Hi friends,
It's Ann here and I'm looking forward to diving into our journey through Holy Week. Let's start here:
Following in Jesus’ footsteps, we find ourselves in Jerusalem five days before the crucifixion. It's Sunday.
This day is described in Matthew 21:1-9, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19. And based on those four accounts, here's how it went:
Lazarus has just been raised from the dead in the most crazy miracle EVER. The disciples are mind-blown. Word is spreading like wildfire: "You know Lazarus from the next village over? He was raised from the dead!!!"
"Seriously? Seriously? How do you know?"
"He was starting to stink! That's how we know."
Side note: I have a friend who has seen someone raised from the dead in a church in South Africa. I hunger to see those kinds of miracles.
Anyway, back to Jerusalem in 30AD. Rumors are circulating:
“It's that man, Jesus, from Nazareth.”
“Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
And, against this backdrop of frenzy, the disciples and Jesus arrive at the outskirts of Jerusalem. Crowds, meanwhile, are flocking to Jerusalem in the hope of seeing him. Belief is rising.
Because Jesus only did what the Father said, I imagine it is the Father who tells him: “Ask your disciples to get a donkey and its colt from Bethphage village.” It is a quirky request, but whenever God asks unusual things of us it has purpose. In this case the purpose was to fulfil an ancient prophecy:
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9, NKJV)
The disciples didn’t understand the donkey until after Jesus had died. How amazing that would have been for them to uncover that ancient prophecy afterwards, and say to each other –
"Ohh, he entered Jerusalem on a donkey."
Awed silence.
"Ohh, Jerusalem did shout that day. They called him King."
Awed silence.
We know the next bit: Jesus did enter Jerusalem on that donkey and the city issued a shout:
Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The King of Israel!
"Who IS this?" the rest of the city wondered. And the pharisees – their nagging voice providing a constant backdrop – despaired and grew enraged. They were losing the battle and commented to each other:
You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!” (John 12:19, NKJV)
To that I say, centuries on, "Too right, Pharisees! The world has gone after him." A third of the world is now Christian, at least nominally. Our savior, Jesus, came to defeat the enemy and that Sunday was only the beginning.
I'm going to finish with a rendition of the song 'Hosanna', which was sung live on the Temple Mount a few years ago. Watching this video it's clear to see how the world has indeed gone after King Jesus.
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