MATTHEW 21:1-11
SOON AFTER WE ARE BORN into this fascinating but fallen world, a nurse takes our fingerprints and footprints. As you know, this is done to help our parents and the hospital properly identify us. Today, of course, there are other more high-tech ways of identifying individuals. Eye scanners are used in some workplaces, and surveillance cameras are now used almost everywhere. Some cameras, at airports and government buildings, even have the capability of taking a picture of a person and then making an accurate identification simply by noting a few unique facial features.
In the familiar story of the “triumphal” entry, we have a story designed, as are all of the stories in Matthew’s Gospel, to help us recognize from afar some of the distinct features of Jesus, to help us recognize and respond to him as the promised King, as the one who has come in the name of the Lord.
The Theme of Fulfillment
In this tract I want us to notice two distinct features. In verses 1-7 we are introduced to the theme of fulfillment, the first feature we are to notice. In this famous scene we see two fulfillments—the fulfillment of a present command and the fulfillment of a past prophecy.
First is the fulfillment of Christ’s present command. In verses 1-3 Jesus describes what two of his disciples are to do and what they will encounter in doing it. These two are to go into the village. There they will immediately find a mother donkey and her foal or colt. Those animals will be tied up. These men are to untie them and bring them to Jesus. Jesus adds, “If anyone says anything to you [“Hey, what are you doing?” or “Stop, thieves!”], you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once” (v. 3).
What’s going on here? Did Jesus prearrange this? Did the owner of these animals have an angelic revelation of the plan? Or was the man merely a follower of Jesus, and when these two said the code word “Lord,” he gladly gave them what they wanted? We aren’t told. What we are told, in verses 6, 7, is that what Jesus told the disciples to expect and do was precisely fulfilled.
Such a fulfillment (whether natural or supernatural) is, of course, not the main point of verses 1-7. There is another point, another fulfillment that demands our fuller attention. In verse 3 we read that the “Lord needs them” (i.e., these animals). It’s a paradoxical statement. Does the Lord need anything? Does Jesus, who thus far has walked everywhere—long miles up north and now down south—need these beasts of burden for his overburdened legs? No. That is not the reason he needs them. The reason he needs these animals, and specifically the colt, is to reveal who he is and what his mission is all about. He needs them to fulfill a past prophecy.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 we are told that Jesus died “in accordance with the Scriptures” and that he rose again “in accordance with the Scriptures.” Here in Matthew’s Gospel we should notice that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt, of all animals, also according to the Scriptures—in other words, to fulfill a specific Old Testament prophecy, Zechariah 9:9, which Matthew alone of the four Gospel writers quotes.
This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, "Say to the daughter of Zion,
'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" (vv. 4, 5)
Zechariah is often labeled a “minor prophet,” but his prophecies are of major importance, for he is alluded to or quoted over eighty times in the New Testament. And in his most famous prophecy (Zechariah 9:9) he exhorts God’s people, whom he calls the “daughter of Zion,” to celebrate their future—to rejoice in the promise of the coming King and in the establishment of his kingdom:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he...”
As we examine the first part of the verse we might think that it is not so extraordinary to think that if God were to raise up an earthly king to bring divine victory and to inaugurate his peaceful kingdom (as v. 10 of Zechariah goes on to depict), such a ruler would be a righteous deliverer. This makes sense. In contrast to the many wicked kings who have preceded him, we would only expect that God’s divinely appointed king would conform to the morality of God’s Law and bring with him redemption for God’s people. So when Zechariah speaks of this king as being “righteous and having salvation,” we find nothing in such a description to be out of the ordinary.
Yet, when the prophet goes on to depict this great king as being “humble and mounted on a donkey,” we are tempted to think something is wrong. Humble? Donkey? Is this a mistake? Is this a misprint? It should be “glorious.” It should be “warhorse.” But this is no mistake. This is no misprint. The prophet intentionally wrote of this king being humble.
In the context of the book of Zechariah, as well as the rest of the prophets, this word “humble” does not mean so much “gentle” as it means “lowly” or "bowed down” or even “full of suffering.” The word “humble” denotes, as C. F. Keil claims, “the whole of the lowly, miserable, suffering condition, as it is elaborately depicted in Isaiah 53.”' So, in contrast with the arrogance and violence usually associated with earthly kings, this king, we are told, will be poor and afflicted; he will be a sovereign Lord and yet a suffering servant.
