Path To Palm Saunday

Opening illustration: Watch a video clip on contemporary ’Palm Sunday.’

Let us read Matthew 21 and pick up the story from verse 1 going down to verse 11.

Historical Background: Even today church folks get confused with Palm Sunday. On this Passover day, when Jesus came riding into town, there had already been thirty-two political riots … in five years. In other words, it was political pandemonium. It was chaos. The town was ready to blow up with any spark. We are told that three to five million people were jammed into that town, and it was ready to ignite.

Jesus rode on a jackass into town. The crowds wanted him to ride on a tall white horse, dignified in the sunlight or on a chariot of war, glistening in its golden trim. But Jesus rode on an animal of peace, not of war. The crowd wanted him to grasp a sword in his hand and wave that sword to show what he and his followers would do to the Romans, but he had an olive branch of peace in his fingers. The crowds wanted him to give enflamed and impassioned oratory to inspire them into revolution; they wanted the shouts of soldiers, but they heard only the songs of children. And Jesus? Jesus didn’t say a word. Not a word as he rode into that city.

The crowd was chanting at the top of their lungs, “Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna to the King.” And slowly, and gradually, the Hosannas became quieter and quieter and quieter. Then nothing! By afternoon, another chant had begun, almost in a whisper, “crucify him,” softly, softly, louder, louder and finally bursting with power, “Crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify that man. He’s a bloody imposter. A fake! He’s no king, that’s for sure.” They had wanted a warrior on a warhorse and instead they got a carpenter on a jackass, and so they killed him and put a poster above his head, “King of the Jews.” It was a big joke! That’s the way it was on that first Palm Sunday, on that first Passion Sunday.

What did the Palm Sunday Path entail?

To understand whether it is Palms or Passion for us today, let us break down today’s passage –

1. The Obedient Disciples [vs. 1–3, 6]: To obey God means to willingly respond to His wishes and demands. Obedience is the positive side of repentance. God’s claims on our lives are born out of His Fatherly love and wisdom. Thus, true obedience is the intelligent choice to comply with God’s loving intentions. Obedience to God is never negotiable. When I belong to Christ and His kingdom I am most my own. Bound to the kingdom, I walk the earth as a free man or woman. Low at his feet I stand straight before everything. This is important, all-important for if it were otherwise the kingdom proposal would be a hopeless proposition. But if the kingdom proposal brings freedom now and ultimate triumph then it is the only hopeful proposition. All other proposals are disqualified. The evidence of knowing God is obeying God. The golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters is not intellect, but obedience. The immense pleasure, which the Holy Spirit works in us, is to obey our Master and not a specific mission. If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love Him a good deal. If we obey God it will mean that other people’s plans are upset, and they will mock us with it - ‘You call this Christianity?’ We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid. Your obedience has a direct influence, on the life of others thus resulting in a chain reaction in our obedience or disobedience to God.

Here we see in the passage that two of Jesus’ unidentified disciples did and accomplished (to the letter) what He had commanded them to do. Do we? Or do we make some changes or edits to what He has commanded for us to do. Example: Love the Lord God … Loving your neighbor, blessing your enemies …

2. The Humble Donkey [vs. 4, 5 & 7]: And who would accept the answer, ‘The Lord needs it.’ My reply to that statement probably wouldn’t be very charitable – and indeed, what the owner of the donkey says isn’t repeated in Luke’s gospel. But the next verse begins, ‘They brought it to Jesus’, so there is the implication that the owner gave up the donkey willingly for the Lord’s work. So why did he do it? Why did this man accept the – let’s face it – somewhat dubious statement of ‘The Lord needs it’ as an explanation for someone leading away a valuable animal? Some theologians believe that the owner’s reaction shows a pre-arranged agreement between Jesus and the man who had what he needed. In this case, the phrase ‘The Lord needs it’ becomes a sort of password to let the owner know that the right people had come to take the donkey. Others believe that it is indicative of Jesus’ authority – he asked, and it was given to him. The original Greek seems to support this – the Greek word for Lord used here could mean both a man in authority and the Lord God – so even though the disciples were ambiguous about who needed it, it was given to them. Interestingly, in Greek, the phrase translated as ‘The Lord needs it’ literally means ‘The Lord of it has need’ – meaning ‘The Lord’s donkey is needed’. Jesus was telling the donkey’s owner that all things belong to Him, and that he had need of this particular possession at this time. The fact that it was unridden meant that it was pure, and it was suitable for a sacred purpose. Tradition held that if a king rode into a city on a horse, his purpose was war, but riding into city on a donkey was a symbol of peace.