The Meaning Of Palm Sunday
By
Rev. Todd W. Allen
Zechariah 9:9-17
Villa Rica March 20, 2005
In 520 BC the children of Israel under
the leadership of Zechariah were rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem.
There was discouragement among the captives that had returned from
Babylon. Jerusalem was in a very poor and decayed state. Although the
foundation of the temple had been laid, the work was going very slowly.
It was Zechariah's mission to bring the task of temple building to
completion. This he did.
The altar of burnt
offering was set up on its old site but as yet there are no priests
worthy to officiate in the ritual of sacrifice. Zechariah called the
people to repentance and prophesied the promise of a new theocracy for
Israel in which God will be King, the Messiah will come, and the Kingdom
of God will be established and will triumph over all hostile world
powers.
A new age will dawn for Zion. The Church
will be victorious over all her enemies. The restoration of Israel will
be glorious indeed.
Palm Sunday signals Messiah's coming.
Three of the gospels tell us that Zechariah's prophecy was fulfilled on
that first Palm Sunday as Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey's colt.
John tells us that many of the people who had come to Jerusalem for the
Passover feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took
the branches of Palm trees, and went out to meet Him, and began to
shout, “Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the
name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” John 12:13
Several things stand out in this signal
event in the ministry of Christ. The first thing is the sign of His
coming. He was to come humble and lowly, riding on the foal of a donkey.
Why in the world would God ordain that
Messiah should come this way? What are we to learn from this? You have
to visualize in your mind's eye what it would be like to come to an
inauguration on a little, unmanageable, foolish colt. No fanfare of
trumpets. No mighty steed of war. None of the trappings of ostentation
and power such as the kings of the earth would be sure to have. No train
of slaves. No cortege of attendants and captains and mighty men. No
outward show of magnificence.
When our presidents are inaugurated a
great show ie made. This is the day when the power passes from the
former administration to the new president elect. He would arrive by
helicopter or limousine. The dignitaries are all seated. It is an
impressive spectacle.
But Jesus comes humble and lowly
distaining all such display except palm branches strewn in his path and
rejoicing at his coming. It is truly a time of rejoicing and
celebration.
What an insight this gives us into the
character of God. The omnipotent One who has all power, all wisdom, who
made the worlds and all that dwell in the earth. He comes without
oratory and speeches. He who has all majesty and glory comes meek and
lowly, riding on the foal of a donkey. How this flies in the face of
man's pride and arrogance.
The second thing we should note about
this event is that those who do the rejoicing are those who are the
Church. She is referred to as the daughter of Zion, the daughter of
Jerusalem. These are the true believers, the Spirit indwelt disciples.
Unfortunately not all Israel recognized him as Messiah when he came.
This day has no meaning for the
unbelievers of the world. Before people can rejoice in this event they
must have spiritual eyes to discern who Jesus Christ is.
Palm Sunday signals redemption.
Zechariah prophesies in verse 9,
He is just and
endowed
with
salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of
a donkey. And he brings peace
for
Verse 10
tells us the
bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And
His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of
the earth.
What blessings his coming brings
--Salvation and peace to all who make him their king.
In verse 11 he says,
As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I
have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Zech. 9:11
Let us deal with the real issues of
salvation. What is it that Messiah has come to do? For most if not all
Jews the coming of Messiah was anticipated to be the restoration of
Israel to the glory of the days of Solomon. All the nations would
recognize the power and might and excellence of the Messiah King and
Israel would be the chief among the nations. People conceived that he
would set up a very earthly, even military Israel that all nations would
respect and fear. But we see instead that he comes not on a steed of war
but on a colt of a donkey, without an army, without a visible power
base. Instead, in His coming there is salvation and men are set free
from the waterless pit.
What in the world is the waterless pit?
Were any of the Jews in a waterless pit at his coming? Not in a literal
sense. No, but in the spiritual, figurative sense they were. All men are
the prisoners of their own sins and lusts and carnal cravings. They seek
after many things to try and assuage this burning thirst, but they find
nothing in this world that can satisfy that thirst or free them from the
waterless pit. Jesus comes to free them, to give to them the water
of life and satisfaction.
Christ told the woman at the well that
if she would ask of him he would give her living water. Then she said to
him,
“Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do
You get that living water? … 13Jesus answered and said to
her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14but
whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water
springing up to eternal life.” John 4:11-14
A waterless pit is
a suitable picture used by the Lord to tell us of our condition apart
from his Son and his salvation. There is no enjoyment in a pit. Whatever
you might find to do in a pit is only a temporary relief from the
awfulness of one's condition.
Two things are needed for anyone in a
waterless pit. You must have water or you will perish, and you need to
be freed from that hopeless condition. Unless you get out of that pit
and get some water you have no future and no true enjoyment of anything.
This is the picture of a world without
Christ. The world may entertain itself with pleasantries and with
amusement, with possessions and human accomplishments but because your
soul and my soul were made for God we can never find true happiness
until our souls are satisfied with Him. We can be complete only in Him.
We must be reconciled to Him and have the life that only He can give,
the water that only He can give.
