Ride On to Die Intro

Lyrics

This next song is called "Ride On to Die," and it has to do with Jesus entering into Jerusalem, and if you know the gospels, you know that He laments more than once as He comes into Jerusalem. People call it the Triumphal Entry; I call it the so-called Triumphal Entry because, as Jesus is entering the city, He's wiping tears from His eyes. So it's not the triumph that we would think it is. And so often when He speaks of Jerusalem, He speaks of the suffering of the women. You know, "pray for nursing mothers," and that sort of thing, "that their flight won't be in winter." And I want to read to you an essay that's taken from one of Josephus' writings on the suffering that happened at the siege of Jerusalem in 70. Because when Jesus is lamenting, that's what he's lamenting. He sees in His prophetic imagination the suffering of the city and that's why He laments. And I think this is important because the woman that Josephus talks about may very well be, I think, one of the women that Jesus has in mind when He's lamenting. "Mary, the daughter of Eleazar, was from the village of Bathazor. She was from a family that had prospered on the other side of the Jordan. So when, late in AD 69, word reached their village that the Roman commander Titus and the 10th Roman legion were on their way to siege Jerusalem, she and all her relatives fled to the city for the protection of the walls with only her possessions. Once the legions had surrounded the city, Jewish partisan chiefs along with their bodyguards plundered what little she had left, leaving her with her infant son destitute. She cursed the looters, screaming at them to kill her out of anger or pity. Later, when the partisans returned, to their horror, they discovered that she had murdered her own baby and was roasting him over a fire. 'Eat,' she told them with a ghastly stare, 'For I also have eaten.'" Josephus said the battle-hardened chiefs went away trembling. Now that's the kind of suffering, unimaginable suffering, that happened. And I think that's what causes Jesus to burst into tears as He's entering the city. So that's just for you to file away in your imagination when next time you read of Jesus' so-called "Triumphal Entry."