Peter Carruthers
Today is Palm Sunday and the first day of Holy Week. The story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, just a few days before his crucifixion, is recorded in all four gospels. Below is an integrated version drawing on all of them.1
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and, immediately as you enter it, you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her, on which no one has ever sat. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
This took place to fulfil 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, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden’”.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.
They brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut leafy branches from the trees that they had cut from the fields and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest”.
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”. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples”. He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out”.
The large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel”.
And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee”.
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him”.
And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
‘Village hope’
Although all four gospels recount Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, they do so from different standpoints. The synoptists (ie Matthew, Mark and Luke) describe how Jesus’ journey starts in a ‘rural’ setting, in the villages of Bethany (‘house of bread’) and Bethphage (‘house of figs’) on the Mount of Olives, and proceeds through fields and olive groves down the side of the hill to enter the city from the east side. John tells the story from an ‘urban’ viewpoint, following the crowd that, hearing of His approach, come out of Jerusalem to greet Him with palm branches and hosannas. Messianic Jewish writer, Albert Edersheim, describes the scene:
“Two streams of people met - the one coming from the City, the other from Bethany. The impression left in our minds is, that what followed was unexpected by those who accompanied Christ, that it took them by surprise. The disciples, who understood not (John 12:16), till the light of the Resurrection glory had been poured on their minds, the significance of ‘these things’, even after they had occurred, seem not to have guessed, that it was of set purpose Jesus was about to make His Royal Entry into Jerusalem”.2
The King, bringing the hope of peace and salvation, comes with from the countryside to the city and His ‘rural’ followers are surprised by the ‘urban’ people’s response!
‘Now, and not yet’
What was Jesus’ ‘set purpose’? As with so much of Jesus life and teaching, the Palm Sunday story reflects the Kingdom that has come, yet is coming. As Matthew tells us (Matthew 21:4-5), by entering Jerusalem in this way Jesus was enacting and fulfilling what was spoken by the prophet Zechariah.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
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, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).
But Jesus’s actions were also pointing to and promising a future, final fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy, one which will mean peace, not just for Israel, but the whole world, as Israel’s King comes to reign over all the nations.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off, 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 (Zechariah 9:10).
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
A similar ‘now and not yet’ construction is evident in the other OT scripture referenced in the Palm Sunday narrative. The crowd’s cries of ‘Hosanna’ (‘save us now’) and ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’, are taken from Psalm 118. This is a festal, processional song, which was sung by pilgrims going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles.
As the procession of pilgrims goes up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles (Psalm 118:15, 27; see Leviticus 23:39-43), the celebrants and the crowd conduct a dialogue, the rhythm of which is determined by the stages of the journey. The procession starts out with a familiar refrain (Psalm 118:1-4) and proceeds while singing a hymn of thanksgiving (Psalm 118:5-18); it arrives at the gates of the temple that has been rebuilt (Psalm 118:19) and has become the sign of Israel’s renewal after the Exile (Psalm 118:22-24) where the priests respond to the acclamations of the people by blessing them (Psalm 118: 25-27). Finally, with palms in hand the procession reaches the sanctuary, whose courts are illumined, and the liturgy takes place with the most solemn thanksgiving ((Psalm 118:28-29). (Bible Gateway).
Although the first ‘Palm Sunday’ fell just before the Feast of Passover, the crowd was, in fact, enacting the Feast of Tabernacles, declaring the coming of the King Messiah and looking to the coming ‘restoration’, the Messianic Age.
‘The stone the builders rejected’
But, the coming of the Messianic Age must be preceded by the rejection and suffering of the Messianic King. The chief corner stone has first to be rejected (Psalm 118:22); the sacrifice has to be taken and bound to the cords of the altar (Psalm 118:27). Tabernacles becomes Passover. The City that greets the King with ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ will very shortly reject and kill Him. And it will be a seemingly long time before it will say those words again, with much suffering in between.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:37-39).
They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24).
‘The stones cry out’
When the Pharisees urged Jesus to rebuke His disciples for claiming Him as King, He replied with the rather mysterious words, “if these were silent, the very stones would cry out”.
One explanation is that Jesus meant that, because all creation praises God (Psalm 145:10; Psalm 148:1-14), including mountains, hills and trees (Psalm 114:6; Isaiah 55:12), so the stones will also cry out in praise declaring Him as King and God. In other words, Jesus was stating that He was God.
But, He may also have been anticipating what would happen in the ‘gap’ between His first and second comings, between Jerusalem’s first and second ‘blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’. The ‘stones’, which will cry out in recognition and praise of Jesus as King and God, are gentiles, who will be gathered into the Kingdom, become part of the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:12), be grafted into the Olive Tree (Romans 11:24), and become ‘children of Abraham’.
And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham (Matthew 3:9).
Let the mountains and all the hills
Break out into great rejoicing at the mercy of God,
And let the trees of the forest clap their hands.
Give praise to Christ, all nations,
Magnify him, all peoples, crying:
Glory to thy power, O Lord.
Seated in heaven upon thy throne
And on earth upon a foal, O Christ our God,
Thou hast accepted the praise of the angels
And the songs of the children who cried out to thee:
Blessed are thou that comest to call back Adam.3
Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19 (ESV).
Edersheim, Albert, 1993. The life and times of Jesus the Messiah: new updated edition, p 727. Hendrickson Publishers.
Orthodox Hymns for Palm Sunday.