The Sights and Sounds that Signaled the Savior’s Arrival
It’s probably not too hard to imagine preparing for a happy holiday, since we have one coming up a week from today. You’re likely making some sort of plans: an Easter dinner, getting together with family and friends, an Easter Egg hunt. Or maybe your celebration will simply be going to church to celebrate how God sent Jesus to rescue us from slavery to sin and captivity in hell.
Right before Jesus’ death right before, 5 days before there were people already coming into Jerusalem to prepare for the huge, annual, happy, holiday celebration called Passover. They were finding places to stay and buying the certain foods they would need for the special Passover meal. They say the population of the city swelled from maybe 50,000 people to 200,00 for that week as people came from everywhere. This was also a celebration of how God rescued his people. The holiday was about remembering how God saved his people from slavery and captivity in Egypt.
At this particular Passover, there is no way anyone travelling to the big, Holy City could have ever imagined what would happen and what they might become part of. They had no way of knowing that they were going to see the promised Messiah. Already on Sunday, things began to happen. Things you could see. Things you could hear. Things that signaled the Savior’s arrival.
Try to picture—if you have some kind of image in your head—the city of Jerusalem with the beautiful temple. It sits high on a hill. If you leave the city and head east, the road will take you down through the Kidron Valley, then up the Mount of Olives and just over the top is the area of Bethphage Matthew mentions and the city of Bethany. That is where Jesus preferred to stay when he was in Jerusalem—with his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. On Palm Sunday, Jesus left Bethany, went through Bethphage, then on the steep, dirt road down the Mount of Olives, through the Kidron Valley, then up into the city of Jerusalem. That’s where all of this takes place.
Now, pick who you want to be today. Imagine yourself as one of those people from a nearby town who had seen or heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and who now had found Jesus again and are following him as he’s making his way into Jerusalem. OR you’re one of those people who has travelled from far away, and this procession is what you run into. OR you live in Jerusalem and you hear a commotion on the road coming up to the city gate.
If you’re part of the excited crowd who had wanted to see Jesus and are now trailing behind him, you are amped up because someone with the kind of power to raise a dead man sure looked like he might be the Messiah God promised.
If you’re in the city a resident or a traveler already there, you hear the commotion, so you make your way out to see what’s going on, and you see a man—a teacher, it looks like, a rabbi, with followers and he’s riding a donkey. And there is an excited crowd of people behind him happily shouting things.
This feels like the coronation of a king! You’d think he was a king, but this looks so unusual. Kings ride war horses. They show up in fancy chariots with royal processions. This is almost a crude parade, isn’t it? The one they’re all excited about is sitting on some clothes for a saddle…on a donkey. Just regular villagers and people from the countryside are his entourage. He makes his way down a rugged path and not a straightened road levelled out for a king’s arrival.
But you look a little closer. And you listen a little harder. And you think a little more deeply. And you start to put some things together.
A donkey. “Wait a minute, someone being treated as a king but he’s riding…a donkey! What’s the prophet?! Who’s the prophet?! It’s Zechariah, right?! “Look! Your King is coming to you. He is righteous and brings salvation. He is humble and is riding on a donkey” (9:9). Could this be right?
You’re seeing others cutting down palm branches and lining his path with them. Some are even laying pieces of clothing down. You start helping, gathering up palm branches. And while this is going on, some people following him are shouting some pretty specific things—and so are the people walking in front of him!
“Hosanna to the Son of David!” Do they mean Hosanna like the prayer it used to be—“Please save!” or are they just cheering?
“Son of David?!” They’re calling him the Messiah. Are they saying that this man is the One who will bring forgiveness and salvation…or rescue from the Romans? Maybe there are some of both? It’s hard to know what’s going on exactly. But you get caught up in the action again. You’re saying it too: “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
What’s this now? “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” You know exactly where this comes from. This is Psalm 118. It’s on your mind because in just days you’re going to use that psalm as part of the Passover meal just like everyone does every year! They’re saying that this man is coming to deliver God’s people. Still, how do they mean that?
They keep chanting…“Hosanna in the highest!” They’re asking for rescue from heaven as they look at the man riding the donkey. What is happening?! Is this really it? Is HE really it?
