Tag: Jerusalem

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Sunday Morning

When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.  Untie it and bring it here . . .”  Luke 19:29-30

After leaving Jericho, they traveled on to Bethany and may have spent the Sabbath with Lazarus and his sisters.  The “great crowd” of followers–how many now? One or two hundred?–must have overwhelmed the little town, but everyone sensed that the movement was about to come into its own.   Jerusalem was next, and something great would take place there—something fixed, definite, and game-changing.

As the sun went down on another Sabbath, he called two of the twelve to him. Which two?  Shall we pick?  Let’s say it was Simon the Zealot and . . . Judas Iscariot.

They often don‘t get along because of political differences, Judas being a straightlaced, by-the-book sort, while Simon is always popping off about Roman occupiers and the Day of the Lord, meanwhile quoting blood-curdling passages from Nahum.  But both are eagerly anticipating the kingdom, and equally thrilled to receive this commission.

As the Master explains the plan to borrow a donkey and enter Jerusalem in style, the disciples nod, glancing at each other with mutual comprehension.  When they depart, the news spreads throughout the ranks of followers, just now waking up in pastures and barns: He means to ride into the city!  He has never ridden anywhere, on anything!  What could it mean, except that he’s about to claim his kingdom?  A prancing stallion might have made the point better, perhaps, but little villages don’t often offer that kind of conveyance.  No matter; if that’s what he intends to do, they’ll help him do it right.

Jerusalem

At daybreak they are on the road, the sun opening up behind them like a benevolent hand.  Spring breezes play with the new barley sprouting up in the fields and birdsong threads the excitable air.  As they approach the rise known as the Mount of Olives, here come Judas and Simon, leading a little donkey with a gentle, placid face.  “Master!” they shout.  “It happened just as you told us.  As we were untying the colt, its owner came out of the inn nearby and asked what we were doing and we said . . .”

He does not appear to be listening as he places a hand on the donkey’s head and gazes into its dark eyes.  A look of understanding passes between them.  Without any urging the beast moves closer.  Peter whips off his coat and spreads it across the animal’s spine; three of the others follow suit.  The donkey bends its hind legs and Jesus sits on its back, rising slightly over the heads of the surrounding men when the donkey straightens and staggers a little under the unaccustomed weight.

A gasp runs through the onlookers, and then a shout: “Hosanna!  He comes!  Blessed is he!”

Several of them run ahead to spread the news: “Clear the road!  Jesus of Nazareth is coming!”  The road is already thick with Passover traffic, but the travelers have heard of Jesus of Nazareth.  Who hasn’t? They stop and move to the side, craning their necks to see—including a delegation of Pharisees outfitted in prayer shawls and phylacteries.

Young date palms sway along the road.  One of the messengers shimmies up a trunk and cuts some branches, throwing them down to the women below.  Soon bystanders are stripping leaves from other trees and the air fills with a sweet, dusty scent.

As the donkey carrying Messiah crests the hill, this is what they see: a landscape of heaving palm branches and fluttering headscarves, a waiting throng clustered along the way to the Holy City with the road laid bare as a bone.  More people are running from the fields and pastures and the city itself, using their elbows to carve out places to stand and watch.  The disciples can’t help grinning like holy fools—This is their moment!

One man strips off his cloak—his best, tight-woven and dyed russet red—and lays it down before the blessed beast.  Soon the road is patched with them—coats and cloaks and bright sashes, pressed into the ground by careful hooves.  Random cries are beginning to coalesce in a single repeated shout:

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

It’s a customary shout for festive worshippers entering the temple or gathering palms for the Festival of Booths.  That feast, also known as Ingathering, normally comes in the fall, but they’re celebrating the Ingathering early this year, and why not?  The LORD always said he would gather his people and open the holy gates for them:

Lift up your heads, O gates!

And be lifted up, O ancient doors,

 That the King of Glory may come in!

The delegation of Pharisees sticks out like disapproving schoolmasters.  “Teacher!” one of them calls to the passing procession: “Tell your disciples to pipe down!  This is Passover, not Succoth.”

