John 12:13
They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting, “Hosanna!”
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the King of Israel!”
In the time when Jesus lived on earth, He was adored and well known by many people (to say the least). After His multiple year long ministry of preaching, healing and performing miracles, Jesus and His disciples made their way to the city of Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. When Jesus entered in through the city gates, He was riding on a donkey and many people came to see Him. They laid down palm branches and their cloaks before Jesus (Matthew 21:8). The massive crowds going before and following Jesus shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" (Matthew 21:9). The crowds were so loud and massive that the entire city of Jerusalem was stirred and everyone was asking who it was who had entered into their city (Matthew 21:10). The crowds answered these people, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee" (Matthew 21:11).
This is a beautiful historical image; one that we find in all four of the gospels. What a glorious sight it must have been to see the crowds singing praise to Jesus. What a marvel it must have been to hear them all shout blessings to Him. What power their words must have had to stir up every single person in the city. What a display it must have been.
So, why did all of this happen? What does it mean?
To understand the significance of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we have to look further back into history; hundreds of years back. Long before Jesus was born, there was a priest living in Judah in the time after the Babylonians returned the Jewish people to their shambled homeland. This priest was Zechariah. He received prophecies from the LORD. One of God's most famous prophecies given through Zechariah is found in the book of Zechariah in chapter 9 from verse 9 to 13:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your King comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you, because of the blood of My covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
against your sons, Greece,
and make you like a warrior’s sword.
When the Jewish people living in a distraught post-exilic Israel heard this prophecy, various phrases likely stood out to them. They would have rejoiced to hear that a new King from the line of David is coming to them (9:9). All they have to look for to recognize Him is that He will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey; particularly a young newly born (likely never before ridden). The Jewish people would have also taken note that this King will take away every nation's cries for battle (9:10a). This King will make peace between every nation with a limitless rule (9:10b). The people of Israel to whom God was faithful would see their prisoners set free and all their captive warriors would return back to Israel's fortresses (9:11-12). Lastly, God was going to raise up their nation for battle; their nation of Judah was going to be used like God's bow and all of Israel would become God's arrows in His quiver (9:13). God said He would sling these arrows against Greece; the foreign kings in control of Judah and Israel. God promised the Jewish people that He would make them like a sword and use them to take on the entire nation of Greece (Who do you think would win in that fight; men or God?).
This is a powerful prophecy given by God, and The Jewish people knew that God is faithful to His word. God has told Israel time and time again, "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen" (Isaiah 14:24). What God says will happen is going to happen. Even Zechariah told Israel that the LORD does as He determines to do (Zechariah 1:6b). This prophecy will come true.
Jump ahead hundreds of years to a morning marking the start of the week leading to Passover (the most important celebration to the Jewish people). Jesus was with His disciples and He sent two of them to a nearby village to go "find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her," and Jesus told them, "Untie them and bring them to me" (Matthew 21:2). Jesus told His disciples, "If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and He will send them right away.” (Matthew 21:3).
You can imagine how the people who saw the disciples coming to them for a donkey and her colt responded, when they were told that the Lord needs them. They might have thought, "Well, the Lord means our King, and the last time we were told that our King would need a young colt would be to ride on into Jerusalem. And if our King is about to ride into Jerusalem on a colt, then that means that He will be a son of David, which means He will come to fulfil all of the prophecies Zechariah mentioned about a great ceasefire and battling Greece and Rome and... I gotta get to Jerusalem right away!"
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| In modern day Jerusalem many believers gather on Palm Sunday in large crowds at the place where the city gates once stood in celebration of Jesus' Triumphal Entry. |
Word spread fast about this joyous news, and soon massive crowds (plural) were gathering outside and inside Jerusalem. The people in the crowds brought palm branches and their cloaks to lay them down before their King as He entered into Jerusalem, just like their ancestors did with the Jewish kings of old (2 Kings 9:13). When they saw Jesus really arriving into Jerusalem definitely riding on a young never before riden colt (you could tell it was so young, because its mother was with it), they started to shout praises saying, "ὡσαννά!" (hosanna), which is a phrase of adoration meaning, "Oh, Save!" or "Save us now!" The Jewish people were crying out to Jesus saying "Save us!" and they knew Zechariah's prophecy so they mainly meant, "Save us from our enemies of Greece and Rome!"
