Mark 11:1-11 - Palm Sunday

[Intro]

Happy palm Sunday and the start of Passion week. This is an important week. Now we all know what happens at the end of the week and the importance of what took place. There’s a lot to learn about what took place on Palm Sunday so many years ago. I’m sure all of us picture the event of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. That’s what we’re going to discuss today. We’re going to examine the symbolism in what took place and more importantly the prophecies fulfilled.

There are a combine total of 89 chapters in the four gospels. There are some events in Jesus’ life that not all of the gospels cover, but all of them cover Jesus’ last week. And 29 out of the 89 chapters between the four gospels, cover Jesus’ last week. Jesus’ is believed to die around 32. So out of Jesus’ 32 years of life on earth, one third of the gospels is dedicated to the last week of His life. That shows how important it is.

[Body]

Mark 11:1–11 NLT

1 As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. 2 “Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ just say, ‘The Lord needs it and will return it soon.’ ” 4 The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door. 5 As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They said what Jesus had told them to say, and they were permitted to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it. 8 Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David! Praise God in highest heaven!” 11 So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon. Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.

Now in the first couple verses, it makes it sound like Jesus commanded his disciples to go steal a donkey. Obviously stealing is wrong. And as Jesus was without sin, we know he was not telling his disciples to steal. First of all, in verse 3 you can read at the end they are only borrowing. They’re going to bring it back.

Secondly, in those days a king had the right to take any beasts of burden. Which just means any animal to be used for carrying something or to ride upon. Jesus as the true King was only exercising his right in this situation.

Also one important note about the donkey, Jesus says it must be one that has never been ridden. The reason is one of the other traditions in this time was a horse or donkey that was used by the king was to never be used by anyone else. So it is appropriate for the donkey to never been ridden by anyone else. This is another example of Jesus’ kingship.

Now in verse 3 when Jesus tells them to say the “the Lord needs it”, the term here used for “the Lord” can have many different meanings. It can technically refer to someone as “sir”, “master”, or the “Sovereign one”. Obviously those have different levels of authority. We don’t know exactly what term Jesus was referring to, but we can assume he meant it in the way as the Sovereign one. He is the Anointed one, King of the Jews.

Verses 4-7 you see the plan go exactly as planned, they find the donkey, untie it, tell the people asking what they’re doing exactly what Jesus told them to say, and they are allowed to take it. They bring the donkey to Jesus and now they’re ready to head towards Jerusalem, the Holy City.

Before moving on, let’s evaluate why does Jesus choose a donkey? Why not something much more glamorous like a mighty horse as you’d likely see many Kings ride around on. There are multiple reasons. One common thing that would probably come to mind is humility. Jesus is not trying to act physically powerful.

There is also an important form of symbolism going on and a prophecy being fulfilled.

First of all, the symbolism:

When a king would come riding into a city, riding on a donkey would be a way of showing and saying you are coming in peace. Horses were used for wartime. Now a lot of times Jesus often gets portrayed as being all soft and nice because he’s Jesus and loves everyone. If you study the Bible you’ll realize it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. God is merciful, but he is just. And when you read the book of Revelation, Jesus is not riding on a donkey then. He is on a white horse. Completely different times.

During much of Jesus’ ministry he had to tell people to be quiet and not spread news about the good that he had done when performing miracles. Because it wasn’t time yet. Now, it is time for everyone to know who He is. He’s presenting himself as the Messiah publicly to all, the one who offers salvation and who is the prince of peace.

Now let’s look at the prophecy. This comes from Zachariah 9:9

Zechariah 9:9 NLT

9 Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt.

If you didn’t know that Jesus riding on a donkey was prophecy being fulfilled, don’t worry, Jesus’ own disciples didn’t catch it at first either.

If you read John chapter 12, which we won’t go to today, but that’s where John gives his description of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. And after writing about what happened and referring to the prophecy, he writes that the disciples didn’t understand what was actually being fulfilled at the time. They didn’t realize it until later when Jesus had already been killed and resurrected. I found that oddly comforting that even His disciples could miss something as important as that right in front of them.

As we move on to verses 8-10, we have a few things to examine here.

