The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Matthew 21:6-11).Today is Palm Sunday, the Sunday that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. At that point, it would have been easy to let them appoint him king. They were looking for one anyway. The people of Israel wanted a king to deliver them from Roman occupation and Jesus, so far, was everything they were looking for.
But he wouldn’t let them appoint him king. Not yet, anyway. As he told Pontius Pilate at his trial, My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).
These people loved him, worshiped him, thought he was the answer from God. They screamed, “Hosanna!” or God save us, praise God. But next Friday, they screamed “Crucify him!” Kill him! Today they love him; Friday, they kill him.
It is weird how crowds work, how mobs think. Only five days from worship to hatred, exaltation to death.
Next Friday they don’t lay palm leaves under his feet, or their coats for him to walk on like a special carpet. Next Friday, he walked the same streets, only this time they spit on him and screamed at him, laughed at him and cursed him. Today is the Triumphal Entry. Next Friday is the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow. Same road, five days apart.
Five days separate these events. Five days. But next Friday is why he came and next Sunday is what his whole purpose in being here in the first place was going to be.
Next Friday he dies. That man, Jesus, the one who was born of a virgin, who never sinned, who was the incarnate God – he dies. And it was a painful death. His physical side rebelled at it. His physical side asked again, Why? Why have you forsaken me? In the Garden of Gethsemane his physical side was so afraid that he sweated like drops of blood. He was scared, so much so that he couldn’t even sleep the night before.
But next Sunday. That was the whole point. “He broke the bonds of sin and death and he rose up from the grave.” And in so doing, he gave us the chance to break the bonds of sin and death in our own lives and live a perfect, sinless life.
Today was jumping the gun, so to speak. He came to be King, but he came to be King on his own terms. We were not going to make him king. God was going to make him King.
He came to live and die and be raised to give us new life. He came to show us personally and in human form the love of God. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19).
Praise him for his coming. He is my King. Hosanna!
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