On Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem a crowd gathered, shouting:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

With a great deal of excitement, they hailed Jesus as the messiah, as one descended from David, the founder of Israel’s royal dynasty. This scene is typical of the coronations of Israel’s kings. Oddly, however, within days, the same crowd also demands his crucifixion… the rest is history.

Indeed, when in Matthew 21:1-11 Jesus rides into town most Christians assume he does so as a triumphant king, the sort of thing they expect of David’s descendant, except for one detail: he’s mounted on a donkey. Christians typically respond, “How nice, Jesus is so meek and humble. ” Or as one blog says, “The Lord’s King does not approach his capitol city on a horse, as if to wage war. Instead, he approaches humbly, on a donkey, because he is meek and lowly in heart and he brings peace.” [Link] We’re so used to this image that we aren’t the least bit disturbed by it. But I wonder how the people of Jesus’ time understood this detail?

For instance, what if Obama arrived at the Democratic convention riding on a go cart. I’m sure we’d notice and think twice about electing him for President. Its the kind of thing we might expect to see on Saturday Night Live or read in the ONION [link here], but not on the regular news.

This actually leads me to the idea that Jesus may be acting a part in a sort of comic skit: a ritual procession that’s intended to be ridiculous. Like in the Hunchback of Notre Dame when during the Feast of Fools the crowd crowns Quasimodo king: despite all the cheers and the hooplah, no one for a moment takes it seriously. And if you’ve read the book or have seen the Disney version, you know, it doesn’t take long for the crowd to turn on poor Quasimodo, hurling insults and pelting him with tomatoes and such. Within the blink of an eye all the frivolity and merrymaking becomes downright violent. Its obvious what could have happened if Esmeralda hadn’t intervened.

Such rituals were highly popular in the ancient world and throughout Europe until they were banned in the 17th century. For a limited number of days, roles were reversed: slaves traded places with their masters, and the lowest persons on the social ladder were elevated as kings and bishops. The social order was literally turned upside down. [Click here] for a look at a contemporary Feast of Fools celebration. Dressing a boy or a fool up in regal costumes and placing him on a donkey to process through the city was a typical part of the celebrations.

If for a moment we consider this as a possibility we will automatically ask the question: Why on earth would Jesus participate in such a parody? Some scholars claim that Jesus is exposing the fundamental relationship between the crowd and their rulers.

Feasts or festivals like the Ancient Babylonian Akity, the Roman Saturnalia or the Medieval Feast of Fools relaxed the strict rules and divisions which governed society. On every other day of the year kings, who exercised supreme authority, could not be criticized. However, during these festivals, the king became an object of derision and sometimes even physical abuse. Rigid social order created tension and resentment that if released on a regular basis prevented those tensions from spilling over into revolution. It is well documented that in primitive societies, the king, who was chosen from the people to reign for a limited period, was often sacrificed at the end of these celebrations, and was replaced by a new king. In more complex societies, a substitute is sacrificed instead of the king, channeling all the accumulated anger and resentment onto an innocent victim. By removing the chaos and violence inherent with political upheaval, this substitution allowed for the development of dynastic monarchies, stable governments, and a hierarchical social order. But again, peace was founded on the scapegoating of that unlucky individual.

Historians tell us that Israel was a boiling pot of tensions: the Romans had sent Pilot, an especially cruel governor to suppress rebellion; Herod, their king was incredibly decadent and corrupt; lots of people were talking revolution; As Matthew says, “the whole city was in turmoil;” Jerusalem was on the verge of violent eruption.

What if Jesus intentionally allowed himself to be designated a substitute for Herod, or even for Pilate? Certainly the passion story describes how all the anger and resentment floating anxiously around Jerusalem came to be centered upon one person. In that moment when the people were given a choice, rather than spare Jesus they demanded his crucifixion. With the result that all the tensions that had threatened to explode into violent chaos were directed at Jesus, who was until the very last mocked as the “King of the Jews.”

Recognizing that Jesus intentionally chose a donkey for his procession, “an animal associated with royal coronations and kings on parade in the city” [Ben Witherington III, Matthew, 391] many if not most scholars opt for the obvious explanation: that Jesus did this to fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9:

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

This may be true, but at the same time Jesus recreated a scene that was repeated several times in Israel’s history before the prophecy was written. Ben Witherington, claims that the reference to Zechariah 9 in Matthew is drawing on 1 Kings 1:32-40, when King David on his death bed learns that his throne has been usurped by his eldest surviving son Adonijah. David insists that his youngest son Solomon be mounted upon David’s donkey and escorted to Gihon for his anointing. And this in turn was a repetition of 2 Samuel 16:1-14, when David himself mounted the same donkey. In the Ancient Near East to mount a donkey this way was symbolically equated with mounting the throne [See W. Boyd Barrick, “The Meaning and Usage of RKB in Biblical Hebrew” JBL, Vol. 101, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 481-503].

After anointing Solomon, the people sounded a trumpet and the crowd roared, “Long live King Solomon!” All the people followed him, “playing flutes and greatly rejoicing, so that the ground shook with the sound.”

Jesus was re-enacting what was originally enacted as a symbolic agreement between the people and their rulers. Indeed, when the people spread their cloaks on the ground before Jesus, just as they did for Jehu in 2 Kings 9:13, they symbolically turned over their lives, granting the king unlimited power and authority, but only if the king was first willing to humble himself. It established an unspoken understanding: the people who raise him up can just as easily bring him down.

As it is turns out the kings who were crowned in these rites, were far from humble leaders: David was the epitome of arrogance, Solomon had 1000 wives, 1400 chariots and 1200 horses, and Jehu’s reign was characterized by an endless series of bloody massacres. In 2 Samuel 16:1-14, David’s throne was usurped by his son Absalom, bringing Israel to the brink of a bloody civil war. To re-establish his relationship with the people and regain his kingdom David mounted a donkey and processed from the Mount of Olives to the Jordan, while the crowds both on the right and the left cursed him and threw stones at him. Kind of like the dunking booth at the school fair, when everyone takes their shot at the principal.

