THE
DECISIVE HOUR
Mario
D’Couto
The feast of Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy
Week, the climax towards the culmination of Our Lord’s battle against the
infernal foe. To provide some context, no matter how much the Pharisees and the
Scribes conspired against Our Blessed Lord with Herod, they could not lay a finger
on Him unless He willingly surrendered Himself to them. He knew the time of His
own death and He knew that the time had not yet come. The Pharisees, the
Herodians and the Sadducees who formed an alliance would not have their Victim
until He would deliver Himself into their hands, He was in complete control of
His life.
He reaffirmed by saying that He would not die in Galilee,
where He was then but in Jerusalem as we find in His words,
“It is
unthinkable for a prophet to meet his death anywhere but in Jerusalem”
(Luke 13:33). No matter how much Herod would try to kill Him, He would not alter
the
‘Hour’ set by His Father. To Jerusalem belonged the monopoly of
killing the prophets. In that city would His Cross be erected. It was in this
Holy City under Pontius Pilate that He would be killed and not in the provinces
under Herod. Once on the Cross in Jerusalem He would say,
“It is finished”
(John 19:30) thus linking up the Divine Mission from the Father with His own
will to preach, cast out devils and offer Himself as a propitiation for the
sins of humankind. The mention of Jerusalem brought to His mind not only His
death but also His patriotic love of the city as we see,
“O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, the city that murders the prophets and stones the messengers sent to
her! How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her
brood under her wings; but you would not let Me. Look, look! There is your
temple, forsaken by God. And I tell you, you shall never see Me until the time
comes when you say, ‘Blessings
on Him who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
(Luke 13:34 – 35)
What’s interesting about Our Blessed Lord’s entry into
Jerusalem is that while for the most part of His ministry, He chose to remain
hidden and not reveal Himself as can be seen in Matthew 16:20, Mark 5:43, Mark
9:8, John 6:15 and John 7:6, when it came to His entry into Jerusalem, it was
the complete opposite, where even the Pharisees said,
“All the world has
gone after Him” (John 12:19). Our Lord accepted the homage and praise shown
to Him by the people and why? Because His “
Hour” had come.
It was time for Him to make the last public affirmation
of His claims. He knew it would lead to Calvary, His Ascension and the
establishment of His Kingdom on earth. Once He acknowledged their praise, there
were only two courses open to the city: confess Him as did Peter or else
crucify. Either He was their King or else they would have no king but Caesar.
He drew attention to His Kingship in two ways, first by
the fulfilment of a prophecy familiar to the people and second by the tributes
of Divinity which He accepted as His own. Matthew explicitly states that the
solemn procession was to fulfil the prophecy made by Zechariah years before, “Tell
the daughter of Zion, ‘Here is
your king who comes to you in gentleness, riding on an ass’”
(Matthew 21:5)
The prophecy came from God through a prophet and now God
Himself was bringing it to the fulfilment. The prophecy of Zechariah was meant
to contrast the majesty and humility of the Saviour. If one were to compare the
ancient, sculptured slabs of Assyria and Babylon, the murals of Egypt, the
tombs of the Persians and the scrolls of the Roman columns with the entry of
Our Blessed Lord into Jerusalem, the contrast is pretty stark. When one looks
at the former, one is struck by the majesty of kings riding in triumph on
horses or in chariots and sometimes over the prostrate bodies of their foes.
This is nowhere the case in the life of Our Blessed Lord, the One from Whom
everything came into existence, riding on a donkey. If Pilate were looking out
of his fortress that Sunday, he probably would have been amused by the
ridiculous spectacle of a Man being proclaimed as a King and yet seated on the
beast that was the symbol of the outcast – a fitting vehicle from one riding
into the jaws of death! If He had entered into the city with regal pomp in the
manner of conquerors, He would have given occasion to believe that He was a
political Messiah. But the circumstance He chose validated His claim that His
Kingdom was not of this world. There is no suggestion this pauper King was a
rival of Caesar.
Another striking thing from this particular incident in
the life of Our Blessed Lord is the combination of Divinity and dependence, of
possession and poverty, all of which came about as a natural consequent of the
Word becoming flesh. In preparation for His entrance, He sent two of His
disciples into the village, where they were told they would find a colt
tethered on which no man had ridden. They were to untie it and bring it to Him
to which He instructed them, “
If anyone asks why you are untying it, say ‘Our Master needs it’”
(Luke 19:31). He who was rich become poor for our sake that we might be rich.
