The King Who Rode on a Donkey

¹² The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³ So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” ¹⁴ And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

¹⁶ His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. ¹⁷ The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. ¹⁸ The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” – John 12:12-19

Our passage today is what is commonly called the Triumphal entry. It is what begins what we call the Passion week. The week which Christ would be crucified. A week from the time of this Triumphal entry, Jesus would be rising from the dead. Now we know that this Triumphal entry into Jerusalem is an important moment because it is mentioned in all four gospels, of course with various other details in the synoptic accounts.

It can often be a temptation to man to try and make Jesus out to be something or somebody that He is not. We can often build up certain expectations of Jesus – who He is, or what He will do – that are not accurate or right expectations. We see this as a common mistake with the Jewish people in the gospel accounts. For some, Jesus disappoints their expectations, for others, Jesus exceeds their expectations. For those whose expectations are disappointed by Jesus, He does not disappoint them because He is disappointing, or because His goodness can be exaggerated, or something like that. It is not because He is an actual let down. When Jesus disappoints people’s expectations, it is because we have had fleshly, sinful, or unbiblical expectations of Jesus. When we embrace Jesus only in the flesh, we will be disappointed when we still get sick, when we still aren’t wealthy, and when we still suffer in various ways. But when we take Jesus rightly, for who He truly is, and take Him by faith, we will never be let down, and He will always exceed our expectations. We will find that His mercy is more than our sin, that He is wiser than we thought, that He is faithful even when we are not, that His love never ends even when ours is dry, and that He still advocates for us even when we sin.

In our passage before us we have a case of certain expectations being set upon Jesus. These are expectations that in some sense are right, but yet clearly misguided as we find out later. There is a sense in which the Triumphal entry feels incredibly glorious and joyful, and yet, in the back of our minds as we read it, we know that in just a few days the crowd will turn on Jesus and demand His crucifixion. So it’s difficult to know exactly how we ought to feel about this event. Can we shout these words of Hosanna with the crowd, or does that make us traitorous, knowing what the crowd would do to him? This is the danger of mob-like crowds, and why Christians should avoid them: mobs do not think or reason, they just react and have an appetite. In one moment you can agree with a phrase the mob is chanting, and in the next moment you’ll be dragged along with them burning down buildings. I’m sure there were some people in this crowd who truly meant what they were saying, others who meant well, and so forth.

Having said that, yes, we can praise Jesus with Hosanna’s, saying blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, but we do so knowing how Christ fulfilled it, and having right expectations in faith, not mob expectations. So let us look at what this crowd says and does here.

 The Crowd Welcomes a King

So one of the features of this narrative that we are familiar with is the fact that this crowd welcomes Jesus with Palm branches. They take these palm branches and they wave them in the air and they shout Hosanna! There is some varying discussion on the etymology of the word “Hosanna,” and I think there is a couple things at play here. One is that a transliteration of “Hosanna” would be “save us, please!” It was a cry for salvation. But also it was used as a victory cry. Or a shout of exaltation. And I think that there are both of these elements at play, indeed even intertwining together. And so they are shouting ‘Hosanna’ while waving these palm branches in there. Now the palm branches were an ancient symbol of victory. It was a symbol of conquering. And in fact, it is said that the palm branches themselves were even called ‘hosannas.’ So it’s kind of signifying salvation through conquering. Saving through victory. And so this crowd is welcoming Jesus as a conquering King who saves them. They are welcoming Jesus as a victorious Savior King.

So their cry of “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” comes from Psalm 118, whether they intended that or not I do not know, because it is clear they had some misunderstandings. But Psalm 118:25-26 says, “Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD.” So maybe they’re singing Psalm 118 to Jesus as He rides in on a donkey. Pretty cool.

As a side note, one thing you should note about this incident is to remember that just a few verses ago, Jesus was moving about a bit undercover, because the Jews were seeking to arrest Him. But now His fame has so spread, He has turned the crowds to adoring Him, though it wouldn’t last. And so now, the Jewish leaders are not able to openly arrest Jesus. As we eventually know, they end up arresting Jesus in the middle of the night. But I just want you to note that element of the story line as we move into the passion week in John.

