Passover and Festival of Unleavened Bread
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 12 viewsNotes
Transcript
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday
28 After He had said these things, He was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
29 When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples,
30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.
31 “If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ”
32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them.
33 As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 They said, “The Lord has need of it.”
35 They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it.
36 As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road.
37 As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen,
38 shouting:
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord;
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
40 But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,
42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.
43 “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side,
44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
45 Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling,
46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.”
47 And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him,
48 and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.
Palm Sunday is not a Jewish Festival or tradition. Palm Sunday is a Christian tradition that marks the beginning of Passion Week. In my studies trying to look at Palm Sunday, Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread and taking into account that the Jewish day begins at sundown and their calendar does not correspond with our Georgian calendar . It get’s quite confusing and has brought many questions to my mind which I will not cover today, because my brain hurts.
There are several prophecies fulfilled in the passages I just read and we will look at those in a bit.
Let’s set the stage: Jesus, the twelve and other disciples traveled from Jericho where he just met Zaccheus the tax collector (Luke 19:5) and he healed Bartimaeus (restored his sight, Mark 10:46). They were making their way to Jerusalem. This trek is approximately 18 miles, not to hard of a days journey if it was flat. But, Jericho is approximately 856 feet below sea level and Jerusalem is approximately 2,500 feet above sea level. Which is probably why Jesus and the twelve disciples stopped in Bethany and had dinner with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. This is also the time that Mary anoints Jesus with a pound of costly perfume (John 12:1-3)
Now, let’s pickup Luke’s account starting in verse 29.
29 When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. 31 “If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them.
33 As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord has need of it.”
35 They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it.
Just look at the Divinity of Christ in the following passages.
He just told two disciples, we do not know which two, as there were many disciples following him from Jericho and more joined in Bethany. You have to track this account across the Synoptic Gospels and John. “Go into town, you will find a colt, that no one has ridden, if the owner asks what are you doing, tell him the Lord needs it.” And it happened just like He said.
Would this not be a WOW moment!!!!
This act will initiates the fulfillment of several prophecies.
That the Messiah, the King of Israel would enter Jerusalem on a donkey.
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Symbolism of the donkey.
Donkeys were often associated with peace and humility, unlike warhorses which were symbols of power and might.
By riding a donkey, Jesus demonstrated his peaceful and humble nature, contrasting with the expectations of a military Messiah.
The donkey also symbolized the arrival of a king who would bring salvation, not through force, but through love and sacrifice
2. Isaiah 62:11
11 Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes; Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”
The Savior comes into Jerusalem. His salvation is not only to the Jew, but to the gentile as well. “Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth” This proclamation is for everyone! He comes with rewards to to bestow upon his disciples, that is us! He does it according to our deeds.
Revelation 22:12 is a reference to these rewards.
12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
3. Jesus will be our perfect sacrificial lamb. Jesus entered Jerusalem the day before the unblemished lamb was to be chosen for the Passover meal.
3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. 4 ‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.
5 ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 ‘You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
Not only was Jesus our sacrificial lamb, he was our scapegoat. This relates to the “Day of Atonement” for the Israelite. You can reference Leviticus 16 for more information. Basically
The New Testament teaches us that Jesus was both the Passover sacrifice and the scapegoat. Now the scapegoat was an animal that was taken to the Temple, and following a ceremony, the priests would symbolically transfer the sins of the people to the head of the goat. And the goat would be taken outside of the city to the east to the wilderness to die and in that way, show the people that the sins of the people had been carried away. They had been taken away out into the desert and they would not any longer interfere with the relationship between God and the people.
So the Book of Hebrews says, Jesus is our scapegoat. He's taken outside of the city wall, and he's taken outside to die. And in that sense, God is illustrating to us that our sins too have been completely removed. They're no longer effecting our relationship with God.
Jesus takes on the role of the High Priest:
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
Isaiah prophesied about this:
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
And Paul backs it up!
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And then the Lord who has been given all authority sits on a donkey that has not been broken.
35 They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it.
37 As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen,
38 shouting: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord;
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
Take a look at this. This crowd was silent until they were just outside the City Gate of Jerusalem. This crowd more than likely were not the inhabitants of the city. This crowd was the one that had been following Jesus since He left Jericho.
I want to point out a few things.
Remember I said the crowd is silent.
Luke's account leaves out the palm branches or leafy branches, or branches cut from trees as described in Matthew, Mark and John.
