Golden Moments of Donkey
Triumphal entry in to the Jerusalem on the First Day of the Jewish week Sunday March 29, 33 AD
"They
took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he
who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!'" (John 12:13).
The
day following the somber dinner party in Bethany, dated by one source as
Sunday, March 27, 33 AD, Jesus made a bold entrance into Jerusalem. This step
was taken deliberately, with every consideration for the consequences. Prior to
this moment, Jesus had refused to allow any public acknowledgement as his being
the Messiah and thus avoided intensifying any conflict with the Jewish
religious authorities. But, the time was at hand and his opponents fully
understood the strong messianic implications of the manner of his entry into
Jerusalem. His riding upon a colt, the garments and palm branches in his path
and the shouts of the Passover pilgrims all pointed to Jesus as the Messiah.
In
the footsteps of Jesus...
According
to Matthew, Jesus ordered two of his disciples to bring him a donkey and her
colt from the nearby village of Bethphage:
"As
they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus
sent two disciples, saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and at
once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and
bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs
them, and he will send them right away'" (Matthew 21:1-3).
This, Matthew further states,
fulfilled a messianic prophecy by Zechariah
"Rejoice
greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes
to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a
colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9 ).
Jesus' riding a donkey,
however, was more than just a fulfillment of Zechariah's messianic prophecy. In
1 Kings, David told the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan and Benaiah son of
Jehoiada:
"Take
your lord's servants with you and set Solomon my son on my own mule and take
him down to Gihon. There shall Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint
him king over Israel" (1 Kings 1:33-34).
By
riding a donkey from Bethany to Jerusalem, rather than walking, Jesus
intentionally brought to mind Zechariah's prophecy of God fighting on Israel's
behalf with his feet on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:3-21).
The action also recalled the tradition of anointing a king from the Davidic
line. Jesus, in fact, said "I am the Messiah" without expressing it
verbally.
As
Jesus road up the steep path from Bethphage over the Mount of Olives, a very
large crowd made up of his Galilean followers, those who had witnessed the
raising of Lazarus from the dead, and even some Judean supporters, spread their
cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on
the road," The crowd shouted "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel"
(Matthew 21:6-9).
The
custom of spreading one's outer garments in the path was reserved for royalty.
By shouting "Hosanna" [from Hebrew yasha ("save") + na
("now" or "please") or "save now"], the crowd was
pleading for Jesus to save them from Roman oppression and domination;
The
accounts of the triumphal entry in the other synoptic gospels (Mark and Luke)
vary. in Mark (11:8), the people spread "branches they had cut in the
fields;" while in Luke (19:36), branches are not mentioned, only that the
"people spread their cloaks on the road."
Only John 12:13 mentions "palm branches," which the people apparently brought
from Jericho, since palm trees are not native to Jerusalem
(although you do see them
throughout the city today). By waving palms the people were fanning the flames
of Jewish nationalism, for the palm symbolized the Macabbean Revolt and the
subsequent Hasmonean rule from the 160's BC to 63 BC. It was as if the people
were waving Jewish flags, hoping to see Jesus do to the Romans what Judah
Macabbee had done to the Greeks in 164 BC — reestablish an independent Jewish
kingdom. Jesus, however, was not a heroic warrior-messiah entering on a horse
with battle cries and weapons, but a gentle Prince of Peace, riding humbly on a
donkey, bringing salvation.
Bethphage
The
name Bethphage means "house of unripe figs," after a species of
late-season figs which never appears ripe even when edible. The exact location
of Bethphage is unknown. The only mention of the village in the Bible is in the
three accounts of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem:
"As
they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of
Olives..." (Mark 11:1);
"As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives..." (Matthew 21:1);
"As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives..." (Luke 19:29).
"As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives..." (Matthew 21:1);
"As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives..." (Luke 19:29).
Undoubtedly the village was
situated in the vicinity of Bethany on the east side of the Mount of Olives.