So the people are shouting Hosanna’s and maybe even singing Psalm 118. But not only that, these people are also acting out elements of the worship of heaven, of course unknowingly. Revelation 7:9-10, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” So in both cases we have a great crowd of people shouting out the salvation of their king with palm branches in their hands. The constant theme is salvation through conquering and victory. One instance before His victory and one after. But the theme and the plan was always conquering and victory. And His victory was always so sure that He could be praised as victor even before the fight.

Jesus the King

Now, one would think that a conquering king being welcomed into a city would be riding in on some majestic war horse, or a mighty golden chariot, or something like that. But that is not how Jesus rides into Jerusalem. Jesus rides in on a donkey. Now why would Jesus do that? Doesn’t He want to show that He is the mighty King of all the earth and He will conquer and will not be stopped? A donkey is pretty anticlimactic wouldn’t you say? Well, there goes Jesus, disappointing our fleshly visions of grandeur. In order to see Jesus rightly, in all His glory, we need to have our fleshly visions disappointed. No golden chariots with mighty horses, a lowly young donkey. But you see, the eye of faith knows and sees that the donkey is even better than great chariots and horses. The lowly young donkey shows Christ’s power all the more. His strength to be that much more. Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” That’s faith. That’s seeing Jesus rightly. The eye of flesh trusts only in what it sees. But the eye of faith trusts in what cannot be seen. You see Jesus wants to remove our trust in chariots in horses. He wants to take away our trust in what can be seen. There is a stronger principle in the world than that.

But Jesus is doing something even more. There is an ancient hope, expectation, faith, prophecy, and scripture that Jesus is fulfilling right before everyone’s eyes, which they do not see, until later. In verse 15 John quotes from Zechariah 9. Here is Zechariah 9:9-10: 

⁹ 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,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
    and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
    and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
    and from the River^[a] to the ends of the earth.

Not only does Jesus fulfill what the prophet Zechariah foresaw, but He also fulfills the blessing of the patriarch Jacob on His Son Judah, the very line from which Jesus came. Genesis 49:8-12: 

“Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
    your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
    your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
⁹ Judah is a lion’s cub;
    from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
    and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;^[a]
    and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine
    and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
    and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
¹² His eyes are darker than wine,

But let us consider further what the King riding on a donkey shows us.

It shows us what type of king he is. It shows us that He is distinct from other earthly kings who would ride in with such pomp and circumstance, placing themselves high above the peasants. Instead, Jesus is humble, not high above the people, but coming down to them. The young donkey really shows us that Jesus is a King who comes down to His people, for the young donkey of course would have been quite short and Jesus would’ve been very low to the ground while riding this donkey, probably needing to lift his legs too, so that his feet are not touching the ground. There is a true humility and a coming down to the lowest sinner that is displayed by Jesus, the King on the Donkey. I’m sure as Jesus rode in a donkey, He endeared Himself to the lowliest sinners, the cripples, the beggars, the poor, they see this king whom everyone is shouting praise for, and this king is low to them and has descended off of His high horse to where he can see them and touch them and they him. This is our Savior King. This should bring great comfort and assurance to lowly sinners as us. Jesus is not too high and proud to stoop down and save the lowliest of sinners. So you are not allowed to wallow in self-pity or self-deprecation thinking your sins are somehow so special that they are too low and dirty for Jesus to forgive. You are not allowed to have a pity party thinking there is no way Jesus would ever want to have anything to do with you. There are worse sinners than you that He has saved and loved. You don’t get to hide your pride in self-loathing.  

Not only does the donkey show us that Jesus is a humble king; it also shows us that He brings peace. In Zechariah 9:10 it says that he shall speak peace to the nations. Some of these Jews probably wanted a fight. Jesus came speaking peace. And one of the promises we crazy Postmillennialists look forward to is the increasing peace among the nations as a result of the advancing Kingdom of God, as more and more people are spoken peace to by Jesus in the gospel message. As more and more people are brought to peace with God, that will result in peace among men, as Christ’s rule extends “from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” – Zechariah quoting from Psalm 72 there.

