Lent 6 - Palm Sunday Service
Palm Sunday/Matthew 21:1-9
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Presumably, many of the Good Friday “Crucify Him!—shouters” are also these Palm Sunday “Hosanna to the Son of David!—shouters”. It seems astonishing, doesn’t it?—that in five days they will go from, We love this guy!—to, We gotta to kill this guy!—even shouting out things like, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25)! How could it happen?
We’re going to look at
What they thought they knew about Jesus, and then:
What they came later to think they knew about Jesus, and then, finally:
What all people really need to know about Jesus.
What they thought they knew about Jesus
Hosanna to the Son of David!—is a very specific greeting. When Mary learned she would be the Savior’s mother, the angel said to her, And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32b-33). Saying his father David meant He was from David’s ancestral line. It was a reference to prophecies like from Jeremiah (23:5-6):
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ (Jeremiah 23:5-6).
Jeremiah’s words, at least in one sense, were a prophecy of the Messiah, of God’s anointed Savior that He was sending for sinners. What the people thought they knew about Jesus, was that He was this one Whom Old Testament prophets had talked about; He was this Righteous Branch, this king, this Savior.
They thought they knew this about Him because of what He was doing. The prophet Isaiah had said that when this anointed individual came, he would bring good news—joyful news of freedom from captivity for those who were brokenhearted (who knew they were on the outs with God because of their sins, is what he meant). The Psalmist had talked about Him providing justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, opening the eyes of the blind (146). They had seen Jesus doing these things, including unimaginable miraculous signs (He’d brought Lazarus back from the dead recently—John 11:42-44). Certainly this was the one they’d been waiting for, they thought. In fact, St. John records a couple of instances of people saying that sort of thing: “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world” (6:14)!—and, “This really is the prophet” (7:40)!
On Palm Sunday, they were sort of following the script of our Old Testament lesson. As this king was coming, righteous, having salvation, they were rejoicing greatly, they were shouting aloud in praise of Him.
And as long as He would fulfill their expectations…they would be set to go on praising Him. Their praise was based on what they thought they knew about Jesus.
What they came later to think they knew about Jesus
For many of the people, evidently, what they’d imagined Jesus to be, and what He turned out to be were two different things. For one thing, they’d imagined a king who would have a kingdom like David’s kingdom. Like Jeremiah’s prophecy had said, he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.
Those words have the sound of the kind of kingdom that would be in this world (though, Jesus would say to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world”—John 18:36). If words like Jeremiah’s had become detached in their minds from God’s promise to Adam and Eve, and to Abraham, and so on, of Him sending a savior from sin, then it’s imaginable that people had attached a worldly sort of interpretation to the Messiah’s kingdom, come to think of Him as having a kingdom of this world.
There’s a hint of this sort of expectation in the account of the feeding of the 5,000, that we looked at a few weeks ago—in the crowd that saw the miracle, and then determined to take Jesus, and make Him king by force (John 6:15). Also, it was implied in some of the things the disciples said, like at the ascension:
…they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” His disciple Thomas had said to Him another time, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” At least to some extent, even the disciples evidently imagined a king who would have a kingdom like David’s kingdom, here on earth.
Also, quite frankly, they’d imagined a winner. On this day in Jerusalem, riding in kingly fashion (as King Solomon had once done—on a donkey, no less—1 Kings 1:38), put together with everything else, they could see it; Jesus had that appearance. They couldn’t wait to see what might come next. Would there be a battle of some sort? Who knew? They certainly expected Jesus would overcome, though, whatever was to happen (of course, He would overcome; but it wouldn’t really look that way for some time, with the disciples in despair over their master’s death).
We’d asked how it could happen that “Hosanna!—shouters” could so quickly turn to “Crucify Him!—shouters”. There’s an incident in John’s Gospel: Jesus had been saying some things that were difficult for the people to understand. At a certain point, it says, After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him [speaking of a larger group of followers, not the twelve] (6:66). They’d become disillusioned. Jesus wasn’t who they’d thought Him to be, they’d determined.
Well, a number of turbulent things happened on Holy Week. The next thing Matthew records after this Palm Sunday text is Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (overturning the money-changer’s tables and so forth). It was for good reason, as He explained, but we can imagine it left an impression with people. Shortly after, Matthew mentions again, Jesus’ authority being challenged by the chief priests and elders of the people—the peoples’ religious leaders (the people were seeing that, too). Jesus’ messages had gotten more provocative, with Him saying things like, Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits (Matthew 21:43). He preached stunning law—not only to scribes and Pharisees, but to Jerusalem—to the ones of that generation, telling parables of people being excluded from the kingdom. In the days immediately following this Palm Sunday entrance, the “Hosanna—shouters” were processing a lot of information, taking in a lot of things—things that informed what they later came to think they knew about Jesus, including, for many, the religious leaders’ assertion that He was a fraud.
So, the people had thought Jesus to be the prophet who was to come into the world, but perhaps (for many) more of an earthly leader than a savior from sin. A short time later, many would evidently become convinced to the contrary. Many would become offended by Him, as He’d cautioned John’s disciples not to do (Matthew 11:6).
What all people really need to know about Jesus
Our hymn really does a pretty good job of setting out the important issues. The statement,
“O Savior meek, pursue Thy road”
—from the first verse reminds us of St. Luke’s statement about Jesus: When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (9:51). Luke meant, He started to bring to completion what His life and ministry had been entirely about—dying on a cross outside of Jerusalem for the world’s sins. We’re reminded also of Jesus’ statement: No one takes [My life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:18). This goes well with the hymn writer’s poetry in verse 3 as well:
“The angel armies of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice.”
When we’re talking about what people really need to know about Jesus, the word sacrifice is a must-mention. And along with it, the fact of it being a willing sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice planned in eternity, promised in the Garden of Eden to the first sinners, foreshadowed in Old Testament worship. The innocent blood of this “Lamb of God” stands in the place of every sinner.
It stands in your’s and my place too. We might say that the Palm Sunday shouters ultimately wanted Jesus to be something other than He was. They wanted more than the Savior meek pursuing His road, than the approaching sacrifice. They wanted a more satisfying existence in this world. They weren’t interested in Jesus if He wasn’t going to be that for them. It was simple worldliness, wasn’t it? It was clinging to this life and this world. Aren’t you guilty of that too? Isn’t that the greatest danger that stands between you and heaven?
Jesus sure thought so. He talked about it during Holy Week in some of His most well-known parables. He told the Parable of the Wedding Feast in which invited guests chose other interests over the master’s heavenly invitation. He told the parable of the Ten Virgins in which five are focused on being included in the kingdom, and the others haven’t been interested enough to be prepared. Jesus talked about it because every sinner clings to this world and this life, demonstrating even a tendency to choose it over the next life. The devil stands ready with accusations of this for every sinner.
But the One Who rides in our text has silenced those accusations. The devil has no opportunity to make them because One has prioritized God’s kingdom above all else without fail on your behalf. It’s like your clinging to this life and this world over God’s eternal kingdom never happened because the road the meek Savior in our text pursued led to the cross and grave. It led there so that He might (as the hymn writer says):
“Bow [His] head to mortal pain.”
What all people really need to know about Jesus, is that God has forgiven their sins in Him. He has forgiven your sins in Him. You sing Hosanna this morning to the Savior who pursued the cross and grave for you so that in Him you now have eternal life. God be praised. Amen.