Sermon: Palm Sunday—2004

Luke 19:29-44
And it came to pass, when He drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples, saying, "Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, "Why are you loosing it?" thus you shall say to him, "Because the Lord has need of it."
So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them. But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, "Why are you loosing the colt?" And they said, "The Lord has need of him." Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.
Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

One of Holman Hunt's most famous paintings, 'The Shadow of Death,' depicts Jesus in the carpenter's workshop in Nazareth.

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It is the close of the day, and the last rays of the setting sun are streaming in through the open door.
The young carpenter, who has been toiling at the bench, raises himself for a moment from his cramped, stooping position and stretches out his arms.
Just then the dying sun catches his figure and casts his shadow on the wall behind him, and its form is the form of a cross. It is the artist's striking way of reminding us that right from the beginning of Jesus ministry, death was in the air.
From the very start the end was certain. In the hour when Jesus out in the wilderness of the temptation flatly and finally rejected the line of compromise, when He settled it once for all that His attitude to the world powers and to spiritual wickedness in high places was to be one of uncompromising downright defiance, in that hour the shadow of the cross fell.
By the time of the great confession at Caesarea Philippi it was something more than a shadow. When Peter was asked who he thought Jesus was, his answer was: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised on the third day. (Matthew 16:21).
From this point, Jesus began to speak quite explicitly about His coming death. Direct and clear as His words were, however, they failed to stab the disciples fully awake to the truth. The thing to these men was incredible! It was all against their preconceived ideas and hopes. It must be some strange parable their Master was telling them. "Lord," exclaimed Peter: "this shall not be unto Thee"; whereupon Jesus, realizing that even His best friends would fain interfere with His doing of God's will, replied, "Get thee behind Me, Satan: (Matthew 16:25).
How difficult it was for Jesus to get them to grasp the dread truth may be seen from the fact that after all this they could still go on babbling about the best places in the Kingdom (Matthew 18:1; 20:20), and even more from the fact that when the blow did fall it found them amazed and staggered and utterly despairing.
Only Christ saw the Cross steadily and went unwavering to meet it.

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As Jesus sets His face toward Jerusalem, the Passover was nearing. From the time of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, the annual slaying of the Passover Lamb has looked forward to the Lamb of God who, by His sacrifice, would provide redemption for those in bondage to sin. The law required the Jews to observe the Passover Feast in Jerusalem and so Christ went there at the time of the feast.
It was time for the event that Christ had discussed with His disciples to be accomplished—that event for which He had come into the world.
The event we know as the triumphal entry was prophesied to the exact day by Daniel almost six hundred years before it happened!
Daniel 9:20-27
"Now while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God.
While I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering.
And he gave me instruction and talked with me, and said, "O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.
Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

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And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate."
Christ said most significantly, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42). The important phrase in the Lord's words was "this day." In Daniel’s great prophecy of the seventy-sevens, God had revealed the specific time in which messiah would be presented to the nation Israel. While the nation was unmindful of the divine timetable, Christ was obviously conscious that this day in which He made His entry into Jerusalem was the specific day foretold by Daniel for Messiah to be presented to Israel!
Ponder with me the exactness of this prophecy!
It is concluded by most historians that Christ's crucifixion occurred on Friday, Nisan 14, in A.D. 33. Reckoning His death according to the Julian calendar, Christ died on Friday, April 3, A.D. 33. Although Nehemiah 2:1 does not specify which day of Nisan the decree to rebuild Jerusalem occurred, it cannot have occurred before Nisan 1. This study will assume Nisan 1 as the terminus a quo although realizing it could have occurred on some other day in Nisan. Nisan 1 in 444 B.C. was March 4, or more likely March 5 since the crescent of the new moon would have been first visible so late at night (ca. 10 p.m.) on March 4 and could easily have been missed.
Using the 360-day year the calculation would be as follows. Multiplying the sixty-nine weeks by seven years for each week by 360 days gives a total of 173,880 days. The difference between 444 B.C. and A.D. 33, then, is 476 solar years. By multiplying 476 by 365.24229879 or by 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.975 seconds, one comes to 178,855.28662404 days or 173,855 days, 6 hours, 52 minutes, 44 seconds. This leaves only 25 days to be accounted for between 444 B.C. and A.D. 33. By adding the 25 days to March 5 (of 444 B.C.), one comes to March 30 (of A.D. 33) which was Nisan 10 in A.D. 33. This is the day that Christ made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem!
When we consider that, Daniel in vision, saw the exact day nearly 600 hundred years later when Christ would enter Jerusalem, all we can do is bow in worship!

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Messiah as the Prince of Peace came on the appointed day to bring peace to the nation. This then, was the day of Christ's official presentation of Himself as Messiah to Israel. Christ was identified before the nation as Messiah at His baptism. He was authenticated as Messiah at His temptation. His glory as Messiah was revealed at His transfiguration. But it was at His triumphal entry that Christ made an official presentation of Himself as Messiah to the nation.
Such was the significance of our Lord's statement, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace.
As John anticipated, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John 1:5). Jesus wept over the city because the people received none of the blessings that He had come to provide for them.
A few days before the final Passover, Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, arriving at Bethany six days before the Great Feast, namely, the Saturday before the Passion week. That evening, Jesus was anointed at Simon the leper's house. On the next day (Sunday) there was a great crowd that came to Bethany to see Jesus.
The next day, Monday, was Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, His visit to the temple, and then His return to Bethany. The day of the triumphal entry would be Nisan 10 when the lamb was selected for Passover. Hence, the triumphal entry was the day when Christ presented Himself as Israel’s Paschal Lamb.
On Tuesday on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem, Jesus cursed the fig tree, and then He went to Jerusalem to cleanse the temple. The religious leaders began to seek how they might destroy Him that evening, and that evening Jesus left Jerusalem, presumably returning to Bethany.
On the way to Jerusalem on Wednesday, the disciples saw the withered fig tree. At the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus had a day of controversy with the religious leaders. That afternoon Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and delivered the Olivet Discourse. Two things occurred on that day: (1) Jesus predicted that in two days He would be crucified at the time of the Passover, and (2) Judas planned the betrayal of Christ.
Thursday! On this day, He had His disciples prepare the Passover lamb.