So Jesus riding on the donkey is an expression of the nature of Jesus’ Kingship – He is a humble King speaking peace – it is not to say that He is not King here and now. The donkey was not Jesus saying, “No, I’m not your king.” It was Jesus showing what type of king He was and is. Jesus comes not on a war horse or golden chariot, but on a donkey, humble and bringing peace. We know that Jesus does mount a war horse, as we see in Revelation, but even there, His way of waging war, is not the world’s way of waging war. It’s through the sword coming out of his mouth, which is to say, His word, the double edged sword, being spoken, indeed it is the words of peace with God and man.

So let us think more about how Jesus conquers.

First of all, Jesus had to go to the cross before conquering. The crowds wanted to conquer without the cross. But you can’t conquer without the cross. The cross indeed is the conquering. That’s what our flesh wants. We want conquering without a cross. We want a crown of gold with a crown of thorns. But it doesn’t work that way. That is not God’s way of victory. Romans 8:17 teaches us that we suffer with Christ, in order that we may also be glorified with him. Suffering doesn’t look like glory to the eyes of the flesh, but that’s how faith sees it. Death on a cross doesn’t look like victory, but you realize that it was when the Life comes back out of the grave. We have to learn to see things through the eyes of faith. So Jesus conquers through suffering. He conquers through the cross. But He also conquers through subversion.

Jesus refuses to lead revolution and insurrection. But He doesn’t refuse to conquer. Instead, He conquers by subversion – subverting the powers that be by conversion, gospel preaching, and faithful Christian living. By the 300’s, the Roman Empire, that in the first century persecuted the Christians, fed them to lions, tarred and  feathered them, was officially Christian, but the Christians never fought a conventional war. They just got everyone converted. What ways can we conquer by subversion? Gospel preaching, evangelism, training and discipling our children, coming to church on the Lord’s Day, loving our wives and submitting to your husbands. Faithful Christian living is how we conquer. Everything about the way of the world is opposed to quite, independent, faithful christian living. Why? Because faithful Christian living subverts the way of the world. It subverts the godlike welfare state. It produces warriors who are strong on the meat of God’s word and apply it to this earth. But it takes humble patience to conquer through subversion. It takes a long term vision. It takes us playing the long game. Instead of 5 year plans, we should have 500 year plans.

Conclusion

In verse 16 we are told that the disciples did not understand what everything meant at the time. It was later, after Jesus’ glorification when they remembered what was written in the prophets and connected it with what Jesus did. Death has a way of putting things into perspective.

Death makes things more clear. Isn’t this true when we are reminded of death, someone we love dies, we nearly lose our life, something like that? Death always grabs our attention and sharpens our minds to think, and it makes things more clear. So viewing Christ through His death makes things more clear. We can understand His work, the things he did, much more clearly, when we see His death.

You can’t understand His Kingship, His ways, person, works, etc. -anything about him – without or apart from His death (and then resurrection). If you want benefits of Christ, or things of God, without accepting His death, to be yours, His resurrection to be yours, then you can’t have those things or understand him. You understand him at the cross. You receive all that is his at the cross. You cannot have the benefits of His Kingdom without having the way of His Kingdom.

Verse 18 hints at the fickleness of the crowd at mentioning the reason the crowd came to see Jesus – that He had performed this sign of raising Lazarus from the dead. It was the sign that attracted them, not a genuine love for Jesus. For we know later that week they would cry out to crucify Him. Jesus knew the hearts of men and could have easily rebuked them all for their hypocrisy and lying tongues. He could have scolded them every which way. But He didn’t. He loved them. He rode in on the donkey.

Jesus loves us in our fickleness, even when we don’t understand or love Him rightly, He loves us and is patient with us. He doesn’t call us hypocrites when we sing praise to Him on Sunday, knowing we are going to disobey Him on Tuesday. He loves us.

What’s even more is that in Revelation we see that faithful Christians who endure to the end receive a crown of life. Those who suffer with Christ, who participate in his humiliation will conquer and reign with Christ. Jesus gives to us a crown, a Hosanna, so to speak.