Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 3 Let the house of Aaron say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 4 Let those who fear the Lord say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 5 Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. 6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? 7 The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. 8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. 9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. 10 All nations surrounded me; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 12 They surrounded me like bees; they went out like a fire among thorns; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 13 I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me. 14 The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation. 15 Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly, 16 the right hand of the Lord exalts, the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!” 17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. 18 The Lord has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death. 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. 20 This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, and He has made His light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! 28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. 29 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!
Mark 11:1–11
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of His disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and He sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And He entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when He had looked around at everything, as it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.
For centuries, this last Sunday before Easter has been set aside to commemorate the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. We know it as Palm Sunday, but there is such a stark contrast between what happened on that day, and the apparent despair and defeat at Calvary the following Friday.
You can still walk the route which Jesus followed from Bethany to Jerusalem. Most visitors to modern day Jerusalem will walk the Via Dolorosa, which follows the route Jesus walked on Friday, as He was being led to Golgotha, but I wonder how many tourists also walk the traditional route He followed on Palm Sunday, when He was being praised and proclaimed as the King of kings?
The story of Palm Sunday really is amazing, and like most important dates on the Christian calendar, it is very easy to miss some of the deeper messages. Let’s start with the donkey. What is the significance in Jesus insisting that the donkey He was to ride into Jerusalem should be one which had never been ridden before?
In the Old Testament, in the book of Numbers, the Jews were instructed to sacrifice a red heifer that had never been used for ploughing – for ‘normal’ purposes. In fact it was a requirement that no-one had so much as even put a yoke on it. This heifer was to be used for a sacred purpose, and the same principle applied to the donkey used on Palm Sunday. Donkeys were important in the first century, and there were plenty of them around. Horses were expensive, so for most people, donkeys were their only mode of transport, so it would have been quite a task to find one which had never been ridden before, but finding this particular donkey was important: It was an animal which had been set apart for sacred use. Even finding such an animal was not easy, but God provided it, and we can hear an echo of Abraham’s words to his son Isaac in Genesis 22 here: “Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’” (Genesis 22:7-8)
Within a week of the Lord intervening and providing a specific donkey for a sacred purpose on Palm Sunday, the Lamb of God, the only Son of the Father would be set apart for a sacred purpose of infinitely more importance on a cruel cross.
There is also significance in the welcome which Jesus received. He was seen as the conquering hero (the people though, missed the point of what type of hero it was they were welcoming, but more on that later). The traditional welcome when royalty and other people of importance arrived was to lay a carpet of clothing and palm branches on the road. This would protect the VIP’s from getting their feet dirty on the dusty streets, and in a sense it was the ancient parallel to rolling out the red carpet.
Verses 9–10: “Those who went before and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!’”
The words used here are important, in that they weren’t just random phrases. Rather, they are a mixture of two ancient Jewish traditions.
When Israel finally entered Canaan after 40 years of living in tents in the desert, God was concerned they would forget His faithfulness during the exodus through the desert, so He gave them the Feast of Tabernacles. During this festival the entire nation would cut branches and they built temporary shelters.
The whole nation went camping, as it were, as a reminder of God’s grace and provision. After this they would take the branches and march in procession to the temple, singing Psalm 118, focusing particularly on what we know as verses 25 and 26 of the Psalm: “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.”
Hosanna isn’t just an expression of praise - it’s a prayer to God in which they prayed ‘O Lord, save us.’
The other festival which the people referred to on Palm Sunday was the Feast of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights or the Feast of Dedication. It was an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple. As Jesus rode into the city, Biblical scholars believe that the people were remembering another person - Judas Maccabeus. 200 years earlier, the Jewish nation was under Syrian oppression. Finally in 163BC the Syrians were defeated, and Judas Maccabeus rode into Jerusalem in triumph. There was a huge procession and he was welcomed into the city with shouts of praise while the Jews waved palm branches. They basically rolled out the red carpet for him.
Maccabeus had ridden into Jerusalem (possibly using the same route as Jesus would many years later, but that’s mere speculation), and he overthrew the Syrians who had occupied and oppressed the Jews. Maccabeus was the conquering hero who led the revolt, and was the main character in the rededication of the temple.
We need to remember that during Jesus’ time, the Jews were under oppression again, this time from the Roman Empire. Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead, so it is quite possible that the people were thinking that if this man could bring a dead man back to life, just imagine what He can do to the Romans.
So the crowds were caught up with powerful images that day. They were a proud nation, and they knew their own history very well. They were familiar with the story of Judas Maccabeus, and they were hoping that history would now repeat itself as Jesus rode into town. The fact that He rode on a humble donkey instead of a war horse should have been their first sign that things were not going to turn out like they had hoped.
Three specific cries rose from the crowd.
Firstly, “Hosanna! Lord, save us.” There was a recognition of their need, and a clear understanding that God must do what only He can do. So rather than shouts of praise, in reality it was a prayer of desperation. Roman oppression was particularly cruel, and the Jews were desperate to get rid of them.
Secondly, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” During the Passover, hundreds of thousands of Jews from around the world came to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. When they arrived at the Temple, they would greet each other, saying: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” This was the official greeting at the temple, and it had messianic implications. In other words, when they greeted each other, they were looking in hope to the coming of their promised Messiah, the one they believed was going to overthrow the Romans.
