Today is Palm Sunday. On this day the church has traditionally celebrated and remembered Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey before his crucifixion.
It is the Passover season, the highest of the feasts, and Jerusalem is stuffed with pilgrims. Jesus acquires a donkey, as the prophecy foretold, and enters as the Returning King. A populace welcomes him joyously, crying “Hosanna”–begging for deliverance. These are the poor and downtrodden, and they honor him with whatever they have at hand: palms cut from nearby trees, the clothes off their very backs. And this King is magnanimous enough to receive their humble adulations.
And then, as the Great High Priest, he goes to inspect the house of God, but it is leprous and must be cleansed. Imagine the scene. Imagine the commotion and noise. Imagine the authority pouring off Jesus. No one stopped him. No one interfered. Here is power and majesty. Here is one fit to sit on David’s throne.
And then he turns and heals the blind and the lame and receives the praises of children. He has no patience with sham religiosity, with the hypocrisy of the temple leaders, but he gives himself to the week and despised and small.
This is comfort and it is warning. For the fig tree that bears leaves but no fruit, there is strong warning. Matthew Henry puts it this way, “If Christ came now into many parts of his visible church, how many secret evils he would discover and cleanse! And how many things daily practised under the cloak of religion, would he show to be more suitable to a den of thieves than to a house of prayer!”
But to the contrite and lowly, to those who would call God their Father, He is abundant in mercy. He comes as conquering King, but this King, so great and mighty, has come not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Joshua Edgren – March 24, 2024
