Palm Sunday — Blessed Be the King that Cometh

Royal triumph entering Jerusalem — In the mouth of babes and little children —

— If these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out.

Comment:

There is a hymn that is a prophecy.  Jesus, Once of Humble Birth.  I love to sing it but it gives me the shivers.

The shiver is the contrast between his humble life and what is coming.

Once forsaken, left alone,

Now exalted to a throne.

Once all things he meekly bore,

But he now will bear no more.

But Christ’s rule is not only something that is coming.  The events of Holy Week were a proclamation of his authority, over and over again.  It’s not just Palm Sunday.  He increasingly threw off his incognito.  Look at everything from his assertion of rule over the Temple to his magnificent proclamation that he would judge the souls of men, goats on the left hand and sheep on the right.  Keep this in mind as you study this week.  Look for it, it’s there.

There are two ways to take this.  Both of them are true.

The first is that he did not suffer and die in weakness.  He allowed it.

The second is that paradoxically the atonement and crucifixion were acts of triumph, not weakness.  They were when he rose above all.  The week that opened when triumphally enter Jerusalem, palms under his feet, declared as king, closed with him triumphally entering eternity, fear and pain and sin under his feet and death soon to be added, declared as Lord God Almighty.  The Friday and Saturday when mortals weep is Palm Sunday for the dead.

By Gaudenzio Ferrari – This file has been extracted from another file, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29809334