Palm
Sunday is here. We know this as the
triumphal entry of Jesus of Nazareth into the city of Jerusalem, which occurred on the Sunday
before his crucifixion. The name “Palm Sunday” comes from the description in
the gospels where people waved palm branches and spread them on the road before Jesus, to welcome him as he
rode into Jerusalem on that day.
In John’s gospel we read:
John 12:12,13 On the next day
much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming
to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and
cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the
King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. (Take note of
this word, Hosanna…we’ll see why later).
Before I became a
Christian, I celebrated Palm Sunday with the people of my religion, but to me
it just meant we got palm leaves that had been blessed by the church, that I
held onto as a type of religious symbol or lucky charm.
What I did not recognize
is that Palm Sunday is a powerful example of fulfilled prophecy. Prophecies in
the Bible are God-given statements made about the future events of persons,
people groups, nations & events: things that are predicted to come to pass in the
future. God used holy men - prophets - to speak His word into the world, and
the test of a prophet in the Bible is that they had to be 100% accurate in
their statements. If they weren’t, God says that He did not send them:
Deuteronomy 18:22 When a
prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to
pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the
prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
I’ve heard Bible
scholars say that 25% - 30% of the Bible is prophecy, and that most of it has
already been fulfilled. That means we can look at these statements and prove if
it came to pass or not. I guess God filled His word with prophecy to
demonstrate that He really is
God. The one true God - the Uncaused Cause - that dwells in eternity, outside
of the creation, outside of time, who can see the past, the present and the
future as a man may flip through a book. He says through the prophet Isaiah:
Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the
former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I
am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the
things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I
will do all my pleasure:
This is what makes
the Holy Bible unique: you won’t find detailed predictions made about the
future in the Quran, in the Hindu Vedas, in the Book of Mormon, or in any other
“holy book.” The God of the Bible alone is able to state His purpose, and then
control history to bring that purpose to fulfillment.
One such prophecy
was given to the Old Testament prophet Daniel, regarding when the promised
Messiah would come. Some background: the Jewish people turned their backs on
God, served the gods of the nations around them, just as God said they would
through Moses, before they even entered into the Promised Land. The nation
devolved into two separate kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel who was eventually
carried away into captivity by the Assyrians. The Southern Kingdom of Judah
survived for a while longer, but was taken into captivity by the Babylonians.
Daniel was one of those captives, taken away as a young teenager, but rising to
positions of authority under Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and later under Darius king of
Medio-Persia (Chaldeans).
What has this got to
do with Palm Sunday? We’ll see….
Daniel had turned to
God in repentance for the disobedience of his people, and in response God sent
the angel Gabriel, to give Daniel understanding of future events, specifically
the coming of the Messiah and the future destruction of Jerusalem.
Daniel 9:25 Know therefore
and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore
and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks,
and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall,
even in troublous times.
The angel tells Daniel that the promised Messiah will come
in (7+62) or 69 weeks of years, or 483 years after the commandment to restore
and build Jerusalem
goes forth. We need to find a starting point in the scriptures for this
prophetic timeline, and God gives us one in the Book of Nehemiah:
Nehemiah 2:1 And it came to
pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that
wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the
king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
When you read Nehemiah, you
find that King Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem,
which sat defenseless and in ruins. There were several Artaxerxes in history,
but only one reigned for 20 years or
more, Artaxerxes I of Persia
was the fifth king of the Achaemenid Dynasty. His father was the former King
Xerxes and he ruled the Persian Empire from
465 B.C. to 425 B.C. The twentieth year of his reign, as Nehemiah notes above,
would be 445 B.C. When the day of the month is not stated, it assumed to be the
first day of the month. Here that would be Nisan
1, 445 B.C. in the Hebrew calendar, which corresponds to March 14, 445 B.C. in the Gregorian
calendar.
We know when the commandment went forth, March 14, 445 B.C.,
and we know the amount of time that would lapse until Messiah will come, 483
years. To calculate the date of this event, we need to account for ancient
calendars such as the Babylonian calendar in use in Nehemiah’s time. According
to 360dayyear.com: “The
Babylonians inherited from Sumeria the relationship between the calendar and
the number system with the 12-month, 360-day year giving rise to base 60. In Babylon, 60 was unity, 60
was time, and 60 was money.” Using a 360-day year, 483 years equals 173,880
days: the number of days from the going forth of the commandment until Messiah would
come.
The day of the coming of the Messiah is also mentioned in
the Old Testament as “the day.” There’s
a hymn we sing at church meetings called “This Is The Day”, and it goes like
this:
This is the day, this is the day.
That the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice, we will rejoice,
And be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day
That the Lord has made.
It’s a good song, lively, and you can clap along and rejoice
in singing it. BUT…the day mentioned as “the
day” was not just any old day. It was a specific day that something special
would happen: the day that Messiah would come…not his birth into the world, but
his arrival at Jerusalem as Israel’s king.
This is spoken of in Psalm 118:
Psalms 118:22-26 The stone which the builders
refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD'S
doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the LORD hath
made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save
now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.
Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD: we have blessed you
out of the house of the LORD.
I said earlier to hold onto that word Hosanna. In the above
text I highlighted the words “save now” because the word used in the original
Hebrew was הושענה or Hoshana, or as we see in
the New Testament, Hosanna. On that day the Messiah would come, Israel would
cry Hosanna.
Also, one way that Israel would
recognize her king was spoken by God through the prophet Zechariah:
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter
of Jerusalem:
behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly,
and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
We now have the
starting point, the length of time, and the way to recognize the Messiah.
Starting with Nissan 1, 445 B.C., and adding 69 weeks of years or 173,880
days, brings us to Nissan 10, 32 AD
or April 6, 32 AD. This is the exact
day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem
on the donkey, presenting himself as king, that we recognize as Palm Sunday.
Here are the accounts of this historical act in the New Testament gospels of
Matthew and Luke:
Matthew 21:1-17 And when they
drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives,
then sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, Go into the village over
against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her:
loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say
ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he
will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh
unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. And
the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought the ass, and
the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a
very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches
from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that
went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in
the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the
highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem,
all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is
Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and
bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the
seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house
shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. And
the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. And when
the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the
children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna
to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest
thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? And he left them,
and went out of the city into Bethany;
and he lodged there.
Luke 19:28-42 And when he had
thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass, when he was
come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of
Olives, he sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the village over against
you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon
yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask
you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord
hath need of him. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he
had said unto them. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said
unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him. And
they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they
set Jesus thereon. And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way. And
when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the
whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice
for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord:
peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among
the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and
said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and
wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
John 12:12-19 On the next day
much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming
to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and
cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the
King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when he had
found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion:
behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not
his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they
that these things were written of him, and that they had done these
things unto him. The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus
out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the
people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. The
Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing?
behold, the world is gone after him.
God foretold Daniel when Israel
should expect the Messiah to present himself as king to Israel, and it
came to pass exactly as God said it would. Skeptics say the Bible is a dusty
old book written by some goat herders. Wow! I’m sorry, but men could not just make
this up. And this is but one of many fulfilled prophecies that God has given to
us, that we might know that HE is the Almighty God, and that we can trust in
Him.
What God promises, God will bring to pass. If God fulfilled
this prophecy given to Daniel, what about the promise about saving anyone who
will turn to Him and believe on Jesus for the forgiveness of sins? What about
the promise of a new heaven and a new earth free from sin and its curse? What about His promise to bring us through this life and into His presence with joy unspeakable & full of glory? Yes,
God will bring all of them to pass. He is faithful.
Hope this encourages you today.
Maranatha,
Paul
