THE ROAD TO THE CROSS
Mark 20:17-21:11, Mark 10:32-11:11,
Luke 18:31-19:44 and John 12:12-19
When is Easter anyway? Every year I have to check the calendar to see where they have put Easter. Why should this be such a problem? After all, Jesus and his disciples were celebrating Passover just before the crucifixion and Passover comes on the same day every year. Why doesn’t Easter fall at the same time as Passover? It seems that this was not a convenient situation for many, so when the Roman Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, they decreed that Easter would always fall on a Sunday. Furthermore, they set the date as the first Sunday after the start of spring (March 21st) at the first full moon. Complicated? Yes! So if you have trouble figuring out when Easter will be every year there is a very good reason. It will, however, occur on a Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th. Does that help any? (Trust politicians to make things complicated.)
The story of Easter is all about Jesus’ last days here on Earth. Jesus’ disciples really should not have been surprised at the events that happened. But they were so sure that they knew what the outcome of this final journey to Jerusalem would be, that all of Jesus’ prophesy about his death fell on deaf ears. The Jews believed that when the Messiah came he would destroy their enemies (the Romans) and restore them to a place of prestige and power as a nation. The disciples felt they would have places of honor in the new government that Jesus would set up. Matthew, the only eyewitness who wrote
about the event, tells us in Matthew 20:17-19 that Jesus described the coming events in vivid detail and showed the disciples that it had all been prophesied.
(To see these prophesies look up Isaiah 50:6 and Isaiah 53:4-12.)
And so they continued their journey to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. It was customary in the towns near Jerusalem for the people to line the streets whenever they heard that someone famous or important was coming by. The news that the new “teacher” was coming through brought out the usual crowds to listen and cheer. As they passed through the town of Jericho, an old blind beggar sat by the wayside. Blindness, like many other conditions and diseases, was thought to be caused by a demon or brought on as a punishment from God. These people were largely ignored. They owned nothing but the clothes on their backs. Mark 10:46-50 calls the beggar by name, Bartimeus or the son of Timeus. Since Mark got his information from Peter, Bartimeus probably became a well know figure. (Matthew had an annoying habit of doubling things and Luke must have interview as many people as he could while he was in Jerusalem but did not include the beggar’s name.) The beggar was so overjoyed to have his sight restored that he followed Jesus immediately. He had nothing so there was nothing for him to give up to follow Jesus. The second man that Jesus met in Jericho had a lot to lose. His name was Zacchaeus. You may have heard the children’s song; "Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man". This song gives the basic story as found in Luke 19:1-10. Zacchaeus was a “publican”, that is a tax collector, for the Roman government just as Matthew had been before he joined Jesus as a disciple. The tax collectors were considered traitors and collaborators with the enemy.
No Jew would have any dealings with them and their testimony was not accepted in a Jewish court and they were barred from attending the temple.
To make matters worse, Zacchaeus was very short. He was an easy target for abuse. The tax collectors lived very well. They had to be very smart to get this job; since much of the taxes involved foreign money, they weren’t above cheating when it suited them with the exchange rates.
Jesus honored Zacchaeus by entering his home and eating with him, a thing that no Jewish Rabbi would have considered. Zacchaeus knew the law from Exodus 22:1. He showed that he had changed and even went a step beyond the law by pledging half of what he owned to the poor. (Curiously, Matthew never mentioned Zacchaeus even though he must have been there.)
Now came the crucial part of the journey. Jesus and his disciples had left Jericho behind and were almost to Bethphage and Bethany. At this point Jesus made a strange request. Matthew 21:2-3 tells that he asked two disciples to go bring him an ass with a colt that was tied up in the village. (We know that Jesus had close friends in Bethany, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Could they have arranged this in advance?) The disciples were told that if anyone asked why they were taking the animals they were to say, “The master has need of it.” Luke in Luke 19:33 tells us that the owner of the animals came and asked the question, then let the disciples take the animals. Matthew 21:5 quotes the prophesy from Zechariah 9:9 showing that this was the sign of the Messiah—The New King. Again Jesus showed that his kingdom would not be one of conquest. He could have entered Jerusalem on a war-horse set to battle his way to power. Instead he used an ass which had always been the symbol of peace. The disciples lay their garments (probably their cloaks) on top of the ass as a kind of cushion. This was symbolic of the treatment of the kings of old as we see in II Kings 9:13. The people, seeing this took up the cry "Hosanna" meaning save now. This was a cry for deliverance as quoted from Psalms 118:25. They called on Jesus to be the King of Israel and cutting palm branches to line the path. They lay their cloaks on the road to create a path for this Jesus whom they all thought was coming to drive out the Romans.
This was always a dangerous time in Jerusalem. Religious fervor was at a high and the Romans were constantly on guard for the start of a rebellion. They brought in a special detachment of troops and stationed them in the Tower of Antonia overlooking the temple itself to control the crowds. It is estimated that over 2,000,000 people were in Jerusalem for the Passover. So it is no wonder that the Pharisees became alarmed when the crowd began to chant about a new king. They could just picture a Roman Legion descending on them and many a Jew dying in the battle. Their request to Jesus to quiet the crown was not really unreasonable. (Luke 19:39) Jesus’ response in Luke 19:40, which was a quote from Habakkuk 2:11, just added fuel to their desire to get rid of this radical teacher before he roused the people even more. This action took Jesus another step on his way to the cross.
