Something to Mule Over (Part 2)

It’s 331 BC. Alexander the Great has just conquered the Persians. Palestine is now under Greek control.

One of Alexander’s primary concerns was unifying his now vast empire not just militarily but culturally. Greek ideas. Greek customs. Greek practices. The Greek language. Soon much of the conquering (or Hellenistic) culture would begin to infiltrate the Jewish way of life. This is reflected in the fact that even their sacred Scriptures were translated into Greek, which we now call the Septuagint. Israel was quickly becoming one in a million. From the outside, they were becoming less and less distinct, and there was significant pressure to conform to the Hellenistic way of life.

Less than ten years later when Alexander died, his generals vied for control. Two powers emerged—the Ptolemies and the Seleucids—and they both wanted Palestine. The tension for Israel between preserving their religion and conforming to the ways of pagan Hellenism was ever-present and growing.

It’s now 167 BC. The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in light of the threat of a growing Rome, seeks to homogenize and Hellenize the different subcultures like Israel still living in the Greek Empire. In addition to this, to pay his debts he begins invading and seizing whatever wealth he can. This includes sacking the temple in Jerusalem and all its golden treasures.

(Trust me, this all has a point.)

Understandably, the Jewish people saw this as a threat to their very existence. Their culture. Their history. Their religion. And now their God. Antiochus passed laws that forbade circumcision, temple sacrifices, and the observance of the Sabbath. On top of that, they were commanded to sacrifice to idols, and those who disobeyed were put to death.

The last straw came on December 25th, 167 BC, when Antiochus marched into the temple and erected an altar to Zeus, deliberately blaspheming the Jewish God, and sacrificing a pig. The Jews were outraged. Perhaps this was the “abomination of desolation” referred to in Daniel 11:31 that pointed to the beginning of the end.

Despite such hardship, Israel was unmoved. They were God’s people and still hoped God would take back His temple and vindicate them. Now was the time for a leader.

It started with a priest named Matthias, who refused to offer sacrifices to Antiochus’ pagan gods. He fled with his five sons to the desert, where they began recruiting and organizing a band of guerilla warriors. When Matthias died, his son Judah assumed command. He was nicknamed Maccabee, meaning “hammer,” and his followers came to be known as the Maccabees.

The Maccabees achieved an astounding number of victories against the Seleucids, though they were significantly outnumbered. And on December 25th, 164 BC, three years after Antiochus desecrated the temple, the victor Judah Maccabee rode—you guessed it—on a donkey into Jerusalem, to shouts of “hosanna” and the waving of palm branches.

More could be said of the Maccabees. Twenty years later, the Seleucids were finally defeated, and the Jews began once again to rule themselves. The descendants of Judah’s older brother Simon ruled in what is known as the Hasmonean dynasty until the Romans marched into Jerusalem in 63 BC, where they would stay for over four hundred years.

What’s important here is how these events shape the context of Jesus. The Romans—vicious, pagan, and cruel—were much like the Seleucids. Rome was heartless and ruled with “iron teeth” (Dan. 7:7). Yet again, the Jews were looking, waiting, and hoping for a deliverer, one who would bring the promised righteousness and justice to a conquered land and people.

Perhaps it’s worth noting what Judah Maccabee did when entering Jerusalem: He went to the temple. He destroyed the images of Greek gods and rededicated the temple to the Lord.

Strangely enough, we see the same thing with Jesus. He entered Jerusalem and then “entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling” (Lk. 19:19). But this time it was not the pagan Greeks who were driven out; it was the merchants working with the temple priests. They had turned what was sacred and holy—God’s own house of prayer—into a place of greed, or a “den of robbers” (Lk. 19:46). Malachi 3:1 declares that “suddenly” the Lord they are seeking will come to His temple, but it wasn’t Judah Maccabee. It was the King of kings.

In this same passage in Luke, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and mourns that after all this time, Israel failed to recognize the time of God’s coming to them in the Person of Jesus (Lk. 19:44). They had high hopes. They saw one coming on a donkey, like the wise king Solomon and the valiant Maccabee warrior. Yet Jesus was not the king they expected.

On Palm Sunday, we remember and rejoice that Jesus rode on a donkey, but a day is coming when His rule “will extend from sea to sea.” In Revelation 19, we see not a donkey but a white horse, not a lowly carpenter but a mighty Prince called Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11).