They left and found the donkey and began to untie it. Just as Jesus had said, people "demanded" to know what they were doing with the donkey. They told them what Jesus told them to say and the people gave them permission to take it.
Author and pastor, Max Lucado wrote a story in one of his books about the guy who owned the donkey. He wrote of a place in heaven that was like a museum of all the common things people had used in service to the Lord. He wrote of the rope Rahab used to lower the spies down the wall to safety. He wrote of the stone and slingshot David used to slay Goliath and others. He wrote of how things so common became things of great honor and glory for God, He pictured them hanging on the wall in the museum. The donkey could be seen in the same way. How about the man who owned the donkey? He most likely didn't think it was an item that could be used to honor and glorify God. Guess what? A plain, ordinary, every day thing like that donkey was used by God. In fact, it carried Jesus, the Savior of the world, the Son of God, right down the road and into town. Did that man ever imagine he had anything to give to the Lord? Perhaps not. The point Max made was that we all have things that can be used by God. They don't need to be huge powerful tools. We need not sit by and think we have nothing to offer because each and every one of us does have something that can be used by God. We just have to let Him untie and use it. Each and every one of us has a "donkey" that the Lord can use. All we need to do is trust and let Him use us.
In both Matthew and John, it is written "This (the use of the donkey) took place to fulfill the prophesy that said; "Tell the people of Jerusalem, "Look, your King is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey- riding on a donkey's colt." This prophesy is found in Zechariah 9:9 and Isaiah 62:11.
If we think of all our reading and Jesus' travels back and forth across the lake, we must notice that Jesus never went anywhere that people didn't know He was coming.When Jesus prepared to ride into the city, a crowd had already gathered in anticipation of His coming. By the time they brought the donkey to Jesus there was a crowd gathering along the road. The disciples laid their clothing over the back of the donkey and Jesus sat on it. As He rode into town, many along the path spread their garments on the road and began laying palm branches on the path. The use of palm branches signifies goodness and victory. In fact, the palm branches people carry are a symbol of a victorious ruler. In the Maccabean era palm branches were associated with the coming of messianic salvation.
The people shouted "Hosannah," which in Hebrew means, "save" or "help." The people cry out, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosannah in the highest" NAS.
The people clearly expected a savior from the rule of Rome. They thought the coming king was a typical earthly king, one who would overthrow Rome and free them. They looked for another king such as King David. The words they shouted, the use of palm branches and the welcome they gave Him all point to their view of Jesus coming to be an earthly king. As I commented on this and looked at Scripture, I thought about how we think of Jesus today. Sadly, in large, I think we might be taking a similar view. The people in Jesus day saw Him as a world leader, one who would take care of them and provide for them. Don't we do something similar? Isn't most of our interaction with Christ one of prayers, requests and thankful ness for things here on Earth? Don't we mostly look to Him to heal, provide, grant wishes and similar things? Jesus came to serve but with the focus on the eternal. He came to serve and to save us. He came to lead us to an eternal relationship and place with Him. How much time do we spend daily thinking about our eternity? How much value do we place on that? As I have grown more and more in that direction, the things of this life matter less and less. I am seeing the immense gift and value in the things of the eternal. I would never trade that for any earthly desire. I guess to paint a picture, where are we in the crowd on Jesus entry into Jerusalem? Are we excited and shouting and praising Him for the gift of eternity that He brought with HIm. Are we excited for the Good News? Or are we running along side Jesus excited and expecting Him to deliver us from our earthly bondage (like they to Rome) ? Are we excited that He has come to town to heal us, help our dreams come true or make us rich? Which spectator are we?
A king such as they anticipated, surely, would have come in on a huge white stallion with trumpets and banners. He would have proudly marched in with his army, waving to the crowd. Such an entry would have pushed Rome to assemble an army to meet and stop this person from taking these people away from them. It would have been a horrible scene. But such an entry was not what was prophesied in Scripture. Jesus came in just as it was told in days of old.
Following His entry, Jesus went to the temple and looked around very carefully at everything that was going on there. His investigation of the temple and what He saw must have led to His return to the temple the next day. Following that visit, they left and returned to Bethany.
The next morning, they left Bethany for Jerusalem. Along the way, Jesus was hungry and He spotted a fig tree. He walked over to it and saw that it only had leaves but no fruit and Jesus said, "May no one ever eat of your fruit again!" Mark mentioned that the disciples heard Him say that.
I read a commentary that compared Israel to the fig tree. In The Bible Knowledge Commentary by Walvoord and Zuck, we can read this commentary; "Like the fig tree, Israel flourished with the "leaves" of ritual religion but lacked the "fruit" of righteousness God demanded." This episode (along with the cleansing of the temple) "..signify God's impending judgement on Israel for religious hypocrisy. The promising but unproductive fig tree symbolized Israel's spiritual barrenness despite divine favor and the impressive outward appearance of their religion." At this point, regarding the fig tree, Jesus' only comment was that no one would ever eat of it's fruit again. We might imagine that the disciples expected the tree to stay as it was but that its fruit would never be eaten as Jesus said. Several verses later, we will see that there was much more to it than this.
