Matthew 21:1-11 Mark 11:1-10 Luke 19:28-44 John 12:12-19
MEMORY VERSE(S)
Mark 11:9 Psalm 118:26
OBJECTIVES
Children will:
Older students will locate the stories in their Bibles; Younger students will learn that the story is in the New Testament in the Gospels.
Know that Jesus came to Jerusalem along with thousands of others to celebrate the Jewish Passover.
Learn that Palm Sunday remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem just a few days before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. This story begins the events of Holy Week.
Discover that Jesus’ entry on a donkey signified that he was a humble, peaceful Messiah, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy.
Understand the meaning of the word Hosanna; the people expected a king to save them. Yet the crowd misunderstood what sort of Messiah Jesus was.
ROOTS OF OUR PALM SUNDAY TRADITION
Our Palm Sunday tradition has some very deep roots. The celebration began way back when Christians finally stopped being fed to lions. The Easter Book as quoted on the Catholic Culture Web explains: “As soon as the Church obtained her freedom in the fourth century, the faithful in Jerusalem re-enacted the solemn entry of Christ into their city on the Sunday before Easter… (Weiser).” At first people just waved olive branches overhead and sang Hosannas. It wasn’t until the eighth century that palm branches were introduced. The tradition continued to evolve. During the middle ages some communities included a rolling wooden statue of Christ riding the donkey in their parade. They would station a boys’ choir atop the city gates, then when ‘Jesus’ entered the choir would burst into song. This tradition is great theatre and has shaped people’s view of this Bible story for a long time. Going deeper into the historical roots of the story takes more exploration.
PLACING THE STORY IN IT’S TIME
The original story took place against the backdrop of Jerusalem preparing for Passover. The book, Judaism: Practice & Belief 63 BCE-66 CE tells us, “Since the feast embodied the theme of national liberation, it is not surprising that it was sometimes an occasion when unrest at Israel’s current state led to riot (Sanders138).” The Romans knew this and stationed extra soldiers at this time of year. Families too, would already have started arriving for the festival even though our story happened five days before the feast. Many people had to come early because they had been near a corpse during the year. This caused “corpse impurity’ which required a week long purification ritual before entering the temple to sacrifice their lamb. The city was filling up and beginning to overflow with over 30,000 sacrificial lambs, and well over ten times that many people (Sanders). It was a great event. It was also a time of hope and expectation. Perhaps this would be the year the Messiah would come and free Jerusalem! Excited, and exciting, this was Jerusalem at Passover. Now, insert the man from the backcountry of Galilee who performed miracles and taught with great authority into this picture.
THE SCRIPTURE
Considering the Gospel accounts, there are two aspects of the story that are basically the same in all four. They are Jesus riding a donkey toward Jerusalem and the words of the people. Both can be traced to the Old Testament. The presence of a donkey colt fulfills a prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9. The words of the people are from Psalm 118:25-26. The verse just before the Old Testament memory verse, Psalm 118:25, is actually very similar to the New Testament memory verse.
THE MEMORY VERSE: Mark 11:9
“Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
The words “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” are a small part of a set of praise psalms called the Hallel which includes all of Psalms 113-118. Memorizing all of these Psalms was one of the first tasks Jewish boy’s had to master in school (Barclay 116). During the Feast of Tabernacles, everyone marched around the altar daily for a week carrying branches and singing Psalm118 (Sanders, Barclay 116). It was actually spoken in parts, sort of like a responsive reading (Coakley). There was also a history of using Psalm 118:25-26 to welcome a conquering hero into Jerusalem (Sanders). Basically the Hallel is used on joyous occasions (Judaism 101). The words that surrounded Jesus as he rode the donkey to Jerusalem would have been very familiar to everyone present. At the same time this was the event so incredibly wonderful that even the rocks would have cried out if the people hadn’t.
HOSANNA
Hosanna is hard to find in Psalm 118:25 because the Hebrew word yasha was translated as “save” and the word na was translated “now I beseech” (Strongs) in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the word Hosanna is a transliteration of two Hebrew words, yasha and na. The Greek New Testament sounded out the Hebrew word with Greek characters. This process continued into our English versions, and sort of like the game of gossip the sound changed a little with each transliteration, until it became Hosanna!