This description and prediction of humility is superseded in its strangeness only by the description and prediction that this king would come “mounted on a donkey.” Let’s go back to the little donkey for a little while. To prophesy that a king would come in this specific manner must have sounded bizarre to Zechariah’s original audience (perhaps as bizarre as it sounds to us), for since the time of King Solomon, when the breeding of horses was introduced, we are given no example in the Old Testament of any royal figure riding upon such a beast. In fact in all of antiquity we would be hard-pressed to find an example of any sort of ruler mounting a colt. The only example comes, oddly and importantly enough, in Genesis 49:11, which talks about the coming king as from the tribe of Judah.
It’s laughable to think about a Roman emperor straddled over such a slow, dirty, undignified, and unpretentious beast. It would be like the President coming into Chicago and traveling down the Magnificent Mile on a tricycle. When a king comes to town, the expectation is that he will ride proudly upon a battle steed at the head of a parade of decorated troops, as Alexander the Great did when he rode into Jerusalem in 332 BC. And yet the prophet Zechariah envisions a king who will ride into Jerusalem “mounted on... the foal of a donkey.” How interesting, to say the least.
Five hundred years passed from the time Zechariah wrote those words. Five hundred years passed from his penning that peculiar promise. Five hundred years passed until, as all four Gospels tell us, Jesus asked for a colt, he was brought a colt, and he sat on it. The phrase “he sat on them” (v. 7) refers, I think, to the cloaks, not to the two animals at once. This is why Mark, Luke, and John all say that Jesus “sat on it” (Mark 11:7; cp. Luke 19:35), referring to “a young donkey” (John 12:14). He sat on it. The Prince of Peace who comes in peace, who will one day bring the peace of the consummated kingdom (cp. Isaiah 11:1—10), sat on it. He sat and steadied this unbroken beast (an animal “so young that it had never been ridden”), just as he did the winds and the waves (8:23-27; 14:22-33).
Now such words—“he sat on it”—are not as dramatic as something like “It is finished,” but they are just as significant. “He sat on it.” That’s one of my favorite Bible prophecies... fulfilled! Often when I share my testimony, I close by saying why I became a Christian and why I remain one. My usual line is this: “I became a Christian and remain a Christian because I am convinced that what the Bible teaches about God, this world, and humanity is true.” I’m a Christian, in other words, because Christianity is true.
In our tolerant and pluralistic world, the word true has fallen on hard times. Pontus Pilate’s skeptical reply to Jesus—“What is truth?” (John 18:38)—has become the slogan of our postmodern culture that ironically affirms only one truth: objective and universal truths are not true. “What is truth?” That’s the one absolute that underlies much of today’s thinking, or lack thereof.
I’m sure every Brother reading this has experienced a conversation like this: We tell our unbelieving friends or family that we firmly believe that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” and that no one can come to God the Father except through faith in Jesus. Then we are given some patronizing remark about how nice it is that we have found religion or something to get us through these tough times. I rarely encounter someone (after I have presented the gospel) who gives me an honest answer. Someone usually says something like “How can you possibly believe that? That’s simply not true!” or “To me Christianity is nothing but a crutch for the feebleminded!” How refreshing such a conversation would be in this day and age. But nobody ever calls me a liar or a fool for believing in Jesus. They just say, “That’s nice for you, but not for me.” But when I became a Brother I didn't throw my mind out the door. In fact, quite the opposite happened. I discovered I actually had a mind, a mind that has been designed to love the Lord my God, a mind designed to embrace something called truth.
In Acts 26 when the prisoner Paul stood before King Agrippa and his royal court to present his case, the apostle appealed to what I’ll call “Scriptural reason.” Let me walk you through his amazing testimony to truth. Paul says to Agrippa, “To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses [the Old Testament] said would come to pass: [and what did the Old Testament say? It said] that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people [i.e., Jews; Paul and Agrippa are both Jews] and to the Gentiles” (v. 22). At this point Festus, who is the procurator of the Roman province of Judea, interrupts “with a loud voice,” saying, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind” (v. 24). But Paul retorts, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words” (v. 25).
How can Paul make such a statement—that the gospel he is presenting is true and rational? It is true and rational when one sizes it up, as Paul has just said, with the Old Testament prophetic writings.
