If you come from a more traditional Christian background, you’ll likely know that next Sunday is Palm Sunday. That’s the Sunday that begins “Passion Week” or “Holy Week” as it is sometimes called – which of course is the week that leads up to the death and resurrection of Jesus. So traditionally, we would celebrate Palm Sunday next week and then Easter the week after that. However, I’m going to bump things up one week and talk about Palm Sunday today, leaving next Sunday to talk through the Last Supper – and then of course, we’ll go through the Easter story on Easter Sunday as usual.
So hopefully, that doesn’t mess up your traditional expectations too much – but there is just so much going on in that final week of the life of Christ, that I thought it might be best to spread it out a little bit.
Now as we’ve been following the life of Christ, it’s been interesting to see how all the four different Gospels vary in what parts of Christ’s life they include. In fact, there are actually very few events in the life and ministry of Jesus that are recorded in all four Gospels – but Palm Sunday (or the Triumphant Entry – as it may be labeled in your Bibles) is one of the them.
And although this event is recorded in all four Gospels – there is still quite a variety in the details that are included in each Gospel. And so today, instead of sticking with any one particular Gospel, I’m going to try to pull the details from each of them so that we can get a more complete picture of what’s going on here.
Now if you were with us last week, you’ll remember how Jesus had just raised Lazarus back to life after Lazarus had died from a severe sickness. Because of this amazing miracle, many people believed in Jesus! And I want to begin today by reading the very next verses that follow that story – because they really set things up for what is about to happen next. We actually ended with verse 45 last week in John chapter 11 – and so let’s begin with that same verse today.
45 Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.
46 But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. 48 If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”
John 11:45-48
Now this is pretty significant. In these few verses, we begin to see just how concerned the leading priest and Pharisees had become about about Jesus. Their fear was that if all the people believed that Jesus was the Messiah, that would naturally lead to a revolt against Rome. You see, in their minds (and really, in the minds of all the Jews at that time) the Messiah was going to be a political and military leader much like King David or perhaps like some of the Judges of old – and he would free them from the oppression of the Romans – who had conquered them some time earlier! That was the image of the Messiah that they had formed in their minds from all the different Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah.
However, if Jesus were not the true Messiah (and the Pharisees were certain that He was not), then, when He would undoubtedly attempt to lead a revolt against Romans – it was sure to end in disaster! The Romans had no mercy on rebels – and the religious leaders feared that the Romans would make Jerusalem pay dearly for this Jesus-led insurrection that was sure to come – destroying both the temple and their nation!
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