If you’ll turn with me in your Bibles, please. We’ll begin in John 12, starting at verse 12. John writes, ‘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, ‘Hosana! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.’’ And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.’
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. 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. And so the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.’
From the Gospel of John, we turn to Zechariah chapter 9, beginning at verse 9. The prophet writes, ‘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. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the warrior 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.’
Finally, we turn to the Psalms, to Psalm 118, beginning at verse 19. The Psalmist writes, ‘Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 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. 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. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God; I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. Lord, you have given us your word, and although it was written over so many years through so many human writers, it has been protected and preserved and inspired and guarded by your Holy Spirit, recording truth, telling truth for us to know and understand and to live by. Help us to see the unity that is found across scripture, to see how everything connects all through and into the person of your son Jesus Christ, our Lord and our King. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
So the evangelist John brings us to our first familiar event in the passion narrative of Jesus Christ, the narrative that will quickly culminate with his sacrificial death by crucifixion. This event, Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem before his final Passover, is commonly called and remembered as Palm Sunday. However, the day of the week on which it actually occurred is subject to debate. But nevertheless, historical church tradition encourages us to remember this event particularly on the Lord’s Day, immediately before the principal annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Because really, when we think about it, we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection every Sunday whenever we gather here.
So really, while the remembrance of this event is technically unimportant, the fact of our remembering is very important and needful to us. I mean, this unique and extraordinary event is recorded in all four Gospels. Although each one may have alternatively chosen to include or exclude certain details that are tangential or stay on the outside, like Jesus sending some of his disciples to go ahead of him to find this donkey, all four Gospels are in complete agreement about the important facts.
Jesus entered into Jerusalem to the acclamation of a Jewish crowd that welcomed him, shouting ‘Hosana’ or ‘Save us.’ The religious leadership was upset and concerned about this occurrence. This event was universally interpreted as a fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, where he wrote, ‘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.’
And so we come to the point in the text where the next day, meaning the day after Mary anointed Jesus in Bethany, the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So the word was out, and people were excited to hear that Jesus was on his way to celebrate the feast of Passover in Jerusalem. Crowds of people, ordinary people like us, were so excited that they welcomed Jesus with a spontaneous parade. They took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosana, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.’
But notice what the crowd did not do. They did not betray Jesus to the religious authorities, as they had been requested back in John 11:57. The crowd did not surround Jesus as an angry mob or try to capture him at this time. Instead, they welcomed him as they should royalty, invoking the words of a royal psalm, Psalm 118. They welcomed Jesus and blessed him as the rightful heir to King David’s throne.
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it was written. But Jesus’s choice of transportation was not just a fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy; it was also a statement, a declaration filled with political symbolism understandable by anyone who was paying attention. First off, Jewish peasants walked. They did not ordinarily ride. Second, walking up into Jerusalem was a devotional exercise for devout Jews. Normally, they would either say or sing the Psalms of Ascent as they were traveling into Jerusalem and as they were walking up into the temple proper. This was an intentionally thoughtful spiritual practice and one that was not very conducive to the thought of riding.
Third, even the religious leaders, the elite of Jerusalem, also walked everywhere so long as they were physically capable. Fourth, although a high-ranking Roman officer might ride on a horse or in a chariot surrounded by his mass of soldiers, it was certainly expected that an ethnarch or a local king or Caesar himself would ride—not walk. Yet this carpenter, Jesus, the rabbi, entered into Jerusalem riding as a king would, but he rode humbly on a donkey, as a symbol of humility and peace, not as part of wars.
Not only did Jesus ride a donkey, it was an unbroken and untrained colt, an unsuitable animal, and likely one that was very dangerous for him to ride. But Jesus’s triumphal entry was also an echo of Solomon’s coronation as David’s successor. In 1 Kings, it writes, ‘So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaniah the son of Jehoa, and the Kathites and the Pelathites went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule and brought him to Gihon. And there, Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ And all the people went up after him, playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise.”
