Palm Sunday 2023
Scripture: Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:26-27; Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1-2
Today we celebrate Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is always the Sunday before Easter and commemorates Jesus arriving into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. As He made His entrance into the city, some people laid down their outer garments in the street for the donkey to walk on while those who didn’t have outer garments available used palm branches. As we remember this day in this service, I want you to think about the “why” behind their actions. What did they know about Jesus that would cause them to react that way as He entered the city and what are the odds or probability that they were wrong in their thinking?
The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl this year. When they returned to the city, crowds greeted them at the airport as they deplaned and the city held a parade. The parade was attended by thousands of people who came out to celebrate “their” team, the team who had won the most important game of the entire season. This was their team and this was their victory. So when the parade route was revealed and all of the activities associated with it were known, people made plans to attend the festivities. They came out and lined the parade route and yelled and screamed as the team came by. Then they followed the team to the location where the rally was being held, all the while yelling and screaming as they celebrated their winning team. So what are the odds or probability that they were wrong? In this situation there were no odds that the fans could be wrong about their team winning the Super Bowl because it had already been played and decided. You see, odds or probability come into play only when predicting the chance of something happening before it happens, not “after.” So the fans celebrating the Chief’s win knew with certainty that they were celebrating the winning team. But what about the crowd who lined the street and celebrated Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem? Did they know for certain that they were celebrating “the” King Who was “the” Savior of the whole world? I do not believe that they knew with confidence, but I what I want to share with you this morning is that those who knew the Scriptures “should have known.”
So let’s talk for a minute about odds or probability. The term “odds” is a numerical expression, always consisting of a pair of numbers. It is used in both statistics and gambling. In statistics, the odds, or probability, for something reflect the likelihood that a particular event will take place while the odds against something reflect the likelihood that a particular event will not take place. For example, let’s consider a die (one of a pair of dice.) A die has six sides with numbered one to six. To express odds of rolling a six with a fair die would be 1 to 5. This is because if one rolls the die many times and keeps a tally of the results, we would expect one 6 event for every five times the die does not show a six. The results would be expressed as 1:5 chances. To express odds against, the order of the pair would be reversed - the odds would be 5:1. Let’s apply odds and/or probability to the postal service.
If you mailed me a letter and you had my correct name and address on the envelope what are the odds or probability that I would get it? Short of human error, the odds or probability would be very close to one to one, meaning that the letter you sent would arrive every single time (or 100%) regardless of the location you mailed it from. This seems like a very easy calculation until you factor in that there are approximately 7.9 billion people in the world as of 2021 who could possibly be eligible to get the letter. With that many people eligible to receive mail, why are the odds so high that I would get the letter and it would not end up in the hands of someone it was not intended for? It’s because of the five specific “qualifying” pieces of information you put on the envelope: my name, address, city, state, and zip code. So, with five qualifying pieces of information placed on the front of an envelope we can mail a letter to a person and the odds are approximately 1:1 (100%) favorable that they will receive it even though there are approximately 8 billion people on earth today. Five pieces of information removes almost eight billion people out of contention for getting a letter intended for someone else. This is in fact what the Old Testament prophecies did in identifying Jesus as the One and Only Savior of the World. They removed billions of people from the odds or probability of being the Messiah and two of those prophecies were fulfilled when He entered Jerusalem on this occasion.
Now, depending on how you count the prophecies, there are hundreds of prophecies pertaining to Jesus and His ministry here on earth. That’s a lot of prophecies. Around 1958, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman wrote a book entitled Science Speaks. In the book, he applied the modern science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Jesus the Christ (remember there are hundreds of them). He says “The chance that any man might fulfill all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th power. In other words, that would be one in one hundred quadrillion”, that’s one with 17 zeros. He said this would be like taking 10 to the 17th power in silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Then he says mark one of the silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly hiding the marked one. Now comes the good part. He said blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes across the state, but he must pick up the one silver dollar that is marked. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Texas is a huge state, so who in their right mind would even think of sending out a blindfolded man in two feet of silver dollars to try and recover one that was marked? Mr. Stoner concluded that this man would have the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man – provided that they wrote them in their own wisdom. The chances are so extremely remote that one man could fulfill just eight prophecies written hundreds of years before His birth, let alone 300+ prophecies pertaining to Him and those around Him. Do you see what I am getting at?
When the people stood in the street laying down palm branches and praising God for Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, they acknowledged their King, even though some of them did not fully realize the significance of their actions. Remember what Peter Stoner said about one man fulfilling eight prophecies written hundreds of years before his birth was literally impossible? Prior to Jesus entering Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, which was a fulfillment of prophecy, He had already fulfilled several.
Born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14 records, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” The fulfillment of that prophecy is found in Luke 1:26-27 which records, “(26) Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, (27) to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.”