Again, I will say to have been a part of this moment must have been overwhelming and beautiful...and yet...yet it was rather hollow.
You see, the Jewish people praising Jesus saw Him as their next King from the line of David (Matthew 1:17). They saw Him as their new powerful ruler; an unconquerable one at that (John 10:17-18). They saw Him as their savior from their enemies of the earth (Psalm 57:6). They saw Him as the one who would raise them up to be an unstoppable army (John 1:5). All that is true; it's absolutely Biblically true... but the people who believed only these things missed sight of the greatest thing Jesus had come to do; something that would make all of those wonderful things infinitely more glorious.
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| Many who saw Jesus did not recognize His true reason for coming, because their hearts and minds were blinded by God (John 12:40). |
The Jewish people back then, like us believers, were fond of appreciating one part of Scripture but also separating it from its surrounding verses. To read Zechariah's prophecy from chapter 9 alone misses the greater context and meaning behind it. If you read the first section of Zechariah in chapter 1 from verses 2 to 6 you will be able to read what God Himself says is the context behind His words in the book of Zechariah:
"The Lord was very angry with your [Judah's] ancestors. Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to Me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the Lord. Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not My words and my decrees, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors?"
What we read here from the mouth of God is that the prophecies of Zechariah were given because God was angry with His people, because they did not listen to His prophets and they did not obey His commands. Instead God's chosen people chose to commit evil practices, sin. Following this, Zechariah writes down the visions He receives: God measuring Jerusalem, the priests receiving clean garments, bowls representing God's Word, and a flying scroll signifying a curse on the house of anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD (Zechariah chapters 2 through 5).
What does all this mean? It means the King is coming. He is coming, because His holy city of Jerusalem does not measure up to His standard of perfection; it is filled with sin (Ezekiel 9:9). He is coming to clothe those who follow Him in righteousness, so that they will not have their sins on them anymore (Revelation 22:14). He is coming to proclaim His Word and the words of God to all people (John 12:49). He is coming so that those who blaspheme His name will be put under a curse (John 15:22). The King is coming to save His people not just from their enemies (Matthew 6:13). He is coming to save people from their sins (Romans 6:23).
Make a way for the King
The King is coming
- Newsboys
Yes, Jesus is our King, a son of David, an unconquerable ruler, and the one who raises up His people to be an unstoppable army for His namesake, but above all of this Jesus is our Savior, the Messiah.
You see, it was not impossible for any other human entering Jerusalem on a donkey to be a son of David who would someday become king, appear to be an undefeated force, rule with power making peace between the nations and rise up and defeat the Greeks and the Romans. If God willed it so that a human would have the right heritage, courage, power and tenacity to do all that, then that would have happened. That was not God's desire though. God's desire was to do something impossible by human means. God could not have willed any man, any born sinner under the curse of Adam (Romans 5:12), to come to Jerusalem and be the one who could save and forgive sins, but it was God's desire for the world to be forgiven. No man can forgive sins; no ordinary man can save us from the unimaginable weight of our guilt before God. Only God can forgive sins (Mark 2:10), and that is who came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He was the one who would bear the sins of the world (Isaiah 53:6). He was God in flesh (Isaiah 7:14). He was and is our Messiah.
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| Jesus came to Jerusalem the first time on a donkey, but the next time will be on a white horse, and all those He has saved will be with Him (Revelation 19:11-16). |
This is the great magnificence and beauty behind Jesus' fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy. Israel, which includes those living in Israel and those who have been saved through Christ (Romans 2:28-29), should rejoice when they see Jesus enter Jerusalem, because it proves that He has victory over the power of sin (Zechariah 9:9). He will be faithful to His people and He will free them from the waterless pit of hell (Zechariah 9:11). He will make His people like a sword against the evil in this world (Zechariah 9:13), so that they may go to the far reaches of the earth and fight the lofty sinful opinions (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) of those opposed to Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of sins (1 Corinthians 2:2).
On Palm Sunday we believers cry out to God, "Hosanna!"; "Save us now!" We cry out knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ is our Messiah; the Savior from sin. We sing praise and worship God in the highest with our voices, because we know it is assured, "If we confess our sins [to God], He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
Hosanna!, hosanna!
You are the God Who saves us, worthy of all our praises
Hosanna!, hosanna!
Come have Your way among us
We welcome You here, Lord Jesus
-Brenton Brown
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