He borrowed a boat from a fisherman from which to preach; He borrowed barley
loaves and fishes from a boy to feed the multitude; He borrowed a grave from
which He would rise; and now He borrowed an ass on which to enter Jerusalem.
Sometimes God pre-empts and requisitions the things of man, as if to remind him
that everything is a gift from Him. It is sufficient for those who know Him to
hear, “The Lord hath need it” (Luke 19:31; Matthew 21:3)
At the same time, while all this was happening, He knew
that eventually, the
‘hosanas’ would change to
‘crucify’ and the
palms would be turned into spears. Amid the shouts of the multitude He could
hear the whispers of a Judas and the angry voices before Pilate’s palace. The
throne to which He was hailed was a Cross and His real coronation would be a
Crucifixion. Garments were aplenty beneath His feet on that day but on Friday
He would be denied His own. From the very beginning He knew what was in the
heart of man and never once did He suggest that the Redemption of men’s souls
could be accomplished by vocal fireworks. Though He was a King and though they
now admitted Him as their King and Lord, He knew the King’s welcome which
awaited Him was to be Calvary.
Tears were in His eyes, not because of the Cross which
awaited Him but because of the woes impending over those whom He came to save
and would have none of Him as we find written in the Gospels,
“He wept over
it and said, ‘If you only had
known, on this great day, the way that leads to peace! But no, it is hidden,
from your sight.’” (Luke 19:41-42)
He spoke of Himself as willing and able to have averted
that doom by gathering the guilty ones under His wing as the hen does gather
its chickens but they would not. As the greatest patriot of all ages, He looked
beyond His own suffering and fixed His eye on the city that rejected Love. To
see evil and to be unable to remedy it because of human perversity in the
greatest anguish of all. To see the wickedness and be baffled by the
waywardness of the evildoer is enough to break a heart. The father is cast down
with anguish when he sees the wrongdoing of his son. What prompted His tears
were the eyes that would not see and the ears that would not hear. His tears
over the city showed Him as the Lord of History, giving men grace and yet never
destroying the freedom to reject it. But in disobeying His will, men destroy
themselves; in stabbing Him, it is their own hearts they slay; in denying Him,
it is their city and their nation that they bring to ruin. Such was the message
of His tears as the King goes to Cross.
This goes to point the tremendous power of human freedom
where each individual has always
had it within himself or herself to reject or
accept the protective and saving wings of God. So too the Son of God had it
freely within Himself freely to offer His life for Jerusalem and the world. If
he were compelled to suffer, it would be a height of injustice nor would the
Father accept a sacrifice offered reluctantly. On one hand, Our Lord had called
those who were willing to be shaped by Him, His sheep but now He calls them His
brood, keeping the Cross before Him but it would be perfecting, a consummation
of His glory. The Cross and His resurrection were never two separate entities.
He would go to the Cross not as a martyr but as the Victor. Certainly men would
crown Him with thorns and fix Him to a Cross but all this was on the human
level. It would not happen before the Divinely appointed hour.
Never is there a mention of the tragedy without the
glory; so too here the evil treatment the Son would receive, would be
compensated by the ultimate victory, in which as the cornerstone He would unite
Jew and Gentile in one holy house. The builders of His death, the people who
conspired against Him, would be overruled by the Great Architect, wherein the
unconscious rejection of Him made them unconscious, voluntary instruments of
His purpose. He, Whom they refused, God would raise as King as highlighted in
the parable of the tenants in the vineyard (Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-2, Luke
20:9-19). It is through this parable, He spoke of His own fate and destiny as
if it were already done and accomplished and pointed out the futility of any
opposition to Him even though they would kill Him. Remarkable words were they
from a Man who said that in three days He would be crucified and yet it revealed
in clear words what they dimly knew in their own hearts. With dramatic
suddenness which caught them unaware, He anticipated the judgment He said He
would exercise over all men and nations on the last day where He would no
longer be the Lamb but the Lion of Judah. As His last days on earth drew closer
to an end, the rulers must decide now whether they will receive or reject Him.
To reject the Saviour is to reject Salvation. The questioners of His authority
(the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Scribes) had no doubt of the spiritual
significance of the parable and reference to themselves. Their motives were
discovered which only exasperated more those whose designs were evil. Where
evil is revealed in the light, it does not always repent; sometimes it becomes
more evil.
