Pastor Mark Nieting
Palm Sunday 2011
Matthew 21: 1-11
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus, on Palm Sunday in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven.
If you’ve been journeying with us this Lent via our Wednesday services, it won’t surprise you at all when we begin our Palm Sunday story not on the road to Jerusalem, but a few miles away, in the pastures, hilltops and valleys surrounding the ‘little town of Bethlehem.’ Ever since the days when King David was a small boy, Bethlehem was “shepherd and sheep” country. Every year the flocks of Bethlehem grew as the ewes birthed a new generation of lambs. Every spring there was a mass exodus of residents from Bethlehem (and other small towns too) towards Jerusalem, an exodus made up NOT of people, although there were some of them, but of year-old, perfect male lambs.
It wasn’t just a few lambs. It wasn’t a few hundred or even a few thousand. Each year huge numbers of lambs, some estimates run over 100,000, were led by their shepherds from the countrysides of Judea to the city of Jerusalem. Imagine Jerusalem’s narrow, crowded streets as flock after flock were driven into the markets and courts of the city. Imagine the noise; the smell; and the, let’s face it, imagine the mess in the streets.
By the time of Jesus this an annual drama had been continuing for almost 1450 years. It had begun in Egypt, where God instructed His people to kill a young, male sheep and paint its blood on the doorposts of their homes so that the Angel of Death would “pass over” them. This was, God commanded them, to become a “lasting ordinance” (Exodus 12) that would be repeated each spring to remember their protection from death and their deliverance from slavery.
Things were fairly simple when their entire nation of Israel lived as one large community with the Tabernacle as their focal point. Each family brought their lamb, the priests and Levites “dispatched” each animal according to very strict protocols, and the families went home to prepare for their Passover celebrations. But once the Twelve Tribes scattered across the entire region, things became much more complicated.
No matter where they lived, the Jews had to come to Jerusalem for the Passover. There was no place else to sacrifice the Lambs. As winter ended, each Jewish family, no matter where they lived, prepared to make the journey to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. It was a tough-enough journey without bringing their own lambs, so each and every springtime, two very different groups merged on the streets of Jerusalem: the shepherds, as they drove their huge flocks into the city; and the huge number pilgrims, each one need of a room for their family and a lamb for their feast. The historian Josephus recorded that the population of Jerusalem would swell from thousands of people to a few million!
For weeks before, the city itself had been in preparation. Roads were repaired, fresh wells were dug, graves were whitewashed and thousands of temporary ovens were built to accommodate all the lambs that would be roasted. For the priests and Levites it was “all hands on deck,” as every one of them would be needed for the sacrifices to be completed according to God’s commands.
On that day, a Friday, the Temple was crowded with pilgrims bringing up their lambs for the Passover slaughter. All the priesthood of Israel was also at the Temple for this festival. Because of the huge number of lambs that had to be sacrificed, the afternoon offering began early in the afternoon. The lambs were killed and their blood poured over the altar in “bucket brigade” fashion by lines of priests who used gold and silver basins. While this was happening, the choir of Levites in the Temple chanted Psalms 113-118, the same Psalms that Jesus and his disciples would have sung each time they celebrated the Passover.
All this was the back-story, the setting, and the external motivation for the divine drama that unfolded on the road to Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday. There would be thousands of lambs, each one bleating, confused and totally unaware of their fate, and there would be One Special Lamb, THE Lamb, Who alone knew what lay ahead for Him in the events of the week to come.
This Lamb was VERY aware of what awaited Him. All of Scripture pointed to this moment. All of heaven breathed in deeply, anticipating what would happen. The very first prophecy in Scripture had laid the groundwork, as God said to Satan that although Jesus’ heel would be “bruised,” Satan’s head would be crushed and his power would be broken.(Genesis 3:15)
The first lamb ever sacrificed belonged to Eve’s son Abel. It was offered with a sincere heart and a deep faith, and God accepted the offering. Abel’s brother, Cain, didn’t…..and the first murder in history occurred as a result. Adam and Eve must have been heartbroken until God gave them another son to carry on the promise He had made.
Abraham was ordered to sacrifice his only son Isaac, only to have the knife stopped in mid-air and the boy replaced on the altar by a lamb that God provided.
Each year at the Day of Atonement, Israel’s High Priest would sacrifice one lamb for his own purification and another for the people. Then the priest would lay his hands…..and the sins of the nation….and the head of the Scapegoat lamb, which would be driven out of the Temple, away from Jerusalem, and out into the wilderness. Each year the people would celebrate their forgiveness.
Imagine how their joy evaporated when in 586 BC their Temple was destroyed and they were marched off into Babylon! No more sacrifices could be offered and no more sins atoned for. Imagine their HOPE when they came home and their temple was rebuilt! Once again the LAMBS could be marched into Jerusalem. Once again their sins could be set aside.
Then John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness with news….the Messiah was coming…..and when Jesus came, John’s message clear: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” It would be a different Lamb and a different sacrifice.
As He rode into town on the colt His disciples had procured for Him, Jesus knew this was the very thing for which He came into the world. This was to be the year that the Old Covenant would end and the New Covenant would begin. This was to be the Last Sacrifice. The Final Sacrifice. Instead of the blood of sheep and goats, it would be the Blood of the Lamb that was offered for the sins of the people.
For 33 years Jesus had lived a perfect life; something almost unimaginable to us and certainly unachievable by us. The offering He would bring to the Temple would be a perfect one, unblemished in any way. Instead of being driven INTO the wilderness, Jesus came OUT of the wilderness, INTO Jerusalem and up to the Temple itself, ready to take the sins of the entire world onto Himself, knowing full well what lay ahead for Him in the events we now call Holy Week.
I’ve attended a few presidential inaugurations over the years I lived in the DC area. I’ve heard a few more inaugural speeches, and truth be told, they all seem about the same…….lots of parades, lots of expectations and lots of promises. In the end the people go home, the streets get cleaned up and life in our nation goes on, sometimes for better and sometimes, maybe not.
The Palm Sunday Inaugural Parade, if that’s what we could call it, was different. Jesus entered Jerusalem in a way that the prophet Zechariah had foretold, as His ancestor David had done centuries earlier. The crown He would wear would be a crown of thorns. The hands placed on Him would be the Hands of God, placing the sins of the world on His head. And the blood that would be shed would be His blood; the blood of God Himself. The people may have been hoping for deliverance from the Roman occupation, but Jesus knew what they needed: deliverance, once and for all, from their sins…..and deliverance once and for all for OUR sins.
The unknown author of the Book of Hebrews summarizes it all this way: ‘Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when THIS PRIEST…JESUS…had offered for all time ONE sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. (Heb 10: 11-12).
To Jerusalem came the Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world. Behold the Lamb!
