Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from the March 29 lesson in Good Faith Bible Studies. If you are interested in learning more about our Bible study curriculum, either through a complementary Good Faith Advocate subscription or through a bulk subscription, visit here.
In recent years, if you read Christian books and articles or listened to sermons by more progressive writers and preachers, you may have noticed a shift in how some of them communicate the biblical term “kingdom”. They replace the “g” in the word with a dash. The result — kin-dom — nods to the original term, but transforms it. The connotation of control over an established realm gives way to a more gentle, familial image. (It also addresses that pesky gendered-language issue we struggle to reconcile between the Bible and our lived experience with God.)
At first glance, and depending on your tolerance for deviating from traditional concepts, this may be jarring. On one hand, the discomfort you may experience when reading the word kin-dom isn’t altogether unfounded. “King” and “kingdom” are, after all, images firmly rooted in our sacred scriptures, which is why they have been incorporated into our worship and devotional practices. They paint a picture that can’t quite be replicated with any other words.
But if you feel discomfort when you see kin-dom replacing kingdom (as I still sometimes do), as with any discomfort, pay attention to it. Question the discomfort. Where is it located in your body? What is its relationship to fear or control? Obviously, we want to be faithful to the Bible, but is it possible that we are more afraid of our conceptions of reality being challenged?
This dilemma is at the heart of the Palm Sunday story in Matthew 21 that begins Holy Week.
Sight and Power: Setting the Stage
Two important events at the end of Matthew 20 help set the stage for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
In the first, the mother of James and John asks Jesus for her sons to be seated to his right and left when he comes into his kingdom. This was after Jesus had told them that he would die by crucifixion, so he reminded her that she didn’t know what she was asking for. Jesus also had to address the other ten disciples, who were angry at James and John for their mother’s request. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them,” Jesus said. “It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (Matt. 20:17–28).
In the second story, just preceding Jesus’ entry into the city, two blind men sat on the side of the road, begging for mercy. The crowd — including the disciples who had just been taught by their rabbi that greatness is defined by service — tried to silence them. The blind men grew louder, though, and asked him to “let our eyes be opened” (20:33). Jesus touched their eyes, and Matthew tells us, “Immediately they regained their sight and followed him.”
Think of these two stories as the literary prologue for Matthew 21. Or imagine a director walking onto the stage of a theater and telling these stories to the audience before a play. They aren’t accidental; they tell us something about the picture about to be revealed. Matthew is telling his readers, “Your eyes can only be opened to what is about to occur if you reimagine what you thought you knew about kings and kingdoms.”
Fulfilling Prophecy
Matthew doesn’t explicitly state that Jesus entered Jerusalem during the Passover celebration. However, he alludes to it in later chapters (26:2), and his Jewish audience would have connected the large crowds and shouts of “Hosanna!” with Passover. Matthew is more concerned with the geography and symbolism of Jesus’ Jerusalem procession than with giving an exhaustive list of what occurred. He isn’t telling his readers, “Here is everything that happened.” He is telling them, with poetic subtlety, “Here is how Jesus fulfills prophecy.”
What Matthew does in the following verses can be seen as the stitching together of a beautiful mosaic of prophecies from the Hebrew Bible that his original readers would have recognized instantly:
- The location from where Jesus began his journey hearkened to Zechariah: “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley…” (Zechariah 14:4). Notice the imagery of division. Matthew wants his readers to know that Jesus presents a choice between two ways of understanding the world.
- Zechariah also provides the imagery for Jesus’ mode of transportation: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9). Whereas Mark, Luke, and John record Jesus entering only on a colt, Matthew is making a Hebrew literary choice to paint a picture of strength through humility.
- In verses 4–5, Matthew directly connects the unfolding scene to Isaiah 62:11: “Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”
- As the crowd shouted “Hosanna!”, they were echoing the liturgical cries for deliverance that are spread throughout the Psalms (118:25–26).
- The crowd laying branches on the road and waving palm trees held echoes of the Levitical command: “And you shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days” (Lev. 23:40).
From all this to the bestowment of the title “Son of David” in verse 9 (2 Sam. 7) and the entering of the city in verse 10 (Mal. 3:1), the scene that fills only eleven verses for modern readers explodes with prophetic meaning for Matthew’s Jewish audience.
Matthew is telling his readers, “You have known about this story all along. It is now being fulfilled.”
Flipping the Script
The prophecies that converge in Matthew 21:1–11 would have been well known to Matthew’s original readers. Yet by the first century CE, many in Judea had come to expect that the Messiah, once he appeared, would bring political deliverance from Rome. Zechariah 9:9 promised a peaceful king “riding on a donkey,” but that image was often treated as a poetic prelude to what he would ultimately deliver. “Yes, the Messiah may come humbly,” people reasoned, “but his humility will give way to triumph. He will still drive out our enemies.”
But Matthew flips the script on their expectations. The king does come, but he is unarmed. The crowd demands, “Save us!”, but Jesus delivers their salvation through death, not conquest.
In a way, Matthew shows the fulfillment of prophecy while also offering a parody of what the people thought those prophecies meant.
Thy Kin-dom Come?
Matthew ends this story with the city of Jerusalem in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” and with the crowds replying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” What’s interesting here is that the crowd, who had just named him “the Son of David” (a messianic title), now only referred to him as a prophet from a small backwater town. It was a correct label, but incomplete. It was as if they didn’t fully understand just yet.
Still, it captured the dual nature that is at the heart of who Jesus was and is. He is Lord and Messiah, king and conqueror. He is God in the flesh. But he is also of earth and dirt. He is both fully “other,” and he is also like us.
In short, he is king, but he is also kin.
His task is both to deliver us — from our oppressors and our sin (including our sin of oppression) — and to bring all of us together into a divine kinship that isn’t based on power, but on humility and service.
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