Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

The crucial question is about Jesus’ own attitude to the whole business. Had the “Davidic-Messianic expectations” of the people coalesced “in the atmosphere of Jerusalem”⁴ and been immediately poured out on him—against his will, so to speak? That is how many New Testament scholars see it today. They say either that Jesus did not want any of it or—still more radically—that the event was a simple arrival in Jerusalem with a crowd of pilgrims, and it was only Christian legend that, after Easter, elevated and stylized it as a royal entry.

I cannot share that skepticism. It has little to do with historical criticism and a good deal to do with the desire to create for ourselves a pleasant and modernized Jesus who fits our present ideas and offers as little resistance to the observer as possible. I am convinced that Jesus really did enter into the city on a donkey, the mount of the poor and simple people—and that he did so deliberately on the model of Zechariah 9:9.

Nowhere in the texts is there the smallest indication that Jesus distanced himself from the acclamations of the crowd around him. Apparently, in entering Jerusalem on an ass’s colt Jesus was deliberately exhibiting an unmistakable sign. He wanted to come to the city as a poor, unarmed king, the messiah of peace of Zechariah 9:9 and the one who proclaimed the reign of God, as in Zechariah 14:9 (“and the LORD will become king over all the earth”). The radical rejection of all force and violence stated in Zechariah 9:10 (“He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations”) fits Jesus’ self-awareness very well. Apparently he knew Zechariah 9:9 and applied the text to himself. As we saw above (chap. 11), Jesus read his Bible with an unfathomable sensitivity to what is essential.

If Jesus, when entering the city, was acting deliberately on the words of the book of Zechariah, that, of course, presumes that in that hour he made himself publicly known as the Messiah. We will have to speak in detail later about his messianic awareness (see chap. 19, “Jesus’ Sovereign Claim”). Here, we can anticipate this much: Jesus was extremely reticent about using the word “messiah.” The concept could all too easily be misunderstood in a political sense. In addition, Jesus’ claim dissolved a sometimes superficial notion of the messiah. The Old Testament itself offered a sufficient basis for a deeper understanding of the concept and for transforming, purifying, and seeing it in a new light—quite apart from the fact that in the time of Jesus the expectation of a messiah was much more varied and nuanced than is often supposed. We may take it as given that when the people shouted “blessed is the [now] coming kingdom of our ancestor David,” Jesus would have understood it in a deeper sense than many of those who were shouting it. He had to take all possible misunderstanding on himself.

At any rate, taking possession of the city would have been so important to him that in this instance he accepted the possibility of being misunderstood. The solemn entrance into the city was connected with his understanding of the reign of God. That reign was breaking forth. It had to be proclaimed everywhere, but especially in the capital city. And it had to be not only proclaimed but made present in a sign by him as representative of the reign of God. That was the reason for the action in the temple that came next and was intimately connected with his taking possession of the city.⁵

If Jesus wanted to enter Jerusalem as the humble king of Zechariah 9:9, that ultimately presumes that he was aware that everything would be decided in Jerusalem. A confrontation would ensue. Probably he had no illusions about the outcome of that confrontation, but he had to summon Jerusalem to decision because there the temple stood, there was the center of Israel, there the people of God gathered for the greatest feast of the year. There, at the Passover feast, all Israel was represented, and the proclamation of the reign of God must necessarily be as public as possible. This certainly suggested a provocative entry into the city.

I also assume that the evangelists correctly interpreted Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem. He wanted to establish a symbol, against the background of the book of Zechariah. The question of the extent to which the developing situation as he approached the city exerted external pressure to establish this sign, or to what degree he himself deliberately performed it, is not at all decisive, since in both cases it would be true that his entry became a vocal, resonant sign-action (cf. Luke 19:40), and he willed it to be so.⁶

The Temple Action