Palm Sunday
This morning is a celebration! This morning is a celebration of hope. This morning is a celebration of the start of a week that would lead to the most important moments in the history of the world. This morning is a celebration of the hope that we have in a Savior who lived for us, died for us, and now lives for us seated at the right hand of God. However, what we see this morning as WE celebrate the hope that Jesus brought with Him into Jerusalem 2000 years ago, is that people had a certain expectation of Jesus then, and for good reason. The Jewish people had been waiting for this precise moment to take place for thousands of years, waiting and anticipating the coming of the Messiah.
Let me take us back a couple thousand years to a time when Rome was conquering nations and establishing dominance all over the world. In one particular area called Judea, in 63 BC, the Romans entered Jerusalem and took control of the city. To establish authority early, over the first few decades the Romans imprisoned, tortured and crucified thousands of Jews, before Jesus was even born. To stop potential uprisings, the Romans would kill any who they perceived as opposition, sell them into slavery, or even turn them into gladiators to fight in the arenas across the Roman empire. In the year 6 AD, Rome officially made Judea a Roman province, and conducted the first census. From a historian on the purpose of the census:
“The census meant that the Roman authorities wanted to find out and record where every person lived, their age and physical traits, what their vocation was, who they were related to and so forth. In this way they could maximize taxation and more easily find those they suspected of tax dodging, criminality, trouble-making and organizing revolts. If they could not find a suspect they could still burn down his house, confiscate or kill his animals, and imprison or murder his relatives.”
There was no freedom, there was only Roman rule. After centuries of Israel experiencing frequent oppression and captivity, it was happening again. They needed something to change. They needed someone to rescue them. They needed someone to fight for them and free them from the tyranny of Rome. So when Jesus showed up on the scene, and started making promises like:
“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom,” they got pretty excited for what they thought was finally happening!
Let’s look at how all this plays out: Read Luke 19:28-40
“And when he said these things…” What things had Jesus just said? Remember, the people were waiting for Him to enter Jerusalem and overthrow the Roman empire once and for all.
So right before this, Jesus had just finished telling His disciples a parable. It’s called the parable of the ten minas (Meenuhs). The essence of the parable is the truth of what is actually going to take place. Jesus clues His disciples in on the fact that He was not going to bring an immediate kingdom, but a future kingdom. He tells them through the parable that there will be a season where He has to leave, and will put the responsibility of gospel mission into their hands. He tells them that He will return one day to set up His kingdom, and those who rejected Him as King will be destroyed. After he said these things, our story begins.
Now, the Passover Feast is approaching, millions of people would have been in the city at this time. The heat was turned all the way up in the conspiracy to kill Jesus, and knowing this, Jesus approaches Jerusalem. Everything that He had done up to this point led Him here. The end goal was always Jerusalem. Max Lucado has a beautiful thought on this:
“The journey to Jerusalem didn’t begin in Jericho. It didn’t begin in Galilee. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem. The journey to the cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the garden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.” And so the day finally arrives.
Let’s not miss the claim that Jesus makes in the choice of animal. The donkey was significant because the custom was for a victorious king to enter a city on horseback, but in times of peace, the leader would ride on a donkey. Jesus is claiming to be a King that has come to bring about a kingdom marked by peace, but not of conflict and war. And this is where the expectations would shatter. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though.
As He is approaching the city, the people are rejoicing and singing, “Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven! Glory in the highest!” They had been expecting Him! They had been waiting for this moment!
Surely they had in mind Zechariah 9:9-10 in which the prophet said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
“Our King is here! Hosanna! He has come to destroy the war horse in Jerusalem, to bring peace to the nations, to rule to the ends of the earth! Hosanna! Save now!”
And they are throwing down palm branches which were a symbol of triumph, and laying down their cloaks in front of him, as was done for many kings including David, which was symbolic of placing themselves under his feet as their ruler. They are celebrating Jesus as the King, and the Pharisees are like, “whoa whoa whoa, enough is enough Jesus, this spectacle has to stop, tell them to stop this madness.”
And listen again to Jesus’ response. “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
This statement is incredible. Jesus is like, “you guys are so blind, you are missing everything. Even if I tell them to be quiet, the rocks will cry out.” This moment is too monumental to keep quiet. The power of God found in this Messiah is too great to be silenced. One way or another, people are going to know. You cannot stop it, you cannot silence it, it is inevitable.
And church, think about this:
“Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that one year a census was taken of the number of lambs slain for Passover and that figure was 256,500. In other words, with numbers this large, lambs must literally be driven up to Jerusalem throughout the entire day. Consequently, whenever Jesus entered the city He must have done so surrounded by lambs.”
Lambs being led to be sacrificed, and Jesus in the middle of them on His way to the cross!
The crowds and even the disciples knew what God had said through the prophets. And they had created this idea of how it was all going to play out. But boy were they mistaken. And can I tell you what? The reality of the promise was far better than they ever could have dreamed. So if not to save the Jewish people from Roman oppression, then why? What was the reason?
Read John 12:27-32
“For this purpose I have come to this hour…I, when I am lifted up from this earth, will draw all people to myself.”
In a few short days, Jesus will be lifted up from this earth to die on a cross. And the result of that death? All people will be drawn to Him. Look at verse 41 of Luke 19 (Read Luke 19:41-44) He looks out over the city and he just begins to weep. And the Greek word here means that he is audibly and visibly sobbing. They are so lost. They are so desperate. They don’t understand who it is that is getting ready to walk through the city gates.
John 3:16-17 - For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
This is why Jesus entered Jerusalem that day. He rode on that donkey in confident humility knowing that He would be betrayed by one of His own, arrested and brought before the High Priest, spat upon, mocked, punched in the face. He knew that the same people who were shouting praises to Him would turn and demand for Him to be crucified. He knew that He would be stripped of His clothes, put in a scarlet robe with a crown of thorns twisted onto his head with the purpose of mocking His supposed kingship. They would again spit on him and beat the crown of thorns into his skull with a rod. He knew His back would be torn to pieces by a whip with shards of glass and metal at the ends. He knew He would have nails driven into his wrists and ankles. He knew that He would suffocate to death on a cross with Roman soldiers below gambling for His clothes and a sign above His head, making a mockery of His claims.
Jesus, in an outpouring of the most extreme act of love in the history of the universe, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on His way to His death sentence. Because when the Son of Man is lifted up, ALL men will come to Him.
But here’s the sad reality of this story. Those crowds that were swarming Jesus, screaming “Hosanna!,” laying down palm branches and cloaks to commemorate the coming King, those crowds are the same crowds that in just a few days would be shouting “Crucify Him! Give us Barabbas! Crucify Him!” Why? Because the expectation that they had hoped in did not turn out like they thought, and they turned on Him (snap), like that.
Sometimes, it’s hard to feel hopeful when we are stuck and it seems like help is never coming. Much like the Israelites, we can be so overwhelmed, so burdened, and we are just waiting for someone to come and save us.
In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Paul encourages the church: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
When you feel stuck, turn to Jesus. When it feels like the wheels are turning but you aren’t going anywhere, turn to Jesus. When the weight of the world is crashing down on you, turn to Jesus. He died so that we might live. And now, now, we hope in an eternal promise. We hope in a future Kingdom in which Jesus will reign forever. In which there will be no more pain, no more tears, no more death. And as Jesus steps into Jerusalem on this day thousands of years ago, He did so knowing that it was going to be the hardest week of His life, one that would end in His arrest, torture and crucifixion. But one that would change the course of history in a way that no one could have imagined. And so we celebrate this day. And we look forward in hopeful anticipation, when He will come again.