So Paul appeals to Agrippa: For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe, (vv. 26, 27)
That’s the question: “Do you believe the prophets?” Implied here is that if you do believe the prophets, you should believe Jesus to be the Christ.
The king, feeling a bit pushed into a corner, feeling that he is now on trial, quickly changes the direction of the conversation. In fact he brings it to an end. He leaves his mind at the door. Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (v. 28). In other words, he says, “Do you think you can so easily and quickly change my mind? In such a short span of time do you think you can convince me that Jesus fulfills the prophets?” And Paul says to him (I love this final reply), “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am” (i.e., a Christian).
There are a number of reasons why I was “persuaded” to become a Christian. Perhaps atop the list is that the claims of Christ and his apostles are Scripturally reasonable. The Old Testament said the Messiah would fulfill A, B, C, D... X, Y, and Z, and sure enough Jesus fulfills A, B, C, D... X, Y, and Z.
Like a complex puzzle the prophet Zechariah (if you look at the whole of his prophecies) gave us two oddly shaped, seemingly contradictory pieces— piece A and piece Z. He spoke in chapter 9 of the coming of a human king and then in chapter 14 of the coming of a divine king. And it is in the coming and revelation of Jesus Christ and him alone that these two pieces, these apparently incongruent images, integrate. Jesus is the Son of David, and Jesus is David's Lord. In our Lord's first appearance he comes, as the prophets foretold, as the humble king, the king who came to suffer and die for the sins of the world, the king who came to bring salvation. When he comes again, as the prophets also foretold, he will then consummate his kingdom and rule the earth in perfect righteousness and glory.
Why am I a Brother? Why are you a Brother? And why should all who are not Brethren become Brethren? Such a faith in such a person is reasonable and true. We are Brethren because we know that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures, that in him all the prophecies find their “Yes”; as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.” All the puzzle pieces of the Old Testament prophecies, when rightly aligned, show us the portrait of Jesus. They identify his facial features—and his hands, feet, and side. They identify him to be just the man, just the king, just the Savior for which we have been looking.
When Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the story about the young man who spent his early inheritance on riotous living, he said that when this boy finally hit rock bottom he “came to his senses” (Luke 15; 17, niv). That is, he repented of the behavior that went against rational thought (he repented of his riotous living) and returned (as only is sensible) to his loving and forgiving father. I know that some of us still need to come to our senses. It is my hope and prayer that in presenting Jesus as the reasonable fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, presenting him as the King who has come and the King who will come, that even in “a short time” I have persuaded or will persuade you to became as I am.
The Audacity of Jesus' Intentionality
The first feature is fulfillment. Now we will consider the second.
I have never met someone who doesn’t have some admiration for Jesus. Sure, I have meet people who may disdain Christianity as a system of thought or the church as a religious institution, but everyone I know admires Jesus for any of a number of reasons—his fearless criticism of the establishment, his championing the cause of the poor, his friendship with the outcasts of society, his compassion for the despised and rejected, his moral teaching on loving one’s neighbor, or the fact that he actually practiced what he preached. To this list I will add that most people esteem Jesus for his genuine humility—his washing the disciples’ feet, his death on the cross, and yes, his riding into town on a lowly, little donkey.
But however much one might admire Jesus for his attitudes and actions, one still has to come to grips with his claims, claims that appear to be quite the opposite of humility, claims that (how should I put it?) are extraordinarily self-focused. This is the second feature about Jesus I want us to notice. I’ll call it “The Audacity of Jesus’ Intentionality.”
What is most surprising to me about 21:1-11 is not Jesus' humility but his self-promotion. His actions are premeditated. By riding into town the way he rode into town and receiving the praise he received (vv. 8, 9) with no personal protest (“Who me? No. Stop that!”), he is announcing to the world, “The King has come.” So the irony of the triumphal entry, if you will, is our Lord’s promotion or publication of his humble reign!
No matter how you look at it, by mounting that animal and riding it into Jerusalem, Jesus is making a bold statement. He is claiming to be the Messiah. He is claiming to be the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. Now those who don’t want to accept this claim and submit to it (or to Christ I should say) may be tempted to brush off this particular action as a mere oversight on the part of the otherwise good and humble teacher from Nazareth. Yet one only has to glance through the Gospels to find in Jesus a pattern of self-promotion.
