Matthew 21:1-11
March 29
David A. Davis
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The procession comes from the Mount of Olives. One can easily see Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Just down the hill from the Mount of Olives is the Garden of Gethsemane. Between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem is the Kidron Valley. The procession started at the top of the Mount of Olives, went down the steep hill, passed the Garden of Gethsemane, through the Kidron valley, and up the steep hill to the holy city of Jerusalem. The only way to get to Jerusalem from any direction is to go up. Somewhere in between the Mount of Olives and the city was a village. That is where two of the disciples found the colt and the donkey. They brought them back up the hill, and the procession started. A donkey. A colt. Cloaks on the animals. Cloaks on the pathway. Branches spread along the way as well. Crowds are going ahead. Crowds following behind. All shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Jesus and the procession come to one of the gates into the walled city of Jerusalem. As Jesus enters the city, Matthew tells his readers that “the whole city was in turmoil.” The crowd that went before and the crowd that followed Jesus, they were shouting “Save, save, save,” But the city, the whole city was in turmoil.
All four gospels tell of Jesus “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. Matthew is the only gospel that tells of the city of Jerusalem in turmoil. Matthew describing the city in turmoil is the only time the word “turmoil” occurs in the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. Other English translations read that “the city was stirred”. The King James tells of the city being “moved”. Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase, writes that the city was being “shaken”, not stirred, not moved. Moved. Stirred. Shaken. Turmoil.
In the Greek text, the word used to describe the state of the city here is a cognate of the English word “seismic.” It is the same word Matthew uses when the earth shook as Jesus breathed his last. “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice,” Matthew records, “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” It is the same word Matthew uses when the earth shook that first Easter morning. “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake.” Not just in Matthew, but throughout scripture, when a form of the word is used, it refers to an earthquake kind of thing. The only other time I can find that the word is used to describe anything other than the earth shaking is when Matthew writes about the guards seeing the Risen Christ. “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook and became like dead men.” When the Palm Sunday procession arrived in Jerusalem, the whole city was shaking. The whole city shook. The whole city was in turmoil. It was like an earthquake.
Here’s a preacher’s traditional way, then, of interpreting the turmoil. With attention paid to Matthew’s word choice, the reader discovers the connection between the Triumphal Entry, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. The city shaking is, at the very least, a foreshadowing of the earth-shattering events that will come to pass in the days to come in Jerusalem. Perhaps, the arrival of the Messiah at the city gate demands a cosmic affirmation as well. The long-awaited, heavenly trumpeted Messiah is here. He reaches the threshold of the city, and the city quakes. For the Messiah to arrive is a momentous, earth-moving event; just like the death of the Son of God, just like when the Savior of the world rises again. The city was in turmoil, and all of creation shook with it as the Savior finally came knocking.
In addition to the symbolism that points to an affirmation from above when it comes to the turmoil, the shake, there is an assumption that the stir is caused by the arrival of the Jesus parade. “When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” One sort of just figures that there’s this commotion, this buzz, as Jesus and the crowds make their way through the gate. “Who is this? Who is that? Do you know who that is? What’s all this about?” The sort of bottleneck, gaper delay, ambulance chasing buzz. It’s the talk of the town. A turmoil made greater with the messiah talk, the messiah shouts. The messiah is supposed to arrive on a stallion prepared to bring victory over the empire by power and might, shock and awe, ushering in God’s kingdom to cripple, to topple, to crush, the kingdoms of this world. But a donkey? A colt? Cloaks on the animals. Cloaks on the pathway. Branches spread along the way as well. A motley, ragtag, underwhelming crowd shouting “Save, save, save.” “Who is this?”
But the turmoil must be more. You have heard me say this before: when you bring the world to bear on an unsuspecting biblical text, the Spirit works to turn the page of scripture into God’s living word. Which is to say, you cannot read the Triumphal Entry in Matthew in this world, in this nation right now, and not think the turmoil has to be more. Matthew 21:10; what if it reads more like this: When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city in turmoil…was asking, “Who is this”? When Jesus came into Jerusalem, the whole turmoiled city was asking, “Who is this?” When Jesus came into Jerusalem, that shaking, fear-driven, riled up, city in turmoil….everyone was asking, “Who is this?” What if the turmoil wasn’t caused by the asking or by the chatter? What if the turmoil really wasn’t caused by Jesus’ arrival at all? What if the stir, the shaking, the turmoil was an apt description of the city before Jesus got there? What if Jesus came to Jerusalem precisely because it was a city in turmoil? Jesus came to Jerusalem not just for those who were shouting “Hosanna,” but he came for a whole city that was shaking in fear!!
The whole city in turmoil. The city where the powers and principalities meet. The city where the rich get richer and the poor beg at the gate. The city where religious ritual becomes a pay-to-play business. The city where the pious exaggerate their wealth and generosity, while the poor widow puts in all the living that she has. The city where the most faithful religious leaders do their best and appointed political leaders can’t ever really win. A city where the empire rages with its power and fear is stoked to control the people. A city where violence never seems to cease, and blood in the streets has become the norm. A city that had, that has a timelessness to it. An archetype-alness to it. A city that moved Jesus to tears in Luke’s gospel. The turmoil of Jerusalem. It was Jerusalem just being Jerusalem. Full of the shaking, stirring, moving, quaking reality of the human condition. And Jesus rode right smack into the middle of all that… turmoil.
Turmoil doesn’t begin to describe it, does it? The unending promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that he still rides in to the thick of this….turmoil, into all that shakes not just in the world, in the nation, but in the turmoil of our lives; your life and mine. God knows the turmoil out there is quite enough, but look around in here. I remember a former student of mine coming to see me in my office when she came back to Princeton after a year or so in her first call as a solo pastor. “I look out over my congregation, some Sundays it’s almost paralyzing and so daunting that I am expected to have something to say”, she said to me. She was talking about the pastoral realities of life and the burden of knowing all the joys and sorrows people bear. I told our Lenten small group that, pretty much every Sunday from where I sit in this room, I can see someone shedding tears. And in times like this, it feels like there’s more. More tears. All this….turmoil.
All the turmoil of your life and mine. All of it added up, multiplied, all piled up right here. And Christ Jesus promises to march smack into the middle of it all, into the middle of us all. Not just our acclamations but our fears. Not just our affirmations but our doubts. Not just our joys but our sorrows. Not just our palm-waving shout but our gut-churning plea. He marches right into the middle of it all. Come, King Jesus, even here, even now. Save! Save! Save!
It’s his Palm Sunday promise. It’s our Palm Sunday prayer.