Holy-Week-Palm-Sunday

This blog is a part of our Holy Week series.

Dr. Seong Hyun Park

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” (John 12:12–19)

Your lips couldn’t hold it any longer. Your feet couldn’t stand still but ran out to greet him. Your heart palpitated as you held up the palm branch and cried out, Hosanna! King of Israel! The King has come—the one who had wept over you as you lay dead, had thanked you for the water from your hand, had called you friend. Jesus has now come into the city riding on a donkey, just as it had been prophesied. Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We shouted and leapt and danced for the joy of having our King amidst us. We built and rebuilt the world around the hope that the King would bring. Clearly, we hardly understood the depth and magnitude of his love, which far surpasses any kingly establishment.

That Palm Sunday, the King rode into Jerusalem to offer up his life on a cross. Throughout his time on earth—even as he fed, even as he healed—he knew all along that one day he would lay down his life so that his people may have life.

Dr. Seong Hyun Park is provost and assistant professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell.

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This post first appeared in the devotional, Journey to the Resurrection, published by Gordon-Conwell, April 13 – 20, 2014.