What King Would Come Like This?

This morning is doubly special. One, it’s the second Sunday of Advent. Two, we get to witness fifteen baptisms.

This will be the most baptisms I’ve witnessed in one gathering. I love when born-again people, with a credible profession of personal faith in Jesus, give public witness in the waters of baptism to the realness of Jesus and his saving cross and resurrection. Baptism bears witness to Jesus. Which is a connection with our passage this morning.

The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. (John 12:17–18)

We have two crowds: a smaller one and a larger one. The smaller one saw Jesus raise Lazarus. The larger crowd, gathered in Jerusalem, goes out to meet Jesus as he comes because they heard the witness of the first crowd.

And baptism bears witness like that. Those who step into the water, and go under, and come back up, bear witness to the realness of Jesus: “He came, he died, he rose, he broke into my unbelieving life, he has won my faith and trust, he has changed me, and he is changing me.” And so, they say, “I bear witness to you that Jesus is real. And either you already know it or I invite you to experience him for yourself.”

As we witness these baptisms this morning, we don’t sit idly by. We don’t twiddle our thumbs and watch the clock. We watch the waters with faith. We hear with our eyes the witness they bear in baptism. We see the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection dramatized. And as we do so, we remember and enjoy what he’s done for us — or we hear a promise of what he will do for anyone who will trust in him.

So, this morning is special, to witness these fifteen baptisms. And because it’s Advent. And this is a surprising Advent text.

Jesus’s Coming

Do you know what Advent means (from the Latin adventus)? “Arrival” or “coming.” And this is a coming text:

• Verse 12: “The large crowd . . . heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.”
• Verse 13, quoting Psalm 118: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
• Verse 15, quoting Zechariah 9: “Behold, your king is coming.”

So, let’s take our cues from these three mentions of coming. All three represent daring moves by Jesus as he enters Jerusalem.

1. He comes in dignity.

Verse 12 offers the first mention of his coming:

The next day [after the anointing at Bethany; it’s a Sunday] the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

How will he come? Verse 14 introduces Jesus’s daring move: “Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it.” Don’t miss that: Jesus arranges for the donkey. All four Gospels are very clear about this. This is Jesus’s idea. No one forced or tricked him into it.

Now, we are twenty-first-century people. We don’t have donkeys. We make fun of donkeys. We have cars. Who needs a donkey? But in the ancient world, donkeys were valuable. They can haul. They can work. You can ride them. To have a donkey was to have wealth.

And this is not the first mention of a donkey in the Bible.

“Riding the donkey is an exalted position. Jesus comes in dignity.”

First comes Jacob’s blessing for his son Judah in Genesis 49. He foresees that Judah’s tribe will have the kingship in Israel. His brothers will praise him and bow to him (Genesis 49:8). “Judah is a lion’s cub” (Genesis 49:9) on the rise. The king’s ruling staff, the scepter, “shall not depart from Judah,” and to him, even beyond Jacob’s family, “shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10). Then comes this strange mention of a donkey’s colt:

Binding his foal to the vine
     and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
     and his vesture in the blood of grapes. (Genesis 49:11)

Strange as this reads to us, this is “deliberately the language of excess,” writes Derek Kidner. Hungry beasts hitched to precious grapevines, free to feed as desired, with wine in such plenty as to be used like water — these images suggest “exuberant, intoxicating abundance” (Genesis, 230). So, beginning here, both wine and the donkey’s colt become symbolic of the lavish blessings to come through Judah’s line.

Then we find in the time of the judges that donkey ownership (and riding) is a mark of privilege and dignity. The rich ride on donkeys (Judges 5:10), and celebrated leaders give donkeys, as well as cities, to their sons (Judges 10:4; 12:14).

And most significantly, Judah’s great descendant, King David, has a mule on which he rides (as do his sons, 2 Samuel 13:29; 18:9). Late in David’s life, in the midst of national turmoil, a zealous supporter brings two donkeys “for the king’s household to ride on” (2 Samuel 16:2) — which was not an insult but an act of allegiance and royal hope, that David would be restored to his throne in peace, without having to ride the horse of war. And later, when David appoints his son Solomon to be king, he has him ride to the anointing on the king’s own mule (1 Kings 1:33), in hopes of a peaceful transition of power, without the chaos and collateral of war.

So, first, the donkey means dignity. Riding the donkey is an exalted position. Jesus comes in dignity.

2. He comes as royalty.

Jesus receives the crowd’s praise as Messiah, the long-awaited King. Verse 13:

So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

At one level, the crowds are right about this: Jesus is the Messiah. He is the King of Israel. But at another level, they don’t get him yet. He is far, far more than just King of Israel, and King of just Israel. He is a vastly different and greater king than they expect.

The palm branches hint at what the crowd has in mind. Almost two centuries before Jesus, in the Jewish revolt against the Greeks, palms became political and nationalist symbols. Then it was against the Greeks; now it’s against the Romans. And this is especially so when paired with the people declaring Jesus to be “King of Israel.”

These are very natural human expectations that require no new birth and no Holy Spirit. The large crowd is right that Jesus is the Messiah, but he is so different from what they think, and what he will do in Jerusalem is not at all what they expect. He is far bigger than their little political and nationalist and temporal and worldly hopes.

