Saturday, March 24, 2018
Hosanna!
John 12:12,13
The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna!”
Tomorrow on the traditional Christian calendar is Palm Sunday. Many of us do not follow the traditional Christian calendar and, in our desire to avoid ritual, we do not bring palm branches to the house or use them to decorate the church. On the traditional calendar, Palm Sunday marks the beginning of what is generally called Holy Week.
I like to think of Palm Sunday like American politics. If you follow American politics on television, you would notice that they spend a lot of time conducting polls and then reporting on them. And the poll numbers tell where a politician is likely to be if the election were held on that particular day. Then that politician who is ahead in the polls does something to upset people and their poll numbers drop and so we are no longer expecting them to win but someone else who is now riding high in the polls.
On the original Palm Sunday, Jesus had the highest ‘poll numbers’ of his active earthly ministry. If the election was held that day, He would have won. The crowds came out to meet him and there was a tumult. A tumult that shook the religious world, a tumult that shook the political world, and a tumult that shook the spiritual world.
But note that it was only one week later that Jesus was brutally killed. Before the next Sunday came, Jesus was executed by the political system, an execution that was engineered by the religious system, and an execution that was almost totally supported by the same people who marched and shouted “Hosanna!” just a few short days before. This was also an execution that, like the celebration the week before, shook the spiritual world, this time for different reasons.
The story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem as a popular hero that we are looking at this weekend often referred to as, “The Triumphal Entry,” is recorded in John 12:12-19. The story is also recorded in the Synoptic Gospels with added information left out of John’s account, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, and Luke 19:28:44. Reading all of these accounts will fill in the picture of the events that day.
There was a big crowd in Jerusalem for the Passover feast. Jews came to Jerusalem for Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, if not for the other feasts and events.
The passage in John tells us that Jesus came into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. The timing seems to be shortly after He had raised Lazarus from the dead. The news of Lazarus’ resuscitation was spreading all around and so a crowd, naturally, gathered to see this man who had done such an amazing thing, He must be a great prophet among them. They spread their clothes on the street, waved palm branches, and generally celebrated ahead of and behind His entourage.
At that time, the people were unfamiliar with today’s celebrations of celebrities and politicians, but they celebrated in what was the traditional way of celebrating a conquering king coming back from war. In those days, the people of the defended, or in some instances the captured city, came out to meet the heroic leader. Some of us may remember the images of people in Baghdad in 2006 coming out to celebrate a convoy of USA tanks rolling through their streets with some Iraqis reportedly playing Lionel Richie’s “All night long.”
As far as symbolism goes, Jesus riding on a donkey, was in keeping with the Eastern tradition that the donkey is an animal of peace, versus the horse, which is the animal of war. Therefore, a king came riding upon a horse when he was bent on war and rode upon a donkey when he wanted to point out he was coming in peace. So, Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem demonstrated His entry as the Prince of Peace, not as a war-waging king.
Jesus was also fulfilling prophecy, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” Zechariah 9:9.
The palm branches that were used, that eventually gave the event the name, Palm Sunday, were also in abundance at that time because, in the traditional feast, they took these to the temple for the celebratory procession at the beginning of the feast.
As for the crowd that was out there celebrating we could look back at all the accounts and get a good sense of who made up this crowd. There were in the crowd, people coming from Bethany where Lazarus was raised from the dead. Then, there were people from Jerusalem who heard the story of Lazarus and heard that He was coming. And of course, as we could well imagine there were those who just follow crowds to see whatever action was there.
In this crowd, however, were also the sceptics, those who didn’t believe and wanted to see for themselves, those who claim that seeing is believing. In addition, there were spies from the religious establishment and spies from the political establishment. (As a side note, you may recognise that nothing much has changed with regards to the way those in power react to challengers and upstarts and infiltrate their ranks to spy on them.)
Finally, there were in this crowd, some genuine believers and the disciples. It becomes obvious, over the week, that the genuine believers were quite few.
Today, followers of Jesus are the same. It is easy to get temporary excitement. But to get people to live right consistently for more than a week is difficult. Short-term excitement and instant gratification is easy, but consistent faithfulness to God is hard to come by. People come out for the action, on the noted days but fail and fall one week later.
Think on these things:
- Have you ever been out to celebrate a winning team, or catch a glimpse of a celebrity, or to show support for a politician at election time?
- Have you ever been out to a march or walk for a cause or against something?
- What made you decide to go, or not to go to any of these events?
- Do you think that if you were in Jerusalem you would have gone out and waved you clothes or palm branches when Jesus came riding in?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would sustain our faith in Jesus to the end.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
