20070401 Palm Sunday

So this man, Yeshua of Nazareth, a teacher and prophet, decides sometime around 30 AD to go to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover, a tradition he had celebrated since he was a child. This Yeshua was known as something of a revolutionary, and in the three years he had been preaching, he had gathered quite a following among the Jews and had provoked the ire of the Pharisees, the social, political, and religious leaders of his day.

On the first day of the week, as the Jewish week began on Sundays, Yeshua decided to enter Jerusalem. This Yeshua knew what he was doing, that entering Jerusalem that year meant his eventual capture and execution, but he entered anyway because he was a man on a mission.

The people, both common Jews and Pharisees, believed that his mission was to reestablish the reign of King David’s line, broken since the Babylonian captivity, and to ouster the hated Roman rulers. The common people were excited by this prospect of rebellion and liberation. The Pharisees were terrified that their carefully crafted power base was about to be destroyed.

So it was that this Yeshua came, riding on a borrowed donkey, hailed as the “Son of David” and greeted with shouts of “Hosanna!”. People waived palm branches, long standing traditional symbols of military victory, and set them down in front of him and spread their cloaks before him on the road, indicating their honor and submission to his claim.

Yeshua accepted this praise with the same quiet humility he always displayed, but in his heart, he knew that he was nothing that these desperate, hopeful people expected and that he was everything these downtrodden, hopeless people needed. He accepted their praise because he knew who he was and what his mission was all about.

This Yeshua was Jesus Christ, our brother and our God, who rode into Jerusalem that auspicious Sunday knowing full well that he rode not to establish some earthly kingdom or to rebel against the arbitrary government of the day, but to do battle with the greatest of mankind’s foes of sin, death, and the devil himself. Jesus came into Jerusalem to die, not for some nationalistic cause, but to end the condemnation of Original Sin once and for all.

Perhaps the people who lined His route into the city did not know what they were really celebrating, but there can be no doubt that their hearts were moved by the momentous gathering of spiritual forces that came to Jerusalem with Jesus’ entry. Jesus and the devil were about to do battle, and the people, ignorant though they may have been, felt that coming violence with a sense of wonder and awe.

Today, we share that same sense of wonder and awe no longer misplaced. We know that this teacher and prophet riding into Jerusalem was the savior of all mankind, true God and true man, who lived a perfect life and who rode resolutely to His death because He wished all of us to be freed from the bondage of sin and death. And with those people, we shout “Hosanna to the Son of David!” as well, proclaiming our great love for the one who loved us enough to die for us.

While in the week that followed, those shouts of “Hosanna!” changed to shouts of “Crucify!”, in our hearts Hosanna still rings because we know the whole story. We know that Jesus died, but we also know that Jesus rose again. We know that His death freed us from sin, and His resurrection gave us the promise of Heaven. Hosanna to the Son of David, our Redeemer and our King!

Bible passages on the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday)

Jesus’ Tradition of the Passover

-=DLH=-