His birthplace. Micah 5:2 says, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” The prophecy was fulfilled in Matthew 2:1-2 which says, “(1) Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, (2) saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’”
His brothers did not initially believe He was the Messiah. Psalms 69:8 says of Christ, “I have become a stranger to my brothers, and an alien to my mother's children.” This prophecy was fulfilled in John 7:3-5 which records, “(3) His brothers therefore said to Him, ‘Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. (4) For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.’ (5) For even His brothers did not believe in Him.”
Those were three prophecies written by three different men hundreds of years before His birth and Jesus fulfilled them. This brings us to two additional prophecies pertaining to why we celebrate Palm Sunday. You see, how Jesus entered Jerusalem is additional proof that He is, in fact, the Son of God. His mother being a virgin, Bethlehem being his birth place and the fact that His brothers rejected Him, were all prophesied about Him. Now we will examine two additional prophecies that only He fulfilled. God shared with Zechariah how Jesus would enter Jerusalem. Zechariah 9:9 says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This prophecy was fulfilled as recorded in Matthew 21:1-8. “(1) Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, (2) saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. (3) And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.’ (4) All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: (5) TELL THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, ‘BEHOLD, YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU, LOWLY, AND SITTING ON A DONKEY, A COLT, THE FOAL OF A DONKEY.’ (6) So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. (7) They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. (8) And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road.”
Finally, David wrote in Psalms 118:26, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.” And do you know what the people shouted as Jesus rode in on that donkey? Matthew 21:9-11 says, “Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD! Hosanna in the highest!’ (10) And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, ‘Who is this?’ (11) So the multitudes said, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.’”
I asked you at the beginning of this message “What did they know about Jesus that would cause them to react this way as He entered the city, and what are the odds or the probability that they could be wrong in their thinking?” Some of the people knew Who Jesus was. They knew, based on what had been written about Him in Scripture that He was truly their Savior. Others joined the “parade” to be a part of the celebration, but they did not truly understand what the parade was about. Those who knew understood this simple fact: the odds were favorable that Jesus was truly their Savior. Based on Him, and only Him fulfilling the five prophecies, I listed in this message is undisputable. But there are several more prophecies pertaining to His last week on earth. His betrayal, His mocking by the soldiers, His being beaten and spit upon, despised and rejected by His own people, Him bearing our sins, His people not protesting His death, and His being buried “temporarily” in the grave of a rich man. The list goes on. If we just looked at the prophecies that He fulfilled in the last week of His life, He surpasses the eight prophecies mentioned by Peter Stoner.
Now I want you to consider something. Earlier in this message I told you that with five qualifying pieces of information I could mail a letter to anyone in the world and the odds or probability of that letter arriving to the person I sent it to be one to one, meaning that approximately 100% of the time the letter would arrive minus human errors. Those are the best odds. Then I told you what Peter Stoner said about a man fulfilling just eight of the prophecies pertaining to Jesus was 1 in 10 to the 17th power, or 1 out of 1 with 17 zeros behind it. Simply put, it can’t happen, and yet it did. We know that Jesus fulfilled more than just eight of the prophecies, He fulfilled all of them.
So let’s get real as I close. How would you respond to the mail man who rung your doorbell with the letter addressed to you but refused to give it to you until you could provide the necessary identification to prove that you were, indeed, the person to whom the letter was addressed? Maybe you show him not one, but eight different pieces of evidence that you are who you say you are. You live at the address and show him bills in your name and yet he still refuses to give you the letter because “he” still needed more proof. Although he does not have the authority to make you prove anything, he holds your letter hostage because he can. He wants more proof despite what you have shown him. Would you allow him to walk away with “your” letter or would you forcibly take it from him? What would your response be?
I asked this question because this is how many people treat Christ. If I can place five separate pieces of information on an envelope and almost guarantee with 100% accuracy that the letter I am sending will reach the intended person, how can we not believe eight different predictions that only Jesus fulfilled that He is the Messiah (and that’s 8 out of hundreds)? How can we not believe the three wise men that saw His location, followed the star, found Him and worshipped Him? How can we not believe He healed people of their diseases? How can we not believe that He was betrayed, abused, and nailed to a cross for all my sins? Jesus fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecy related to Him! If the post office goes through so much trouble to ensure that the mail gets delivered to the right person based on five pieces of information placed on an envelope, should we not be as diligent with so much more information available to us to make sure that we recognize the “right” Messiah on this Palm Sunday?
So the question I want to ask you this morning is this, if you had been standing on the side of the road when Jesus was entering Jerusalem, would you have stopped and praised God knowing that He was the promised Messiah the Old Testament prophesied about or would you have paused, noticed the parade and then went on your way?
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
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