Tradition has placed it near the Arab village of et-Tur on the eastern slope of
the Mount of Olives, about one mile west of the Arab village of el-Azariyeh,
(Bethany). Even today, Holy Week in Jerusalem begins with a palm procession
from the Franciscan chapel there, recalling the large crowd of pilgrims coming
out of the city with palm branches waving and shouts of hosanna:
"The next day the great
crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.
They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, 'Hosanna!' 'Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord!' 'Blessed is the King of Israel!'"
(John 12:12-13).
Already in the 4th century AD
a chapel was built there to commemorate the meeting between Lazarus' Sister Martha and Jesus, after
Lazarus had died. It was followed in the 12th century by a Crusader church; the
present Franciscan monastery and chapel were built in 1883, with the apse and
bell tower added later. Near the north wall of the chapel is the Stone of Meeting,
a cube-shaped stone from which the Crusaders believed Jesus mounted the donkey
before his triumphal entry. Especially interesting is the mention of Galileans
on the lid of an ossuary (a carved stone box for secondary reburial of bones)
found there. It would seem to shed light on the ease with which the two
disciples procured the donkey for Jesus. It appears Bethphage may have been a
settlement of people who, like Jesus and eleven of the disciples, were from
Galilee. Here, they were among compatriots.
(Below
left) Stone of Meeting at Bethpage. The
drawings on the side depict the meeting between Jesus and Martha; two disciples
bringing Jesus an ass and a colt, Lazarus rising from the dead, and on the side
facing the altar, a drawing of a crowd of people holding palms. (Below
right) The wall frescoes colored in shades of brown portray the
people preparing for the procession to Jerusalem.
(Above left) Pilgrims gathering at the
small Franciscan church for the Palm Sunday procession; (Above
right) The steep west slope of the Mount of Olives descending toward the
Kidron Valley, also called the Valley of Jehoshaphat.* This approximates
the view seen by the crowd accompanying Jesus as he rode toward the
Temple on Palm Sunday.
Valley of Jehoshaphat (Hebrew
valley of the judgment of Jehovah); mentioned only in (Joel 3:12) as the place where, after the
return of Judah from captivity, Jehovah would gather all the heathen, and would
there sit to judge them for their misdeeds to Israel.
The site of
"Jehovah's judgment" as been localized, and the name has become
attached to the Kidron Valley, the deep ravine separating the walled city of
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. When this identification was first applied
to this locale is unknown. It is not mentioned in the Bible or in the writings
of Josephus. Both Moslems and Jews believe that the last judgment will take
place there. The steep sides of the ravine are crowded with tombs awaiting the
last judgment. Almost the entire southern half of the Mount of Olives is now a
massive Jewish cemetery, where burial plots reportedly sell for $30,000 each.Dominus Flevit (below
left), a small Franciscan chapel on the west slope of the Mount of Olives,
commemorates an incident recorded in Luke 19:
As he approached Jerusalem and
saw the city, he wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on
this day what would bring you peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes. The
days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you
and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the
ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone
on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to
you'" (Luke 19:41-44).
The Franciscan Church of
Dominus Flevit, about halfway down the western slope of the Mount of Olives,
was designed by Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi in 1956. The roof is shaped
like a teardrop. The church's Latin name means "the Lord wept," recalling
Jesus stopping before entering the city to grieve over its future destruction. (Below
right) Window behind the altar of Dominus Flevit framing a view of
Jerusalem.
During preparatory excavation
work prior to construction of the church, a cemetery dating back to 1500 BC was
uncovered containing many ossuaries — small stone boxes for reburial of remains
— a number of which can be seen in a grotto just inside the entrance to the
Dominus Flavit grounds (below left). Around the time of Jesus, it was customary to wrap the dead
in linen shrouds and place them in small niches cut in the walls of tombs.
About a year later, after the flesh had decayed, the bones were placed in
ossuaries, to save space in expensive rock-cut tombs. As we shall later see,
Jesus' burial was actually the first step in this burial process practiced by
Jews in the 1st century. (Below right) Palm Sunday procession nearing the Kidron Valley.
