Mark: An 8-Day Devotional Reading PlanSample

A Surprising Kind of Rescue

Jesus does nothing by chance; nor does he bend to the expectations of anyone. Perhaps nowhere is this more clearly seen than in his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. The book of Zechariah, recorded some 500 years before Jesus’s birth, spoke of a coming king who would bring peace to Israel, depicted as “humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9). The prophecy was well-known among the Jews of Jesus’s day, who looked for a king to deliver them by force from Roman oppression.

So when Jesus instructs his disciples to bring him a donkey colt from a nearby village, he does so with purpose. Even the way he states his request indicates awareness and deliberate action. He intends to go to the cross, and he understands exactly what must be done to accomplish that end.

The colt is found, just as Jesus had indicated, and he mounts it to ride the short distance into Jerusalem. The journey was only about two miles, and most pilgrims made it by foot. Significantly, in all four Gospels, this is the only recorded instance in which Jesus rides rather than walks. Why? Because he is making a statement. He is announcing unequivocally that he is Israel’s Messiah. He is, in effect, enacting a living parable. The people respond immediately to its implicit message, laying cloaks and branches in his path, after the pattern of the anointing of Old Testament kings. They cry out “Hosanna!”—“Save now!”—acknowledging Jesus as the Promised One, the Christ.

And yet the salvation for which they clamor is a deliverance from earthly oppression. When their expectations of a warrior-king are not met, their shouts of “Hosanna!” will turn to shouts of “Crucify him!” Yet, with steady deliberation he steps into the prophecies of old, initiating the sequence of events that will indeed result in peace, a final exhalation of his breath that speaks peace to all nations, just as Zechariah had prophesied. After thousands of years of waiting, he will indeed “save now,” though not as his people expected.

If the Jews had eyes to see that their coming King was also their Passover Lamb, their shouts of Hosanna might have rung until the Passover was spent and the Paschal Lamb slain. What about you? Has Jesus failed to meet your expectations? Have you looked for him to intervene in power and found yourself disappointed? Consider that he is deliberately acting for your good, though perhaps not in a way you expected. Know that the one to whom you cry “Save now!” is able to save to the uttermost.—Jen Wilkin