Wednesday in the Word...John 12:12-19...The grand entrance

The Apostle John has brought us to the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into the holy city of Jerusalem.  This is a very old drawing depicting the event described to us in this passage.  Let us together experience this again today and be engrossed with our King making His grand entrance.

John chapter 12 and verses 12 through 19 says,

v.12, 13 - On the next day the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”

We have arrived at what we call "Palm Sunday."  There is quite a backstory that John does not give us that appears in the other gospels but the donkey will appear in the next verse.  This is the day after the anointing of Jesus by Mary in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany.  Thousands are gathering to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Passover but the "buzz" around the temple was all about Jesus.  "Would He come?  Would He do another great miracle?  What would He say?"  I am sure many remembered another time that Jesus came to the temple and cleared the marketplace.  

It was a custom to line the road with coats and palm branches for royalty to walk upon.  It is like the rolling out of the "red carpet."  May this one's feet not touch the ground.  Along with this gesture is the common practice of announcing who was coming.  A king has come and along with him is a kingdom that usually meant great hope and prosperity.  A change was coming that was seen as positive if the "red carpet" was rolled out and it was accompanied with singers belting out "Hosanna!"  

One last note before moving on is that these gathered were shouting or crying out a declaration of who Jesus is.  In Luke's account, prior to Jesus' coming into Jerusalem was His traveling through Jericho where He healed the blind man who was crying out and shouting who Jesus was.  The crowd is fueled by that miracle and the miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead who was in their presence.  This is also a picture of an event to come that is recorded in Revelation chapter 7 and verses 9 and 10, which read, (bold and underline mine for emphasis)

After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number; standing before the throne and before the Lamb.  They were robed in white with palm branches in their hands.  And they cried out in a loud voice:  "Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!" 

v.14, 15 - Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

Again, John does not give us the whole backstory of Jesus telling His disciples about this donkey and even the very words the owners would use when retrieving it but he does give us the reason Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey.  This detail of this event was prophesied in the Scriptures to happen and it did.  This is the fulfilled prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, which reads,

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem!  Look, your King is coming to you; He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

We not only have the mode of transportation that the Messiah would travel by but we have the place that He would come into, Jerusalem, and the reception He would receive, the rejoicing and shouting, and the proclamation of the position He held, He is the King.  The other gospel writers also record the fulfillment of this prophecy.  It would be hard not to see the correlation between the Old Testament prophecy about the coming Messiah and what was happening before their eyes.  It seems.

v.16 - These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.

How veiled they were from understanding and making the connection until after the resurrection of the Lord.  They had an "aha" moment and also the Lord explained the Scriptures concerning Himself to them.  The Bible is really a foreign book until our Lord opens our eyes to understand it and especially to see Him all the way through it, from the Garden of Eden of Genesis to the throne room of heaven of Revelation.  We are able to know and accumulate a lot of historical facts and google some questions about it, but the vision of seeing all that God has done behind the scenes for each of us isn't realized until we have been born again.

v.17-19 - So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him.  For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign.  So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him.”

So we have part of the crowd who were also with Jesus at the tomb site of Lazarus.  This part of the crowd is still talking about that event and attributing the raising of the dead to Jesus.  There was another part of the crowd that came to see Jesus because of the witness of the first part of the crowd.  The crowd was attracting a larger crowd because of their witness of who Jesus was and His miraculous power.  If anything, this is motivation and support of how the gospel message of Jesus is to spread today.  Those of us who "know" Jesus as our Savior, the One who raised us from being spiritually dead to being born again, are commissioned by Him to share this news with the rest of the crowd, the rest of the world, so they might come to hear of Jesus.

All the Pharisees can do is point fingers at each other and blame one another for not taking out this Jesus.  Jesus was having a world impact, at least the world they could see.  Of course, the world impact Jesus would have would not be confined to the borders of the country of Israel but would spread to the uttermost parts of the world.  What a tremendous opportunity we have as children of God to speak even now of the One who can raise people from being spiritually dead to eternal life with Him.  Let us pray for more to come and see this Jesus who is God.

"Heavenly Father, what an account to read of today.  You give us more solid evidence of what was prophesied, even to the smallest details, so that our faith can be strengthened by knowing of Your actions for us before we ever loved You.  May we be faithful to share about our experience of being risen from the dead by You to others who might gather at this time to take a closer look at You.  Amen."

Pastor Adam