HG128b Pt2 Matthew 21:1-11, 14-17, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-44, John 12:12-19
In all of this we observe Jesus’ painstaking premeditation. He had carefully ordered everything. The day and hour were selected from eternity with countdown perfection. This Triumphal Entry on the first day of the week would precipitate his terrible death on Good Friday, his “rest” in the grave on the Sabbath, and his triumphant resurrection on the following first day
He was purposely going public. Never before had he done anything to promote a public demonstration. In fact, he had repeatedly withdrawn from the crowds if there was any hint of this. But now he invited it. He courted danger and did it with calculated purpose.
What an honored beast that animal was:
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
The palm branches represented their nationalistic desire to be delivered, for when Simon Maccabaeus delivered Jerusalem 150 years earlier, it was celebrated with praise, palm branches, and musical instruments (1 Maccabees 13:51). The palm frond was the symbol of the Second Maccabean Revolt.
The people were prophetically repeating over and over and over that Jesus was their deliverer: “Save us! … Save us! … Save us!”
By prophetic vision, the Lord saw the proud, unrepentant Holy City reduced to a pile of rubble wet with the blood of his people. Forty years later this all came true under Titus’ Roman legions. The Jews’ resistance was so fierce that Titus finally ordered his besieging legions to encircle the walls of Jerusalem with a barricade and starve them out. The resulting famine made Jerusalem a graveyard, and finally when the Jews lacked the strength to bury their dead they cast them over the walls into the surrounding ravines