First,
each Gospel account makes specific reference that the Triumphal Entry of Jesus
into Jerusalem
that day was fulfillment of prophecy.
Zechariah 9
9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your kinga comes to you, righteous and having
salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. [1]
Psalm 188
25 O Lord, save us; O Lord, grant us success.
26 Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you.a
27 The
Lord is God, and he has made his
light shine upon us.
With boughs in hand, join in the
festal procession upb to the horns of the
altar. [2]
It isn’t only that we
can see this as a fulfillment of prophecy… we can assume that the participants
understood that this was the fulfillment of prophecy
·
The crowds (forced?)
·
The Pharisees (fear?)
·
The Disciples (finally?)
·
Jesus (leading us to the next
point… )
This
scene demonstrates the obedience of Jesus.
26 Did not the Christb
have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” [3]
Even after his resurrection from
the dead, on the Road to Emmaus, Jesus had to explain that the week of His
Passion was, above everything else, a supreme act of obedience to God the
Father.
Jesus understood what was in
store for Him as He rode into Jerusalem
on that donkey. It would only be a matter of hours until He would spell it out
for His friends:
27 “Now my heart is troubled, and
what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very
reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your
name!” [4]
Riding through the gate, on the
donkey, in obedience to the Father, Jesus began this most significant week… in
a spectacular way.
It
seems that this was the first time that Jesus knowingly entered into a
spectacle. Although His miracles and teaching certainly earned acclaim, Jesus,
more often than not, specifically avoided attention. But now He allowed the
spectacle.
We can understand how crowds would
gather. The night before the ride into Jerusalem,
Jesus had a meal with Lazarus.
9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews
found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to
see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.[5]
What an opportunity… to see the
resurrected one and the resurrector Himself!
Resurrection wasn’t only the
culmination of the Passion week (we know the end of the story; we know that
Easter Sunday is on the way)… resurrection was crucial for calling the crowd
together. It was the resurrection of Lazarus that lent credibility to the
claims that Jesus was the Messiah.
Many
hoped that this would be the climax of God’s dealing with His people… and more
specifically the climax of dealing with His people’s enemies.
Would this one
·
who can feed thousands,
·
heal the deaf, dumb, and
diseased
·
and raise men from the dead
Would this one deliver God’s
people from tyranny? Would He put down foes? Would He rescue? Would He save?
Would He usher in a new Kingdom… a Kingdom
of God?
13 They took palm
branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!a”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”b
“Blessed is the King of Israel!” [6]
These were shouts of
desperation… shouts calling for deliverance… the climax of the Kingdom.
It
was clear that the religious leaders feared revolution.
Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only
two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking
for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2 “But
not during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.” [7]
At Passover the city was packed
with celebrants. The crowds could easily be worked into a frenzy… they were
looking for a Messiah. There was too much to loose and the religious leaders
plotted carefully.
We
could surmise that this was an intentional provocation. How could the Pharisees
stand this? Palm branches, shouts of Hosanna, riding on a donkey as the
prophecy dictated, in the days leading-up to Passover.
In today’s vernacular it was as
if Jesus, His disciples, and the crowds were saying to the religious leaders
“in your face.”
19 So the Pharisees said to one
another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone
after him!”[8]
We
wouldn’t want to miss the various displays of paradox in this scene.
The Pharisees were clearly threatened,
but the Roman officials and military would have had to be thinking: give me a
break! We refer to this as the Triumphal Entry… but to a Roman, this would be
considered a joke.
Whenever a Roman general was victorious on foreign soil,
killing at least 5,000 of the enemy, and gaining new territory, he was given a
“Roman triumph” when he returned to the city. It was the Roman equivalent of
the American “ticker-tape parade,” only with much more splendor. The victor
would be permitted to display the trophies he had won and the enemy leaders he
had captured. The parade ended at the arena where some of the captives
entertained the people by fighting wild beasts. Compared to a “Roman triumph,”
our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem
was nothing.[9]
·
A donkey – rather than a
powerful war horse
·
A donkey – Kings rode on wheels…
chariots and carriages
·
No captives
·
No loot
·
No trophies
Of course history teaches us
that Christ did indeed triumph over Rome.
Not
only was this a fulfillment of prophecy… we could note the prophetic element of
the scene. Note the similarities of the scene portrayed in Revelation 7.
9 After
this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could
count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the
throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding
palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out
in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” [10]
Similar in that they held palm
branches in their hands, and cried out salvation.
