Selecting The Lamb

The lesson of Palm Sunday is the enduring victory over despair and the oppressive circumstances that cause it, even when matters seem to take a turn for the worse.

Despair occurs when our will to live is broken. It is the loss of all hope, and the attitude of defeat. It can be caused by any number of circumstances: an illness that has afflicted your body or mind or that of someone you care about; a tragic occurrence that has taken the life of someone you love; a loss of something valuable, like a job, a cherished possession, your reputation, or an opportunity; a financial crisis; a family crisis; a setback of some type in a goal you were pursuing. But on Palm Sunday, we hear the message that a victor has come to defeat that which defeats us.

This is a message with a twist, and we can only see that twist when we observe what happens by that next Sunday. Ultimately, we have to put Palm Sunday together with the following Sunday to get the full message of this day, and that full message is that the victory of Jesus is established—that this victory endures despite all appearances to the contrary. These thoughts from Kenneth Waters Sr. help drive our thoughts today as we think about Palm Sunday.

The timing of this is indicated by another gospel witness.

John 12:1 NASB95

Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

Six days before Passover.

John 12:12 NASB95

On the next day the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

On the next day, that is five days before Passover, which would be the first day of the week, or Sunday by our calendar. Based upon the text from Daniel 9:25-26, we have more information.

Daniel 9:25–26 NASB95

“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

Every indication is that Jesus came as the “anointed One” whom Daniel said would be “cut off” after 69 “weeks” (heptads), or 173,880 days from the time of the decree to build the city wall (Nehemiah 2:1-8).

Nehemiah 2:1–8 NASB95

And it came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, that wine was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. So the king said to me, “Why is your face sad though you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What would you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. I said to the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.” Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, “How long will your journey be, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. And I said to the king, “If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go.” And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me.

This day was March 30 (our time), the final day of that prophecy, which Jesus called “your day” or the “time of your visitation,” in Luke 19:42-44.

Luke 19:42–44 NASB95

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. “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, 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.”

The selection of the disciples, 21:1-5

Verses 1-5

Where is Bethpage? on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives almost directly west of the Eastern Gate (or Golden Gate).

Jesus sent two to the village where they come to

Immediately they would find a female donkey tied there with her colt.

Jesus knew where the animals were and what type.

The disciples were to untie them and bring them to Jesus.

The disciples might have wondered, “But what if someone sees us? Asks what we are doing?” But Jesus answers their questions before they can ask them.

If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, “The Lord has need of them,” and immediately he will send them.

Matthew tells us that this was a fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9

Zechariah 9:9 NASB95

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.

The obedience of the disciples, 21:6-7

Verses 6-7

Note the obedience of the disciples to do what Jesus had commanded them. Matthew’s gospel suggests that they found everything just as Jesus had said and brought the donkey and the colt to Him.

Then they laid their coats on the backs of the animals (probably the two who had brought the animals, from the context, but maybe more because of the plural “coats”) and Jesus then sat on them. Matthew suggests Jesus sat on the colt; the other gospel writers are very specific that it was the colt Jesus sat on.

“Hosanna to the Son of David,” 21:8

Verse 8

Preparations were being made by the crowds that were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Most (not everyone) spread their coats out in the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees, spreading them across the road.

The spreading of garments and palm branches on the road marks the festive acknowledgement of Jesus’s kingship (cf. 1 Kings 1:32–40; 2 Kings 9:13; 1 Macc. 5:45–54; 13:51; 2 Macc. 10:7). The crowd’s excited shouts echo Ps. 118:26.5 “‘Hosanna’ to the son of David” is literally a cry for help (“Save!”) but idiomatically expresses jubilant praise.

The crowd’s shouts, at the same time correct and incorrect, are highly ironic. They correctly describe Jesus with messianic language, but they incorrectly understand this language. They rightly quote messianic texts, but they wrongly model their Messiah after a conquering military hero. This should not be surprising, since even the disciples have not yet fully grasped this (20:26).

The gospels present the crowds both as coming along with Jesus as well as coming from Jerusalem to meet Him enroute. What a shock this must have been to the disciples, to have the crowds coming together to praise the coming of the Son of David, to join in the chorus of the people and to be carried away by the excitement of it all. So stirred up were the people that everyone wanted to know who this one they were extolling was; “Who is this?” they asked. Sadly, the excitement of the crowd is only temporary and is not in the end matched by faithful commitment to Jesus (Matt. 27:20).

The crowds responded, and note what they said about Him: “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” Jesus is described accurately yet inadequately as the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee

Matthew 2:23 NASB95

and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew 13:54, 57

Matthew 13:54 NASB95

He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?

Matthew 13:57 NASB95

And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”

Matthew 16:14 NASB95

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

It does not measure up to their previous proclamations as Jesus crested the shoulder of the Mount of Olives and headed down to the Northeast corner of Jerusalem, meeting up with the Roman road from Jericho.

The scene played out here is familiar: a conquering king parades gloriously into a city. Yet much is strange about this “triumphal” entry. The king is clothed plainly, not in military or royal splendor. He rides a young donkey, not a warhorse. He is meek, not bellicose. This combination of the trappings of power and glory with the imagery of humility sends mixed signals that perplex all Jerusalem.

But there is mystery, mercy and grace in these events. He did not come to rescue them from Roman oppression, but to redeem mankind by making the way of freedom from the bondage of sin.

The Selection of the Lamb of God

Way back in Exodus 12:2-6 is recorded God’s instructions to the Israelites in Egypt, given through Moses;

Exodus 12:2–6 NASB95

“This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. “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. ‘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. ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ‘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.

This speaks of the institution of the Passover. What I would draw your attention to is the sequence of events here. The first month is Hebrew Abib, but after the return from Babylon captivity, the Jewish people retained the Babylonian names of the month and Abib became Nisan. The 10th of Nisan is the day of choosing the lamb, or kid, for Passover. This date is the day that Jesus appears on the road heading to Jerusalem with robes and branches laid before Him and palm branches waved in the air by others.

The people are acknowledging the One without blemish as the Son of David, the unblemished Lamb He will be thoroughly examined over the days prior to Passover and then on the 14th of Nisan, some of the same crowds which extolled Him will now sing a new tune, a harsher tune: “Crucify Him!” It is at the cross that the Son of David becomes the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

What the world thought was the end of Jesus was not. The Resurrection makes all the difference. The Resurrection demonstrates that God is perfectly satisfied with the Lamb offered for atonement, and the Scriptural promise was that He would not let His Holy One see corruption.

Psalm 16:10 NASB95

For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

The resurrection demonstrated the power of God and the hope for all who place their faith in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul’s wonderful teaching in his first letter to the Corinthian church bears this out. We should rejoice that Jesus Christ was given by God to be our perfect sacrifice for sin. Think upon His goodness in the days ahead, while we travel these paths unknown to us but known to our Creator and Redeemer.