The Gate Facing East

When he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples and said, “Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’”

So those who were sent left 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?”

“The Lord needs it,” they said. Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their clothes on the colt, they helped Jesus get on it. As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road. Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:

Blessed is the King who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest heaven!

Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” Luke 19:28-40(CSB)

In some ways, I find this particular moment as sad as what will follow in the city. 

Jesus knows.
He knows the cheers will fade. 
He knows the celebration will end. 
He knows the cries of hosanna will turn to cries to “crucify him!” 

All within a week.

How quickly the mob shifts its opinions.
How quickly it lusts for blood. 

How taunting those looks of celebration must have been for him, the lauds of great glory. It’s the welcome of a King, but the whole things was backwards, intentionally. Instead of a war horse, he rode a poor colt. Instead of an entourage, his gangly group of disciples. Instead of arriving through the Western or Northern Gate where the Emperor or Kings would enter, he came through the gate facing east. 

Little did they know who was actually returning. 

He led me to the gate, the one that faces east, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice sounded like the roar of a huge torrent, and the earth shone with his glory. The vision I saw was like the one I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and like the ones I had seen by the Chebar Canal. I fell facedown. The glory of the Lord entered the temple by way of the gate that faced east. Ezekiel 43:1-4 (CSB)

Just before Babylon decimated Jerusalem, Ezekiel has a vision of God leaving the temple, and then leaving Jerusalem by the gate facing east, heading past the Mount of Olives. The temple was the very heart of Judaism and Jerusalem. God sat within it, on the mercy seat, between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies. And Ezekiel sees him leave, predicting the fall of the city. But he has the above vision some time later. At the right time, God would come back to his temple (tomorrow’s reading), by way of the Mount of Olives, through the gate facing east again.

God’s long absence, had finally come to an end. And yet, the great tragedy was, they didn’t recognize who he was. For they wanted a different kind of King. A different kind of ruler. And so they would brutally, and horrifically, kill him.

They often wanted to replace God with a King (1 Samuel 8:7). Are we any different? We all frequently prefer worldly power to the servant God. I imagine Jesus looking at them in this moment as he would look at me. He sees me for who I am, and yet he comes.

Let’s read the whole famous John 3:16-21 quote again, and see if we see it in different context in light of this: 

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”