But distinct
·
A great multitude
·
Every nation
·
Lamb (not an earthly, warrior
king)
·
White robes (righteous)
This was merely a foreshadow of
what eternity holds, when those whom the Lamb has redeemed will stand and praise
our Savior.
Although
the scene is marked by celebration, there are also tears… as it ushers in a
week that will hold tears.
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the
city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even
you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden
from your eyes.[11]
The City and Temple would fall. And the people whom God
loved would suffer. And even though Jesus had the perspective of eternity,
knowing the end… just as He knew that His friend would live when He stood at
with His friends at His dear friend’s tomb… even though Jesus was fulfilling
prophecy and obeying the Father… He wept.
And His tears would be followed
by the tears of His friends, and His family as He walked through the torture of
the week that lies ahead.
We’ve
alluded to this already; the Scripture makes it clear that there was a great
deal of confusion.
16 At first his disciples did not
understand all this.[12]
Even those who had been with Him
the most, and were the beneficiaries of His teaching, didn’t understand what
was unfolding before their eyes. The only one in the picture who could see
clearly was Jesus himself… not the crowds, nor the religious leaders, not the
political leaders, nor even His closest friends.
And
finally, notice the irony.
The Pharisees, frustrated,
angry, and threatened, in exasperation proclaim:
“See, this is getting us nowhere.
Look how the whole world has gone after him!”[13]
The
whole world has gone after him? Granted, there were huge crowds, and this was a
pretty big deal… but the whole world? That seems like a bit
of an overstatement; the irony, of course, is that the Pharisees were
unknowingly speaking prophetically.
Because
it would have been more accurate for the Pharisees to say: The whole world will
go after him!
From our perspective, we can see
that this was indeed the beginning of the most significant week in history.
Even the most godless atheist historian would have a difficult time denying
that Jesus, and specifically the events of this week, entirely changed the
course of history.
But even that statement doesn’t
give us the whole picture. Palm Sunday didn’t stick… why?
·
Redemption
·
Empowerment
On Palm Sunday Jesus was
acclaimed by the crowds; on Good Friday He died basically alone.
On
Palm Sunday, the crowds went after Him… on Easter Sunday, He will go after the
whole world!
On Palm Sunday the crowds reached
for Jesus… but there grasp was loose; they couldn’t hold on.
On Easter Sunday the resurrected
Jesus grabs hold of His people with all the power of God. The world cannot
manage to hold on to Him… but because of the
·
effect of His sacrifice
·
conquering of death by
resurrection
·
power of the Holy Spirit
He takes hold of us.
John 15
13 Greater love has no one than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You
are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no
longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s
business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned
from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did
not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit
that will last.[14]
What
about our Palm Sunday, this Palm Sunday, today?
What can we take away from this?
What can we share with others?
I
want to take us back to the words we spoke together as we called one another to
worship this morning. Remember these words, printed in your liturgy, that we
borrowed from the Book of Common Prayer?
Let these branches be for us signs
of His victory,
It is right that we commemorate
Palm Sunday with these branches. It is good that we are inspired to praise Him
today. It is right that we sing and shout Hosanna. It is right that we
acknowledge Jesus as King.
and grant that we who bear them in
His name may ever hail Him as our King,
We might ask ourselves: What
possible chance would we have to endure? How may we “ever hail Him as our
King?” How are we any different than those who welcomed him into Jerusalem in that
day?
Remember that we are not merely
reaching out to Him.
Remember that our focus is not
on ourselves, our need for deliverance, our desire for power. Our focus is on
Him… on the Lamb who calls us to Himself.
We reach out to Him in belief…
but more importantly He reaches out to us. He reaches out to us with nail
pierced hands that paid for our sins. He reaches out to us with the gift of the
Holy Spirit, God in us and working through us.
We can and will persevere, not
because we shout loudest, but because our trust is not in anything we have or
can do. We believe in the One who can and will keep us. We will not fall away
because He has sealed our salvation with the sacrifice of His own blood.
and follow Him in the way that
leads to eternal life;
And now that we are His, our
only right response is to follow Him. To serve Him in
·
obedience
·
sacrifice
·
service
·
testimony
Let’s pray these words again
together aloud.
Let
these branches
be
for us signs of His victory,
and
grant that we who bear them in His name
may
ever hail Him as our King,
and
follow Him in the way
that leads to eternal life;
who
lives and reigns in glory with You
and
the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
Father
in Heaven, make these simple words real in our hearts and lives today.
Thank you for Your Grace.
If
your Bible has section titles, like the NIV that I use has, then this section
is probably titled The Triumphal Entry. It describes the scene of Jesus entering
the City of