We will have just celebrated the Triumphant Entry on Palm Sunday, the time when Christians recognize the occasion when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey.
A large crowd spontaneously began to celebrate His arrival. In a way they gave Him the red-carpet treatment by spreading their coats on the road and laying down palm branches for Him to ride on. Others waved the palm branches in celebration. They shouted their admiration to Him, acknowledging that Jesus was the Blessed One, the promised King. This all occurred at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, about a week before Jesus’ crucifixion.
Why all this joyful celebration, why the praise and approval? Well, the scripture accounts tell us that it was because of all the miracles they had seen Jesus preform. People had been healed and set free from a variety of physical ailments. Some had been released from the judgements of their sin and the sense of guilt and shame that were heaped upon them by religious leaders from. Others had experienced Jesus feeding 5,000 of them from one simple meal. All of these miracles were done over the course of the three years of His ministry.
When Jesus began His ministry, he declared that the Kingdom of God had come, and he demonstrated it by healing the sick and teaching a new way to live. The Jewish people that celebrated at the Triumphant Entry had seen and heard about all the wonderful working and teaching of Jesus and realized that truly the Kingdom of God had come to them. If the Kingdom had come, then does that Kingdom not also need a King? Some of the declarations that were made that day when Jesus entered Jerusalem were quotes from the Psalms and were Prophetic announcements of God’s Chosen One, the King who was coming to deliver God’s people. And so, the people that day were recognizing that Jesus was the King they were eagerly waiting for.
So, why all the exuberant praise in the celebration? It was because they recognized their King had come. But how could they go from celebrating Jesus as their King to choosing a murderous insurrectionist in His place just days later? The jealous religious leaders manipulated the crowd to reject Jesus so that they could have Him crucified.
In His last breaths, Jesus declared “It is finished,” and in His resurrection He sealed His victory over every enemy, including death. Now daily we can have our own continual Palm Sunday, recognizing our King, Jesus the Risen one.
And if He is the King, we have entered His Kingdom! What a glorious day we live in.
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Fred Erb serves as pastor of Listowel Community Church.
