HOSANNA BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
The Lord Jesus always precedes His own as He went before His disciples, ascending up into Jerusalem. ( Luke 19:28) He began the long climb to the city, where His humiliation, rigged trials, beating and scourging awaited Him; and where He would ultimately die for His own.
‘It came to pass’ is a remarkable term in scripture to advise us how the Lord’s purposes are fulfilled. God causes them to reach a climax. He came near to Bethphage ( the house of unripe figs (, speaking of the nation of Israel, of which the fig is the symbol), and to Bethany, ( the house of unripe dates ), and the scene of the glorious resurrection of Lazarus. These 2 cities were not yet ready for the tumultous events soon to happen. ( v29)
‘He sent two of His disciples’ shows how our Lord delegated His work to His trainees, giving them the support of 2 by 2 fellowship. ‘Go into the village over against you, in the which at the entering, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat, loose him, and bring him here.’ ( v30) our Lord directed. .This must have amazed them to receive such a command. No average horseman or horse-woman can master an untaught or unbroken- in colt, but the Lord of glory showed He was paramount. Our Lord taught them that He was the ultimate.
‘Loose him, and bring him to Me’ teaches us that all untamed passions must be brought under His total control so that Christ can use such a life. Each believer must be like a ‘broken in’colt, so that our wild desires, shall, like every thought, be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
The command was clear, ‘ for if any ask you, why do you loose him, thus shall you say unto him, ‘The Lord has need of him’ ( v31) How could the Lord of all the earth have a need, and especially that of a colt? The Creator needed an animal to ride in a procession, when His glory would be shown. More amazingly, the Lord has need of us to go into the supermart, the bank, the business centre with the knowledge of the Saviour. Yes, He needs you – to be His witness.
It happened exactly as our Lord envisaged. ;’And they that were sent went their way, and found even so as He had said unto them.’ The Lord was still teaching them ,on the eve of His crucifixion, that His Word will come about.
God was in complete control, for the owners agreed, asking,’ Why do you loose the colt?’. They were pacified when they knew that ‘The Lord had need of him.’ The following events are some of the most wonderful and sobering in all Scripture, and are part of the Passover celebrations, culminating in the slaying of the Passover Lamb; our dear and precious Saviour.
The disciples had learned that they must bring everything to their Master, hence ‘They brought him to Jesus.’ This name was given to Mary by the angel, who announced His birth; meaning ‘He shall save His people from their sins.’ The drama unfolded as events moved quickly.
‘They cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus on it.’ ( v35) The clothes were made of flax, which has undergone the processes of scouring, heating, beating, more pounding and heating until the fibre is soft, pliable and able to be woven’. These spoke of the sufferings which our Lord Jesus would soon face in His false trials, scourging, pounding of His face and devilish, burning hatred of religious men.
‘They set this meek and lowly Jesus on the colt, still attached to the reins of the mother ass. He did not ride on a horse, symbolising His unchallengeable authority and His invincibility. He chose a wild colt in His humility. Five hundred years before, the prophet Zechariah wrote this faith-stirring prophecy.
‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold your King comes to you: He is just, having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass.’ ( 9:9)
Do you recall the first time you read this? I knew my Lord was eternal and compressed a few hundred years into a moment of time. Always pause and praise the Lord for such detailed foretellings. How great is the God we adore!
While He was born as Jesus, yet He was King. He is the only just One. He bears salvation soon to be won at the cross. He is lowly, yet all the angels of Heaven gasped incredulously that the King, eternal, immortal, invisible God only wise, had taken His seat on an ass. We should be overwhelmed at His humility. He was ( and is ) the Son of God. Nor should pride fill our lives.
The roads leading into Jerusalem were dusty and rough. While no red carpet was wheeled out for Him, yet ‘As He went, they spread their garments on the road.’V36). Their finest linen garments were laid on the path for the King of glory about to face the damnation of a religious group and the hostility of a crowd. Recalling the meaning of flax ( refined linen) the atoning work of our dear Lord was the foundation for this Hero’s welcome to the city of peace.
I have heard 137,500 in the MCG , Melbourne Cricket Ground, praise God with heavenly singing when Billy Graham preached in1957; and the 5000 voice choir filled the stadium as they praised God for all His great salvation. ‘As He was now drawing near to the descent of the Mount of Loves, the place where He agonised with the Father with blood and tears, and was callously betrayed by one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot, the crowd burst into the 118 th Psalm.
‘The whole multitude of the disciples, presumably thousands of them , began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen’ The predominant note was ‘Hosanna ‘ from that glorious psalm, the last song of the HALLEL, ( psalms 113-118 ) which they sang on the festive events of Israel. ‘Hosanna’ means ‘SAVE US NOW’ for they cried to the dear Son of God to deliver them- not from the Roman tyranny, but from satan’s slavery, sin’s condemnation, and the guilt and practice of sin. What a prelude to Calvary!
