The Humble Coronation of Christ 

Matthew 21:1‑11

Let's open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 21.  I want to read for

you verses 1 through 11 as a setting for our message this morning.

With this chapter in our study of Matthew, we begin the last week of

the life of our Lord.

And when they drew near unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two

disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village opposite you and straightway ye shall find an ass tied and a colt with her: 

loose them, and bring them unto Me.

And if any man say anything unto you, you shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.  All this
was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King

cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of an ass.  And the disciples went, and did as Jesus

commanded them.  And brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and they set Him thereon.  And a very

great multitude spread their garments in the way, others cut down branches from the trees and spread them in the way. 

And the multitudes that went before and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David:

Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

And when He was come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, Who is this?  And the multitude said, This is Jesus

the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

Now we don't have kings in America.  In fact, we were established

out of an anti‑king revolution.  As a result of this, we know very

little of the pomp and majesty and ceremony that attends a coronation.

Perhaps the closest we ever come to that kind of thing is when we

watch the British royal family going through the various kinds of

ceremonies that they do, exposed to us on television.  But as far as

hands‑on acquaintance with monarchy and ceremony and coronation, it's

not really familiar to us.

But in our text, we find a coronation, as truly a coronation as

any coronation ever was, for this is truly a King.  And He is affirmed

as a king and He is inaugurated into His Kingship, in a sense, in this

very passage.  But as little as we know about coronations, we know

enough to know that this isn't like any of the ones we've ever been

exposed to.  I mean, it doesn't quite seem like the coronations with

which history has been familiar.  I mean, when have we ever seen a

king riding on a donkey's colt, meek and lowly, with people throwing

tree branches and old clothes in his path?

There seems to be something missing, especially when you compare

it with the coronations of the world.  Europe, for example, which sort

of sets the pace for the western world in its understanding of

coronations, has given us a long history of the pomp and the glory and

the splendor and the majesty and the wealth of those events in which a

king is inaugurated into his royal and regal status.  Sometimes he was

raised on a shield, sometimes he was made to stand on a sacred stone,

sometimes he was presented with a spear or with a sword or with a

scepter, or given a crown or given a robe of great distinction to mark

out the inauguration into that official place of king.

And traditionally in Europe, they even borrowed from the

inauguration or coronation of David and Saul by adding some religious

features and wanted to assign to the secular kings divine rights as

kings.  And therefore they brought the men of God, the bishops or the

priests, to affirm the sovereign right of a king.  It was a grand and

glorious occasion, usually followed by great feastings and banquets.

There was splendor everywhere, rich people in rich clothing, jewels,

horses, carriages, archbishops, famous dignitaries everyplace.

Everything pointed to the glory of the individual being crowned, his

majesty, his military might and power and so forth.

I don't know if you know it, but just as an indication of some of

the falderal and the wealth that goes along with all of that, a crown

was made for Queen Victoria in 1838, the crown was made all out of

rubies and sapphires of monstrous proportions.  In the middle of it

was a 309 carat diamond.  And the scepter which she took in her hand

had a diamond on top of it of five‑hundred and sixteen and a half

carats cut from the Star of Africa.  Events of tremendous, almost

inconceivable wealth, coronations were events of great splendor.

But this is not like those coronations.  A donkey's colt, a bunch

of branches and some old clothes.  But then this is no ordinary king.

And He has no ordinary kingdom.  He said to Pilate, "I am not a king

like you think kings are, My Kingdom is not of this world."

Now this is a very important event in these eleven verses because

it initiates the last week of the life of our Lord prior to His

crucifixion.  It is the last drama, it is His last public act prior to

being crucified, the last event of His ministry.  And it has to be

treated with a great amount of respect, and it has to be understood

for what it really is or you won't understand what comes after it.  I

really feel that the earthly coronation of Jesus Christ, sometimes

called the triumphal entry, gets bypassed far too much.  It is a very

significant event.  And you'll see that significance unfold as we

examine it together.

I want you to get the scene now.  Verse 1 tells us, Jesus comes to

Jerusalem, and it sets for us the setting.  "And when they drew near

to Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage unto the Mount of Olives..."