Matthew 21:1-11

Triumphal Entry vs. Royal Entry

Many of our Bibles today place a heading over this passage as “the triumphal entry.” This heading is somewhat misleading. A more accurate heading would be “the royal entry.”

A triumphal entry took place when a king had conquered a people or a city. Upon the victory, the king would lead a victory parade, perhaps through the conquered city or in return to the royal city, in which those the king conquered were forced to march behind the king and his victorious army as defeated, humiliated captives. The king grew in honor and the defeated sunk in shame. Typically the king would ride upon a war horse used in battle. Paul uses this imagery in ironic fashion in 2 Corinthians 2:14 where Paul is thankful, maybe even boastful, that he is led by Christ in triumphal procession, that is, he is one who has been conquered by Christ and is now a prisoner of Christ, being paraded by Christ.

A royal entry is very different. Its setting is of a king coming to take his throne. Perhaps the best example of this is Solomon’s procession to the throne found in 1 Kings 1:32-40. There David has Solomon placed upon his mule (offspring of a male donkey and female horse) and he is escorted to the throne amidst trumpets, flutes, and great rejoicing. Solomon enters as the new king ready to assume his throne rather than as a triumphant king returning from battle.

Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem upon a donkey (or two donkeys) is more like Solomon’s entrance than a triumphal entrance. In many ways Jesus’ battle is still in front of him. Triumph does not actually come until the victories of Gethsemane, Golgotha, and the grave.

I suppose we could keep the title “triumphant entry” as long as we understand it prophetically – that the triumph is about to take place. But it seems a better fit to understand the event as a royal entry – a king entering to receive his kingdom.

Recognition vs. Understanding

From the two blind men of Matthew 9:27 calling Jesus “Son of David” to the Canaanite woman who calls Jesus “Son of David” (15:22) to Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ (16:16) to the Transfiguration (17:1) to the request of the mother of Zebedee’s sons to have her sons James and John sit at Jesus’ right and left (19:20) to the two blind men calling out, “Son of David” (19:31), to the praise of the crowd upon Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem, there is a growing awareness that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah King. Everyone is beginning to recognize that Jesus is the coming King. True, Jewish leadership resists and refuses to recognize Jesus as King, but the disciples and the crowds are becoming more and more certain.

But while there is growing and deepening recognition that Jesus is the Messiah King, there is also a vast and deep lack of understanding regarding both the character/culture of Jesus’ kingdom and how Jesus will bring about his kingdom. Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples that his kingdom comes through his suffering, through his going to the cross (16:21, 17:22-23, 20:17-19). The disciples just don’t get this. In their minds (and everyone else’s) there is no way the Messiah is supposed to die. The disciples see that Jesus is the Messiah but they are blind to his kingdom coming via his cross.

The disciples are also blind to the character/culture of Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus emphasizes that to be great in his kingdom one must become a servant of all, that one must be humble like a child, that one must practice forgiveness over and over, that one must give wealth away, and that one must actually take up their cross and follow him. Nowhere is this lack of understanding more evident than in the request to sit at Jesus’ right and left in his kingdom. James and John and their mother assume that Jesus’ kingdom will be like any other kingdom of this world where power is used for personal gain. They believe that God is with Jesus to put Jesus on top of the world and they want to be on top of the world right next to Jesus. It’s as if they want to use their close relationship to Jesus to get as high up as they can get in his new kingdom. They are absolutely blind to the servant culture of Jesus’ kingdom and the humility that is required.

It is easy for us to spot the foolishness of the disciples, but how often is that us!? We, like they, recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, and we, just like they, are blind to the culture of Jesus’ kingdom. Rather than denying self and taking up cross to follow Jesus, we attempt to use Jesus to make better lives for ourselves. We rarely pray for Jesus to help us imitate his humility. More often we pray for Jesus to help us get somewhere, to be successful, to achieve greater things and gain more status. We recognize but we do not understand.

The Terrible Twos of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew, in comparison to Mark and Luke, is known for having a number of parallel stories where Matthew has two characters while Mark and Luke have only one. This is quite puzzling.

In Mt. 8:28 we find Jesus casting unclean spirits out of two demon-possessed men. This is the story where the demons are cast into the pigs and the pigs drown themselves. In Mark and Luke there is only one demon-possessed man.