And then the third cry. “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest!” The prophets had foretold that the Messiah would reign on David’s throne forever. During this Passover, unlike previous ones, there was a real hope that maybe this Jesus was the one who was coming to sit on David’s throne, so all of these remarkable circumstances combined led to real sense of hope, anticipation and celebration that day.
Now we might look back today to Palm Sunday and say what a wonderful moment of triumph it was, but that is not the true picture. Not that the fault lay with Jesus – the problem was with the people. It was a bit of a triumph, and we do need to give the crowd some credit because they recognised their need, and they knew where to go to have the need met.
But the tragedy is that they had the wrong kind of Messiah in mind. Their problem was not Roman oppression, but rather sin – their own sin. This is the point they missed as to which type of hero it was they were welcoming to Jerusalem. Jesus was rightly welcomed as Messiah by the crowd, but He was not the warrior most people wanted. Within days, the results were not as hoped or expected.
They wanted and thought they were welcoming a war hero, but the first clue that all was not quite what they had expected is in how Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day.
A donkey is an animal of peace, while a horse is an animal of war. Revelation 19:11-16 gives us a vivid picture of what is still to come: “I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems, and He has a name written that no one knows but Himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
We’re still waiting for this day, but we do know that it is coming. When Jesus returns not on a donkey, but on a white horse, He will come not to overthrow the Roman Empire, but to bring final and total victory over satan and sin.
On Palm Sunday though, Jesus was not coming to sit on a throne, but to die on a cross. The celebration soon changed to confusion, and ultimately to anger. In the Old Testament, Zechariah 9:9 contains this prophesy of Palm Sunday: “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.”
So what does all of this mean to us? What relevance does Palm Sunday have for us today?
I suppose the best way to answer those questions is by asking another question: What kind of Jesus are you shouting about and celebrating this morning? Social justice is one of the buzzwords in the modern Church, and yes, absolutely, the Church has always had a role to play in speaking truth into oppressive societies and situations, just like the Roman Empire. We have a Biblical mandate to be the voice of conscience. In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” These verses in particular are often completely misinterpreted by those who believe the Church is to perform signs and wonders in our day. This has nothing to do with miraculous healings and social justice. Jesus was talking about bringing salvation to the spiritually poor, the spiritually blind and the spiritually oppressed. And who are those people? All of us, because without salvation through Christ, we remain under condemnation because of our sin.
We need a saving Jesus - not a political or a social Jesus. God cares deeply about greed and oppression in whatever form it manifests itself, but Jesus is ultimately a saving Jesus. Again, what kind of a Jesus are you shouting about today?
He came in humility so that lost sinners like you and me, who deserve to spend all of eternity in hell, could be forgiven and find peace with God.
Hebrews 13:8 tells us “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
As the Messiah, this is who Jesus is. He is God incarnate. He is God who came to walk among His Creation. He is not our magic genie in a lamp just waiting for us to decide what we’d like Him to do next.
He is God.
But He is a merciful God. He is almighty, the everlasting God, the creator of the universe, but yet, because of His love for us, He has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ.
Do you want to know just who God is, and what He is like? You can. Because when you open your eyes and your heart to Christ, you will see the true Messiah, the one, true God.
This week we look back on the most important day in all of human history. The Cross of Jesus Christ and what it means for those who believe in Him is the most pivotal event in history. The entire history of the entire universe hinges on Him.
The world has been totally transformed because the Messiah came.
The decision each of us needs to make is this: Are we going to make the same mistake as those people did on Palm Sunday and miss Him and His purpose completely, or are we going to survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died? Are we going to see Jesus for who He really is, rather than for what we’d prefer Him to be?
As the Messiah, Jesus didn’t come just to solve our problems.
He came to save us from our problems.
Our main problem and our biggest sin is that that we have rebelled against and sinned against a Holy God. All of our problems, every single heartache and disaster in our lives stem from rebellion against God.
Cut away all of the peripheral stuff, and all of the clutter in your life, and you will always come to the same conclusion. The root cause of all our problems is this: we have rebelled against God. We have sinned.
And Jesus, our Messiah, came to save us from the consequences of our sin and rebellion. That’s how much God loves you.
That Friday, when they yelled, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him” they did.
The people that day believed that this fake Messiah got His just rewards.
But God had a far greater plan which they simply could not see, because Jesus’ death was not for naught. It was His death that made us right with the Father.
He has saved us from the primary problem we all have: we’re sinners.
By His death on the cross, our Messiah has made a way for us to come to God, and He proved this truth in the most incredible way by walking out of the tomb just three days later.
Next Sunday we celebrate life, but this week is an opportunity for us to look inward at ourselves, and to be reminded of the necessity of the death of Jesus Christ. He died because of me. And He died because of you.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read Mark 11:1-11
For many, Palm Sunday is one of the most confusing days of the Church calendar.
It has the festive feel of a prelude to the high of Easter, but at the same time we know the dark, cold shadow of Good Friday is just a matter of days away.
Some would say that the only way to get from Palm Sunday to Easter is through the darkness in between.
How do you feel about Palm Sunday?
Do you find it easier or more difficult to praise God, knowing that Christ was about to go to the cross for your sins?
On the first Palm Sunday people clearly recognised something about who Jesus was. On the other hand, the very same people during the same week came together and colluded to kill Him.
In which ways do you miss seeing the ‘real’ Jesus?
Read Revelation 19:11-16, and compare it to Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Discuss some of the differences we see here.