Palm Sunday

172:3.1Beth­any was about two miles from the tem­ple, and it was half past one that Sun­day af­ter­noon when Je­sus made ready to start for Je­ru­sa­lem. He had feel­ings of pro­found af­fec­tion for Beth­any and its sim­ple peo­ple. Naz­a­reth, Ca­per­naum, and Je­ru­sa­lem had re­jected him, but Beth­any had ac­cepted him, had be­lieved in him. And it was in this small vil­lage, where al­most ev­ery man, woman, and child were be­liev­ers, that he chose to per­form the might­i­est work of his earth be­stowal, the res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus. He did not raise Laz­a­rus that the vil­lagers might be­lieve, but rather be­cause they al­ready be­lieved.

172:3.2All morn­ing Je­sus had thought about his en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. Here­to­fore he had al­ways en­deav­ored to sup­press all pub­lic ac­claim of him as the Mes­siah, but it was dif­fer­ent now; he was near­ing the end of his ca­reer in the flesh, his death had been de­creed by the San­hedrin, and no harm could come from al­low­ing his dis­ci­ples to give free ex­pres­sion to their feel­ings, just as might oc­cur if he elected to make a for­mal and pub­lic en­try into the city.

172:3.3Je­sus did not de­cide to make this pub­lic en­trance into Je­ru­sa­lem as a last bid for pop­u­lar fa­vor nor as a fi­nal grasp for power. Nei­ther did he do it al­to­gether to sat­isfy the hu­man long­ings of his dis­ci­ples and apos­tles. Je­sus en­ter­tained none of the il­lu­sions of a fan­tas­tic dreamer; he well knew what was to be the out­come of this visit.

172:3.4Hav­ing de­cided upon mak­ing a pub­lic en­trance into Je­ru­sa­lem, the Mas­ter was con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of choos­ing a proper method of ex­e­cut­ing such a re­solve. Je­sus thought over all of the many more or less con­tra­dic­tory so-called Mes­sianic prophe­cies, but there seemed to be only one which was at all ap­pro­pri­ate for him to fol­low. Most of these pro­phetic ut­ter­ances de­picted a king, the son and suc­ces­sor of David, a bold and ag­gres­sive tem­po­ral de­liv­erer of all Is­rael from the yoke of for­eign dom­i­na­tion. But there was one Scrip­ture that had some­times been as­so­ci­ated with the Mes­siah by those who held more to the spir­i­tual con­cept of his mis­sion, which Je­sus thought might con­sis­tently be taken as a guide for his pro­jected en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. This Scrip­ture was found in Zechariah, and it said: “Re­joice greatly, O daugh­ter of Zion; shout, O daugh­ter of Je­ru­sa­lem. Be­hold, your king comes to you. He is just and he brings sal­va­tion. He comes as the lowly one, rid­ing upon an ass, upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”

172:3.5A war­rior king al­ways en­tered a city rid­ing upon a horse; a king on a mis­sion of peace and friend­ship al­ways en­tered rid­ing upon an ass. Je­sus would not en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem as a man on horse­back, but he was will­ing to en­ter peace­fully and with good will as the Son of Man on a don­key.

172:3.6Je­sus had long tried by di­rect teach­ing to im­press upon his apos­tles and his dis­ci­ples that his king­dom was not of this world, that it was a purely spir­i­tual mat­ter; but he had not suc­ceeded in this ef­fort. Now, what he had failed to do by plain and per­sonal teach­ing, he would at­tempt to ac­com­plish by a sym­bolic ap­peal. Ac­cord­ingly, right af­ter the noon lunch, Je­sus called Pe­ter and John, and af­ter di­rect­ing them to go over to Beth­page, a neigh­bor­ing vil­lage a lit­tle off the main road and a short dis­tance north­west of Beth­any, he fur­ther said: “Go to Beth­page, and when you come to the junc­tion of the roads, you will find the colt of an ass tied there. Loose the colt and bring it back with you. If any­one asks you why you do this, merely say, ‘The Mas­ter has need of him.’” And when the two apos­tles had gone into Beth­page as the Mas­ter had di­rected, they found the colt tied near his mother in the open street and close to a house on the cor­ner. As Pe­ter be­gan to un­tie the colt, the owner came over and asked why they did this, and when Pe­ter an­swered him as Je­sus had di­rected, the man said: “If your Mas­ter is Je­sus from Gal­i­lee, let him have the colt.” And so they re­turned bring­ing the colt with them.

172:3.7By this time sev­eral hun­dred pil­grims had gath­ered around Je­sus and his apos­tles. Since mid­forenoon the vis­i­tors pass­ing by on their way to the Pass­over had tar­ried. Mean­while, David Zeb­e­dee and some of his for­mer mes­sen­ger as­so­ciates took it upon them­selves to has­ten on down to Je­ru­sa­lem, where they ef­fec­tively spread the re­port among the throngs of vis­it­ing pil­grims about the tem­ple that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was mak­ing a tri­umphal en­try into the city. Ac­cord­ingly, sev­eral thou­sand of these vis­i­tors flocked forth to greet this much-talked-of prophet and won­der-worker, whom some be­lieved to be the Mes­siah. This mul­ti­tude, com­ing out from Je­ru­sa­lem, met Je­sus and the crowd go­ing into the city just af­ter they had passed over the brow of Oli­vet and had be­gun the de­scent into the city.