In Mt. 9:27 two blind men are following Jesus and calling out, “Son of David, have mercy on us.” This story is somewhat unique to Matthew but a case can be made that it is Matthew’s version of the one blind man being healed in Mark 8:22-26. Luke has no parallel to this story.

In Mt. 20:29-34 there are again two blind men calling out to Jesus. Mark and Luke only have one blind man.

And then there is our passage today. Matthew has two animals: a donkey and her colt. Mark, Luke, and John have only one animal: the colt.

All of these appear to be accounts of the same events rather than accounts of similar but distinct events. So the question arises, why does Matthew have two of each character? One possibility is that Matthew has two because there were two. From this vantage point, the other gospels are leaving out a character rather than Matthew doubling a character. Regarding the donkey and her colt, since Jesus rode the colt the other gospels chose to leave out the mother donkey. Personally, this is not a very satisfying response to Matthew’s doublings given that Mark tends to write with far greater detail than Matthew. Matthew generally provides a more simplified account of events.

A second response is that because Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience and because the Old Testament law requires two witnesses to substantiate an event, Matthew is doubling the characters in order to provide two witnesses. I struggle with this one, for if Matthew is fabricating a second witness to substantiate the truth telling of the first witness, he is actually undercutting the integrity of that witness. A counterfeit witness does not lend greater credibility to an authentic witness.

The best approach to Matthew’s doublings is to see them as Matthew’s effort to help his readers make connections that they (and we) otherwise might have missed. Matthew doubles characters with the goal of connecting stories so that they are interpreted in the light of each other rather than interpreted as standing alone. Matthew doubles in order to help us read contextually.

Consider 8:28, the healing of the two demoniacs who were “so violent that no one could pass that way.” The story prior to this is Jesus rebuking the winds and the waves so that there was calm on the lake. The correlation is between the winds and the waves and the two demoniacs. Jesus brings calm to the two men in the same way that he rebuked the winds and the waves. Winds and waves are beyond human control. They are symbolic of demonic chaos and Jesus performs an exorcism of them. The message is that Jesus has authority over every sphere of the demonic, from the winds to the waves to the unclean spirits that are defiling these two men.

Let’s go to 9:27, the first account of Jesus healing two blind men. In 9:28 Jesus asks, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They answer yes and vs.29, Jesus touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” Their sight was restored. If we look at the preceding passage it is the account of the ruler’s dead daughter and the bleeding woman. Jesus tells the woman, “your faith has healed you” and then he goes on to raise the dead daughter back to life, just as the father requested. The correlation is between the two people making faith requests, the believing dad and the faithing woman, and the two believing blind men. The doubling of the blind serves as commentary on the father and the woman, highlighting the significance of their faith. “According to your faith will it be done to you” applies not just to the blind men, but to the father and the woman too, “daughter, your faith has healed you.”

Now for 20:29, our second set of two blind men. They, like the first, cry out, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” Jesus calls them and questions them, “What do you want me to do for you?” Their response, “Lord, we want our sight.” Jesus had compassion on them, touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed Jesus (he’s heading to Jerusalem to be crucified).

I’m guessing by now you know where to look to explain this doubling, to find the connection Matthew wants us to make. In the preceding story the mother of James and John asks of Jesus a favor. Jesus says, “What do you want?” This is the same question Jesus asked the two blind men, only here the “you” is singular. Mom then makes the request for Jesus to sit her two sons at his right and left. Jesus responds, “You do not know what you ask. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” Now Jesus is speaking “you” in the second person plural. He is especially addressing James and John as he goes on to emphasize the servant culture of his kingdom.

Do you “see” the correlation? Matthew doubles the blind men to make sure we don’t miss the connection between blind James and John and the two blind men. James and John are blind to the humble character required of those in Jesus’ kingdom. Rather than truly following Jesus they are merely seeking positions/power for themselves. They have missed everything that Jesus has been teaching them (20:17-19), but they do see enough to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah. Is there any hope for them? Yes, Jesus healed the two blind men and they followed Jesus. There is hope that James and John will be healed of their blind ambition and that they will become humble followers of Jesus.

In other words, Matthew does not want us to see that there is merely good news that Jesus healed these two blind men, good as that is. Rather, Matthew wants us to hear the good news that blind, seat-seeking disciples can be healed and transformed into Jesus-following disciples who embrace the humble character and servant culture of Jesus’ kingdom. For disciples who recognize that Jesus is king but just can’t quite get the culture of his kingdom, that is incredibly good news!

