I’m not much of a Bible scholar. I can tell you John 3:16 by heart, I’m pretty sure the Lord’s Prayer is in Matthew, and that Romans chapter 8 is important. But every now and then I’m reading my Bible and all of the sudden something will jump out at me and I’ll say, “Wait a minute. What’s up with that?”
Most recently this occurred during the “Bible Reading Challenge” I’m a part of where you are encouraged to read the entire Bible in not just a full year, but a school year. #KeepTheFeast Normally I have taken my time going through the Bible, but I figured I’d try something new and it has been very beneficial. I was reading along in John when all of the sudden I noticed a heading that tweaked me. “Jesus’ Triumphant Entry”.
Triumphant? When I was a kid that section was called “The Triumphal Entry”. Why the change? Was it just a linguistic error? Did the error belong to all the Bibles I saw when I was a kid or these new-fangled translations? The new Bible was a New Living Translation so…maybe. Language changes all of the time and maybe this was related to the shift. I am in my forties now and my daughter and her friends run around saying things like “bruh” and “bet!” and I am a little out of touch there so, maybe. But language has always fascinated me with its different shades of meaning. Language is by far my favorite playground, so I ran for the linguistic swing set.
Now, what do we mean by the “Triumph(al)ant Entry” in the first place?
That is the term we use for the events portrayed in the four gospels (Matt. 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19) where Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem on the back of a donkey foal. The people of the city lay down their coats and palm fronds in front of Him and spontaneously shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD”, “Hail to the King of Israel” and other various praises to God in reference to Jesus. We celebrate these events on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Resurrection Sunday.
The entry is quite triumphant enough, indeed. Without firing a shot, without setting a siege, to all appearances, the people are with Jesus and set to install Him as King. He has the will of the people. The disciples must have been looking at each other with big grins realizing that it was all happening; that they got in on the ground floor of the new king. Surely greatness and wealth awaited them.
But, we followers of Christ know very deeply that it didn’t happen that way. It didn’t happen that way because it was never the plan for it to happen that way. Jesus would triumph, Jesus did triumph, but not the way that anyone else imagined He would.
So, why do the old Bibles have the word “Triumphal” instead of “Triumphant”?
If we do a quick Google search for “triumphal” we get the following definition: “adjective, 1. made, carried out, or used in celebration of a great victory or achievement.”
Jesus entered a gate. The people were celebrating what? This wasn’t the first time that Jesus had been to Jerusalem. After His birth, His first journey was to the Temple to be presented as the firstborn and the traditional sacrifice was made. The next story is when His family went to Jerusalem and He stayed behind at twelve years old and taught in the synagogue. There were likely many times that He’d been there before. Probably once every year, at the least.
The people spontaneously erupted, the city quaked with sudden joy. It wasn’t as if the disciples had run ahead with leaflets or bribed everyone. What great victory had occurred? What achievement? Clearly, this was a divine manifestation of joy as they spoke the words of ancient prophecy. But, why? To what purpose?
I believe that the answer lies in the adjective, “triumphal”.
It is a Latin word with its obvious roots in the word “triumph”.
It can be used as a noun or a verb which has a very similar meaning to “triumphal”, but there is a secondary definition which is: “the processional entry of a victorious general into ancient Rome”.
If you’ve ever watched documentaries about World War II then you have probably actually seen our version of a “triumph”. Back then it was called a “ticker-tape parade”. Presidents, Generals, astronauts, even World Series-winning baseball players have had the honor of driving down streets thronged with people cheering, bursting to catch a glimpse of the hero of the moment as they wave to those on either side of them.
In Rome, it was the single greatest honor that a citizen of the Roman republic/empire could ever hope to achieve.
According to Wikipedia, it was “both a civil ceremony and a religious rite.”
At its most basic the Roman Triumph followed a set of common practices. A returning victorious general rode in a chariot drawn by four white horses through the streets of Rome on a path that leads to the Capitoline Hill, where there stood the temple of Jupiter. The general was dressed in red robes which were the color of Jupiter and considered the color of divinity. Standing in the chariot next to the general was a slave in plain clothes.
As the crowd heaped praises upon the Roman general, it was the job of the slave to lean towards the man’s ear and say, “Memento Mori”.
Remember, you are mortal.
Once at the temple of Jupiter, and the procession halted, the general climbed the steps of the hill and was met by a priest of Jupiter. This priest then slapped the general across the face, and once more intoned, “Memento Mori”. The general was then crowned with a laurel wreath and would sacrifice two pure white bulls to Jupiter in the temple. When he emerged from the cave-like temple he was considered to be now as good as divine.
Afterward, there would be a feast held in his honor and coins struck (usually at his own expense) bearing his image that would then go into circulation in the Roman markets.
The above was your garden variety of triumph, but as Rome expanded, as egos became inflated so did the extravagance of the triumph. There were times when the half-day ride to the temple of Jupiter took two or three days because the general so wanted to be seen and praised that the procession crawled at a snail’s pace. Where rose petals were strewn in their path the generals began having jewels and coins thrown out to the attendants so they would praise him even more. The feasts at the end which were once simple “welcome home” affairs were now full-on bacchanalian parties that would last for a week or more. The basic four white horses through the gate became six or more to the point where the people had to be on rooftops since there was no road space for the crowds. It is even said that Pompey tried to outdo all others by hitching up elephants to pull his chariot. When they couldn’t even make it through the gate, he embarrassingly had to wait to have horses brought and hitched in their stead.
In the beginning, the triumph was held whenever the general happened to make it back to the city. It didn’t take long for the triumph to be held days, weeks, or even months later to coincide with a particularly auspicious day or festival week.
Looking at the history of the Roman triumph I can’t help but see one simple fact. We know the “Triumphal Entry” wasn’t there to stroke Jesus’ ego and make Him feel important. It wasn’t a witness to the disciples or even the Jews in Jerusalem. I believe it was a witness to the Romans of who Jesus was.
As Jesus was riding into the city, on not just a donkey but the foal of a donkey, and people began shouting His name, putting palm fronds on the ground, I would find it hard to believe that the Roman officials, guards, or soldiers wouldn’t have noticed that this was a tad familiar. Here came a humble Jewish rabbi, on the back of a donkey and the people were praising Him as divine. It had been about one-hundred years since Pompey had tried to force elephants through the gate. Pompey had been given a ridiculous three triumphs that people figured he had bought in his pride and arrogance. The presumption was easy to make given his jewel encrusted (ancient school bedazzled!) This humble rabbi held His triumph on a donkey.
The parallels continue beyond the entry. He holds a small simple meal with those closest to Him. Jesus weeps in Gethsemane, begging that this cup of death be taken from Him. Why? Because although He is fully God, He is fully man. Memento mori. Instead of being hailed triumphant, He is imprisoned, beaten, people beg for His torture and murder. The robe they placed on Him was red, just like a general, but colored with His blood. Instead of laurels, they crowned Him with thorns. He carried the cross along the way to a hill. Every step, every abuse heaped on Him by people who were slaves to sin reminding Him, impressing on Him, screaming to Him, “Memento Mori”.
All of these things upon reflection must have stirred the thoughts of at least one Roman. History remembers him with the name “Longinus”. When Jesus gave up His spirit, the Roman guard said, “Surely this was the son of God.”
I wonder if some of those guarding Jesus’ tomb ever reflected that the sacrificed rabbi who had scheduled His triumph to coincide with the Passover week was coming out of the cave-like tomb divine. Not a fake temporal divinity, but an everlasting, triumphant, glorious divinity.
Finding Narnia 
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