This Messiah King comes with salvation.
He is
Himself salvation.
He is endowed with salvation.
We are
told how this is accomplished in the prophecy.
because of the
blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free
from the waterless pit.
The Lord Jesus Christ has made himself a
sacrifice for sins. Five days after this triumphal entry into Jerusalem
on Good Friday, he was hanging on a cross. He was impaled on a tree. His
blood was shed to redeem us from the power and penalty of sin.
All who have not come to him yet sit in
a waterless pit. They may or may not recognize the hopelessness of their
predicament. But in this world of sin and woe, of man pitted against
man, of hunger and starvation and sickness and death, surely the pit is
recognizable.
In
Zechariah's prophecy we are given to know that our salvation rests not
alone upon the mercy of God, but upon His justice.
He is just and
endowed with salvation. In
His mercy and love, he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
To bestow righteous mercy there had to
be the fulfilling of justice. When Ashley Smith witnessed to Brian
Nichols she told him that he would have to be punished for what he had
done.
Sin cannot be brushed aside. A person
cannot escape justice. Jesus fulfilled justice on behalf of sinners by
taking their punishment upon himself.
A Chinese evangelist Leland Wang tells
of an incident in his childhood that illustrates the substitutionary
work of Christ. On one occasion he had been very naughty and his mother,
with a stick in her hand, called him to her to be punished. But he ran
off, taunting his mother because she could not catch him. She had little
chance of catching her small, lively son. So she stood still and said,
"I feel ashamed of myself that I have brought up a boy who is not
willing to be disciplined by his mother when he does wrong, so I must
punish myself,” and she began to whip her bare arm. This so touched
Leland’s heart that he ran back to his mother, threw himself into her
arms, and pleaded with her not to hurt herself but to punish him. But no
further punishment was necessary.
Mr. Wang said that, as he grew older,
the memory of this incident helped him to understand the great love of
the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly took our place on the cross.
This illustration is helpful but falls
short of being a true analogy of the substitutionary atoning sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. Why? Because even if Leland Wang’s mother punished
herself for his disobedience she was not qualified to take the
punishment for his sins for the simple reason that she was herself a
sinner and owed an incalculable debt for her own sins. One sinner cannot
pay the sin debt of another sinner.
In the second place God decreed the
punishment for even one sin is death. Leland’s mother lacked the perfect
righteousness needed to justify him before God even if she had died in
his place. Add to that the fact that she lacked the power to recover
from the sting of death, in which case her sacrifice would be a futile
gesture.
Only the sinless Son of God could act as
a substitute and pay the ultimate penalty and have life in himself after
being under the sentence of death for three days to be resurrected.
Only his substitutionary sacrifice justifies God in forgiving me and you
our sins.
The prisoners of Israel are set free and
given the water of life because of the blood covenant. Not only that
they are then armed with the might of the Lord to carry the gospel to
the nations. The sons of Zion will go forth to meet the sons of Greece…
For I will
bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim. And I will stir
up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece;
And I will
make you like a warrior’s sword. 16 And the LORD their God
will save them in that day
As the flock
of His people; for they are as the stones of a crown, Sparkling
in His land. Zech. 9:13, 16
The
church becomes the battle bow for the Lord. He promises to appear over
them to give them victory over the unbelief and opposition of the world.
The church has the message of redemption to share with the nations and
she shall succeed in her mission. She shall trample underfoot all the
sling stone cast against her. She will be as those who are boisterous
with wine.
Christians are like sacrificial vessels
filled with the Holy Spirit, full of joy and excitement, full of life
and righteousness. What beauty is theirs! How comely is the church in
her missionary zeal for the Lord of hosts! And many more shall come to
know God besides Judah and Ephraim.
There is
a lost and dying world that sits in a waterless pit. But we have the
water of everlasting life to carry to them. We have the message of the
Messiah King.
After Jesus told the Samaritan woman at
the well about the water of eternal life, she asked him for it. She said,
“Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way
here to draw.” 16He
said* to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” 17The
woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said* to
her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you
have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your
husband; this you have said truly.” … 25The woman said*
to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when
that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26Jesus
said* to her, “I who speak to you am He.” John
4:15-18, John 4:25-26
She immediately went to her home town
and began to preach Christ, saying,
29“Come,
see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is
not the Christ, is it?” John 4:29
Like the Samaritan woman we go tell
others.
She immediately became a missionary.
First we are saved and then we are involved in the great work of World
Missions.
On this Palm Sunday, have you been
saved? Are you drinking from the well that will never run dry? Do you
have freedom from the guilt and power of sin? Are your feet on the solid
ground of Christ's salvation?
I invite you to come to him with
repentance and faith. Then you will truly have cause to rejoice. Come to
Him today. Make him your own persona] Savior. And go and tell others.
Answer the trumpet call of God to march with him through the length and
breadth of the earth with the message of salvation. He promises to bless
our efforts to reach others with the Gospel.
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The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review and
distribution. We only request that proper
web page attribution be provided if
distributed for any reason. Please be
gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word.