Well, It’s another Sunday morning. “They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?’ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.” John 11: 56-57 (ESV)
I can’t stop thinking of all of stress Jesus must have been feeling. To know all of the punishment that was coming for Him to endure and to walk straight toward it. When I did wrong things as a young boy the idea of what was to come was stressful to the point of shaking. I knew it was three swats and we were done, but I still feared the punishment. Jesus knew he would be beaten, rejected, crucified and would die. He was the only sin-free man on earth, and he would die for all the sin created by us up till then and all the sins to come in the future. See, not only did Jesus walk straight at it, He made it known He was coming by His works along the way. He was healing and converting people and making waves for the Pharisees.
The Bible tells us that after He raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus and His Disciples left Bethany and made their way to the edge of Galilee, then they went east to Perea, and then back south to Jericho, it was a short distance from there to Jerusalem. When He reached Jericho He healed Blind Bartimaeus’s sight and another blind man also. He went to the house of a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who He converted and Zacchaeus began giving back the tax money he had taken. All of this news spread among the Jewish people who were going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. Then Jesus and the Disciples headed south, back to Bethany, about two miles south of Jerusalem.
When Jesus and the Disciples arrived back at Bethany, they went to the house of Simon the leper were they were served a wonderful meal by Martha. When the meal was over, Martha’s sister Mary anointed Jesus with a pound expensive spikenard, a fragrant ointment used to anoint a body for burial. The bible tells us this, it is written in, John, 11:2 (ESV) “It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. Jesus said that she was anointing Him for His burial the next Friday afternoon.”
The next day was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Jesus remained quietly at Bethany on Saturday. On Sunday (which is now what we call “Palm Sunday”) there were thousands of pilgrims in the city for the great Jewish feast of Passover. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a little donkey. The people spread palm branches on the road so His donkey’s feet would not have to touch the ground. He was coming into Jerusalem on a donkey the same way King David and King Solomon had done. He was openly proclaiming Himself as the Messiah, the King of Israel, by doing this. The people cried out, “Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel,” as He passed by the crowds gathered at the sides of the road We can read this in John 12:13 (ESV) it says, So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”.
Next he made his way into Jerusalem. Mark 11:11(ESV) tells us this, “And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. During this last week in Jerusalem, Jesus and the Disciples seem to have returned each evening to Bethany, to spend the night, either with Simon the leper, or, more probably, with Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus.
Jesus had made some very bold moves, He had made sure, up to this point, that the Pharisees were aware of where he was and what he was doing. Jesus was doing what we should be doing each day, He was spreading His love for each and everyone, and sharing the word of our Father. It’s not hard to do, I am asking you to do this very thing this week, spread good tidings to others, share the love of our great Lord and Savior. Over the next few days things would change for Jesus and the path He was traveling will get very rough for Him. We will take a look at that next week. Know this truth, God truly loves each and every one of you and so do I.
