A day ago, on Saturday, Jesus and his Disciples were hiking up a Roman Road toward Jerusalem having left Perea and then Ephraim. In between leaving Old Jericho and entering New Jericho, he had been approached by Bartimaeus and another blind beggar, and he cured them, giving them eyesight.
It is not a coincidence that he does this as he is proceeding to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”. If we look all the way back in Luke 4, when Jesus first began his ministry, we find him going into a synagogue at Nazareth where he read from the scroll of Isaiah. It was a messianic text and said the Messiah was “anointed to proclaim good news to the poor, sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind” (Luke 4:8-19).
That was only the first part of Isaiah's prophesy he read before rolling up the scroll and sitting down. He did not read the next verse speaking of the year of the Lord's vengeance, which will be at his future second coming.
Now, here Jesus is toward the end of his first coming to earth and he pauses to recover the sight of these two blind men, harking back to what was proclaimed.
Actually, the wording is slightly different in various translations. In Isaiah 61:1-2, The Septuagint uses the terms, “The Blind”. The New International version (NIV) translates Isaiah this way:
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
I sort of like that “release from darkness for the prisoners…” That is part of the essence of the Lord's favor, to free us from that darkness, because we are in darkness as prisoners to our sin and until we can set our vision on Christ we remain blind to our fate.
Although the two blind beggars regained their sight, it remains obvious that those witnessing this miracle are still as blind as those in Nazareth who tried to kill Jesus. They do not understand this Messiah has come to die and still look for the warrior king coming in conquest of Rome, not the sacrificial one who comes to set the prisoners of sin free.
Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11: 1-11, Luke 19:29-44, John 12:12-19
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two
of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her, which no one has ever ridden. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them back here shortly right away.”
of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her, which no one has ever ridden. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them back here shortly right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
The prophet quoted is Zechariah and this can be found in Zechariah 9, verse 9:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The disciples who were sent ahead went and found a colt outside in the street, just as he had told them, tied at a doorway; and did as Jesus had instructed them. As they untied it, some people, its owners, standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, “The Lord needs it.” and the people let them go.
We are not given more information about the owners of this donkey and colt. Obviously, God had prearranged this somehow with them. His disciples were not just stealing it.
When they brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus, and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on, he sat on it.
As he went along a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut
branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
In ancient Rome the Palm was a symbol of triumph, and these people were looking toward the triumph of the expected Messiah over those Romans, this is the what they thought was “the coming kingdom of our father David.”
It was also a tradition in the ancient Near East to show respect to someone considered of the highest honor by covering their path with plants and clothing. This as a means of celebrating goes back long in Jewish history. In Leviticus 23, where God lays out the festival of Passover, he tells the Jews to celebrate on the first and eighth days by taking the branches of the luxuriant trees – palms, willows and other leafy trees – and rejoice.
We today commemorate these events as Palm Sunday. What weekday this fell on would depend upon what year this particular Passover was. It may have been Sunday, but I am not convinced the scritures tell us that.
In John 12:1, the Gospel says on the previous day Jesus arrived in Bethany and that was six days before Passover. If people considered that Christ died on Friday, then counted back six days they would have calculated this day as Sunday, but perhaps not.
Although the crowds were “selecting” Jesus as the warrior king on what we call Palm Sunday, there is a good chance per some scholars that the date on the Jewish calendar was Nisan 10. If so, what else fell on Nisan 10?
It would have been the day the Jews selected the lamb for the Passover Seder on Nisan 14. Our Palm Sunday may be recognizing Jesus being selected as the perfect lamb for sacrifice.
If the crowd familiarized themselves with the prophesy found in Daniel 9:25-26, they could have calculated this was a moment for their celebration, but they also didn’t understand that Daniel had predicted the death of Christ at this exact time.
“Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing [This phrase, "put to death and will have nothing" was a common euphemism for a person executed as a criminal].
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” [ This last verse may have a double meaning. In 70 AD, Rome under the Emperor Vespanion, sacked Jerusalem and tore down the Temple. Jesus told his Disciples that the Temple would suffer such a fate and not one stone would be left upon another. This has not completely come to past. The so-called Wailing Wall, the Western Wall of the Temple, considered by Jews as one of the most Holy Sites in existence still stands. It would not be surprising if in the Last Days to see this wall also fall; although at some point a new temple will be built."
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
At this point the Apostles were as blind as anyone, as hard as that is to believe. But consider what happened just prior to Jesus heading them back to Jerusalem.
Luke 18:31-34, Matthew 20:17-19, Mark 10:32-34.
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again ,on the way, Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He, the Son of Man, will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles. to be mocked and flogged and crucified. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again to life!”.”
The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them.
They were still blind, seemingly still clinging to the warrior king concept. Although they apparently began to notice things weren't going quite as expected. When jesus announced they were going to Judea because his friend Lazarus was "ill", the Apostles resisted him until "Doubting" Thomas spoke out saying, "Let's also go, and die with him."
Later as they traveled, right after Jesus explained about his approaching death, James and John, like two nervous little boys, asked their mother, Salome, wife of Zebedee, to intercede for them with Jesus, sending her to ask that they rule with him, one on his right and one on his left. He questioned their ability to do what he was going to, because he knew they didn’t know what they were really asking for. Besides, if you were doing a job interview and the applicant’s mother came to the interview instead, would you hire that applicant?
The other Apostles were angry at James and John for their audacity, but don’t think this was righteous anger. Those Apostles just wanted to be in the forefront as well.
We’ll learn in the weeks to come that none of the Apostles had the mettle for the job yet. They weren’t even able to stay awake on simple requests.
Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
No comments:
Post a Comment