March 25: Triumphal Entry
♫ Music:
WEEK SEVEN - HOLY WEEK
March 25 - March 31
Having prepared ourselves through the six holy practices of self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, self-denial, reading and meditating on God’s holy Word, we enter into Holy Week well-prepared to experience the fullness of the Paschal Mystery. These holy practices are only preparatory, they are not ends in themselves. The end for which they are practiced is that we have made the necessary place in our hearts and minds and lives to focus well on the weightiness of the events in the final week of the life of Christ. The end of these holy practices, therefore, is Christological. For in the words of Thomas à Kempis, “Strive to progress in all things, and let any examples that you see or hear inspire you to imitate them… Remember your avowed purpose, and keep ever before you the likeness of Christ crucified.” And Holy Week, like no other week of the year affords us the opportunity to keep before us the crucified Christ.
Day 40 - Sunday, March 25
Title: Triumphal Entry
Scripture: Luke 19:28-48
After He had said these things, He was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord has need of it.” They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it. As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.” And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.
Poetry: the calling of the disciples
By Lucille Clifton
some Jesus
has come on me
i throw down my nets
into water he walks
i loose the fish
he feeds to cities
and everybody calls me
an old name
as i follow out
laughing like God’s fool
behind this Jesus
TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
It’s easy to view the stories given to us in the gospels as individual tales, disconnected from the larger whole. Call it the “flannelgraph effect,” for those of us whose first exposure to the life of Jesus Christ came through felt images in Sunday School. Yet Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, as this passage has come to be called, is part of a glorious reality that stretches before and after the context of first century Israel.
Jesus journeys towards Jerusalem in today’s passage, moving towards the events he foretold in Luke 9: 22 - “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” His arrival at Jerusalem is crowned by his prophecy of Jerusalem’s future, and his arrival at the Temple is dominated by his understanding of the holiness of God. Each of these instances is filtered through a historical awareness of the Old Testament Scriptures.
The crowd riffs on Psalm 118: 26 (“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.”) as they loudly proclaim blessings onto Jesus. Jesus’ prophecy of Jerusalem’s fractured future “because [they] did not recognize the time of [their] visitation” is steeped in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament. The Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson details the extensive prophetic influences in this passage on p. 356-358.
As Jesus removes sellers from the temple, he references Isaiah 56:7 (“... my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”) and Jeremiah 7:11 (“Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?...”), reminding his contemporaries and us of the call to follow the Lord. Luke 19:28-48 is saturated in the understanding of God’s word and work in Israel’s past, as well as an acknowledgement of what lies ahead.
The artifacts chosen for today’s devotion stretch across recorded history, and point to the continuing endurance of the wonder of Christ. Our scripture passage was written over 2000 years ago by a doctor; the artwork, a 12th century mosaic from a royal chapel (Cappella Palatina) in Palermo Italy; the poem, published in the 1970s by an African American poet; and the music, composed in the first half of the 20th century by a Soviet conductor. This disparate collection is all centered on the same person: Jesus. If this passage from Luke 19 ensures that we see the impact of the work and word of God in the first century, these artifacts ensure that we see the enduring influence of Christ in the ordinary and extraordinary.
Hebrews 13:8 proclaims that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” His journey towards Jerusalem is one part of the larger whole of Christ’s death, resurrection, and future coming in glory. As we journey along the Holy Week, remember that the life of Jesus Christ is one that is grounded in a specific time and place and one that transcends a specific time and place. Praise be to God for his love and grace towards sinners!
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for the life, death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ. May the Spirit enable us to see the wonder of Christ’s death and resurrection with fresh eyes, and we pray that our knowledge would lead us to deeper worship of you.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Stacie Schmidt
Reference and Instruction Librarian
Biola University
About the Artwork:
Jesus Enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday
Unknown Byzantine Artists
1150
Mosaic
Cappella Palatina, Palermo, Italy
King Roger II built the Cappella Palatina, the royal chapel of the Norman kings of Sicily. It was consecrated in 1140, and the execution of the extensive mosaic décor, covering the entire interior, began after that date. The mosaics of the Palatine Chapel are of unparalleled elegance with elongated proportions and streaming draperies of figures. They are also noted for subtle modulations of colour and luminance. The shimmering mosaics of the transept, presumably dating from the 1140s are attributed to Byzantine artists. The sanctuary, dedicated to Saint Peter, is reminiscent of a domed basilica.