Solomon was led up from the Gihon spring into the city, up to the tabernacle of the Lord, as all the people of Jerusalem rejoiced with loud and glad voices—an event clearly echoed by Christ. In doing this, Jesus finally declared himself openly. Jesus was claiming his right to David’s throne and claiming authority over all Israel under God. He was finally answering the Jews’ request from back in 10:24 when the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’
But still, in the midst of all the tumult and excitement, 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. The disciples could not understand what was going on around them in that moment. They could not recognize history being made around them. They were too busy living in the moment. They were too focused on the world around them. But after Jesus’s resurrection and his ascension, when he was glorified by the Father, and once they were filled by the Holy Spirit, then they remembered this day, and they were caused to understand.
Next, John explains why the crowd gathered and received Jesus in this manner, since the historical context has already explained where the crowd came from. As John wrote, ‘Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves.’ Now, the evangelist explains that 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 they had heard he had done this sign. They heard that Jesus raised the dead.
So these devout Jews were welcoming Jesus, praising Jesus, and acclaiming Jesus because all of those people who saw his seventh sign, raising Lazarus from the dead, had believed it and were telling everyone about what Jesus had done. They saw Jesus, and they believed Jesus, and they believed in Jesus. In their excitement, they enthusiastically invited others to come and see. They testified about what they had seen Jesus do, and they understood that Jesus had done something new and extraordinary.
They understood that Jesus was somehow different from all the other rabbis and rulers. They proclaimed their interpretation, their understanding that Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Son of David, and therefore the only rightful king of Israel. They knew how they should respond to what they were believing.
Meanwhile, as all of this joyful exuberance was going on, the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.’ This response by the crowd was disheartening to the Pharisees and the religious leadership. They were beginning to consider that all of their hard work—whether that might have been considered their spiritual hard work to preserve holiness or their good works of charity or the hard work of their efforts to remove Jesus and his influence—were all ineffective and all for naught.
The public popularity of Jesus was causing them to despair and become even more desperate to preserve and defend the status quo. Now although the disciples did not understand the fullness of what was happening or what it meant, the Pharisees and the chief priests—those influential men who were the most Torah-educated and theologically astute folks—surely did. They were able to read between the lines to recognize and understand the message that Jesus was sending. They saw how the Jewish people, how God’s people, were responding to his message.
There were two questions that they understood the answers to, and what they understood was the cause of their anger and fear. What exactly was the prophecy that Jesus was fulfilling, and what were the people actually saying by their response?
Now, ordinarily during a Palm Sunday service, we only take the opportunity to emphasize the surface elements of this narrative. We focus on Jerusalem’s joyous welcome of Jesus and we juxtapose it against the Jewish leaders’ annoyance. We focus on Jesus’s arrival as king and we emphasize the humility that’s implied by him riding on the donkey. But we rarely take the time or opportunity to dig into what that actually means because we’re more focused on the events placed within the context of the passion narrative.
Now Zechariah, who prophesied about the donkey, was a prophet in Judea during the post-exilic reconstruction of Jerusalem during the original rebuilding of the temple. He belonged to the tribe of Levi, even to a priestly family. He prophesied while Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, was the governor of Judea, administering the land under the authority of Darius the Persian. This was a period when things were still troubled, but they were becoming hopeful.
During his prophetic ministry, Zechariah experienced and recorded a series of heavenly visions—visions that provided much of the imagery found within the book of Revelation. He proclaimed a lengthy prophecy about the Messiah, about a future coming king who would oversee the restoration of God’s people, who would be pierced to cleanse them of sin and unrighteousness, whose followers would get scattered when he was struck down, but who will also ultimately be avenged and vindicated by the Lord when he comes and establishes his kingdom upon earth as in heaven. He pours out living waters, pouring it out onto the whole world, onto all creation, sanctifying.
But Zechariah chapter 9, where this prophecy that is specifically referenced is found, is just the start of that very detailed and specific and lengthy prophecy. So John tells us that when Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it was written, we know that Jesus did this with particular and obvious intent. Jesus was sending a specific message, saying that he is Christ the king, and he was proclaiming the character of his rule.
