“Palm Sunday” Passages: Matthew 21: 1-17 Mark 11: 1-19 Luke 19: 28-48 John 12: 12-19

25 “Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success! Psalm 118: 25-26 25 “Lord, save us!     Lord, grant us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

In Luke 19: 41-44, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and the future destruction of the Temple. A day that had started with so much superficial celebration ended with the sad reality of unchanged hearts.

The crowd on Palm Sunday had varying opinions about who Jesus was, or who they wanted Him to be: A great Rabbi A powerful miracle worker A long-awaited prophet A dangerous false prophet God’s Anointed One (Christ / Messiah)

At the time of Palm Sunday, Jesus had his highest amount of “fair weather friends” and “bandwagon jumpers” that were desperate for any hero that could rally their fellow Jews against the hated Romans. They wanted The Kingdom of God NOW & for it to not involve any personal change.

In the ancient Middle Eastern world, leaders rode horses if they rode to war, but donkeys if they came in peace. 1 Kings 1:33 mentions Solomon riding a donkey on the day he was recognized as the new king of Israel. Other instances of leaders riding donkeys are Judges 5:10; 10:4; 12:14; and 2 Samuel 16:2.

Genesis 49: 10-11 10  “The scepter will not depart from Judah,     nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come     and the obedience of the nations shall be his. 11 He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch”

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!     Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you,     righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey,     on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Zechariah 9:10 10 “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim     and the warhorses from Jerusalem,     and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations.     His rule will extend from sea to sea     and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

I will free your prisoners Zechariah 9: 11-12 11 “As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. 12 Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”

Like the crowds in Jerusalem, do we cry out for God to “save us now,” but reject the manner in which He chooses to do so? Do we reject God’s timing and demand that His Plan fit into ours?

John 12:16 “At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.”

Although the FINAL judgment of the world and the Earthly peace of the Messiah will come when Jesus returns from Heaven one day…we can rest in knowing that God has fulfilled His Word and has offered salvation by His own blood, to free us from the pit of Hell, so that we may be blessed now & forever.