12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him. 17 The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they heard He had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.”
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem for the Passover on what has become known as Palm Sunday is one of the great dramatic events of His earthly life. It is one of the few events recorded in all four Gospels, yet it is probably one of the most misunderstood events in the life of Jesus.
It has been regarded by many as a last ditch attempt by Jesus to offer Himself as the King to the people of Jerusalem. But now as the hostility of the religious leaders starts to gain momentum, the hosannas turn to demands for His death a few days later, so Jesus abandons His plan and resigns Himself to His fate at Calvary. There are many problems with this view, not least of which is a complete misunderstanding of the sovereignty of God and His eternal plan of salvation.
So why did Jesus enter Jerusalem as He did that day? The first answer to that question is that He came to die, as He had said to His disciples many times before. Of course, He was fully aware of the many Old Testament prophecies which pointed to Him, so when He rode into Jerusalem so publicly as He did, it was not in a desperate attempt to try and gain public support, but rather to force the hand of the Pharisees and chief priests, because it was now time for the Lamb of God to offer His life as the perfect Passover sacrifice.
Both Matthew and John record the crowd quoting the prophecy of Zechariah written some 500 years earlier. “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.” (Zechariah 9:9) More on that in a moment.
The timing of Palm Sunday was also important. Exodus 12 records the very first Passover, so it was necessary for Jesus, as the fulfillment of the original Passover to offer His life during the same festival. This is another reason why He rode into Jerusalem when He did, because on this particular day, the lambs were brought into Jerusalem in preparation for the Passover meal later that week. According to the instructions given to Moses by God in Exodus 12, on the 10th day of the month known in Hebrew as Abib or Nisan, the lambs were brought into the houses of the people until the 14th day, when they would be slaughtered and prepared for the Passover meal.
Verses 3 and 6 of Exodus 12: “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.”
We also need to bear in mind that the Passover was one of three festivals where all able bodied Jews were required to make the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus estimated that there were up to 2 million people in the city at the time, or possibly even more. One lamb would feed 10 to 15 people, so simple maths tells us that there could have been as many as 200 000 lambs herded through the streets of Jerusalem that day.
We can only imagine the noise and excitement as this seemingly endless stream of lambs were brought into Jerusalem, and a detail that we easily miss because it is not actually recorded in any of the Gospel accounts is that it was against this backdrop that Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, rode into the city. This procession of lambs had happened every year for about 1500 years, and now, on the 10th day of Nisan, in accordance with God’s perfect, eternal timetable, the perfect Lamb of God, arrived on a donkey surrounded by the Passover lambs which all pointed to Him as the final, perfect sacrifice.
Four days later, on the 14th day of Nisan, when these hundreds of thousands of Passover lambs were killed, Jesus Himself was killed as the ultimate Passover Lamb.
Knowing the bigger picture as we do, we are able to connect all the dots, so to speak, but at the time, what Jesus did by entering Jerusalem so publicly was highly unusual, and also very risky, because He was a wanted man, but the time for His sacrificial death was only a few days away.
J. C. Ryle writes, “The time had come at last when Christ was to die for the sins of the world. The time had come when the true Passover Lamb was to be slain, when the true blood of atonement was to be shed, when the way into the holiest was to be opened by the true High Priest to all mankind. Knowing this, He placed Himself prominently under the notice of the whole Jewish nation. He died in a week when by His remarkable public entry into Jerusalem He had caused the eyes of all Israel to be specially fixed upon Himself.”
By now, everyone in Jerusalem was aware of Jesus of Nazareth. One reason was the public notice made by the rulers calling for His arrest, but the news of Lazarus’ miraculous raising from the dead had spread like wildfire. Dead people just do not walk out of their tombs four days later, so Jesus’ reputation had gone before Him. Everyone wanted to see Him.
John 12:12-13 describes the excitement of the crowd when He rode into Jerusalem. “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’”
This particular day has become known as Palm Sunday, but up until then, palm branches were not used at the Passover Feast, but rather at the Feast of Tabernacles, so what made this day different? Why did the people wave and place palm branches on the road?
The answer is that for many years the palm branch was a symbol of Jewish nationalism. About 150 years earlier Simon Maccabaeus led a revolt which drove the Syrians out of Jerusalem, and in a victory parade held in his honour, the people waved palm branches. In later years Jewish coins were minted with images of palms. This was long before the days of national flags, but had they existed in the 1st century, the Jewish flag would most probably have included palm branches, a symbol of their national pride.
The most pressing need of the Jews in Jesus’ day was to free themselves from Roman oppression, and if Jesus could raise a dead man from the grave, just imagine what He could do to the Romans! John makes this point in verses 17 and 18.
“The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they heard He had done this sign.”
