Background on Palm Sunday
Potential avenues for discussion:
The entry into Jerusalem mirrors a post-exilic prophecy welcoming a king.
The prophet Zechariah, who prophesied in the decades following the end of the Babylonian Exile in 539 BCE, wrote during one of the most hopeful periods in Israel’s history. After spending a generation in exile, the people were given another chance to restart and rebuild their former home. In part of an extended prophecy on the coming future ruler of God’s people, Zechariah 9:9 states “Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey; on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem fulfills this prophecy, but more importantly points to him as the coming ruler of God’s people that Zechariah wrote of. (Funny side note: the repetition of ideas using different terminology is extremely common in Hebrew poetry, such as “donkey… colt”, but Matthew interprets Zechariah literally and has Jesus enter Jerusalem with both a donkey and a colt. It is the only Gospel to do so.)
Why were people so excited to welcome Jesus, but then changed their mind?
It is a confusing thing for both kids and adults that the people of Jerusalem seem to turn on Jesus so quickly, but there are a few factors that likely led to the sudden change in perception. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels, the first thing that Jesus does upon entering into Jerusalem is to head to the Temple and throw out the money changers and overturn the tables of all those buying and selling there. This significantly escalates the feud with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and it also likely led to Jesus being known as a rabble-rouser/instigator. Several of Jesus’ teachings and parables upon entering Jerusalem are particularly pointed as well (see Luke 20 and 21) and these may ultimately have crystalized the plan among religious leaders that led to his eventual death. So while Palm Sunday is a triumphant day, it is also marked by danger – and so we hold both those things in tension as we head into Jesus’ final earthly week.
Reflecting on the type of leader that Jesus came to be.
The thought of Jesus riding triumphantly into a city seems to be at odds with what we know about the humility that he usually carried himself with – but delving into some of the details of this entry make clear that Jesus’ entry was displaying himself as a different type of leader/king. Regardless of whether Jesus rode on a donkey or a colt, the animal that Jesus chose was both humble and connected to the prophecy of a just ruler from God – placing him at odds with the way that emperors and kings typically rode into cities on war-horses and with much pomp and circumstance. Jesus undercutting this royal imagery, while also embracing the prophecy of being this ruler sent by God, would have been a dramatic statement against the power of Rome – but also a continued expansion of the “last being first and the first being last” theme that characterizes much of Jesus’ preaching and teaching in Luke and the other Gospels.
Digging Deeper:
What was the significance of the palm branches?
Although the Gospel of Luke doesn’t actually say anything about people waving palm branches – only laying their cloaks on the road! – the use of palm branches has been synonymous with this Sunday for centuries. The Gospel of John is the only one to specifically name “branches of palm” (Matthew and Mark refer to branches), but the scene mirrors the reception given to the King of Judah in the post-united monarchy time (see 2 Kings 9:13).
However, the peoples’ specific use of palm branches to line the streets comes from the Jewish festival of Sukkot (or, Festival of the Booths) – a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem in which temporary dwellings are built as a reminder of the wandering in the wilderness, and there is also a waving of four specific types of plants (one of which is a palm frond) in the streets – and the words “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” come from Psalm 118, which also was used during the Festival of the Booths. However, while this festival remembered the Exodus journey, it also traditionally marked the end of the harvest season – perhaps serving as a subtle allusion to Jesus’ time on earth coming to an end.
The entry into Jerusalem mirrors a post-exilic prophecy welcoming a king.
The prophet Zechariah, who prophesied in the decades following the end of the Babylonian Exile in 539 BCE, wrote during one of the most hopeful periods in Israel’s history. After spending a generation in exile, the people were given another chance to restart and rebuild their former home. In part of an extended prophecy on the coming future ruler of God’s people, Zechariah 9:9 states “Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey; on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem fulfills this prophecy, but more importantly points to him as the coming ruler of God’s people that Zechariah wrote of. (Funny side note: the repetition of ideas using different terminology is extremely common in Hebrew poetry, such as “donkey… colt”, but Matthew interprets Zechariah literally and has Jesus enter Jerusalem with both a donkey and a colt. It is the only Gospel to do so.)
Why were people so excited to welcome Jesus, but then changed their mind?
It is a confusing thing for both kids and adults that the people of Jerusalem seem to turn on Jesus so quickly, but there are a few factors that likely led to the sudden change in perception. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels, the first thing that Jesus does upon entering into Jerusalem is to head to the Temple and throw out the money changers and overturn the tables of all those buying and selling there. This significantly escalates the feud with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and it also likely led to Jesus being known as a rabble-rouser/instigator. Several of Jesus’ teachings and parables upon entering Jerusalem are particularly pointed as well (see Luke 20 and 21) and these may ultimately have crystalized the plan among religious leaders that led to his eventual death. So while Palm Sunday is a triumphant day, it is also marked by danger – and so we hold both those things in tension as we head into Jesus’ final earthly week.
Reflecting on the type of leader that Jesus came to be.
The thought of Jesus riding triumphantly into a city seems to be at odds with what we know about the humility that he usually carried himself with – but delving into some of the details of this entry make clear that Jesus’ entry was displaying himself as a different type of leader/king. Regardless of whether Jesus rode on a donkey or a colt, the animal that Jesus chose was both humble and connected to the prophecy of a just ruler from God – placing him at odds with the way that emperors and kings typically rode into cities on war-horses and with much pomp and circumstance. Jesus undercutting this royal imagery, while also embracing the prophecy of being this ruler sent by God, would have been a dramatic statement against the power of Rome – but also a continued expansion of the “last being first and the first being last” theme that characterizes much of Jesus’ preaching and teaching in Luke and the other Gospels.
Digging Deeper:
What was the significance of the palm branches?
Although the Gospel of Luke doesn’t actually say anything about people waving palm branches – only laying their cloaks on the road! – the use of palm branches has been synonymous with this Sunday for centuries. The Gospel of John is the only one to specifically name “branches of palm” (Matthew and Mark refer to branches), but the scene mirrors the reception given to the King of Judah in the post-united monarchy time (see 2 Kings 9:13).
However, the peoples’ specific use of palm branches to line the streets comes from the Jewish festival of Sukkot (or, Festival of the Booths) – a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem in which temporary dwellings are built as a reminder of the wandering in the wilderness, and there is also a waving of four specific types of plants (one of which is a palm frond) in the streets – and the words “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” come from Psalm 118, which also was used during the Festival of the Booths. However, while this festival remembered the Exodus journey, it also traditionally marked the end of the harvest season – perhaps serving as a subtle allusion to Jesus’ time on earth coming to an end.