The disciples can’t help feeling smug as their teacher answers, calling back over his shoulder, “I might as well tell these stones to pipe down!”

And there before them, at long last, is the Holy City, where all their hopes and dreams will come true.

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Beautiful Stones

And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”  Luke 21:6

The city is never more glorious than at sunset, when thick golden beams fall upon its marble and gold.  From the Mount of Olives, where they are headed, it was the crown of creation: “Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the Earth.”*   Deep in its crevasses lie squalor and grit and grime, like any other city.  At Passover, the holiest celebration of the calendar, the filth intensifies with all the bleating, screeching, and bawling of sacrificial stock.  A day in Jerusalem at Passover was like wrangling in a cattle pen.  But from the temple rises majestic and cool on Zion’s Mount, the solid stuff of legend, the gleaming dream of the ages.

“What beautiful stones,” a disciple murmurs, walking backwards for a few steps so he can take in the magnificent view.

“What massive buildings!” exclaims another.

To tell the truth, they have begun to feel somewhat proprietary over all of it, for once their Master claims his crown, they might well be governors and administrators.  The Kingdom is coming; its capital is before them.  Surely they would come to know it well, from the Procurator’s palace (good-bye to Rome!) to the meanest twisty street, as they went about the business of Setting Things Right—which they feel supremely qualified to do.  Isn’t this what the Master has been preparing them for?

Jerusalem-the-golden

“Yes,” he says.   “Beautiful stones, massive buildings.  But listen—can you hear it?  The screams of women and children, the clash of swords and whir of arrows?  The day is coming when not one of those alabaster slabs will be left upon another.”

His words fall like a slab—large, flat, and crushing—upon their expectations.  One can almost feel the dry dust rising from it.  They look at one another, dismayed, and Peter finally asks: “Master . . . when will this be?”

The last light of day thickens as the sun pauses on the horizon—and so does he, stepping off the road.  Other pilgrims on the road look his way as though they would love to linger, but all hurry past, anxious to get to their lodgings in Bethany or Bethlehem before dark.

“Don’t be deceived,” he says to his disciples.  “Many will tell you the hour of triumph is at hand, but time must first have its say.”

Then he begins to speak of terrible things: of retribution falling on them personally, of being dragged before rulers and magistrates (but won’t we be the rulers and magistrates?!), of betrayal by those closest to them, of being put on the spot by those demanding an account.  “But don’t prepare a defense for that time, for I will give you words to say.”

(But Lord, where will you be?)

Then he speaks of even worse things: the holy city surrounded by armies, pressed in and destroyed, nursing mothers slaughtered, massive stones scattered like pebbles, “until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled.”

(But Lord, what about your Kingdom?)

Even worse: conflict spreads to the heavens, where sun, moon, and stars flash angry signs at each other—and on earth, roaring seas, shaking land. The inhabitants of earth will collapse from terror, but as for you: “Lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.”

(But Lord . . . )

“You know when summer is coming,” he says, nodding toward a nearby fig tree: “Buds swell on the on a frosty morning, and in the next few weeks the tender green leaves unfurl on every branch.”  He steps over to the tree and strokes a limb—caresses it, really, as though it were his own creation.  For a moment he seems absorbed in the pattern of a single star-shaped leaf, plucked from the branch, twirled in his fingers like a street dancer.  With such, scripture says, guilty Adam and Eve tried vainly to cover themselves.

“You want to know when the kingdom is coming.  I’ve given you the signs.  It will happen in this generation; watch for it.  From now on you are on alert.  Your lives will never be the same, so don’t behave as though they were.  The Kingdom is not a continuous celebration—not yet.  It is a call to arms, and continual vigilance, and unceasing prayer.

“I establish my word with you.  These stones will crumble to dust, but my words will never pass away.”

On to the Mount of Olives, their camping place.  All are troubled; one is deeply disturbed.

*Psalm 48:2

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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