Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. John 12:13 (NLT)
The Donkey and a New Kind of Temple – Part 2
Go to PART 1
People were flocking to Jerusalem to prepare for the Passover feasts. Rumours about how Jesus had brought Lazarus back from the dead (he just walked out of his tomb) and the odd but beautiful anointing he received from a woman, all just a week before, had spread like wildfire. The priests and religious leaders had finalised their plot to kill Jesus and were setting their plans in motion.
While some were plotting to kill him, others were planning on following him: the air was electric with every kind of possibility.
One thousand years earlier, King David wanted to build God a beautiful and wondrous temple – one that would reflect his glory and beauty. But God stopped him. David had been a warrior king, who ruled with violence and dominating power; he had innocent blood on his hands. God wanted his temple built by a man of peace. And that man was David’s son, Solomon. When Solomon was anointed king, he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the smell of anointing flowing all around him. Even though God had rejected David's wish to build the temple, he promised David that his bloodline would always sit on the throne.
Now, Jesus, of the tribe of Benjamin, a direct descendant of David by his mother Mary, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The smell of royalty was flowing from him (due to the anointing he had received a week earlier) and stories of his might – not to kill but to revive – were circulating. He was headed to the temple, the one built on the same site as Solomon’s. But he had a new kind of temple in mind.
Just as he was born a king into a stable; royalty birthed into humility, strength into vulnerability – the temple that would house the essence and presence of the Divine would not be a man-made structure. It would not be adorned with jewels and plated with precious metals. It would be made of something more precious, more valuable – something that reflected with his birth and the nature of his kingdom: the human heart. Flesh and blood. He would sit on a new kind of throne.
In fact, the Divine was already there amongst the people, the temple had already been prepared. It had been there all along. And what Jesus was about to do would shift everyone's attention from the material and visible approximations of Kingdom and freedom and justice, to love in the face of violence, forgiveness in the face of betrayal, and hope in the face of death.
He was leading a protest. He was protesting violence, hatred, separation, war, dominance, bondage, abuse, greed, lust, hopelessness and more by submitting himself to the hands of people who led by those very things. And this eternal protest, this grand act of love and humility and forgiveness, this sacrifice that can’t even be explained in words has paved the way for us to follow in Christ's footsteps.
And not just follow.
He walks beside us; he is within us; he surrounds us. He dwells in his holy temple.
As he rode his donkey through the streets, with a million different emotions, agendas, situations and circumstances swirling through the atmosphere; with people pressed up against on either side, a collective voice declared,
“Hosanna,
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the king of Israel!”
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