. These were indications of the princely court which was sought to be formed around the Messiah: the courtier-spirit soon made itself observable. But the blind men did not recognize these courtly barriers with Jesus, and still less did He so Himself. He stood still, called them to Him, and asked, 'What will ye that I shall do unto you? 'It is an expression of the most humble readiness to serve, as if He had considered the beggars entitled to command Him. They said to Him, 'Lord, that our eyes may be opened.' Jesus had compassion upon them, and touched their eyes; and immediately their eyes received sight. And at the same time they also resolved thankfully to follow Him. It was of such people that Christ formed His court.

But how matters stood with respect to His train of attendants, His royal attire, and princely stud, was now to be made manifest, when the procession, in lengthened train, and with the loftiest enthusiasm, moved onward from Bethany. They were come to the village of Bethphage, and so were drawing near to the city of Jerusalem. Jesus now set about providing for a suitable entry into the capital. He sent forward two of His disciples, with the instruction: 'Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them unto Me: and if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.' The Evangelist adds the observation: All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass (Zech. ix. 9; and see above, vol. iii. p. 34). But here, as everywhere else, the life of Christ was not for the sake of the prophecy, but the prophecy for the sake of that life. Thus it was a true need of Christ to make His entry in this manner. But, beyond a doubt, He had also a perfect consciousness that by satisfying that need an ancient prophecy was at the same time fulfilled. That prophetic saying had apprehended and described all His feelings; He desired to enter into Salem in the form of a lowly prince of peace. They brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes; and they set Him thereon (see above, vol. iii. p. 35). In this mysterious way was a princely stall opened to our Lord, when He had need of it, on the path of His pilgrimage, — a sign that on His spiritual progress through the world, the aids, the treasures, and the powers of earth always stand at His command, as necessity requires. All things belong to His royal Spirit, and all become serviceable at the right day and hour; therefore He needs no royal stables, storehouses, and treasure-houses, as do the princes of this world.

And now the simple pomp of His royal procession was unfolded to view. A very great multitude surrounded Him with marks of homage. Many spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way: so both these bands provided for the ornamentation of His path. Others again formed the nearer escort of the King. A part of them went before Him, and others followed behind; but all sang the Messianic hymn (after Ps. cxviii. 2.5 et seq.): 'Hosanna to the Son of David: blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.' When the procession entered Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, and every one asked, Who is this? But the answer of the festal multitude was not, 'Christ, the King of Israel,' but 'Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.'

This royal procession of the Messiah begins with a fine enthusiasm, which forms the pure contrast to the costly and often factitious pomp of princely pageantries; and so it is the fair foretoken of a time when men shall, in the light of love, celebrate the highest festivals with the simplest means — with green branches and psalms. Just at its close, however, it betrays an abatement, because Christ leads His people, not on the war-horse to the fight, but on the beast of peace to victory through endurance, and because His attendants are not yet practised in this kind of warfare.

It was, however, quite in the spirit of His theocratic royal procession that Christ went immediately to the temple. The house of His Father was now in a special sense His house. He took up His residence in it (for one day or for three; see above, vol. iii. p. 39). His action in the temple was twofold. First, He purified it by casting out all the sellers and buyers, and overturning the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves, saying, 'It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves' (Isa. lvi. 7; Jer. vii. 11), Secondly, He consecrated it for its original destination by filling it with divine life. He healed the blind and the lame who came to Him in it. Thus He changed the temple from a den of thieves (a place of self-interest and fraud) into a house of mercy. The sanctification of anything has two sides; — a negative, which removes its former desecration, which gave it a wrong destination, and thereby defiled it; and a positive, which completes its consecration by restoring it to its eternal destination. Thus Christ sanctified the temple, in a positive and a negative way, to be the real house of His Father. And He sanctified it, not only by divine deeds, but also by His words. The children in the temple were shouting with joy to Him, and saluting Him with the Messianic salutation, Hosanna to the Son of David. That was altogether too much for the chief priests and scribes, who were already vexed at His miracles in the temple. They gave Him to understand that they did not concede the dignity of Messiah to Him; that they would even impute it to Him as a crime if He allowed Himself to be greeted with the Hosanna-cry. With the tone of excitement they said to Him, 'Hearest Thou what these say? 'His reply was a firm and truly great Yea, — the preface to His later testimony before Caiaphas; then He added, 'Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?' (Ps. viii. 2). They well knew that the continuation was, Because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the wenger. And they really seem now to have kept silence, struck by that saying. Thus, as Jesus had first reinstated the blind and the lame, and with them the heathen, whom they then represented (see above, iii. 40), into their theocratic right to the temple, and God's salvation in it, from which they had been ejected by shopkeepers, usurers, and beasts for sacrifice; so He put the praises of the babes and sucklings, in respect to their freedom and rightfulness, under the protection of the word of God, in contrast to the spiritual compulsion and threatenings of the chief priests and scribes. Thus He consecrated His Father's house, the symbolical house of God and ideal palace; and in this shape it appears as a brilliant contrast to the palaces of princes as they ordinarily exist in the old world. The historic claim to an abode in the temple, which the homage of the people had been willing to concede to Him, was, through this intermeddling which Jesus experienced from its officials, more than doubtful. This fact is symbolically expressed by His leaving on the spot the false watchmen of Zion when they called Him to account, and departing out of the temple and the city to pass the night in Bethany.

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