Bible Readings
Holy Week 1: Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem
Read Matthew 21:1–11.
On Sunday, March 29, AD 33, Jesus and His disciples went to a town at the Mount of Olives, called Bethphage.
Jesus told two of His disciples to go to the next village and bring a certain colt to Him. This colt was a young male donkey, less than four years old and another passage of the Bible said that no one had ever ridden on it.
Jesus gave very specific instructions to His disciples on how they were to recognise and find this colt. He said that upon entering the town, they would see a donkey tied next to its colt. This was the very colt that He wanted.
Why did Jesus want a colt? In Bible times, kings would normally ride horses. Horses were a symbol of war and of a conquering king. Even though Jesus is God, He chose to ride on a donkey, which signified that He was coming in peace.
Indeed, this fulfilled the prophecy given by the Old Testament prophet Zechariah. Zechariah wrote that the Jews would recognise the Messiah, God’s chosen King, because He would be riding on a colt.
The disciples brought the colt to Jesus and He sat on the animal and they made their way into Jerusalem. That day, Jerusalem was filled with people because Jews living in Galilee (in the north) and other places were coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Together with Jews living in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, there was now a huge crowd. (The Passover was one of three festivals were the Jews were instructed to celebrate in Jerusalem.)
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the ones who knew of Him cut palm branches and spread their outer garments on the road for Jesus to ride over. And the people shouted, “Praise God!” The Greek word they were shouting was “Hosanna!” It means: “Save us we pray.”
Why were they shouting for Jesus to save them? The Jews were under Roman rule at that point in history. They were not an independent people. They longed to be an independent people with their own king and their own land again, just as it was in the kingdom period in the Old Testament. (Recall that they had lost their kingdom because the nation of Israel had rebelled against Yahweh and He punished them with exile and Gentile rule.)
But a certain political party called the Zealots, whose political symbol was the palm branch, was hoping that Jesus would be the political saviour who would fight the Romans and throw off Roman rule. So they cut palm branches and welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They thought that Yahweh had sent Jesus as the political saviour and new king, who was the promised Son of David who would sit on the throne of Israel now.
Jesus was indeed Yahweh’s chosen Saviour and King for Israel, but there was something else He had come to do at this point in history. At His first coming, He came to provide a way of salvation and reconciliation to Yahweh.
In today’s reading we saw that the people wanted a human king to liberate them from Rome. In the Old Testament, we had also seen that even though it as Yahweh who led Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land of Canaan, they preferred to have a human king instead of God.
In both the Old and the New Testaments, the people were focused on earthly things that they thought a human king could give them. They were focused on the here and now.
This is not Yahweh’s perspective. While Yahweh is concerned about our earthly life, He is more concerned about mankind’s eternal destiny. What happens after life on earth ends for each person? Would they be reconciled to Him and enjoy eternal life with Him or would they be separated from Him and go into eternal death?
Yahweh sent Jesus for enteral purposes but the people only wanted Him for earthly things.
Who is Jesus to us? Do we focus on Him only because we want His help with earthly things we want or are we able to see beyond the here and now and thank Yahweh for sending Jesus so that we can be reconciled to Him for eternity?
Pray and reflect with God on who Jesus is to us.