- 3. I think I would have given up on them but Jesus doesn't. It really is marvelous in my eyes. Is this marvelous to you? In that Jesus doesn't run away to find a people who understand him perfectly?
- How will this large crowd respond to the news that Jesus is coming to the feast?
- 1. It says in verse 13 that they took palm branches and went out to meet him.
- a. Palm branches had long been used at the feast of tabernacles. This feast was celebrated each year for the purpose of remembering Israel's wilderness wanderings. As they wandered around the wilderness for 40 years, they lived in tents and their worship of the LORD was also in this mobile tent/tabernacle.
- b. Wehave celebrated this feast in order to understand what these Jewish families would have done and how it helped them remember the wilderness wanderings.
- c. So, instead of living in their house for a week, they would make these tents with palm branches to live in. It was a huge feast celebrating that God had given them the promised land, houses, inheritance, cities, and vineyards! They had none of these things in the wilderness.
- d. There's some history of how the palm branches become signs of victory in the Maccabean wars. But I think we can conclude something very similar without that history.
- e. I mean, it's not too hard to see how they would have taken the palm branches they would have used for their makeshift tents and waved them as signs of victory when Messiah comes to Jerusalem!
- f. NO MORE TENTS!!! Our King has come! He will deliver us from our enemies who had taken our land, our vineyards, our city. He will fight our battles for us. He will win, right? I mean, this man has so much power that he can raise the dead!
- So, the large crowd in Jerusalem doesn't turn him in but rather comes out to greet Jesus waving their palm branches in victory! And if that were not enough, the large crowd is crying out, 'Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.' Let me reread that with Hosanna translated. Deliver us, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.
- 1. Wow! Not only are they claiming victory with the palm branches, they take up this Hallel praise from Psalm 118 and claim Jesus as King of Israel.
- a. If you were to read through this section of Hallel Psalms which are 113-118, you hear this repeated theme that the LORD's steadfast love endures forever.
- b. 113 is a psalm thanking 'God for his gracious care for his people…by choosing a leader and raising him out of the humblest circumstances.' (Sailhamer 341)
- c. 114 recalls how the Lord saved them from bondage in Egypt and then carried them to the Promised Land and 'the establishment of the temple in Jerusalem' (Sailhamer 341).
- d. 115 seems to acknowledge that their Land is still full of the idols of the nations. I can't help but think that Rome had their idols all throughout Israel, even in Jerusalem. Yet, his people know that God is their help and shield. They say in this psalm that the LORD has remembered them and will bless them.
- e. Yet, in 116 they find themselves in a danger. They acknowledge the failure of many in the past but their FUTURE hope is in the Lord their God who would keep his promise of sending the Messiah from the house of David.
- f. Yet, the scope of that promise spelled out in 117 is not just Israel but all nations!!! Indeed, was this not the promise of the seed of Abraham in whom he