Palm Sunday Devotion

This Sunday, 13 April 2014, billions of believers within the world-wide church will celebrate Palm Sunday. They will call it the first day of Holy Week, the final 7 days of Lent, remembering and giving thanks for the last week of Jesus' atoning ministry on earth. 

Palm Sunday commemorates the Saviour’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem only days before his arrest and crucifixion — an event recorded in all four Gospels in the New Testament.

According to John 11, it happened just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in the small town of Bethany. This dramatic miracle captured the attention of many, including the Judean aristocracy in Jerusalem and fuelled their fear that this plain rabbi from Galilee would steal their influence and the wealth they acquired from being in cahoots with the imperialistic oppressor, Rome.

Jesus and his disciples returned to Bethany and Bethphage, slightly east of the Mount of Olives. He sent two of them ahead to a nearby village for a donkey and, after the disciples placed clothes on the animal's back, Jesus mounted it and rode into the city.

"This took place," says Matthew (21:4-5), "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, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” And:  “Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road" (Matthew 21:8, quoting Zechariah 9:9-10).

And Luke tells us:  "As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:37-38).

The Old Testament background to this day is found in Zechariah 9:9-10:

“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. 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."

Some of those present at the first Palm Sunday hoped for, and others feared, the launch of a revolt against Roman oppression.

But Jesus was no military leader - he rode a donkey, not a warhorse — and his concern was pastoral and not political, as we read in Luke 19: 41 – 42:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Oh, if we would only see what will bring us peace and who he is who will set us free, we will come on Sunday to sing our hosanna’s to the King and prepare our hearts for commemorating his sacrifice of love and deliverance so soon to come!