BLESSED
A Word of Thanksgiving, or praise (Strong’s).
THE ONE WHO COMES
The one who comes is used like a title. It was probably understood as a term for the Messiah (Coakley). The hope and longing of all the people of Israel was fulfilled at last!
IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
A name didn’t just represent the one named. It was the essence of the one named. “He who comes” was the “the one” anointed with the Lord’s power and authority.
MORE ON PSALM 118
Psalm 118:22 is often regarded as a prophetic reference to Jesus Christ. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”
Psalm 118:27 is interesting to think about in the context of Jesus being given such a joyous welcome into Jerusalem the week before his crucifixion. “The Lord is God, shining upon us. Bring forward the sacrifice and put it on the altar (NLT).” This verse just doesn’t fit well with the joy of the crowds. But it sure fits the larger story!
THE PROPHECY
One only has to look as far as Zechariah 9:9 to come up with a more traditional interpretation. The passage in Zechariah says: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The interpretation goes something like this: Jesus showed that he was a humble King by riding in on a donkey; He was a King with no need of a warhorse because the conquest was complete. This verse comes from a prophecy in Zechariah which, taken as a whole, doesn’t sound all that humble and peaceful. Verse 9:13 is a good example. It says: “For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior’s sword.”
If the disciples were familiar with Zechariah’s prophecy it might explain one passage just after our Palm Sunday story. In John it seemed like a big deal to the disciples that some Greeks wanted to worship Jesus. When they told Jesus about the Greeks part, the Lord’s response was “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” If the Disciples were looking for the Messiah to be a warrior King as David was, then they must have been confused by this answer. The tradition they understood just didn’t fit!
SCRIPTURAL CONTEXT
Fitting the story of Palm Sunday into its scriptural context can be a challenge. The texts that precede the story vary. Each Gospel leads into the story with stories of miraculous events, except Luke. In John Lazarus is raised from the dead. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus seems to have a lot to say about the first being last and he who wants to be king should be servant of all. Then Jesus heals a blind man, but it is only Mark who includes Jesus saying that it is the blind man’s faith that healed him. Matthew, Mark, and Luke talk about how the donkey was acquired. This seems to give the story miraculous underpinnings which may help to separate the story from its original culture.
People have, of course, come up with explanations for the donkey that don’t include a miracle. A few are included here because in some ways they may enhance the relevance of the story. Ched Myers theorized that Jesus recognized in advance that he would need a donkey to stage a sort of street theater. In this scenario he simply arranged for the donkey on a previous trip to Jerusalem. J. F. Coakley, Senior Lecturer on Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, arrived at a different hypothesis. After a careful and detailed analysis he concluded that the disciples may have found the donkey on their own and put Jesus on it.
Either of these theories allows the scene a familiar kind of ambiguity. The people then, as now, had a choice about how to understand God. They chose an understanding that required God to send them a Messiah who behaved as they wanted. This understanding clouded their vision. They could not recognize that their salvation had come in the form of a lamb instead of a lion. The Messiah turned out to be the one we all need, instead of the one who was wanted.
With this in mind, there is, I think, a sadness that resonates through all of the Gospel passages following this story. Luke describes Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Matthew and Mark have the withering fig tree. Telford explains this as a metaphor. “Binding the Strong Man” quotes Telford as saying: “In Rabbinic imagery and symbolism…the good fig is the godly man, or collectively God’s righteous people, and the search for figs a picture of Israel’s God, seeking out those who are his own…(298).” And finally, the story in John may show that the disciples were just not on the same page as Jesus. Whatever page one chooses regarding interpreting the story of Palm Sunday there is always a lot to learn as we strive to follow Christ ourselves!
SOURCES
Barkley, William. The Gospel of John: Volume 2. New York: Westminster, 1975.
Coakley, J.F. “Jesus’ Messianic entry into Jerusalem.” Journal of Theological Studies. October 1995: 461-482.
Myers, Ched. Binding The Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. New York: Orbis, 1977.
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