They had seen the Lord do such mighty works as cleansing the leper, healing the woman with severe haemorrhage, raising Lazarus from the dead from the home in Bethany, giving sight to the blind, preaching with healing in His words.
Just as the word ‘Hallelujah’ is repeated in Handel’s unique chorus that bears that name, so the ‘Hosanna’ rang out through the hills round about Jerusalem. It would have comforted our beloved Saviour, Who had commenced His march to the cross. Heavenly succour. ‘Save us now. Save us now. ‘ That’s why He came. That’s what He does in your heart and home.
We do not know whether the expanding crowd sang some of the other six psalms. A musical feast comforted the dear Son of God In another scene , ‘angels came and ministered to Him’, but now the common, devoted people, loving the lyrics of the great psalms, supported the altogether-lovely One.
It was unanimous and spontaneous praise, for ‘the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God for all the mighty works that they had seen.’ ( v37). The miracles of the Lord Jesus stirred them to songs of praise. They had seen Him touch lives, and eyewitnesses cannot easily be dissuaded.
Pause and consider the mighty works our Lord has done in the lives of those around you. The spiritually-blind have been healed; the naturally blind have been restored as cataracts or glaucoma or displaced retinae have been corrected. The Lord heals after the surgeon has done his part. My anaesthetist always reminded me of this. Only God can do the secret, on-going work of healing.
Consider the broken-hearted whom our Lord Jesus has comforted; the broken marriages that have been reconstituted and made beautiful, husbands and wives who have discovered that Christ purifies and preserves the chaste oneness. Remember the lonely who have discovered the sweetness of Christian fellowship and the unbroken communion with our Lord Jesus, unaffected by any natural event. . Recall the depressed, who regained their self-esteem, and a new sense of His pardon and power. These are the ‘mighty works of our God. ‘
If you listened keenly you would have caught the theme of their rapturous music, ‘ Blessed be the King, who comes in the Name of the Lord: peace in heaven , and glory in the highest.’ ( v38) They accepted the Kingship of our beloved Lord, which contrasted with His humble approach to the city He loved.
Isaiah knew that when he wrote, ‘ Of the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no end; upon the throne of David and His kingdom to order it and to establish it.’ ( 9:7) Did some break into this song? Daniel wrote, ’There was given Him dominion, and glory and a kingdom, that all nations, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve Him’ ( 7:14)
When Pilate said to Him, ‘Are you a king?’ Our Lord responded, ‘ You say I am a king.’ To this end was I born, and for this cause I came into the world.’
( John 18:27) Paul vigourously stated that ‘’He must reign, till He has put all His enemies under His feet. ( 1 C..orinth 15:25 ) .
It was right that they should proclaim His kingship in the days preceding the crucifixion of our Lord. As believers we must remind ourselves often that He is King, and never relinquished His royal state, even though he suffered the drastic humiliation of death by the cross. Recently at a camp, a young christian told me ‘I know Jesus as my Saviour but I have never crowned Him as King ( Or Lord ) of my life.’ Is he King of your life, home, and every relationship?
Surely God’s Spirit guided the immense crowd in their claim,’Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.’ Our Lord Jesus is moving steadily into the last week on earth as Sonof man, facing death by a criminal cross, anticipating the descent into Hades, the glorious resurrection, and His presentation of His credentials at the throne of God. ‘The name of the Lord’ describeds all this activity, for the Father does all things well. The great salvation is being worked out marvellously. The eternal purposes of God were fulfilled as the keyed-up crowd glorified their Lord.
Parasites in the crowd, the Pharisees, irritated by the true worship and loving praise called to Him,’ Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ ( v39) This discordant cry showed the miserable bitter spirit of the religious leaders. It contrasted with the sweet, fluent praise of the common people, who loved our Lord Jesus.
The dignified, searching response of the Lord Jesus showed His mountainous stature alongside their microscopic figure ,’ He answered and said to them, ‘ I tell you that if these be silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’ ( v40)
Our Lord prophesied that the stones of jerusalewm would crty out prptesting the death of the sonof god, when the Roman Titus destroyed jerusalem , not leaving one stone upon another. Forty years later, 70 AD THESE STONES CRIED OUT. The archeologist confirmed the Word of the Lord.
The memory bank of the hard disc of this computer has silicon chip, a modified form of the crushed sand of these stones. I record this study; I preserve it inits memory bank, activated by the electric cutrent flowing init. I am able to recall it through these ‘stones’. Christ was correct, long before the computer was designed.
Crush these stones, refine them and reduce them to the metals used in our sound recording. Our violin strings have metal covering, our pianos, harps, our musical instruments , silver, brass or rarely gold, our CD’s our radios. Thank God that every philarmonic orchestra uses every instrument harmoniously to present the ‘Hallelujah chorus ‘, St Matthew’s Passion, the great hymsn of faith. Our Lord spoke truly that ‘if the people were silent intheir praise, the stones would cry out.’
We must seize every moment to cry out our praise of the beloved Saviour, else every stone will cry our His virtue and His praise.