Amazingly, the psalm they’ve reached for to capture the moment has the surprising truth about Jesus right under their noses. They quote Psalm 118:25–26:

Save us [Hosanna], we pray, O Lord! . . .
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Yes, Jesus is the long-awaited King. But right there in Psalm 118, the immediately preceding verses say,

The stone that the builders rejected
     has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
     it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
     let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:22–24)

And not only does the large crowd not understand, but even Jesus’s disciples don’t yet get it, as we’ve seen throughout John (2:22; 7:39; 13:7). Verse 16:

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified [raised from the dead], then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.

What’s “these things” referring to? Verse 15 and the Zechariah 9 prophecy. So, let’s finish with that.

3. He comes in humility.

Now we get the rest of the story on the donkey. Not only is the donkey a sign of his dignity; it’s also a sign that Jesus comes in a very different way than the crowds expect. The donkey, chosen by Jesus, to echo Zechariah 9, is meant to refine and redirect the hopes of the people for their Messiah, and for us.

“Jesus is far more than an earthly, temporal, political, single-nation king. Far more!”

Let me make this clear: These refinements are not letdowns. They are upgrades. Jesus doesn’t refract their hopes down; he raises them up. He lifts their eyes and hearts up. Jesus is far more than an earthly, temporal, political, single-nation king. Far more! He’s not letting them down, unless they stay unbelieving; he’s raising their gaze. Oh, we are such half-hearted creatures, fooling about with such shortsighted and short-lived concerns, like getting free from Rome. We are far too easily pleased.

Verse 15, quoting Zechariah 9:9, says,

Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
     sitting on a donkey’s colt!

So, how does Zechariah 9:9–13 upgrade their hopes and ours?

First, in verse 10, he comes to offer peace.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
     and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
     and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
     and from the River to the ends of the earth [Psalm 72:8].

The large crowds expect him to ride a war horse against Rome. But Jesus selects the regal donkey of Zechariah 9, God’s anointed returning from exile to Jerusalem, and with him comes the very return of God. In this first advent, Jesus comes to offer peace. Later, in his second advent, he will come in judgment, on the white horse of war (Revelation 19:11–12). But in his first coming, he, like the Zechariah 9 vision, is a king on a colt, speaking peace.

And in verse 9, he comes to accomplish peace:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
     Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
     righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
     on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

This is the heart of Zechariah, and why John 12 quotes this verse. There are two striking pairs here:

1. “righteous and having salvation” and
2. “humble and mounted on a donkey.”

We only have time for the second. We’ve already seen the dignity of being “mounted on a donkey.” Now “humble” — or, better, “humbled” — is paired with that dignity. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, and in Zechariah, this word for “humbled” is more clearly “afflicted” (which sounds like a faint echo of Isaiah 53). The one on the donkey is both humbled and exalted, afflicted yet seated in dignity. What’s that affliction?

Next, verse 11, he comes to shed his own blood:

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
     I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

In Zechariah 9, “the blood of the covenant” recalls Exodus 24 and the animal blood shed to inaugurate the first covenant with Israel. But at the Last Supper, Jesus will take up this very language to signal the dawning of a new covenant (Matthew 26:27–28). Then, Jesus will say, as he goes to the cross, he will shed “the blood of the covenant,” which he will pour out for many, for the forgiveness of sins — to set prisoners free from slavery far greater than Greece or Rome: from sin and death and hell.

Finally, verse 13, he comes to gather all nations.

We already saw in verse 10 that “he shall speak peace to the nations.” Now verse 13 mentions Greece:

For I have bent Judah as my bow;
     I have made Ephraim its arrow.
I will stir up your sons, O Zion,
     against your sons, O Greece,
     and wield you like a warrior’s sword.

Why Greece? This brings us back to John 12, verse 19.

Jesus’s World

When the Pharisees see the large crowd praising Jesus, they get worked up again, like at the end of chapter 11:

So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

The world has gone after him. That’s an exaggeration, right? Well, for now, it’s Jesus on a donkey in one city with a large crowd of Jews shouting Hosanna. But the Pharisees over-speak as they worry where this is going. And John loves the irony. Yes, they exaggerate, but their words will soon become more and more true.

Jesus comes to gather all nations. Not just Jews. Even Greeks. Which is exactly where John goes in the next verse:

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. (verse 20)

Greeks are inquiring. The nations are coming. Which signals for Jesus that now, at least, his hour has come (John 12:23) to go to the cross.

So, Jesus comes in dignity, royalty, and surprising humility. He offers peace, and accomplishes that peace in his own blood as he is afflicted at the cross for our sins. And he comes to do it for a people he will gather not only from the Jews but even from Greeks and Romans and all nations. And so he lifts up our worldly eyes to a greater kingship and greater hopes that are spiritual, eternal, and transnational.

In choosing the donkey, Jesus finds the perfect way to say, “I am the long-expected King, but not the King you expect. You hope for a mere earthly king who will liberate you from an oppressive government. Yes, I am the King. But I come not to conjure war against a power as passing as Rome but to make peace with God Almighty and save my people from their sins.”

So, we come to the waters and witness of baptism. This is a one-time experience of grace for the believer in the water. And it is a repeated, ongoing experience of grace for believers who look on in faith. And it is an invitation to all: Jesus will do the same for you.