Palm
Sunday/Sunday of the Passion
Zech
9:9-12
4/13/25
The signing ceremonies for laws and
presidential executive orders are carefully staged political events. The administration makes sure that
individuals who have ties to the issue in question are present for the
signing. The presence of these people is
meant to emphasize the importance of the matter as the president signs the
document.
The occasion when the president
signed the executive order banning biological males from competing in women’s
sports in schools was no exception. The president sat a desk on the stage. Behind him in the first row were girls in
their various sports’ uniforms. Behind
them were women who had advocated for the fact that males should not compete in
girls’ and women’s sports. So for
example, Riley Gaines was present. She had been denied a swimming national
championship because a man had finished first.
The event was carefully
scripted. And then, apparently, the
president did something spontaneous. He
said to the girls, “You know, if you like to gather around, I think it will be
ok.” As the group of girls pressed in around the president, he quipped, “The
Secret Service is worried about them?” Spontaneous or not, it produced a
memorable scene that emphasized what he was doing.
On Palm Sunday we focus on how Jesus
entered into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week. We find that he carefully staged this event
in order to make a theological point. He
did it, in order to fulfill our Old Testament text from Zechariah chapter nine. He demonstrated that he was the Messiah sent
by God to bring salvation through the humility of service and sacrifice.
The prophet Zechariah wrote in the
latter portion of the sixth century B.C. Judah had experienced the trauma of
God’s judgment when they were taken into exile in Babylon, and the temple had
been destroyed in 587 B.C. Yahweh had
promised through Jeremiah that the exile would come to an end, and that the
people would return.
There seemed little chance that this
would happen. But then, in an unexpected turn of events, Cyrus and the Persians
defeated the Babylonians. The following
year, in 538 B.C. Cyrus issued a decree that the Judahites could return to their
land and rebuild the temple.
The joy of return was soon replaced
by frustration. The foundation for the temple was laid. But then those who were not Judahites and had
inhabited the land during the exile raised opposition. They bribed Persian officials
in order to stop construction. The project was halted for around fifteen years,
and no progress was made.
God sent the prophet Zechariah to
urge the people to resume the project of building the temple. He sent the prophet to encourage the
people. Currently they were a small
group in Judah, which was province of the Persian empire. But Yahweh set forth through Zechariah the
great things that he was going to do for his people in order to give them hope.
In the verses before our text,
Yahweh had described how he would bring judgment upon the enemies of God’s
people. Now, in our text he says, “Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of
Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having
salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a
donkey.” The references to “the house of
David” in Zechariah tell us that this king is the Messiah. He is the promised
descendant of David who brings God’s end time salvation.
Jerusalem is told to rejoice because
their king is coming. He is righteous and has salvation, as you would expect of
the Messiah. Yet then, Zechariah
describes him as “humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a
donkey.” All of the descriptions of the Messiah in the Old Testament present a
mighty and victorious figure. So why is
he described here as “humble”? The donkey did have royal associations in
Israel’s past. But paired with the adjective “humble” it seems puzzling that
this figure is not mounted on a war horse.
This is all the more so, because
Yahweh says that the arrival of this king will mean the presence of peace.
There will be no more need for weapons, and he will rule over all. We read, “I will cut off the chariot from
Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut
off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from
sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
In the Gospels we learn that as
Jesus was approaching Jerusalem with other Passover pilgrims, he stopped and had
his disciples procure a donkey. Jesus
had been walking. But now he very
intentionally chose to ride into Jerusalem mounted on this animal. Matthew tells us, “This took place to
fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold,
your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a
colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
Jesus is the Messiah – the
Christ. He is the son of David. He is the king who enters into Jerusalem in a
way that fulfills the words of the prophet Zechariah. Yet he comes as the One who is humble,
and mounted on a donkey. He comes to
bring God’s saving reign, but his entrance demonstrates that he will not do
this in might and power.
The Gospels tell us that people
spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches and spread them as
well. The crowds around Jesus were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of
David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in
the highest!” They shouted out praise in
language that spoke of the coming Daividic Messiah.
But did they get it? Did they
understand who Jesus was as he rode in on the donkey? Did they understand that
he was fulfilling Zechariah’s words? The
clear answer is no. Matthew tells us, “And when
he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?’ And
the crowds said, ‘This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of
Galilee.’” Just a prophet. That is all
they saw in Jesus. And this was a rejection of Jesus and his work.
The crowds didn’t understand. And
John tells us that the disciples didn’t understand either. He says, “His disciples did not understand
these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they
remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to
him.”
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered into
Jerusalem in fulfillment of Zechariah’s words.
He came as the Messiah – the One descended from King David upon whom the
Spirit rested. He came to bring God’s
end time salvation – to bring peace.
But the manner in which Jesus
entered Jerusalem foretold the way in which he would do this. He did not come with might and power. Instead, he arrived humble and mounted on a
donkey.
Just before they entered the city,
Jesus said to the disciples, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the
Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they
will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be
raised on the third day.” Our Lord said that the trip to the city would
lead to crucifixion. The Messiah – the
son of David – would be enthroned on the cross.
The angel had told Joseph that Jesus
would “save his people from their sins.” Christ went to Jerusalem to do this
for the Jews. He went there to do this
for the Gentiles – to do this for all people. He entered Jerusalem during Holy
Week in order win forgiveness for all of the ways that we fail to love God with
all that we are; for all the ways we do not love our neighbor as
ourselves. Jesus declared that “the Son
of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many.”
Jesus went as the humble One mounted
on a donkey. He humbled himself to the
point of death – even death on a cross. But
on the third day – on Easter – God raised Jesus from the dead. In the resurrection of Christ, God has
defeated death. Jesus has been exalted
for as he told the disciples on the mountain in Galilee, “All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
God says through Zechariah in our
text this morning: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war
horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall
speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and
from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Judah did not see this in Zechariah’s day. We have not seen it in our day.
But Jesus Christ will bring this
about on the Last Day. He will because
he is the risen and ascended Lord who has been exalted to God’s right
hand. The Lord has promised that he will
return in glory. When he does, he will
bring eternal peace. He will bring a
peace that is not only for the nations, but for creation itself as the words of
Isaiah about the Messiah are fulfilled: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion
and the fattened calf together.”
He will raise our bodies from the
dead and transform them to be like his resurrected body. He will be seated on the throne as he
pronounces the final judgment. His rule
will encompass all of creation. No
longer will there be anything humble about him, but instead at his name every
knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every
tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.”
In our text this morning, God says
through Zechariah, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O
daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous
and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the
foal of a donkey.” On Palm Sunday Jesus
fulfilled these words. He entered Jerusalem as the Messiah who was humble and
mounted on a donkey. In humility, he
offered himself into the suffering and death of the cross to save us. Risen
from the dead and exalted by God, he will return in glory on the Last Day to
give us victory … and there will be nothing humble about him.
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