This was the reason for the frenzied hero’s welcome Jesus received as He came into Jerusalem. The Jews were well aware of the ancient prophecies of the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, the Deliverer, and now, after all these years, surely this miracle worker was the one they’d been waiting for.
Yes, He was, but Jesus did not come to deal with the Roman problem, but rather the sin problem. The Messiah was riding into Jerusalem, but during the next few days when it became clear that Jesus was not going to muster an army to drive the Romans out, the people soon decided that this was not the Messiah they wanted, so they turned against Him.
To make matters worse, Matthew, Mark and Luke all record that in the days after Palm Sunday, Jesus told them they should pay taxes to the Roman Empire, so it’s easy to see why public opinion of Jesus changed so dramatically in such a short time. This was the Messiah they needed, but they just couldn’t see it at the time.
In Luke’s account we’re told that as Jesus neared Jerusalem, He stopped and wept over the city. “When He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’” (Luke 19:41-44)
Jesus knew He was about to receive a hero’s welcome, but it broke His heart, because He knew He would not only be rejected as the true Messiah, but the Roman oppression would become worse, not better. Some 40 years later under the reign of the emperor Titus, there was wholesale slaughter of the Jews in the streets as Jerusalem was completely destroyed by the Romans, just as Jesus prophesied in Luke 19.
Jesus was the true King of Israel, but He was not the kind of king the people were expecting, and the manner of His entry into the city should have been their first warning that all was not as they had hoped. Horses were animals of war, while donkeys were animals of peace. They completely misinterpreted the words of Zechariah 9:9. “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.”
One of the reasons they misunderstood Zechariah’s prophecy is that they excitedly shouted what we know as verse 9, but they stopped there. You see, cutting and pasting verses of Scripture and taking them out of context in order to get them to say what we want them to say is nothing new…
We need to see the bigger picture of Zechariah’s prophecy in chapter 9, by reading on after verse 9. “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. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior’s sword. Then the Lord will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning; the Lord God will sound the trumpet and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south. The Lord of hosts will protect them, and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones, and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine, and be full like a bowl, drenched like the corners of the altar. On that day the Lord their God will save them, as the flock of His people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on His land. For how great is His goodness, and how great His beauty!” (Zechariah 9:10-17)
Zechariah’s prophecy has nothing whatsoever to do with political oppression and revolutionary armies. It has everything to do with the promise of the true Messiah who will bring salvation from the consequences of sin to His people. Verse 9 describes the coming King as righteous and having salvation, humble and bringing peace, while the following verses promise that ultimately there will be an end to all wars and peace to all the nations. We are still waiting for that day when Jesus will return, but He is the true Messiah who will do exactly what God has promised.
It’s very easy for us, 2000 years later to sit here and criticise the Jews because they completely misunderstood why Jesus came, but we need to be very careful.
There are so many people in Christian Churches all over the world who still want the Jesus they want, rather than the Jesus they need. In some Churches all you hear about is social justice and liberation theology. Jesus is still regarded as a social or political saviour as Christians are encouraged to get involved in the so-called culture war as a priority.
Now, of course we should be concerned with society and its many, complex issues. As the Church we are Biblically mandated to care for widows and orphans as James 1:27 tells us. The Godless heathens and pagans in our government are systematically destroying Biblical family values, and dragging the whole of our society into their satanic pit with them, and as the Church we need to speak out against this evil.
We do have a social responsibility, but our number one task has always been to proclaim Jesus Christ not as the solution to social ills, but as the only solution to the problem of human sin. The world needs to hear the Gospel and the promise of salvation as a priority. Jesus gave His life not in order to make our lives easier, but to save us from the eternal damnation we all deserve.
It is only when people in positions of authority and leadership are saved that they will see the social chaos in our country and be prompted by God to do something about it. But they must be saved first, and they will not be saved unless they hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed, and their hearts are convicted by the Holy Spirit to turn to Christ in repentance and faith.
Not to mention the prosperity Gospel heretics who teach that Jesus came to give us our best life now, and that God just wants us all to be healthy, wealthy and happy.
No. God wants us to be holy, and the only way that can happen is if we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is only possible when we understand why Jesus came into our world. He came in order to offer His life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He came not as an all-conquering hero, but as a suffering servant who gave His life for us.
Time and time again during Jesus’ life and ministry we see His humility and compassion for His people. A. W. Pink wrote, “Notice it in the men selected by Him to be His ambassadors. He chose not the wise, the learned, the great, the noble, but poor fishermen for the most part. Witness it in the company He kept. He sought not the rich and renowned, but was the friend of sinners. See it in the miracles He performed. Again and again He enjoined the healed to go and tell no man what had been done for them. Behold it in the unobtrusiveness of His service. Unlike the hypocrites who sounded a trumpet before them, He sought not the limelight, shunned advertising, and disdained popularity. And when He, in fulfillment of prophecy, presented Himself to Israel as their King, He entered Jerusalem humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
John ends his account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem by showing us the different attitudes to Jesus by the people who were there. John often does this, as it helps us to understand how we see Jesus and His reason for coming into the world.