This king, Jesus, will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warrior from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off. King Jesus will be the king of peace. He will end Israel’s struggle with the world. All of their strivings—whether offensive or defensive—will be ended by him unilaterally. God’s elect people will no longer need to fear the world, and we shall no longer need to fight against it because he, Christ this king, shall speak peace to the nations. All conflicts shall cease at the word of his command. Everything will be restored to the unity and the wholeness of God’s intention.
King Jesus shall sovereignly reign upon the earth as Christ the Lord. King Jesus will speak, and the world shall listen and obey because he is the almighty king. His authority is absolute, omnipotent, and omnipresent. For his rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. King Jesus is not merely the king of Israel. His territory is not limited to the land between the river and the sea, from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, nor is it limited to the territory that God promised to Abraham when the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in modern day Iraq.’
No, Jesus Christ is king from east to west, from north to south. There is no place his authority and power does not reach, whether in heaven or on earth. But why? Why does this absolutely universal sovereign king, Jesus, come to establish such peace? The prophet tells us, ‘As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you.’ He comes, and he dies for us, for his chosen elect people, his brothers and sisters, because of the covenant of grace.
Christ comes to us as our savior king because of God’s promise to redeem a people for himself by grace alone—a people to be kept and preserved as his treasured possession. King Jesus comes to us because God our Father has given us to God the Son, and he will allow nothing to come between us or to steal us away from him. So, King Jesus comes to set the prisoners free from the waterless pit, to free prisoners of sinfulness and release us from our bondage to sin and Satan. To redeem us from the fires of hell that we justly deserve, and let us drink from the waters of eternal life.
Instead, his disciples could not imagine that Jesus riding on a donkey would say so much. But the Pharisees and priests heard his claim loud and clear. Meanwhile, like the disciples, the people in the crowd could not understand the fullness of what was going on. But still, even they recognized this event as being messianic fulfillment, as evidenced by their cries of acclamation. Their shouts were more than just ‘hip hip hooray’ or ‘for he’s a jolly good fellow.’ They were clear. They were specific. They were filled with biblical meaning, and their use was very intentional.
All four Gospels record that the crowd was shouting ‘hosana,’ a transliteration from Hebrew mediated through Greek into modern English, and it was a direct quotation from Psalm 118. Psalm 118:25 reads in the Hebrew, ‘ana Adonai ana,’ which simply translates as ‘we beseech you, Lord, save us, we pray.’ We remember that the root of ‘hosana’ is the word ‘yesa,’ which is the same root for Joshua or Yeshua and Jesus or Yah. It means to save, to deliver, and to rescue. The form of the word used here is used most commonly in the Psalms, and it’s always used in the sense of asking God for divine deliverance.
Now, Psalm 118 can be divided into three distinct sections. It begins as a psalm of praise and thanksgiving to God for his past help and his good providence, and then it moves into a plea for help and a declaration of confident trust that the Lord will once again deliver his chosen people. Finally, it concludes with a faithful response of worship, praise, and glorification for all the Lord’s works of salvation.
It is from within this third part that the ‘hosana,’ which the crowd was shouting, came from. But ‘hosana’ is not the only clue that links the crowd’s response to this psalm. It’s its combination with ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ That’s what solidifies the connection as a paired expression. It’s only found here.
This third portion of Psalm 118 begins with, ‘Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.’ When this psalm was written, and throughout the history of Israel, the gates of righteousness would have been understood as the outer entrance to the tabernacle or temple because a person has to enter through them in order to come to the altar to offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God.
Meanwhile, those sacrifices were being offered and presented to the priests just on the outside of the entrance. After the sacrifice of atonement was made for them, after a person was purified and justified as being righteous, only then were they allowed to enter through the gate to go worship. The psalmist declares, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s day; it is marvelous in our eyes,’ reminding us that our salvation entirely depends upon the Lord, on his wisdom and his providence from beginning to end. It’s all about God’s choice. God chose Abraham. God chose Moses. God chose David. God chose Jesus.
