Last year I shared how Tolkien's motif of the long defeat helped me to see from a new angle the Easter mystery.
This Lent, I was struck by another point as we heard again the three great apocalyptic encounters in John's gospel, which are read for catechumens preparing for baptism on the three Sundays preceding Passion/Palm Sunday and Holy Week. In each of them, the spiritual healing of the woman at the well, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, more and more of the answer to the driving question of John's gospel is given, the question addressed to the Lord Jesus: Who are you, where do you come from?
In the recounting of the raising of Lazarus, which has long been one of the singular passages in all the Bible which comes back to me over and over again and never fails to blow me away, and rarely fails to move me to tears--in this recounting, I was struck more by the background narrative of the gospel as a story, and another part of Tolkien's story got me to meditating.
In the gospel, Jesus's friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary live in Bethany, very close to Jerusalem. At this point, Jesus has aroused such hatred in the leaders at Jerusalem that it is dangerous for him even to show his face there. So when he decides to visit his friends in Bethany, his companions realize this may mean death for him. "Let us also go," says Thomas, "that we may die with him." Immediately after the raising, John writes, "Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand." Jesus has come to Jerusalem for the last time, for him to be glorified.
For some reason I recalled the arrival of Aragorn at Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. In that story, Aragorn was king by rights of the kingdom of Gondor and one with the right to sit on the throne at Minas Tirith--the real throne, not the chair that stewards had ruled from for many years as a sign of the absence of the kings. However, Aragorn chooses not to enter openly as ruler until Sauron has been overthrown, if that indeed can possibly happen. (I suppose this serious self-mastery reveals Aragorn's dignity--he does not shrink from the power and authority that comes with kingship, but neither does he seek domination over others as its own end. Rather his kingship will only be in service of a just peace, and only gained by the conquest of the threat of annihilation of that peace).
But as we remember, Aragorn does in fact enter the city after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, before the campaign against the gates of Mordor. He enters at night, unannounced and unrecognized, and goes about tending the wounded and dying, who were struck down in defense of his keep. He brings with him the healing herb of the Numenorean lords, and brings back from death's door many who were near death. All night he labors, and leaves the city at dawn to attend his council of war.
Of course, aside from the overlap of the arrival of the king, the plots of the two stories are different. When Jesus actually enters Jerusalem, he is recognized and hailed as king. And it is not a triumphant arrival that will establish a political regime. Instead of course, before the week's end, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, condemned in two trials--under the religious law and under the imperial law--tortured, and put to death.
Yet is there not a way in which the story Tolkien that tells openly in his romance is a hidden reality in the gospel history? This carpenter's son from Nazareth may have stirred up the people but he was quickly, easily, and utterly crushed by the powers that rule in Jerusalem. Yet John professes over and over again, here it comes, the hour of Jesus, when he will be lifted up, this is it: God is glorifying him. Jesus was, in fact, king. Not only the Son of God, holding authority over all things as their author, but within the history of the Davidic kingdom as well, Jesus was king. "God has raised up for us a mighty savior / born of the house of his servant David" (Lk 1:69). Furthermore, within the broader human story, the procurator who will judge him in the name of the imperium of Rome only holds his power "from above." By his death and resurrection, Jesus will win the scepter of rule over every earthly power, and even over every cosmic power. ("Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out" - Jn 12:31). He will have authority from the top down and from the bottom up, as it were.
This king arrived in the royal city a week before his Passion (just as the high priest was required to arrive and live in the Temple a week before the Day of Atonement), and a lot of his teachings in the synoptic gospels come from this week: the cleansing of the temple, the parable of the tenants with the highlighting of the prophecy in Ps 118 about the stone rejected by the builders (which we read every week on the Lord's Day in the Liturgy of the Hours), the question about the resurrection, about David's son, and the Greatest Commandment, plus his prophecy of the destruction of the Temple.
He entered his city in a way like Aragorn, unrecognized for his true authority; but he brought his healing herb to save many from dying. And at weeks end, he revealed his power and dignity and authority in casting down the ancient foe:
Death and life have contended
in that combat stupendous;
the prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