They arrived back in Jerusalem and Jesus entered the temple. Jesus began to drive out those buying and selling animals for sacrifices, along with the money changers. He turned over tables and chairs and stopped them from using the temple as a marketplace. Jesus told them, "The Scriptures declare, "My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations," but you have turned it into a den of thieves." Jesus used the word "thieves", causing me to contemplate what He meant by that. My first thought was they they took advantage of people who came to make their sacrifices and didn't bring what they needed. Knowing that the sellers overcharged them making them pay more than they would at any common market. Those merchant took advantage of the people when they had a need. The second thing that struck me is that , as Jesus said, that place was meant to be a place of prayer. The merchants setting up shop the way they had robbed people of an opportunity to sit in solitude and pray, it robbed God of receiving prayers and connecting with the hearts of the people and it robbed bot God and the people of time spent in close communion with each other.
Remember that the religious leaders, high priests, allowed this area of the temple to be used for selling animals and changing money. Jesus now usurped their authority by chasing those people out of the temple.
When word of what Jesus had done got back to the leaders of the temple, you can imagine their anger. They were so angry that they plotted to kill Jesus. They plotted but were afraid of His popularity due to His teachings. That evening, Jesus and the disciples left town again, most likely to head back to Bethany. We might think they kept going back and forth to Bethany for safety reasons.
The next morning, they again left Bethany to return to Jerusalem. On the way, they again passed the fig tree Jesus cursed. This time they saw that the tree had withered from the roots up. Peter exclaimed, "Look Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!" Peter (and I imagine the other disciples) had probably not expected to see the tree destroyed. Jesus did not respond but I have read that many people think the picture of the dead fig tree exposed a deeper judgement of Israel for their not properly representing God and His teachings.
If we look at the fig tree as a symbol of the ritual religion of Israel as commented on earlier, I have one more comment. The very first few words in that story were "Jesus was hungry". That can be added into the concept of the fig tree. Let me share my thoughts. There are those who are spiritually hungry and went to the temple to be filled, even as happens today. If any religion or church or temple practices rituals beautifully they may appear as being just what the person who hungers needs. However on close inspection, they bear no fruit, one of two things happens. Either the person feeds on rituals which are not grow spiritually or they or they move on to a place that bears fruit and fills their spiritual needs. Eventually the place represented by the fig tree is not what Christ created it to be and may wither and die.
Then Jesus told the disciples to have faith in God. If one did, they could tell the mountain to be tossed into the sea and it would be. Having an unwavering, trusting, unshakable belief and faith in God and His power is what it would take to see such things happen. If there was any doubt or unsureness at all, it would never be so. Along with an unshakable faith, God must be approached with a forgiving spirit. Petitioning God with an unforgiving spirit will get in the way of God responding to a person's prayers. Living with a forgiving spirit is necessary that a person's petitions are answered but also that the person's sins will also be forgiven. This scripture tells us that God's forgiveness and our forgiveness toward others are linked to one another. If we are blessed by the forgiveness of God then it is expected that we forgive those who have harmed us. If we are unforgiving of others, then we cannot expect to be forgiven by God.
They again entered Jerusalem and Jesus again went to the temple. Jesus was approached by the religious leaders and teachers. As we saw in chapter 8, the Pharisees "demanded" a miraculous sign from Jesus and again here in chapter 11 we see the religious leaders "demanding" He answer by what authority He was doing all the things He had been doing. Again, a show of power and self imposed authority toward Jesus by making such demands. Remember, they were pretty angry because He undermined their authority (perhaps their demands were in an effort to re-establish their own authority that was challenged by Jesus' teaching and behavior) the day before and wrecked a pretty good business that was going on in the temple. He also made some strong negative comments about the current day teachers and leaders. They demanded to know who gave Jesus the right to do those things.
Jesus turned the tables on them and offered to answer them if they could first answer His one question. (Apparently, this was a common practice in Rabbinic debating. This method of debating made Jesus' answer dependent on their answer.) Jesus asked them if John the Baptist's authority to baptize came from heaven or was it merely human. The religious leaders realized if they responded that his authority came from God, Jesus would counter asking them why then, did they not believe John. If they said it was merely human, the people would turn on them because they believed John was a prophet of God. So, as to not get trapped, they answered that they didn't know. (Following the rules of debate that they were using, their non-answer released Jesus from any obligation to answer theirs. By Jesus tying the question of His authority to a question regarding John's authority, He implied that His authority came from the same place Johns did - God.)
Jesus then replied, "Then I won't tell you by what authority I do these things."