All the commotion and confusion and excitement over a man riding a donkey was like an earthquake that rocked the city—“Who is this?! the people asked. And the crowd kept telling everyone, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
What a scene! When we put ourselves there and think about the things we see and hear, we do wonder about the motivations and the beliefs of the people in the crowds, don’t we? We sometimes say that the crowds who praised him on Palm Sunday called for him to be crucified on Good Friday. We may not want to say it just like that because there must have been people in the crowds who knew Jesus to be the spiritual Savior God had promised his people.
God says that there is always a remnant of believers. We know of a couple of the Jewish religious leaders who even trusted in Jesus. Martha had a beautiful confession about Jesus and about the resurrection when her brother died. Certainly, there were people who knew Zechariah’s prophecy about the Messiah humbly riding a donkey…and these people meant every one of those specific praises…and knew why they were directing them at Jesus
But there were people in those crowds who looked at Jesus differently. Was it most of them? Maybe. We don’t really know. But these people saw something special in Jesus. Power to raise the dead? Crowds clamoring for him? They were looking for a different kind of king. They wanted a rescuer, but one who would overthrow the Romans who ruled their land. Fix the political problems. Restore national glory. Power. Control. Victory. When it became clear Jesus wasn’t going to be that, they were the easy ones for the Jewish leaders to flip as they incited the crowd to call for Jesus’ death on Friday.
As we sit here and think about it, we may love the first kind of people and imagine ourselves among them. But don’t we also sometimes look for a different kind of king than the one Jesus is—kind of like some in the crowds? Don’t we want him for his power and control and victory too?
Don’t we sometimes want a Savior who fixes life so that it is just how we want it? I want Jesus to take the pain away: My body hurts. My heart aches. I’m stressed. I’m worried. I don’t know what to do. I want it to stop. I have prayed and prayed and prayed. Why isn’t he listening? Why isn’t he fixing it? Is he really in control?
When he comes humbly instead of powerfully, we start to question him. That exposes something in our hearts, doesn’t it? It means that like the people in Jerusalem, we are confused about who this is. We want to be in charge of how he saves us. We can be more concerned about the earthly things he can do for us than for the spiritual things he’s done for us. So, we turn from him and walk away. Or we get mad and turn on him and let him have it. We become like the ones who turned on him later that week. We wanted the war horse; he brought the donkey.
But see, that’s just it. He rode the donkey. A humble Savior on a humble animal exactly as God’s prophet said he would be as he brought salvation. He wasn’t coming to crush Israel’s enemies. He was coming to be crushed himself for his enemies. He was coming for you and me enemies of his because of our sinful nature He rode into Jerusalem to win the greatest victory in the most humble way allowing himself to be mistreated and put to death.
He didn’t look like a king, and the cross didn’t look like victory over any enemy. In fact, everything looked like the opposite of that. But don’t be fooled by what you see, and don’t disregard what you hear. Understand both for what they are the King comes to win a different kind of battle, and take the shouts of the crowd in exactly the way they should be understood praises for the promised Savior-King.
See him for exactly who he is. Don’t let your Hosannas fade! “Please save” is what we need to call out to our Savior when we recognize our sins even the sin of sometimes looking at him the wrong way and with the wrong motives, like some in the crowds that day.
He still comes to save you no donkey required, no crowds needed to lead him along, no palm branches necessary. Instead, he comes to you in his Word. He talks right to you! He comes to you in promises of underserved love and complete forgiveness for everything you have ever done wrong. He comes with water and some words in Baptism. He comes with the bread and wine in his Supper, assuring you of your forgiveness.
You know, anyone seeing or hearing these things—a Bible reading, a baptism, people going to communion isn’t going to think much of it. None of this is flashy. None of this is going to get everyone stirred up. No, Jesus still comes to us in humble ways. We treasure those things because in them we hear how much our Savior loves us…and we experience his forgiveness…and we receive the guarantee of eternal life in heaven.
When Jesus returns—not humbly, but with all power and glory—once again there will be two kinds of people in the crowds those who only wanted things in this world and those who love Jesus for riding into Jerusalem to begin his road to the cross and then, ultimately, the empty tomb.
By the grace of God, may we be found among those who see Jesus as the King of salvation and who sing his praises out of hearts of faith. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.