Luke also leaves out “Hosanna”.
I found #2 and #3 to be curious. In my research most scholars agree that it was because Luke was writing to a mainly Greek audience.
13 took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”
9 Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:
“Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!”
9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”
I want to try and paint you a picture of this scene.
Let’s start with a little history.
The Passover season was the season of freedom. It was the season that Jewish people celebrated their being liberated from their imprisonment and their bondage in Egypt.
That made it a time when incidents occurred often. Josephus records incidents right here on the Mount of Olives where someone would come, declare himself to be Messiah, and on Passover season, would come into the city and cause a riot or a stir, resulting in the Roman garrison coming down out of the Antonia and a slaughter occurred.
It may be surprising to learn that the palm branches of “Palm Sunday” had a political and not a religious meaning. The celebratory “Hosanna,” too, was a political, not a religious, cry.
Palm branches had been a symbol of freedom from tyranny and defiance to unjust rule ever since Simon Maccabeus, a leader of the Maccabean rebellion defeated the Greek army and expelled them from Jerusalem and entered Jerusalem with the people waving palm branches.
So, the fact that the people run to cut palm branches tells us that they are hoping in the messianic claim. They want Jesus to be the Messiah. They want him to take control, to crush the Romans, to liberate the city, to regain independence.
But Hosanna was a political statement more than a religious one. Hosanna meant, "Deliver me. Give me my freedom." So here are these crowds chanting to Jesus not Hosanna - "This is the Son of God who came to die for our sins." But rather, "We're sick of these Romans. Hosanna. Save us! Deliver us. Give us our freedom." And that was about as political as it gets.
At times I think the church in America is a bit like the Jewish people at the time of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. They focused, they wanted a political savior, a conqueror. We at times can focus on the political nature of the church, putting our hope and trust in earthly leaders vs the promises and commandments of God and His Son!
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
You see the Pharisees understood the political nature of the chanting and the waving of the palm branches. They feared a reprisal from the Romans, they may have thought the Roman Garrison may attack us, this is an uprising, or that they themselves could be punished for supposedly supporting an uprising.
40 But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
I found this to be very interesting. I have no doubt that nature itself would have cried out praising Jesus, just prior to be chosen as the the sacrificial lamb if the people had been silent the whole way. But, I wonder if Jesus is talking about the stones on the ground or the graves that they were passing by. You see just outside the city gates near the Mount of Olives there is a graveyard. When Jesus mentions stones is he speaking of the people in the graves marked by gravestones.
41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,
42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.
43 “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side,
44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Do you remember what I said earlier about the Jewish people? Their focus was on a political leader and not the sacrificial lamb that removes the sin of the world.
Here we see Jesus weeping. The Greek word for weeping means to sob quietly without any sound. The other time we read about Jesus weeping is just prior to raising Lazarus from the grave.
Now why did Jesus weep? Maybe he looked out here and he knew some people would believe in God and some didn't. So he wept that people weren't saved or born again. But I don't think that's the focus at all. I think Jesus came here and he looked at those crowds and he heard the hosannas and he saw the palm branches. And he looked into the future and he knew that if they looked for peace in that direction what was going to happen right down here. And he cried out loud that people sought peace in that way. That's not where it is.
You may be asking “what direction?” The direction of a earthly political leaders and the earthly desires of the people vs the promises and commandments of God. Again more prophecy that was fulfilled. Approximately 40 years after the resurrection of Christ the Jewish people rebelled against Rome in Jerusalem and because of that rebellion, the Romans totally destroyed the temple, burned Jerusalem to the ground and over 1 million Jews perished in this revolt.
I think there are times that Jesus weeps over his church for the very same reasons.
45 Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.”
This is another interesting verse. I always thought this pertained to the sellers price gouging the Jewish people and it could have been. But, I don’t think so now. Ray Vander Laan, one of the teachers from my New Testament study has a different point of view.
First let’s look at the buying, selling and money changers. Just trying to look at it from a different perspective. This is my analogy.
How convenient would it be to go straight to the Temple or very near the temple to buy what you needed for the sacrifice and to exchange your currency for the half-shekel temple coin?
a large majority of people were from out of town, they may not have know there way around town.
Do you pay more at the convenience store than the grocery store?
Do you know that when you exchange a foreign currency for another currency there is a fee charged?
Ray Vander Laan point s out the following:
