The Beloved Disciple - Part 51

The Triumphal Entry

The Triumphal Entry. The moment when Jesus finally stops telling those who know Him to “tell no one.” The moment the veil is removed as it were and the overjoyed masses finally welcome their Messiah.

As I sat down to write this, I thought about what we now call Palm Sunday. In our church, and I’d imagine many others, we receive a palm frond as we walk in. Before service is half over my wife or my daughter have neatly folded our fronds into crosses that we take home and keep for a time. The pastor Joyfully cries, “Hosanna.” We sing hymns with the same word. And yet, I’m not sure we really know what we’re celebrating.

Whether in my head or at the keyboard, I think I’ve written this post 100 times this week, and pushed the keyboard away at least half as many times. Because the glossy image I had in my head, that perhaps many of us have in our heads, just isn’t true.

You see, what we so easily overlook is that some, perhaps even many of those in that crowd crying “Hosanna” at Jesus’ approach, will but a few short days later taunt Him, spit on Him, and scream for His crucifixion.

Let us look now at John’s record of the Triumphal Entry. And as we learn let us try to really understand the imagery on display and what it may tell us of the expectations of those who came to greet our Lord on that day. Not to find fault in them, if fault could be said to be deserved, but to more deeply appreciate what the Son of God did for us all that week.

“12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” John 12:12-13

As Jesus approaches the city He is met by those who have witnessed the signs he has done, and by those who have heard and believed. Josephus tells us there were likely as many as 2.5 million Jews in the city to celebrate the Passover.¹ One could not ask for much greater visibility in the ancient world.

As He approaches, the people celebrate and praise Him by waving palm branches and crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

By all accounts the masses are overjoyed to welcome Jesus as their Messiah. And why wouldn’t they be? But what were they expecting of Him? What did the salvation they cried out for really look like? Did they really understand Him and what He was doing?

Some clue can be drawn from the choice of palm branches itself. While we call it Palm Sunday, the tradition did not begin with Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. In fact, the palm branches represent a very different type of revolution, one carrying with it the violent overthrow of oppressors.

Consider the following verses from 1 Maccabees which follow the expulsion of the Syrians from Jerusalem:

“On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel. (1 Maccabees 13:51, RSV)

The palm branches themselves then, are a sign made famous by the Maccabean revolt, by the violent crushing of the enemy. They had become a sort of nationalist symbol, appearing on flags and even on coinage later minted by the Jews during violent revolts against their later Roman occupiers.²

Brown offers insight into the use of the palm as a nationalist symbol for the oppressed people of Israel. Nationalist itself is a term that carries a negative connotation in our modern day, but should be understood here as a yearning for freedom from their oppressors. To live and worship freely in their own nation. Of the uses of the palm branch and its imagery Brown tells us:

• The image of the palm was minted on Jewish coinage during the Second Revolt (AD 132-135)

• Palm branches were waved at the dedication of the Second Temple in 164 BC.

• Palm fronds were again waved at the conquering of the “Jerusalem citadel” by Simon Maccabeous in 142 BC.

• In the Testament of Naphtali (an extra biblical text) Levi is given a palm as a symbol of power over Israel.³

All of these examples implicate the palm as a national symbol suggesting the violent overthrow of occupiers. What might that tell us of the expectations of the crowd we now witness?

As we may expect the cry of the Jews upon the approach of their king is also steeped in history and carries significant meaning.

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

Hosanna, translated “give salvation now,”⁴ draws from Psalm 118:25;

Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! (Psalm 118:25)

Psalm 118 was a part of the Jewish Hallel, Psalms 113-118, that were sung during Jewish festivals. It would be sung by the temple choir each morning during the Feast of the Tabernacles, and possibly other celebrations.⁵

During the singing, each time the choir would reach the word Hosanna, every male Jew in attendance would wave a “lûlāḇ” in the air. Reminiscent of the palm branches the Jews now wave for Jesus, the lûlāḇ consisted of, “a few shoots of willow and Myrtle tied with a palm.”⁶

Psalm 118 itself appears to represent new beginnings as it was likely written as part of the celebrations for the building of the Second Temple. Of this Westcott writes;

“This Psalm appears to have been written as the dedication Psalm of the Second Temple; or, according to others, at the laying of its foundation-stone.”⁷

Finally in verse 13 the people cry out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” Psalm 118:26 provides the foundation for the second part of their praise.

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.” (Psalm 118:26, ESV)

The latter part of the Psalm being replaced with “even the king of Israel,” further betrays the likely nationalistic fervor of the crowd.

Tenney writes of the scene:

“The crowd, by the application of this Psalm to Jesus, gave Him the place of messiahship and called upon Him to reveal His power.”⁸

The people are rightly overjoyed at the arrival of their King. They are ready to accept Him as their long awaited Messiah. But do they really understand why He has come, and the real oppressor from which He seeks to free them? Do we today?

14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

If the people are truly caught up in a patriotic fervor. If they celebrate their liberator finally arriving in the Holy City, their joy may have been tempered by what they saw next. Jesus arrives not on a war horse ready to conquer the Roman oppressors, but on the back of a donkey’s colt.

“The ass was used by judges and kings in the Old Testament on errands of peace; the horse was used mainly as a charger in battle.”⁹

Entering the city seated upon a donkey rather than a horse may serve a purpose in countering the nationalist expectations of the crowd. It likely had the aim of displaying that Jesus was not entering the city in order to conquer it, but in order to bring peace.

John does not focus as much on the acquisition of the animal as the Synoptics, but Jesus has done this to fulfill yet another prophecy. This one found in Zechariah 9:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9, ESV)

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“16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. 17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” (John 12:12–19, ESV)

In the end we should not be too surprised at the lack of understanding within the crowd. Even the disciples were slow to comprehend the greatness of what was happening before their very eyes. One of them, like many gathered that day, even chose to betray Jesus in the end.

Verse 16 shows us that even the disciples did not understand all of the things that they were witnessing. But once they see the fullness of the story played out, they will. Consider now then, the fullness of the Zechariah prophecy we discussed earlier, verse 9 gets a lot of attention but verse 10 is just as important.

“I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Zechariah 9:10

Jesus does indeed come as the salvation for Jerusalem, though He comes for the Gentile as well, even for the Roman who would believe. Nationalistic expectation must give way to truth, that Jesus comes to provide freedom from sin and death, far greater oppressors than any nation.

The fervor of the crowd was, by John’s account fueled largely by what they had witnessed in Lazarus. Surely this man Jesus, who could raise a man dead four days, could easily overthrow the Romans. We can forgive the masses for their desire for freedom, it is certainly understandable. Yet we must cut through glossed over images to see that it is God’s intent upon which we must focus, not our earthly expectations.

In the end, we will again see palms waved before our Lord. And this time it will be in understanding of what He has done for all of creation.

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7:9-10

Thankfully, for us and for the masses gathered at Jesus’ entry, perfect faith is not required. Incomplete understanding will be made complete in the end. Christ has come to redeem creation, even from our own sometimes misunderstanding selves.

1. Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!: With Study Guide, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

2. Ibid.

3. The Anchor Bible Series. The Gospel According to John I-XII. Raymond E. Brown. 1966.

4. Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!: With Study Guide, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

5. D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991).

6. Ibid.

7. The Gospel According to St. John. B.F. Westcott. 1881

8. The Gospel of John. Tenney, Merrill C. 185

9. Ibid.