Palm Sunday

This week is known on the church calendar as "Passion Week," the final week of Lent. The week kicked off with "Palm Sunday," the day we celebrate Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem.

In many ways we treat Palm Sunday like an Easter before Easter, but should we? The reality is that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was on one hand a parade and on the other hand a funeral march. While Jesus was entering Jerusalem as the messiah, the son of David, the promised King, no one really understood that His intention as King was to serve. Luke 19:41 tells us that as Jesus approached the city he wept over it. This wasn’t the reaction of a King who was about to overthrow an oppressive government, it was the reaction of a King who knew His people’s sins, their ultimate consequence, and what needed to be done to save them from it.

As we’ve studied the Servant Songs of the book of Isaiah, we’ve learned that the mission of the Christ, the Servant, was to bring justice to the oppressed, bring God’s people back to Himself and be completely obedient to the will of the Father. On top of that we’ve learned that to do this, Christ had to willingly choose the road of suffering. Though He would ultimately be exalted by the Father, He first had to endure his most intense hour. On Palm Sunday we watch as Jesus begins that journey.