Looking Closer At The Triumphal Entry Series

Looking Closer at the Triumphal Entry (John Part 37)

Text: John 12:9-19

We’re continuing on with John’s Gospel this morning, and we’re looking at a text that usually gets addressed on Palm Sunday; we call it the Triumphal Entry. It’s when Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding on a young donkey, and the multitudes gather to meet Him as He approaches. Now this is one of the few events of the Lord’s earthly ministry that is recorded in all 4 Gospel accounts. And as we’re looking at this passage this morning, I want you to keep in mind what has happened before, because it will help you understand what’s taking place here.

Just a couple of days before this, Jesus restored Lazarus to life. Lazarus had been dead 4 days, and had already been placed in the tomb. But Jesus raised him up. Then the evening just prior to these events that we are reading about here, Mary had anointed Jesus with an expensive ointment called nard in its purest form. In other words; it’s now 5 days before the Passover. And what that means is that people from all over the known world have traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate. And often times, some of those celebrations included palm branches… The palm branch was kind of like a national symbol of patriotism, and had been for nearly 200 years, ever since Simon Maccabee had driven out the forces of Antiochus in 141 B.C. So think about it like this. On July 4th, you’ll see an uptick in the display of American flags. There will be little flags waving at parades, and displayed all over the nation. That’s kind of what the palm branch was like. So Jesus is getting almost a hero’s welcome here. And we’ll look at what all this signifies and means after we read the text.

Let’s go ahead and open your Bibles to the Gospel of John 12:9-19 (READ).

So, right off the bat, we see that there were already large crowds of people who had gone on to Bethany because they had heard about the miracle of raising Lazarus, and they wanted to see Jesus and Lazarus. And as Jesus leaves Bethany and heads out to go to Jerusalem, this crowd follows with Him, and even larger crowd from Jerusalem itself is going to go out and meet Him as He approaches, and they will all return to the city to begin the Passover celebrations. They’re going to be waving their palm branches, they’re going to be shouting “Hosanna!” Which literally means, “Save us now!” Or “Bring salvation now!” So in verse 13, that’s what they are saying, “Save us now!” Then they shouted “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” And both of those, both “Hosanna” and “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord” come from Psalm 118:25-26. This was a Psalm of assent, that was sung in expectation of the Messiah, the Savior… but then the crowd adds one other part… they say, “… even the King of Israel!” Now that’s not from Psalm 118, They’re getting that from Zechariah 9:9, because Jesus is riding on a young donkey… and being that they added that extra little bit kind of shows us their intent, and how they see Jesus. They see Him as a political deliverer, like Simon Maccabee, who’s going to lead a revolution against the Roman Empire, and deliver Israel from Roman rule. They see Jesus as a physical Savior, who is going to end Roman oppression, and end economic inequality. They didn’t realize that Jesus was coming, and that He was going to die, in order to save them from the wrath of God. That He was coming to set them free from sins oppression, rather than political. And that’s why… in the end, they rejected Him, and turned on Him.

And that’s a theme we’ve seen over and over again in John’s Gospel.

Look with me at John 2:23-25 (READ)… What that’s saying is that they had certain beliefs about Jesus… they were jumping on the bandwagon… but Jesus knew what was in their heart. He knew that they had wrong expectations and that it was false faith. We could go on to John chapter 6 where Jesus fed the multitudes… 5000 men, not counting women and children, and those large crowds were ready to jump on the bandwagon then too… they wanted to follow Jesus, but it’s because they had these expectations about who He was, and what He was going to do, and once Jesus corrected them, they wanted nothing to do with Him. They turned away from Him… John 6:66 says, “After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.”

We could go on… to John chapter 8, where Jesus explained that He was the light of the world, and then He rebuked the Pharisees, and John 8:30 says, that many believed in Jesus.