As the procession on that
Sunday crossed over the crest of the Mount of Olives — directly east of, and
rising some 200 feet higher than walled city — it would have come into view of
the Antonia Fortress, the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem, situated at
the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. The Roman soldiers stationed there
would have called the demonstration to the attention of their superiors who
certainly took action
to find out who this man was and why the people were so excited by him Another group, the Zealots,
might have
been energized by this procession, for they were seeking a charismatic figure
to help them rally the people to revolt against the repressive Roman rule.
Seeing Jesus so well-received by the masses of common people must have
stimulated their hopes. On the other hand, the Jewish leaders standing around
the Temple Mount would have been aware of the danger posed by this spontaneous
demonstration and they asked Jesus to silence the crowd: "Teacher, rebuke
your disciples!" (Luke
19:39) To this Jesus replied: "If they keep quiet, the stones
will cry out" (Luke
19:40). (Right) model of 1st century AD Jerusalem at the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem: looking south toward the Temple Mount, with the Antonia Fortress
(building with four towers, far right).
After
crossing the bridge that traversed the steep Kidron ravine between the Mount of
Olives and the walled city, Jesus entered the Temple precincts, presumably
through an eastern gate which led directly there. Today that would be the now
closed Golden Gate.
Golden
Gate
The Golden Gate (below left) of today dates to the Muslim Umayyad period (7th-8th centuries AD) — long
after the time of Jesus. The story is told that the gate was walled-up to
prevent the entry of the Messiah, who was expected to come from the east and
enter through that very gate. Even now, there is a belief among Christians that
these measures are futile, and that the Golden Gate will miraculously reopen
when Jesus comes for the second time. In truth, it was closed after the Muslim
conquest, when the Dome of the Rock and aI-Aksa Mosque were built, to prevent
unsupervised access to the Temple Mount by "unbelievers." At the time
of the Crusades it was opened twice a year, on Palm Sunday and the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross. Under Turkish rule it was finally closed and has
remained so to this day
However,
evidence exists of an earlier gate beneath the Golden Gate, possibly the one
used by Jesus. Its remains (above right) were
accidentally discovered in 1969 by James Fleming, a young Bible student who was
exploring the Golden Gate after a heavy rain the previous day. While kneeling
to frame a picture of the gate in his camera view finder, the ground beneath
him gave way. He found himself in an eight-foot hole, in a mass grave full of
human bones. To his astonishment, directly beneath the Golden Gate, were the
remains of a hitherto unknown earlier gate. He managed to take a few pictures
of the five trapezoid-shaped stones that made up the arch of the gate. The
similarity of the stones to the Herodian masonry of other gates leading to the
Temple Mount suggests that this lower gate was also Herodian. If so, it very
well could have been the gate Jesus rode through when he entered Jerusalem.
Another theory suggests that the arch supported the bridge that spanned the
deep Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives known as the
"Causeway of the Heifer," since the High Priest used this way to
reach the place on the Mount of Olives where the ritual burning of the Red
Heifer took place, to purify the pilgrims with its ashes see Numbers 19:2. If
so, than Jesus crossed this bridge supported by the stones of this arch,
entered the eastern gate, then proceeded to the Court of Gentiles surrounding
the inner Temple precincts.
Mark tells us that upon entering the Temple precincts, Jesus "looked
around at everything." Probably he saw the merchants and money changers
who were actively conducting business with the pilgrims who had come to
celebrate the Passover later
in the week. And what he saw disturbed him. Sellers shouted and waved at
pilgrims, haggling over prices. Animals bleated and snorted and filled the
serene beauty of the Temple courts with the ammonia-like fumes of urine and the
stench of dung. However, because it was already late and many of the people had
left for the day, he returned to Bethany with his disciples, intending to
return early the next day when there would be a larger audience to witness what
he needed to do.
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