When blind disciples see and follow Jesus, what is that going to look like in real life? That question brings us to our passage and the two donkeys. (I know, it has taken us a long time to get back here.)

Jesus sends 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.” Matthew announces that this fulfills what was spoken through the prophet, “See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Matthew then reports that the two disciples did this, bringing back both animals. “They placed their cloaks on them (the donkey and the colt), and Jesus sat on them.”

Jesus sent two disciples. Matthew does not name them and we do not know which two, but in the narrative flow we cannot help but think of James and John. We go quickly from James and John wanting power seats to two blind men and now back to two disciples.

And what does Jesus send these two disciples (presumably James and John) to do? To go get and bring back a donkey and her colt, two beasts of burden.

Now why does Matthew have the donkey and her colt? And what does Matthew mean when he says, “Jesus sat on them”?

I had a New Testament professor who always laughed at this, the thought of Jesus sitting on two donkeys at the same time as he rode into Jerusalem! I’ve heard Matthew ridiculed for not understanding Hebrew parallelism – that the prophet wasn’t really speaking about two animals, but merely emphasizing that the donkey was a young colt. Others imply that Matthew was a clumsy writer. They explain “them” as the cloaks. They put their cloaks on them (both animals) and Jesus sat on them (the clothes – on the colt). But all this is to miss the connection that Matthew wants us to make!

The two donkeys correspond with the two disciples who correspond with the two blind men who correspond with James and John. Is Jesus sending James and John to get these two donkeys that he is going to ride into Jerusalem because he wants to help James and John reflect on the lesson he was just trying to teach them? What kind of an animal is a donkey? A beast of burden. A lowly animal used for carrying loads. Rather than sitting at Jesus’ right and left, if these two disciples want to be great, they must become donkeys, burden bearers, load-carrying servants with Jesus at the reins. True discipleship is not so much about sitting high with Jesus, but being under Jesus and at Jesus’ disposal.

Donkeys are symbolic of the character and culture of Jesus’ kingdom. These two disciples, of all people, needed to learn this lesson. They in a sense needed to become donkeys, men who carry burdens for the sake of Jesus. We might even argue that according to Matthew, the call of discipleship is a call to become a donkey under the reins of Jesus.

If I asked any of you what animal you would like to be for a day, I doubt any of you would have said you want to be a donkey. It is a lowly, burden-bearing animal that carries loads for others. But if we are to get Matthew, if we are to get Jesus and this kingdom that he brings through his cross, then we need to get that discipleship is about becoming a donkey in service to Jesus. Discipleship looks like a donkey.

But let me be clear: I am not saying go make a donkey of yourself.

And the truth is, much as we might try, none of us can truly make a donkey of ourselves. It is just as impossible for us to make ourselves into donkeys as it is for the blind to make themselves see. It takes a miracle for the blind to come to sight and it takes a miracle for seat-seeking disciples to become burden-bearing donkeys.

So we don’t leave today saying that we are going to serve more, that we are going to carry more burdens, that we are going to be more donkey-like. No, we cannot really transform ourselves. Remember the blind men. They did not say, “we are going to see better.” No, they asked Jesus to enable them to see, to give them sight. So our prayer should be, “Jesus, transform us into donkeys, give us the humility that is characteristic of your kingdom, conform us to your servant culture.” This change from seeking power for self to seeking servanthood and actually becoming a servant for the sake of Jesus is nothing short of a miracle. Only Jesus can bring it about.

The good news is that Jesus goes to the cross and triumphs over sin and death in order to do this very miracle in each of us. We pray and trust today that Jesus is at work making us into donkeys, that we might become bearers of his kingdom to a lost, scared, hurting, and confused world.

What does it look like to be transformed into a donkey in a Covid 19 context? How do we bear burdens for the sake of Christ?

Lord, transform us your people, your church, into a beast of burden under your rein, that the world might know the hope and healing that you offer, and the victory that you have accomplished. Amen.

Note: I preached this sermon on Palm Sunday, 2016. Here is the link if you would like to listen:https://www.southeastnazsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Matthew-20.17-21.17-on-Palm-Sunday-3-20-16-by-Pastor-Steve-Rodeheaver.mp3