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Jesus and His disciples celebrated their Passover meal in the Upper Room. Leaving the Upper Room, Jesus had a discourse with His disciples and offered an intercessory prayer in their behalf. They arrived at the garden of Gethsemane, and it was here where Jesus suffered in agony in intense prayer. Later that night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. During the rest of the night, Jesus was tried first by Annas and later by Caiaphas with the religious leaders.
Friday! Early in the morning, Jesus was tried by the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod Antipas, and Pilate again. Jesus was then led to the cross and crucified. Christ, the Paschal Lamb died at the time when the Israelites were sacrificing their Passover lambs.
Saturday! Jesus was lying in the tomb during the Sabbath, and the Pharisees secured Roman guards to keep watch over the tomb.
Sunday! Christ was resurrected from the dead. He is a type of the offering of the First Fruits which was offered the day after the Sabbath.
Conclusion! The week of the Passion was filled with many events, beginning with the Saturday before the Passion Week and ending with the crucifixion of Christ on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday.
LET US THINK ABOUT THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY WITH MORE DETAIL.
After arriving from Jericho, Jesus spent the night in Bethany. On the morning of His triumphal entry, Jesus sent two of His disciples to Bethphage. Passing from under the palm-trees of Bethany, they approached the fig gardens of Bethphage, the "House of Figs", a small suburb or hamlet of undiscovered site, which lay probably a little to the south of Bethany. The minute description of the spot given by Mark makes us suppose that Peter was one of the disciples dispatched. And if so, he was probably accompanied by John.
As Jesus had said, they found a colt tied outside in the street, tied at a doorway. It was not the usual custom for a pilgrim entering Jerusalem to ride a donkey. Yet Jesus took pains to insure that His entry into the city would be accomplished in that manner. These preparations recall the importance of the great messianic prophecy found in the Old Testament book of Zechariah: "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gen-

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tle and riding on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey." (Zechariah 9:9)
Though the Old Testament foretells the king coming on a donkey, the episode remained ambiguous to Jesus' contemporaries. Among the Jewish rabbis there were those who believed that the Messiah would arrive in one of two ways depending upon whether or not Israel was worthy of His appearance. If the nation were worthy, the appearance would be on clouds of glory. If the nation was unworthy--unprepared spiritually--then His coming would be by the lowly means of riding on a donkey!
Jesus issued instructions that the animal was to be a colt of a donkey upon which no one had ever sat. That the donkey should never have been ridden is based upon Old Testament law that animals devoted to sacred tasks must be consecrated, separated from common use. Numbers 19:1-2 says: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: "This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke."
After the donkey was brought to Jesus, it was draped with the garments of the disciples. The draping of the animal with their own garments was an act of honor bestowed upon Jesus by His disciples. This action was reminiscent of the homage paid to Jehu when he became king over Israel: They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, "Jehu is king!"
In John's account of the triumphal entry he mentions the use of palm branches in the acclamation Jesus received from the crowd: "The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting, "Hosanna!"
And speaking of the crowd! It is now hardly possible to form a just conception of the appearance which Jerusalem and its vicinity must have presented at the season of the Passover. All the open ground near the city and perhaps the sides of the very hill down which our Lord had recently passed were now, probably, being covered with the tents and temporarily erected structures of the gathering multitudes, who even this early would have most likely found every available abode in the city completely full.

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Josephus, the historian, records that on some of the Passover celebrations, as many as two to three million people would be present in Jerusalem! And Jerusalem, then, was a small village! With such a crowd, it is estimated that half of the population of Judea and Galilee were at the feast. These observations are not without importance considered theologically. They show that our Lord's rejection and death is not merely to be laid to the malevolence of the party of the Sanhedrin and to the wild clamors of a city mob, but may justly be considered, though done in partial ignorance, the act of the nation! When Pilate made his proposal it was to the multitude, and that multitude we know was unanimous.
Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" "Hosanna in the highest." (Mark 11:9-10).
Jesus is hailed with the language of the psalm as the Blessed One who comes in the name of the Lord. It refers to the Old Testament promise of "The One Who is Coming." This has specific reference to the royal Messiah who comes to restore David’s throne! To come "in the name of the Lord" is not merely to come by God's authority; it is to come as a divine revelation by which the Lord makes Himself known.
According to Luke’s Gospel, not everyone who was present for the entry in to Jerusalem joined in the celebration. The enemies of Christ were also assembled and took note of what was going on. The Pharisees also shouted to Jesus. Their shouts were not of acclamation, but of rebuke. They demanded that Jesus put a stop to this public display of adulation: "Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" Jesus refused to obey their command: "I tell you, he replied, "If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.""
Jesus declares that it is impossible to keep the earth quiet about His messianic vocation.
And down through the centuries of history, Christians around the world gather to rejoice in the glorious news of the Gospel..."For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son!" We choose to let the rocks keep silent, because we want to fill the air with praise and adulation to our wonderful Christ...our Redeemer and Lord, our majestic Saviour...our conquering King. Praise God!