In the last week of His life, Jesus is going to Jerusalem during the most high profile festival in His region, and He’s not going quietly or by himself. A crowd starts forming around Him, and it quickly turns into a mob.
They start crying out for Him to take the throne of David. They lay out the leaves of palm trees, bless His name, and say that He is coming in the name of God. They have an expectation for what this ‘man of God’ is supposed to do, and it involves getting rid of this enemy that has been in Israel for the past hundred years.
There’s another side to what we call the triumphant entry.
There’s a mob forming and entering the city, and the governor is going to take steps to keep control of the situation. He sends notice to the soldiers he commands, getting them ready for a fight. The armor is put on, the shields are strapped to their arms, the swords are unsheathed, and the men are deployed to their stations. This governor, Pilate, has seen this all before, and he knows what this ‘king’ is going to do when He finally gets into the city.
Jesus doesn’t do what anyone expects Him to. He doesn’t seem to care about what Pilate is doing. In fact, Jesus turns to the center of their entire culture, and starts disrupting everything about it.
He starts throwing people out of the Temple. Teachers, preachers, animals, salesmen, everyone and everything. Jesus is expelling all the people that have always been there.
After a while, it gets quiet in the courtyard. The normal hustle and bustle that has been there has stopped.
Jesus stays in the Temple for some time, and the mob that was following Him starts to dwindle away.
Pilate calls back his soldiers. The swords are sheathed, the armor removed, and the moment passes. Rome has not been removed from the city, they weren’t even confronted.
Jesus is arrested, and Pilate puts the question to the people, ‘Who do you want me to release?‘
There’s two options to pick from: Barabbas, who tried to start a rebellion and throw out these oppressors; or Jesus, who had the chance to confront the Roman rulers, and instead threw the Temple into chaos.
Pilate tries to argue for Jesus, after all, Jesus is harmless in Pilate’s eyes. Jesus never raised a hand against Rome. Why would Pilate care what this teacher was saying? When he had a crowd and a chance to attempt to push Rome out he didn’t, and the more Pilate talks with Him, the more Pilate likes Him.
The people choose the person that met their expectations. The one that at least tried to do what they wanted.
Jesus has been weighed by the people, He has been measured against what they expected a Savior to do, and He was found wanting. A real Savior would have saved them from their physical enemy, not turn against his own people.
And we sit in the crowd, shouting and demanding that Pilate kill Jesus. Just as the people of Jerusalem see a Jesus who doesn’t do what they expect Him to do, we see a Jesus who doesn’t do what we expect Him to do. He doesn’t remove us from situations, He doesn’t deliver us from diseases, He doesn’t strike down our enemies.
Jesus doesn’t reject the verdict either; He quietly accepts that the very people He has come to rescue have decided that He isn’t the right rescuer.
I don’t think I have a clear picture of who Jesus is. There are very few people in Scripture who see Jesus for who He really is, and when they do, it’s often for a very short window until they get it wrong again. I think that some of us are closer than others, and that some of the pictures that He gets painted in are undeniably wrong, but I think we all struggle to see Him for who He truly is.