As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”
They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
“Hosanna! [A Hebrew expression meaning “Save!” which became an exclamation of praise; also in verse below]”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” [Psalm 118:25,26]
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Our news is saturated with stories of violence and political turmoil and disease around the world. A few years ago, COVID-19 was rampant and we lamented the absence of normalcy.
I still hear people saying they want to go back to what life was like before COVID-19. That's not going to happen. But let's think about another path.
We find it today in Mark’s Gospel.
Jesus enters Jerusalem amid loud cheers. The crowd pours out it's pent up nationalistic hopes into him. It's like a MAGNA rally.
But we need to look below the surface. This passage is one that many churches read on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. The name is taken from the “leafy branches” they laid on the ground.
It's also, a day that can be called "Lamb Selection Day. In Exodus 12:3 we read, “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household.” This verse does not seem to be anything specific until you read Exodus 12:6 “…you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.”
If you think about the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, then Palm Sunday is also Lamb Selection Day.
As the people cheered, they were unknowingly selecting the Lamb of God. God’s perfect, sinless one, to be offered for the sins of the world.
Jesus has told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die. That doesn't fit with their understanding of the Messiah. It doesn't compute.
We sometimes, often, get stuck with our preconceptions of how God's plan gets worked out. The disciples couldn't understand how the journey to Jerusalem would lead to the cross.
God has and continues to demonstrate his redeeming of his world from the sin that has infested it.
Today, and every day, we ground ourselves in the reality that we have selected Jesus as the Lamb that will die for us.
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