daily java

Daily Java:

So they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it for him to ride on. As he rode along, the crowds spread out their garments on the road ahead of him. When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. “Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!” But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!” He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!” (Luke 19:35-40)

Jesus was about to ride into Jerusalem for the last time. He’ll come back in when he is being tried and killed, but for now, he is just coming like Zechariah the prophet in the Old Testament said he would, riding a donkey’s colt.

Rejoice, O people of Zion!
    Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem!
Look, your king is coming to you.
    He is righteous and victorious,
yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—
    riding on a donkey’s colt. (Zechariah 9:8-10)

It is hard to imagine. And it was for them too. They had always seen their king coming in on a white  horse or something like that. Jesus’ entrance was so humble.

Yet his entrance was also so full of promise. The crowds liked this man. They enjoyed hearing him speak, they saw his miracles, they saw and heard his knowledge of God. And they decided almost spontaneously to honor him.

And they began to shout: “Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!” Of course, this went over badly with the religious leadership. They didn’t like Jesus. Sure he spoke with authority. Sure, he performed great, inexplicable miracles. Sure, you could see the presence of God in his life.

But it was not the presence of God that they wanted. The presence of God that they wanted was the one that would include them in it, that would make them primary leaders. They didn’t mind Jesus coming as the Messiah – in fact they welcomed it. But their idea was that he was to include them, to honor them, to make them also great along with him.

And he didn’t. In fact, not only did he not honor them, he made fun of them. He mocked them. He all but told the commoners to ignore them. That was not acceptable to them.

So they began to look petty in their anger. “Make your people stop quoting scripture when we do not want them to quote scripture.” They could see good things done, and they could see that Jesus was from God. But because he was not doing it in the way they wanted, they were willing to tear the situation up.

They would stop the power of God before they would allow the power of God to be used without their permission.

But Jesus’ comment? “The praise has to be said. And if they didn’t say it, the very earth would cry out in praise to God.”

And then to compound the problem, Jesus reclaimed the temple for God. They had made it into a worship marketplace and Jesus had the audacity to inject God back into his temple. That was too much for them.

The next few verses say: the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the other leaders of the people began planning how to kill him. But they could think of nothing, because all the people hung on every word he said. They were finished with him, but came up with a problem: how do you accuse a man who has done nothing wrong.

A real conundrum. They would, of course, force themselves to figure something out. When those in opposition want something, they will always find it, even if it is looking for a perceived flaw in the divine Lamb of God.

It is the same today, unfortunately. Of course, Jesus warned us of that. If they didn’t like him, and he was perfect, how much trouble are we going to have being imperfect?