172:3.8As the pro­ces­sion started out from Beth­any, there was great en­thu­si­asm among the fes­tive crowd of dis­ci­ples, be­liev­ers, and vis­it­ing pil­grims, many hail­ing from Gal­i­lee and Perea. Just be­fore they started, the twelve women of the orig­i­nal women’s corps, ac­com­pa­nied by some of their as­so­ciates, ar­rived on the scene and joined this unique pro­ces­sion as it moved on joy­ously to­ward the city.

172:3.9Be­fore they started, the Al­pheus twins put their cloaks on the don­key and held him while the Mas­ter got on. As the pro­ces­sion moved to­ward the sum­mit of Oli­vet, the fes­tive crowd threw their gar­ments on the ground and brought branches from the near-by trees in or­der to make a car­pet of honor for the don­key bear­ing the royal Son, the prom­ised Mes­siah. As the merry crowd moved on to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem, they be­gan to sing, or rather to shout in uni­son, the Psalm, “Hosanna to the son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the high­est. Blessed be the king­dom that comes down from heaven.”

172:3.10Je­sus was light­hearted and cheer­ful as they moved along un­til he came to the brow of Oli­vet, where the city and the tem­ple tow­ers came into full view; there the Mas­ter stopped the pro­ces­sion, and a great si­lence came upon all as they be­held him weep­ing. Look­ing down upon the vast mul­ti­tude com­ing forth from the city to greet him, the Mas­ter, with much emo­tion and with tear­ful voice, said: “O Je­ru­sa­lem, if you had only known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which be­long to your peace, and which you could so freely have had! But now are these glo­ries about to be hid from your eyes. You are about to re­ject the Son of Peace and turn your backs upon the gospel of sal­va­tion. The days will soon come upon you wherein your en­e­mies will cast a trench around about you and lay siege to you on ev­ery side; they shall ut­terly de­stroy you, in­so­much that not one stone shall be left upon an­other. And all this shall be­fall you be­cause you knew not the time of your di­vine vis­i­ta­tion. You are about to re­ject the gift of God, and all men will re­ject you.”

172:3.11When he had fin­ished speak­ing, they be­gan the de­scent of Oli­vet and pres­ently were joined by the mul­ti­tude of vis­i­tors who had come from Je­ru­sa­lem wav­ing palm branches, shout­ing hosan­nas, and oth­er­wise ex­press­ing glee­ful­ness and good fel­low­ship. The Mas­ter had not planned that these crowds should come out from Je­ru­sa­lem to meet them; that was the work of oth­ers. He never pre­med­i­tated any­thing which was dra­matic.

172:3.12Along with the mul­ti­tude which poured out to wel­come the Mas­ter, there came also many of the Phar­isees and his other en­e­mies. They were so much per­turbed by this sud­den and un­ex­pected out­burst of pop­u­lar ac­claim that they feared to ar­rest him lest such ac­tion pre­cip­i­tate an open re­volt of the pop­u­lace. They greatly feared the at­ti­tude of the large num­bers of vis­i­tors, who had heard much of Je­sus, and who, many of them, be­lieved in him.

172:3.13As they neared Je­ru­sa­lem, the crowd be­came more demon­stra­tive, so much so that some of the Phar­isees made their way up along­side Je­sus and said: “Teacher, you should re­buke your dis­ci­ples and ex­hort them to be­have more seemly.” Je­sus an­swered: “It is only fit­ting that these chil­dren should wel­come the Son of Peace, whom the chief priests have re­jected. It would be use­less to stop them lest in their stead these stones by the road­side cry out.”

172:3.14The Phar­isees has­tened on ahead of the pro­ces­sion to re­join the San­hedrin, which was then in ses­sion at the tem­ple, and they re­ported to their as­so­ciates: “Be­hold, all that we do is of no avail; we are con­founded by this Galilean. The peo­ple have gone mad over him; if we do not stop these ig­no­rant ones, all the world will go af­ter him.”

172:3.15There re­ally was no deep sig­nif­i­cance to be at­tached to this su­per­fi­cial and spon­ta­neous out­burst of pop­u­lar en­thu­si­asm. This wel­come, al­though it was joy­ous and sin­cere, did not be­to­ken any real or deep-seated con­vic­tion in the hearts of this fes­tive mul­ti­tude. These same crowds were equally as will­ing quickly to re­ject Je­sus later on this week when the San­hedrin once took a firm and de­cided stand against him, and when they be­came dis­il­lu­sioned—when they re­al­ized that Je­sus was not go­ing to es­tab­lish the king­dom in ac­cor­dance with their long-cher­ished ex­pec­ta­tions.

172:3.16But the whole city was might­ily stirred up, in­so­much that ev­ery­one asked, “Who is this man?” And the mul­ti­tude an­swered, “This is the prophet of Gal­i­lee, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.”