Since the Lord has done all of this, this is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. We should offer him praise and thanksgiving for everything. Now both of these elements from the psalmist are applied to Jesus as the Logos who is Theos Andros. While the gates of righteousness are representative of the entrance into the Jerusalem temple, Jesus is the spiritual gate into the heavenly temple through which we must pass—the curtain torn that opens the way to the Father.
Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice that makes us righteous so that we may then enter that heavenly temple. Jesus is the cornerstone upon whom the prophets and the apostles built and laid the foundation of our faith, into which we are joined and built up as the church of God.
Now then we come to the crowd’s plea of ‘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.
It’s obvious for us now to see how this applies to Jesus. The Jerusalem crowd called out for deliverance from God—a deliverance to be wrought through Jesus as God’s recognized representative, as the Christ of God, as the Messiah. They were praying for God’s help, and so they blessed Christ and they praised him as coming in the name of the Lord. They offered and promised Jesus the throne of Israel in return for bringing them this deliverance.
Their cries were religious. Their cries were political and nationalistic. Their cries were also anti-establishmentarian against both the temple rulers and Roman authority. Matthew tells us that this triumphal procession moved through the entire city right up into the temple itself, symbolic of the union between earthly and spiritual power that is invested in Israel’s king.
Finally, after the psalmist’s prayer for the Lord’s salvation, he proclaims God’s work of grace, saying, ‘The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us.’ He declares what our rightful response should be: to bind the festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar. We are to offer God sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. We are to confess him publicly as our God, our savior, and to glorify him by telling about all of his wonders, saying, ‘You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God; I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.’
We are to thank him for his goodness and to remember his covenant faithfulness, his steadfastness, the certainty of all his promises, and his eternal and boundless love for his chosen children. The psalmist’s conclusion here also applies through Christ. Jesus is the light of the world, Theos who is Fós.
Jesus is our festal sacrifice who’s bound to the altar, to the horns of the altar on the cross. Jesus is our atonement, given by God’s grace out of his love and in covenant fidelity. But while this last element is certainly implied by the crowd’s acclamation, they could not know or understand the truth of how it would be fulfilled yet.
Finally, Jesus’s triumphal entry was more than just a socially provocative event. It was a deliberate move in God’s plan of redemption. It was the beginning of the end for Satan’s claim upon the world. It was the start of Christ’s reign upon the earth. One might even argue that this moment was the beginning of the end of the age and the start of the end times. So we are now in the end times, in the last days, and we truly shall be until Jesus returns to consummate the kingdom that was publicly inaugurated on that Palm Sunday.
So what should we learn from this deeper look into Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem before the Passover? We should remember that there are great similarities—there are a lot of similarities—between the Jews of first-century Jerusalem and self-identified Christians of every era.
Like them, we are often quick to verbally welcome Jesus into our lives. Like them, we are quick to proclaim our allegiance to Christ. Like them, we are quick to shout our praise for him. But also like them, once the reality of Jesus fails to match our expectations, our wishes, or wants, we are just as quick to abandon him. We become quick to abandon faithfulness and obedience to our accepted king for the imaginary limitless possibilities of self-rule.
We prefer to worship in the temple that’s built by our own choices, using our chosen cornerstone, laid upon a foundation of sand, with a structure built of wood and other perishable materials, washed in white. We prefer to enter our temple as we are, resisting any effort to change because we are going into it to worship the God whom we have fashioned in our own image.
Unless you are regenerate, unless God the Holy Spirit has changed your heart and brought your soul to new life, unless the Spirit is conforming you, transforming you to become more and more like Jesus Christ, unless Jesus lives within your heart as the Lord of your life, as your personal savior and as your one true king, then when Christ does come into your life, you will truly welcome him, crying out ‘hosana’ in earnest. Then you will truly bless him, and you will give such fervent thanks to God for his steadfast love.
So remember, ‘hosana, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.’ Amen.