Palm Sunday -- Seeing Zechariah in the Triumphal Entry

Passages: Matthew 21:1-11 and Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29. See also: Zechariah 9 and 14.

Jesus enters Jerusalem

Seeing Zechariah:

Today’s lectionary presents us with Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem in Matthew 21. In the passage, onlookers laying their cloaks and branches down in front of the donkeys shout “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” These words are found in our other lection for the day, Psalm 118. Also quoted in this passage is Zechariah 9.9: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” By quoting Zechariah, the Gospel of Matthew draws attention to the scripture, and close examination of the text reveals other parallels between Zechariah and the Triumphal Entry. So much so, that I would suggest adding Zechariah 9 or 14 to the lectionary for this week (today’s liturgy omits the Old Testament and Epistle lection).

Zechariah is a prophetic text written after the First Temple period, and is the main Hebrew scriptural source for Matthew’s narration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Zechariah means “Yahweh has remembered,” and can be seen as a reminder to continue traditions from the first Temple period into this new era. Zechariah, although presented as one text, is commonly broken up into 1 Zechariah (ch. 1-8) and 2 Zechariah (9-14). 1 Zechariah visions a future of peace and prosperity for Israel, with an emphasis on the role of the priestly order. 2 Zechariah, on the other hand, is disillusioned with this priestly order, and puts forth a vision of peace and prosperity established by Yahweh himself. It is fitting then that the Gospel of Matthew, which depicts the priestly order of the Pharisees as calculated and corrupt, quotes from the beginning of 2 Zechariah, when Yahweh rides into Jerusalem “righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9.9 NIV).

There are two other powerful allusions to 2 Zechariah in “Triumphal Entry.” According to Matthew, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem begins in “Bethpage on the Mount of Olives” (Mt. 21.1 NIV) the same place where the Lord arrives in Zechariah 14.4:“On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives” (NIV). Although not in our lectionary, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem climaxes with Jesus expelling traders from the temple and turning over the money-changers tables (Interestingly, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus visits the temple but takes no action, leaving and coming back later to “cleanse” the temple). This strongly echoes the final lines of 2 Zechariah: “And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite (or merchant) in the house of the LORD Almighty” (Zechariah 14.21).

The Gospel of Matthew goes to great lengths to demonstrate Jesus’ continuity with the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish tradition, and today’s lectionary is no exception. Perhaps most confusing – but quite interesting – is that Matthew adds another donkey to the processional. Jesus asks his disciples to bring him a donkey with her colt (offspring) and then mysteriously rides “them” into town. Mark, which was written before Matthew and most scholars agree that the author of Matthew had access to Mark when compiling the Gospel, only has one donkey. So do the Gospels of John and Luke. But Matthew adds an additional donkey, and then says that he sat on “them.” Unless Jesus was a larger man than depicted in every single painting of him ever painted, this is a physical impossibility. Why would Matthew complicate the processional like this, especially when he has a source that tells him there is only one donkey in the processional? We can’t know for sure, but the most likely answer is because Matthew interprets two donkeys present in Zechariah 9, and wants the entry to fulfill the Zechariah prophecy to the letter. While the thought of the author of Matthew “fudging” the text to make it better fit a prophecy may be somewhat distressing, it does show us exactly how important Zechariah and exhibiting Jesus’ continuity with Hebrew Scriptures is.

Some paintings of the scene based on Matthew have Jesus riding the mother donkey, with her child following nearby. This is one way to reconcile the impossibility of Jesus riding both donkeys simultaneously, but the ambiguity should alert us to the highly formative role 2 Zechariah plays in the formation of our Palm Sunday narrative.