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Sermon for Palm Sunday
Philippians 2:5-11 + Matthew 21:1-9
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness at the very beginning of His ministry, a path was laid out for Him—by the devil. There was a path that led to His glory. Easy glory, on a painless path. All he had to do was bow down and worship Satan. You know that’s not the path He chose. Already in eternity, before the foundations of the world were laid, God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—chose, or really, created the path that would lead, not to earthly glory or comfort for the Son of God, but that would lead to our eternal redemption.
Already in eternity, in His counsel and purpose, God decreed that the human race should be truly redeemed and reconciled with Him, rescued from the sins He knew very well we would commit, delivered from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and changed from His enemies into His beloved children, so that we might all be saved for time and for eternity.
That was the goal. And the first step on the path to that goal was the incarnation of God’s Son in human flesh and His birth under the Law, just as we are all born under God’s moral Law. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas, of course. The path to the goal of our redemption continued with a perfect life of obedience on our Redeemer’s part, so that He could truly satisfy the righteous requirements of God’s Law in our place, so that He could earn the righteousness, in mankind’s place, that God the Father could count toward us unrighteous people. Well, mission accomplished. Jesus lived that righteous life for us.
But now we come to Holy Week, to Palm Sunday, to what is probably the biggest step on the path to our redemption. Jesus, the King of the Jews, has a choice to make. Will He go through with the Father’s plan for Him to suffer? Will He stick with the Father’s plan for Him to humble Himself and become obedient even to the point of death, even to the point of letting Himself be nailed to a cross?
He surely doesn’t deserve that kind of suffering, or any suffering, for that matter. He deserved to be worshiped by all men. He deserved a throne. He deserved to ride into Jerusalem on a warhorse and to wipe out every sinner in the city, in the world. But you know what that would have meant? It would have meant wiping out everyone. Absolutely everyone on earth. Because without the suffering and death of the Son of God as the atoning sacrifice for man’s sin, no one could be saved. Everyone would have to die, and die forever. God’s own righteous character would have demanded it.
And Jesus knew it. He had no desire to suffer as He would that week. But He had even less desire for mankind to suffer, and to be eternally lost. So He got up on Palm Sunday and, once again, as He had been doing every day of His life, chose the path of our redemption.
He walked to the Mount of Olives with His disciples, and then sent two of them to fetch a donkey for Him to ride. Why a donkey? Because He had a message to send to Jerusalem, a message that had been written and delivered to the Jews 500 years earlier by the prophet Zechariah: Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King comes to you, meek and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the foal of a donkey. Zechariah actually has a few other details that Matthew omits: Rejoice, daughter of Zion! Your King is righteous and having salvation.
So by choosing to ride on a donkey that day, Jesus was sending the message to Jerusalem: I am your King, the King of the Jews. My coming should be cause for rejoicing, because I come, not to destroy you, but to save you, to rescue you, to redeem you.
Now, even if the people put together Zechariah’s prophecy with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, even if they understood that He was coming to redeem them, most of them still didn’t understand what kind of redemption, what kind of rescue Jesus had come to accomplish. Most of them thought in terms of earthly deliverance from oppression, from sickness, from poverty, from injustice. Jesus and His apostles would eventually correct that understanding. But for now, the people understood enough to recognize Jesus as their Redeemer sent from heaven, as the King of the Jews, and as the One who would save them, somehow.
And so they surrounded Jesus as He rode down into the Kidron valley and up again to the city gates. And they spread their cloaks and their palm branches on the path He had chosen—the path of our redemption. And they rejoiced and sang with all their might, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
You’ve learned to sing that same song to Jesus, now ascended and reigning at the right hand of the Father, but still coming to us with salvation in the Holy Supper we celebrate—a salvation He earned for us with the body and blood He gave and shed on the cross on Friday of that Holy Week, a salvation He accomplishes for us when we believe in Him, our Redeemer and King.
But Good Friday only happened because of the choice Jesus made on Palm Sunday. The King of the Jews chose the path of the donkey, knowing it would lead to the cross, because it was the only possible path toward our redemption, and He was dead set on forging that path. Let that be a cause for rejoicing today, and a solid reason for following King Jesus at all times, no matter where He leads, because in Him, and in Him alone, we have redemption. Amen.