Firstly there are the disciples. “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.” (John 12:16)
We are often amazed at how they just didn’t “get it,” especially when we read that Jesus had told them exactly what was about to happen. “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day.” (Matthew 20:18–19)
This again proves that Jesus was not a victim of circumstance. Everything that happened to Him, especially at Calvary, was in accordance with God’s eternal plan of salvation.
So while we might criticise the disciples for their short-sightedness, in many ways we are no different. We don’t fully understand God and His ways. For the most part, God’s purposes are far beyond our simple comprehension, but what we can do is to learn to trust Him, as we faithfully share the good news of the Gospel, and leave the details to Him.
Secondly there was the crowd who welcomed Jesus because they had either seen His wonderful miracle of raising Lazarus, or had heard about it from those who were there. Again, this all happened in the midst of Roman oppression which helps us to appreciate the excitement of the crowd that day. We would’ve been just as thrilled had we been there. In Jesus, they saw a power they hoped to use to fit in with their own agenda, instead of recognising Him for who He really was, and simply worship and serve Him.
This problem continues today. Many want the blessings and favour of God, but please don’t talk about sin and forgiveness. Harry Reeder is a Presbyterian minister in the US. He said this recently: “The natural man is scandalised by the Gospel of God because he does not want to hear that he is a sinner in need of a Saviour.”
It all depends on which Jesus we prefer. Do we regard Him as some kind of cosmic genie in a bottle who will give us what our hearts desire, or do we see Him as the one we need to go to for our eternal salvation, humbly confessing our sin and turning to Him for grace and forgiveness?
Jesus didn’t come to wear a crown of gold but of thorns. He came to die, and so we too must die to self. He said in Luke 9:23-24, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
If you want to be saved, you must come to Him through His cross, through His death for you. That’s the Jesus you need.
And then we have the third group, the Pharisees. John 12:19, “So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.’”
One of the reasons Jesus entered Jerusalem as He did and when He did was to force the hand of those who wanted Him dead. As we’ve seen throughout this series, Jesus’ popularity was a real threat to the Pharisees, and this drove them to eventually accept Judas’ offer of betrayal, but Jesus was always in control, because He is God.
Even their closing comment unwittingly gives the glory to Jesus. “The world has gone after Him.” How true those words have proven to be. Jesus was hated then as He is now, but despite the evil intentions of those who still reject Him out of hand, Jesus has come into the world and His mission will not be thwarted. He has come to rescue His people from their sins in every tribe and nation throughout the world.
The very first Passover in Exodus 12 was a dramatic event as the angel of death passed over the houses protected by the blood of the lambs, but now, in just a few days, the ultimate and final Passover was about to take place. Each of us is under a death sentence because of our sin, and we each have an appointment with the angel of death. But there is hope, because death will pass over you if you are covered by the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and each of your sins.
Is Jesus Christ your Passover? Have you received Him as your Saviour? Are you able to say with the prophet Isaiah, “He was pierced for my transgressions; He was crushed for my iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought me peace, and with His wounds I am healed. The Lord has laid all of my iniquity on Him.”
The events recorded in Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19 and John 12 are often referred to as the “triumphal entry.” In fact, most English translations have these words as a paragraph heading for ease of reference, but this is actually a pity, because it adds to the misunderstanding of what Palm Sunday was really all about.
It was necessary for Jesus to go to the cross in order to make our salvation possible, so while His entry into Jerusalem that day was a brief moment of triumph before His death, it was not really a triumphal entry. That day is still coming when He returns as the King of kings and Lord of lords. That will be the true triumphal entry of Jesus Christ.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 12:12-19
Some believe that Jesus’ very public entrance to Jerusalem was a last-ditch attempt to gain support in a highly charged political atmosphere which ultimately failed.
What is (VERY) wrong with this theory?
We have heard many times before how the cheers of Palm Sunday turned into jeers within a matter of days.
Why was Jesus so enthusiastically welcomed into Jerusalem that day and why did the mood change so dramatically?
Read Zechariah 9:9-17
Both Matthew and John tell us the crowd quoted verse 9, but had they continued to read Zechariah’s prophecy, they might have had a better understanding of why Jesus came into the world.
What are the dangers of “cutting and pasting” single verses (or even just portions of them) from the Bible, rather than reading them in context, in order to gain a better understanding of their true meaning?
What examples can you think of where people take a favourite “life verse” to make it say what they want it to say?
In which ways do we tend to look and hope for the Jesus we want, rather than the Jesus we need?