So contrary to our assumptions, when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, the people of the time would have understood him to be a king just like all the kings before him. Either Jesus was the next tyrant and was going through the motions of feigned humility or he allowed himself to be paraded like Quasimodo as a parody of the king, the innocent victim whose sacrifice absorbed all the mounting tensions, re-establishing the peace between the people and their rulers. Given what we know of Jesus, it could only have been the latter.

We should not however interpret Jesus as a naive fool, who like Quasimodo, was swept away in the crowd’s enthusiasm and subsequent violence. By commanding the donkey to be brought, Jesus intentionally sought his role as the substitute victim. And by mounting the donkey he exposed once and for all the true nature of this unspoken relationship between the rulers and the people.

As Matthew unfolds Jesus’ final week, and the events leading to his death, Jesus’ actions become even more symbolic, especially, for instance, when they are compared to the annual New Year Festival of the Babylonians and Assyrians. More on this in a future post…

But for now I have to wonder if there are moments in our own history when we have sacrificed someone lowly to maintain some unspoken agreement upholding our political structures and the status quo.

Why do so many of us watch zombie films? I remember the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead. It was much scarier than the Halloween movies. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that the zombies “won’t stay dead”.

When I read the story of the Raising of Lazarus, I can’t help but get goose bumps; the hair even raises on the back of my neck. It really is a spooky story and like a good horror film, it both fascinates and repels me.

Indeed, John 11:1-45 reminds me more of a zombie film than a typical miracle story. Jesus’ behavior is not only downright insensitive it verges on diabolical. First, Jesus, who cured others, refuses to cure Lazarus when he hears that his close friend is ill. He insists that Lazarus must suffer this fate so that the disciples will believe.

Then, once he realizes that Lazarus is dead, he takes his time getting to Bethany, actually letting Lazarus rot in the tomb for four days. Finally when he does arrive, Jesus refuses to go to the tomb and mourn with the relatives and acts disgusted by their outpourings of grief. The story has becomes so morbid at this point, that when Jesus actually does raise Lazarus from the dead, I can’t help but picture Lazarus as some sort of zombie or mummy from one of those horror films made in the thirties.

Maybe this is just the sort of impression that John, the author, is trying to create in order to expose our misconceptions regarding life and death. For tragically, death has so much power over our perception of reality that we assume that all of life and the entire creation, are subject to it. That is why, when Jesus tells the people to take away the stone covering Lazarus’ tomb, Martha, the sister of Lazarus objects, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”

Likewise, I can’t help but perceive Lazarus as a zombie because I too assume he is dead and rotting in the tomb. Death is so repugnant to us that our immediate reaction is to keep it sealed up as tightly as possible.

Jesus, however, is not concerned with the stench. On the contrary, he is angered by all the mourning and weeping at Lazarus’ tomb. After all the time they have spent with Jesus, Mary and Martha still believe in death and allow it to control their perception of reality. In fact, by mourning for Lazarus, all those gathered for the funeral, have unwittingly sealed his fate, actually condemning him to death. Placing him in the tomb is in effect an act of expulsion from the land of the living.

Not realizing how warped our perception can be, we’re tempted to side with Mary and Martha who are perturbed that Jesus didn’t save Lazarus from this fate, assuming that if Jesus really loved him, he wouldn’t have let Lazarus die.

When Jesus challenges this thinking, Martha assumes she understands: “I believe in the resurrection at the end of the age.” But this too is a denial of life in the here and now.

Jesus, however, never once refers to Lazarus as dead. From the very beginning he claims that Lazarus is asleep and will be awakened. In fact when Jesus sees that they have gone ahead and sealed Lazarus in a tomb, it is then that Jesus weeps. This is not the fate that God intends for us.

Since we, however, live our lives in fear of death, always trying to keep our distance from it, we participate in a world order which may even perceive eternal life as a threat to its security. This is why, when the authorities hear that Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead, they decide to kill him.

For instance in the 70s and 80s thousands of people who in any way challenged the regimes of certain South American dictators were kidnapped and killed, and their bodies disposed of, eliminating all evidence of their existence. By removing all trace of them from the land of living, they were silenced forever and no longer a threat to those in power. Family members of the “disappeared” were often prevented from even mentioning their names. [Link to Wikipedia on Forced Disappearance]

Jesus, on the other hand, did not stay put. His resurrection forever broke the power that any and all executioners wield over life and death.

Whenever we seal a dead body up in a tomb, we live in fear that somehow it may not stay put. Movies like Night of the Living Dead vividly express our fear of those we have intentionally or unintentionally excluded from the land of the living.

That is why Jesus says to the mourners, “Unbind him and let him go!” In that moment Jesus frees not only Lazarus, but all of us from the control that death has over our lives. He does this not by rescuing us from the grip of death, because that would maintain death as an independent reality still to be feared, and would actually increase its power. Instead he cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” awakening Lazarus from his zombie thralldom. Jesus demonstrates that for now on death, and those who use it to maintain their authority, no longer have power over human life.

We see this earlier in the story, when the disciples try to prevent Jesus from returning to Judea for the funeral because there are people out to kill him, he replies, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” As long as we live our lives in fear of death, we will stumble around like zombies in the night.

 

For this very reason, Jesus invites us to join him in a reality in which death has no role. When he says:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus turns our mistaken understanding of life and death on its head. So that all the zombies, finally revealed as products of a world which lives in fear of death, are evaporated in an expanding awareness of the power of resurrected life.  -Sue Wright