Why’d you ride into Jerusalem on the donkey and her foal? We threw cloaks on them both and you hopped on their backs. Everyone knew the prophecy: “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” (Zec. 9: 9 ESV). So we shouted and sang. “Hosanna to the son of David.” We cut branches from trees and spread them. We threw down our cloaks. We didn’t mind if the donkeys soiled them. We sounded like many waters. We had to be a thousand strong. At last you were going to conquer Rome and free us. But no army had been mustered. Were the angels going to soar down from the sky like starlings?
But you kept saying, “I’m going to be killed by the powers.” What normal, healthy person sets out to die? Why would you set out to piss off the scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites? You threw every insult—brood of vipers, whitewashed sepulchers, blind guides. You made no sense when you said, “I will rise the third day.” Sure Hosea said that on the second day we’d be revived and the third day God would raise us up. (Hos 6:2). That’s us, our nation, not just you.
Why’d you scatter the pigeons and the coins? All those wings flapping into the sky after you opened their cages sounded like hands clapping at a wedding dance. Those coins scattered sounded like hailstones as the whirlwind hit. “My house is a house of prayer,” you shouted. You whipped the merchants and their animals out of the courtyard. After a stunned minute, we joined in.
Afterwards, people flocked like homing pigeons. You healed anyone who asked for healing. Anyone—the blind and the lame you healed. Lepers. Women who wouldn’t stop bleeding. The paralyzed. You healed them all. You showed us how the temple should be.
Children shouted and danced, “Hosanna to the son of David.” The Pharisees asked if you heard what they said. “Jesus the Son of David, the one here to deliver us.” You said, “Yes, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.” The Pharisees were right. Why didn’t you hush them? You mustered no army. Why did you get up in their face? They hold the power. They hold us together.
The sun beat down on my head. It throbbed from holding back tears because I was exhausted from the crowds’ joy when you came into the city, from the children singing and dancing, from all the people being healed, one right after the other. We hadn’t slept well at Lazarus’ place. We’d heard rumors the powers were plotting to kill Lazarus because he was raised. Every noise we startled awake, afraid the soldiers were coming for him and you. How could they control someone who raises people from the dead?
But why, why’d you curse the fig tree? The poor thing shriveled in front of our eyes. Nothing about you is unjust. You’ve stood up for the poor, put the religious showoffs in their place. But it’s not the season for figs. Why should they be there? You turned two loaves and five fish into enough to feed five thousand, you could have asked the tree to make figs but instead you killed it, right there in front of our eyes.
“It’s not the season for figs,” I said. I felt so sorry for that tree.
You glared at me. I saw sadness too. I shriveled like the tree. I felt like Jonah when God rebuked him for being angry about the vine that shadowed him after Ninevah repented.
I could see how Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves to cover their bodies shining with light that seemed as vulnerable as the sun before it dropped below the horizon. It’s almost like you sent me the image and I was there when you walked through the garden calling for them and their light squeaked out from behind the foliage. Tears streamed down your eyes as you cut the throats of the lambs our first parents had tamed, flayed their skin and sewed clothes to over their shame, to close in the light that was dancing wildly off them.
Even if the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a fig tree, why’d you take it out on this one? You said you saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, that he was without guile. And he told you then he knew you were the Messiah. You said we’d see angels climbing up and down like the angels Jacob saw in his dream of the ladder joining heaven and earth. But I’ve seen no such thing.
Then you told us that if we have faith we could do what you did to the fig tree, we could say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea and it will happen. Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith.” Who has that kind of faith? I didn’t see you give the mountain the heave ho. Or were you talking to us like the messenger talked to Daniel about the rocks destroyed the giant statue Nebuchadnezzar saw, each piece a kingdom that came tumbling down? How would Rome ever crumble? And how could our prayers make that happen?
And later, you shouted, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” for how they showed off their piety, for how they needed to clean the inside of the cup, instead of just the outside. But how can any of us clean up our insides, full of greed and self-indulgence? I winced because I can make myself look good on the outside, but I want what I want. I will grab an apple when I’m not hungry just to bite into the sweetness.
“I could have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks,” you cried. Those tears glistened on your face like water seeping out of the rock in a wet year. But the chicks wouldn’t come. You said not a stone would be left on the other. You said this about the temple. That had been destroyed once and rebuilt. Those thick, heavy stones. The roaring smoke from sacrifices. The smell of roasted lamb. “All knocked down,” you said.
You talked about another fig tree that would bloom and we’d know summer is near, that you’d be at the very gates. That generation would not pass away. You said you didn’t even know the day or hour you’d return. But we’d be corrupt as in the days of Noah, eating, drinking. We’d be making love with the gods. And we’d be clueless when you came back. But you haven’t left yet. Please don’t leave us.
It was you, wasn’t it, who found that weeping and gnashing of teeth and outer darkness when you talked about about the fancy people too busy to come to the wedding feast. So the ruler invited the people on the streets. Not his normal friends. People danced and feasted and drank to celebrate. But one man showed up not dressed in proper wedding clothes. He was tossed out to outer darkness, to weeping and gnashing of teeth..
You made no sense until I heard you in the Garden of the Olive Press. You were in outer darkness. I saw you gnash your teeth: “If this cup could pass. Not my will but thine be done.” I saw angels wiping your forehead, the great drops of bloody sweat as you vomited your pain. I couldn’t bear to watch. I fell asleep. Forgive me.
You stood still when they accused you.
Why didn’t you tell them you were the King of Kings? Why didn’t you make it stop? The flogging. The mocking: “You healed others, go ahead, save yourself.” Why didn’t you?
Then the cross. The flies landing in your blood. The soldiers bartered for the clothes Mary sewed. What good was bloodstained linen to them? Your cry, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” shredded my heart. David spoke of your horror: Poured out like water. Bones out of joint. Pierced hands and feet. But then, he sang, “He has not despised the affliction of the afflicted. He has not hidden his face for him. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will worship before him. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations” (Ps 22: 27, 28. ESV). How could that be?
And then you cried, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” How could you forgive us for murdering you? How? The sun and the earth couldn’t. The sun turned black. The earth shook.
“Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Your last words. At least you trusted your God to hold your spirit in his hands. You told the robber on your right you’d see him in Paradise. Oh Jesus I hope those hands were gentle as they took you from us.
But why’d you have to go and die?
I watched as Nicodemus and Joseph pulled the nails out of your hands and heels. The wood screamed as those nails came out. I watched as they wrapped you in a shroud and laid you in a wagon pulled by a mule. You were gone. I couldn’t see for my tears. Why’d you have to go and die?
I’d like to acknowledge that The Open Table Conference Study of Matthew’s Gospel has informed much of this piece. Thanks to Brad Jersak, Julie Canlis, William Paul Young, Father John Behr, Kenneth Tanner, Cherish Fee Nordling and John MacMurray for their insights.
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