About the Music:
“Slava, Edinorodnii Sine, Op. 5, No. 5“ from the album Ancient Echoes
Lyrics:
Slava, Edinorodnii Sine
Sláva Ottsú i Sînu i Sviâtómu Dúhu,
i nîñe i prísno, i vo véki vekóv. Amíñ.
Yedinoródnïy Sîñe i Slóve Bózhïy, bessmérten sïy,
i izvótivïy spaséñiya náshego rádi
voplotítisiâ ot Svâtîya Bogoróditsï i Prisnodévï Maríi,
ñeprelózhno vochelovéchivïysiâ,
raspnîysiâ zhe, Hriste´ Bózhe,
smértiyu smert poprávïy,
Yedín sïy Sviâtîya Tróitsï,
sproslavtiâyemïy Ottsu´ i Sviâtómu Dúhu, spasi nas.
[Translation]
Glory, Only Begotten Son
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Only begotten Son, and Word of God, Who art immortal,
and didst will for our salvation to be incarnate
of the Holy Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary,
Who without change didst become man,
and wast crucified, O Christ God,
and didst trample down death by death,
Who art one of the Holy Trinity,
glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit—save us.
About the Composer:
Soviet composer and conductor Nikolai Semyonovich Golovanov (1891-1953) began his musical career as a choirboy in the Moscow Synodal School and there learned choral conducting. He continued musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory where he befriended fellow composers Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Rachmaninov. Throughout the 1920s and 1940s, Golovanov was the Bolshoi Theatre’s principal conductor, during which time he also taught at the Moscow Conservatory, and was artistic director of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. During the 1930s, he served as director of broadcasting for Moscow Radio. Though awarded multiple Stalin Prizes and named a National Artist of the USSR, Golovanov resisted the politicization of music under Communist rule. Likely due to this rebellion, Golovanov was dismissed from his conducting posts in 1952 by the Kremlin, and died the following year from the humiliation and shock.
About the Performer:
Founded 10 years ago in Moscow by conductor Alexander Sedov, the Chorovaya Akademia is a 16-voice male a cappella choir of eclectic bent--some having called the ensemble “a Russian version of Chanticleer, transposed down an octave.” The chorus came to broad international recognition in 1995 with the release of its recording "Ancient Echoes" and made its local debut in Los Angeles in 1997. Though not a liturgical choir such as its hometown colleagues Arte Corale, the Chorovaya Akademia is avidly involved with Russian Orthodox music, going so far as to perform sacred music in facsimiles of the vestments worn by the Moscow Synodal Choir from 1900.
About the Poet:
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) was one of the most distinguished, decorated, and beloved poets of her time. She won the National Book Award for Poetry for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, and was the first African-American female recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement from the Poetry Foundation. Ms. Clifton received many additional honors throughout her career, including the Discovery Award from the New York YW/YMHA Poetry Center, a 1976 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for the television special Free to Be You and Me, a Lannan Literary Award in 1994, and the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 2010. Her honors and awards give testament to the universality of her unique and resonant voice. In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry – Good Woman and Next – chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She was also the author of eighteen children’s books, and in 1984 received the Coretta Scott King Award from the American Library Association for her book Everett Anderson’s Good-bye.
About the Devotional Writer:
Stacie Schmidt is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at the Biola University Library. At the Library, Stacie guides students in their research through instruction and in-depth consultations. Outside of the Library, Stacie enjoys reading works by Dorothy L. Sayers, writing about film, and speculating about Star Wars.