Monday 14 August 2023

Psalm 99

Background

The crowds have been trying to make Jesus king for quite some time now. In the early chapters of John’s Gospel, word of, and enthusiasm for Jesus were spreading to such an extent that, after he had fed a crowd of 5000, they decided to crown him on the spot. “When Jesus realised that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:14-15).  It isn’t clear what the crowd’s agenda is, but the use of coercive force, and Jesus’ withdrawal, suggest it had little to do with the developing picture of his identity and mission as Messiah, God’s ‘anointed’ or chosen one (the translation of ‘Messiah’). John’s Gospel tells us that there was significant expectation that the Messiah would appear. The priests and Levites thought John the Baptist was the Messiah (1:20, 25), and Andrew told Peter that he had found the Messiah (1:40).  But an excited crowd forcing a crown on Jesus only for him to slip away suggests this had more to with their will and purposes than God’s.

The same seems to be true of today’s story. The palm branches waved by the crowd are associated with the nationalism of an earlier era of Israel’s history, and an armed Jewish revolt against an occupying power by the Maccabean dynasty: in 141 BC, palm branches were carried in a procession into Jerusalem for Simon Maccabee, who was briefly triumphant against the occupiers.  

What Jesus does subverts such expectations: he finds and sits on a donkey. Jesus would know his own scriptures, including the reference which the gospel writer quotes (v. 15) of the coming king riding a donkey, which comes from Zechariah (Zechariah 9:9). But Zechariah’s king comes in humility (9:9) and – tellingly – has a global horizon: he comes to ‘command peace to the nations’ (9:10), not merely Israel’s vindication. Jesus again – metaphorically – ‘slips away’ from the crowd’s agenda to pursue the paradoxical, costly glory (John 12:23; 17:1) and all-embracing love that will lead him to his death on the cross.

To Ponder:

• In what ways have you noticed yourself or others trying to fit Jesus into your or their own agenda or projects?
• What can help resist the temptation to do this?