Palm Sunday
From the writing of 1
HENRI DANIEL-ROPS
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Jesus stopped at a village called, Bethphage, which means “the house of figs”, and it was market day. “Go into the village,” said Jesus, “and untie a donkey and a colt that you will find there, and bring them to me. If anyone raises an objection, say that the Lord has need of them, and you will be allowed to take the animals”. The command seems rather strange to a modern reader, but it would have seemed much less so to the Jews round Jesus. Even if the mode of borrowing the donkey is unusual, one could sense that it had a prophetic significance. After all, Zacharias had said” “See where thy king comes to greet thee, a trusty deliverer; see how lowly he rides, mounted on a donkey, the foal of a donkey”. A messianic entry was being arranged.
Such was certainly the scene that actually took place. “The moment”, says Romano Guardini, “belongs to the power of the Spirit.” Jesus arrived, in the sunshine of the Palestinian spring, in sight of the city. His friends and followers acclaimed him, and there was soon a whole crowd surging round him…
“Who is it?” asked those loitering by the roadside. “Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee”, was the answer, and Hosannas rang out, people cut branches off the palm trees and waved them enthusiastically above their heads, and cloaks were strewn on the ground to make a ceremonial carpet for the Messiah’s mount. A curious triumph, which was to remain limited and modest, but a significant one; now that the hour of decision was at hand, Jesus no longer needed to keep his messianic character half-concealed; indeed, it was important that it should be recognized.
However, amid this manifestation of joy, Jesus had a deep feeling of anxiety and anguish. When he arrived on the crest of the mount of Olives, he stopped; the city lay before him behind huge walls bristling with towers, looking invincible and eternal. But the power of the Holy Spirit gave Christ a quite different picture, that of a Jerusalem besieged, crushed and destroyed. Why? Because it had been blind to the light…
When he arrived at the Temple, the goal of his entry as a pilgrim, Jesus caused a spectacular scene. Noticing in the colonnades the traders who were changing money or selling counters entitling their holders to the ritual lamb or doves for sacrifice, he rushed to their tables and overturned them. “Was the house of prayer to become a den of thieves?” He was really blazing with the zeal of God. It was an astonishing mysterious day. It looks as if Jesus wanted to confront all humans with the truth, with their responsibilities, once and for all.
When the day was over, and the western sky was red behind the three Herodian towers which crowned the wall on that side of the city, he had this further lesson for the little band of faithful followers who had stayed round him and was probably gazing at the setting sun: “I have come into this world as a light, so that all those who believe in me may continue no longer in darkness.” As they returned with him to Bethany, to spend the night there, the disciples must have had much to think about.