Let’s look at people laying down their garments and branches on the path for Jesus. This has roots in 2 Kings. Israel had some good kings in their past, but they also had some really bad ones. One of the bad ones was King Ahab. During that time the Prophet Elisha had a younger Prophet go and anoint a man by the name of Jehu as the new king to replace Ahab. When this happened the people welcomed him as king in a similar fashion as he came to take his position.

2 Kings 9:13 NLT

13 Then they quickly spread out their cloaks on the bare steps and blew the ram’s horn, shouting, “Jehu is king!”

So you see the same royal treatment happening here with the garments being placed at the feet of the king.

Let’s move on to the praising given. Where people were saying “Hosana”. What Hosana means in the Hebrew language is “save us, now.” “Deliver us, now.” And the people are likely referencing Psalm 118:25-26.

Psalm 118:25–26 NLT

25 Please, Lord, please save us. Please, Lord, please give us success. 26 Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

When the people were giving him praise, there’s a good chance they still didn’t understand who he truly was in terms of what he was coming to do. Many of them saying “save us, now” were likely hoping for physical relief from Rome. Which was a very common belief among the Jews in that day what the Messiah was coming to do was conquer the physical world. But we know Jesus came to provide something infinitely more valuable than physical relief.

There were many people in Jerusalem at this time, because they were coming to celebrate the Passover. They had this celebration to remember when God sent the plagues upon Egypt to free His people and whenever the plagues came God passed over all who had the blood of a lamb at their doorway. So none of Jews were affected by the plagues. For this celebration every family would need a sacrificial lamb. Each family was to select an unblemished lamb to be sacrificed. They would do this on the tenth day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar. On the 14th day they would sacrifice the lamb.

Now, the day that Jesus would have ridden into Jerusalem would have been on the tenth day of Nisan. And we know this was the date because it’s mentioned in John chapter 12. So now we can look back and see that symbolism, the exact day when all would select their unblemished lamb to be sacrificed was the day that Jesus came intro Jerusalem and was presenting himself as the Messiah, who was the unblemished lamb of God.

One other extraordinary prophecy I want to mention is from Daniel. Now based on other scriptures people have come to the conclusion that Jesus likely died around 32 or 33.

Let’s take a look at Daniel 9:25

Daniel 9:25 NLT

25 Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times.

This prophecy is given to Daniel from the angel Gabriel. Now first of all, those numbers at the beginning probably sounded confusing. What does Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven even mean? A set of seven here is referring to 7 years. So 7 sets + 62 sets is 69 sets of seven years. 69 * 7 is 483. So in this prophecy we are told from the time that Jerusalem is rebuilt to the time the Anointed One comes will be 483 years.

Now there’s actually multiple prophecies going on. Jerusalem had been destroyed by Babylon. When the angel Gabriel says that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, he’s talking about a future date. Jerusalem being rebuilt is one prophecy. But another is that when the rebuilding of Jerusalem does start taking place, that’s the start of the counter until the Anointed one comes.

What’s also interesting is Daniel knows from Jeremiah’s prophecies that the Jews are about to be freed from the captivity of Babylon. So he’s looking forward to seeing fulfilled prophecy and then he’s given new prophecies as well. So there’s a lot going on here.

But the point is we can read about the fulfilled prophecy of Jerusalem being rebuilt in Nehemiah chapter 2. And we are given a time frame for when this happened. It was around 444 BC or 445 BC. For this example we’ll say it was 444 BC.

So we have our starting point, 444 BC, and 483 years from then should be when Jesus is presented as the Messiah, the Anointed One. Now the amount of days in a calendar year will depend on which type of calendar is being used. There have been many different ones used by different groups of people. So it’s not easy to calculate. We can’t take 483 years as we typically view years, which is from the gregorian calendar. Thankfully, many other people way smarter than myself have handled this calculation. They first broke the 483 years from the calendar that would have been used then and broke it down into days, which calculates to 173, 880 days.

If you take 173, 880 days from the exact day given in Nehemiah in the year 444 BC, you come to exactly April 6th 32 AD. What day do you think that is on the Jewish calendar? The 10th day of the month of Nisan. The Bible is inerrant. It is a historical document that is pointing us to the greatest gift we can ever receive.