For example, what are we to make of his “I am” statements in John’s Gospel? For example, he said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). He claimed, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51). What are we to make of such claims? If we trust in Jesus we will live forever? Really? Who talks like this?
Who would dare claim, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12)? What complete audacity to claim the world is dark, he alone is light, and one must follow him in order to get out of the darkness. Can you imagine the Dalai Lama or the Pope standing up at the United Nations and saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25)? Can you even fathom some preacher today asserting, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37) or “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32)? What do you think the media would do to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (an interesting name to say the least) if he had begun his acceptance speech after his election by saying something like, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35)?
Think about the claims of Christ! It is one thing for a man to say, as Jesus did, that we are to love God with all our heart and soul and strength, but quite another thing to say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37). In the Gospels Jesus can’t stop talking about himself.
We usually disdain people who talk so much about themselves. We are repulsed by anyone who demands our love and obedience, our total allegiance. And yet what is it about Jesus that makes him not only likable but also believable? There is perhaps nothing so remarkable about Jesus than the fact that he advanced himself as the object of faith, love, and obedience, and yet he comes across as the most humble man to walk the face of the earth. When Muhammad Ali claimed to be the greatest, we all just rolled our eyes and smirked. But when Jesus claims to be the Savior and Judge of the world, to be “the greatest” by dying and rising again, we somehow are prone to bow our heads and agree. Why?
Deluded people usually “delude no one but themselves.” You only have to be in the presence of such persons for a few minutes before you recognize that their claims are bogus and they are living in a fantasy world. But with Jesus this is not the case. His first disciples didn’t see in him such a delusion. Neither have the millions of people (is it billions now?) throughout history who have and do and will bow the knee to this son of a poor Jewish maiden.
John Stott calls what I’m talking about simply “the paradox of Jesus.” Stott writes that Jesus’ “claims sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but he shows no sign of being a fanatic, a neurotic or, still less, a psychotic. On the contrary, he comes before us in the pages of the Gospels as the most balanced and integrated of human beings.” That’s the paradox of Jesus. He covers himself with disturbing claims (disturbing because they are so self-focused), and yet we see him clothed with utter humility. That, my friends, is the profound paradox we see in our passage. And it is one of those things that you really don't notice unless you pay careful attention.
Jesus arranges the whole scene. He determines the details. He decides to ride slightly above the crowd into Jerusalem upon a foal of a beast of burden, which is an action little different than how he started his earthly ministry in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 4:16-21), taking up the scroll of Isaiah, reading it in the synagogue, sitting down to teach, and then expounding the text, saying in essence, “If you want to know to whom the prophet was referring, he was writing about me.” Jesus rode into Jerusalem announcing that Israel’s Messiah had arrived, just as Zechariah said he would. By
mounting that beast, Jesus in essence said, “If you want to know to whom the prophet was referring, he was writing about me.”
It’s all quite mind-boggling.
Shake and Shout
One reason I am a Brother is because it is Scripturally reasonable. As I test the person, words, and actions of Jesus against what the Old Testament messianic prophecies say, I find the right match. Jesus fulfills the Scriptures. Another reason I am a Brother, I must admit, is because of this wonderfully alluring paradox of Jesus. (Here it’s the audacity of his intentionally—to intentionally ride in on a donkey.) And it is these two distinct features in our passage that I want us all to recognize and to respond to today.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem we read that “the whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?”’ (v. 10). The city was “stirred up” or “quaked” (the literal word used here); the city quaked like it would "quake” at his death and at his resurrection. And the question that came out of this quaking was the right one: “Who is this?” (v. 10).
“And the crowds said, ‘This is the prophet Jesus’” (v. 11). Yes, Jesus is a prophet like Moses, but he is more than a prophet or even the prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15). He is, as the crowd shouts, echoing the blind men in 20:30 and the children in 21:15, “the Son of David!” (v. 9). He is the prophet. He is the long-awaited King.
But is he not more than prophet and king? Is he not. Is he not, as I'll put it, the Son of God on the child of a donkey, the one who came to save us (1:21)? Hosanna. Save us, Lord. And is he not also the one we still long for, to come in power at the true triumphal entry? He is! And thus we still cry out (echoing and expanding upon Psalm 118:25, 26), “Hosanna”—“save us!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Hosanna in the highest! Prophet, King, Savior, come again. The earth still shakes, and we still shout, “Come and save us.”
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)