John 12:12-19--The Triumphal Entry

John 12:12-19
English Standard Version

The Triumphal Entry
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
    sitting on a donkey's colt!”

16 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. 17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

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In today's passage, I think John wants to contrast the "identity crisis" facing Jesus at this point.  The people wanted a Messiah (The "Chosen One") who would be their political savior in the here and now., but Jesus knew that He had been chosen for a different and greater task.  His eyes were no on the physical kingdom, but on a spiritual kingdom.  There is a also a choice that will be made this day by the Pharisees and the rest of the Sanhedrin that will set the events of the rest of this week in motion and interestingly enough, as I mentioned at the end of yesterday's blog, this is the day that the book of Exodus commands that the Passover Lamb be selected or "chosen" (which is the other meaning that I have in today's title).

Jesus fulfills prophecy to show everyone clearly who He is, just as He has been asked to do.  The Jews have said, "Tell us clearly....." Well, you can't get much more clear than what Jesus and the people are about to do.  Remember that there is a warrant out for Jesus'' arrest and anyone with information of His whereabouts was supposed to immediately report this information to the Sanhedrin so that Jesus could be arrested and tried.

​In spite of that, Jesus makes a very public appearance.  We don't get all the details here, but that's okay as it's not John's purpose to give all the details, it's his purpose to show us who Jesus is and bring us to a point where we have to make a decision about how we are going to respond.  We'll see the various responses in tomorrow's blog, and we too will be forced to make a decision about who Jesus is and His purpose in coming into this world.  For now, let's look a bit at what is exactly going on here at the event many of us know as Palm Sunday.

One thing to note is that the word Hosanna that we say and sing so often in connection with this event literally means, "Save us, O LORD!" or "LORD, save us!"  It is like an S.O.S.  Now compare this with the name of Jesus which literally means, "The LORD Saves" or "The LORD's Salvation." His name is a form of the name Joshua and you will still hear many Messianic Jews to this day call Him Yeshua HaMashiach or simply Yeshua.  His name literally means "S


Matthew 1:21-25
English Standard Version21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

I encourage you to also read all of Psalm 118, which is what the people are singing.  Notice that it is not really a psalm about the King as it is about the salvation that the LORD will provide through His chosen sacrifice (yet even as they are singing this song, the miss its meaning).


Psalm 118:25-27
English Standard Version
​
25 Save us, we pray, O Lord!
    O Lord, we pray, give us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
    We bless you from the house of the Lord.
27 The Lord is God,
    and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
    up to the horns of the altar!

So we see the importance of the name of Jesus, and the importance of the words that the people are crying out, though they are asking for a different kind of savior and a different kind of salvation than what Jesus is there to provide.  But then what is the significance of the donkey that Jesus is riding on?  It is not just the fact that Jesus is riding on a donkey, but this particular path that Jesus is taking from the Mount of Olives into the city is the path that a king would take.  If the king were coming to make war, the king would come in riding on a horse (and we will see Jesus take this same path into Jerusalem riding on a white horse in the book of Revelation when He finally does come as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and will slay all His enemies by the word of His mouth), but if the king is coming in peace, the king would instead ride in on a donkey (or a mule as we saw in the case of King David).  This too was prophetic as we will see in the prophet Zechariah


Zechariah 9:9
English Standard Version
​
The Coming King of Zion
9 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.

This sounds like the exact event that is playing out in front of the people here and now, because it is, and while recognize it for exactly what it is, we see that this passage is clear that the disciples did not understand what was going on--though it seems that the Pharisees actually did understand what was going on.  We don't see their full conversation with Jesus here where they are mad that the people are worshiping Him and that He is accepting it, but we do see their response to each other here that we don't see in other places  They see that their efforts have been fruitless and that the whole world (their words) is going after Jesus and is going to follow Him because of the great sign that He did with the raising of Lazarus from among the dead.  Who wouldn't want to follow the guy that could bring people back from the dead and that promised them eternal life and resurrection from the dead?  Yet, even in this the people did not truly understand the sign's meaning.  In some ways the blind Pharisees saw more clearly who Jesus was than the people who were following after them because more had been revealed to them by God through the Scriptures, yet they willfully chose not to believe as this would mean that Jesus was Lord and they were not.  To confess Jesus as King and Lord would mean that they would need to set aside their pride and arrogance and their power and privilege and position and they were very happy with the system the way that it worked as it made them rich and famous and powerful (to a point, as long as they didn't upset the Roman government)..  Jesus brought instability that they didn't like as they feared that Rome would see this and punish the people though in all seriousness we will see their concern was really for themselves.

This is all that John has to say about the first day of the week that we know as Holy Week or Passion Week.  Next time we will see some very different reactions from some Gentiles (Greeks) who will believe and some Jews who will not believe.  That is really all that John will have to say about Holy Monday, and then John will skip over one of Jesus' busiest days during Holy Week (Holy Tuesday) and go straight to Holy Thursday and the Last Supper that will lead into Jesus' High Priestly Prayer, His Arrest and His Trials.  Much of the Gospel of John will focus in on this last day of Jesus' life.  We'll then see that Jesus dies on the cross at the very time that Passover Lambs would have been slain and that the way that Jesus dies should lead us to no other conclusion other than that He was the Son of God as He claimed to be, but that's not the end of the story as we will see when we get to the end of the Gospel of John.