THE HUMILITY OF A KING

 

I have always wondered how the Saviour coped with trading the royal courts on high for the baseness of this earthly life.  I find the pictures of Palm Sunday confronting. Somehow, I prefer the Saviour to be seen in His majesty and power rather than on the loweliest animal of the earth heading to His death.

I want to see Him in all His power and glory as the Rock of Heaven (Moses 7:53)….as He will appear when He comes.  At the same time I am in awe of the magnitude of humility that was required of Him to lower himself to such a paltry acknowledgement of His kingly status when the magnitude of people acknowledged Him to be the son of David on His last entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:9, 15)

The ass has been recognized as ‘the ancient symbol of Jewish royalty’ denoting that a king is the servant of the people hence the connection to humility (James E. Talmage, “Jesus the Christ” p 517). When Jesus entered Jerusalem that fateful Sunday He marked His hour of death. Another sign of humility -  He entered as the Prince of Peace rather than a King with a fanfare of trumpets ready for battle.

“Dismounting, He entered afoot the temple enclosure; shouts of adulation greeted Him there. Chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, the official representatives of the theocracy, the hierarchy of Judaism, were incensed; there was no denying the fact that the people were rendering Messianic honors to this troublesome Nazarene….” (James E. Talmage, “Jesus the Christ” p 516)

“The manner of His entry should have appealed to the learned teachers of the law and the prophets; for Zechariah’s impressive forecast….was frequently cited among them: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” (Zechariah 9:9)

And so no other nation on earth who would crucify their God (2 Nephi 10:3) accused Him of three crimes worthy of death: 1. They claimed that He was a sinner who wouldn’t conform to the rabbinical laws and traditions (Mark 7:1-9); 2. They proclaimed Him to  be the incarnation of Satan and that He performed His miracles by the power of Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24-27); 3. They accused Him of blasphemy in claiming equality with God, that He was the Son of God and that He WAS God (see John 8 amongst many others).

Even though He knew ‘to this end was He born and for this cause came He into the world’ I would still like to know with what heaviness of heart He sat upon that donkey….(John 18:37)

Did you miss

Your godly robes

That you traded for

The swaddling cloths of Calvary?

Was the ground rough beneath

Your feet as You traversed

The dusty roads of Galilee?

 

The baseness of This earth,

So willingly suffered despite hostility.

Yet, You came

The Father to reveal

And to Him forever

Our yielding hearts to seal.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Triumphant Entry by Liz lemon Swindle)