Palm Sunday

[This is a continuation of my previous post (or part II of the message I gave tonight at my church).]

After Ezekiel came Malachi, through whom God promised to the Israelites, “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come” (Malachi 3:1). The one who established his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David would return… The Old Testament ends with a summation of this covenant as well as an eerie foretelling”

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” A curse: a reminder of the blessings and curses outlined in Deuteronomy.

But after Malachi… there was only silence. The silence of God for over 400 years. These were tumultuous years for Israel. The governing of Israel was passed along from superpower to superpower. Persia. Greece. Antiochus Epiphanes who desecrated the temple. Rome. Amidst these political occupations, forgotten as though dead, Israel cried out for deliverance, for a Messiah who would rescue them. “Let your face shine on your servants; save us in your unfailing love.”

Then, suddenly, he came. A man out in the desert wearing camel’s hair shouted to anyone and everyone that would listen: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” A few years later, six days before the Passover, he spent the night in Bethany at the home of his good friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
The next day, Jesus “came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives” the mountain standing east of the city of Jerusalem. There, the Son of David sent two of his closest friends on a mission who brought back for him a donkey for him to ride and show that he was “the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 28:38). So Jesus came from the way of the east, rode down the mountain, and headed towards Jerusalem by way of the gate facing toward the east. And as the people saw their new king, they rejoiced and sang and shook the earth with their noise. And as he rode, the crowd proclaimed, “glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38), but the religious leaders were in disbelief and rebuked the crowd.

But as the one who came to restore peace to Israel “approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42). And if you could listen to his heart, you could’ve heard him pray, “My eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.”

Then Jesus “entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late,” no one was there (Mark 11:11). No one was ready for the glory to return. No one was ready for a new spirit. No one was interested in renewing the covenant. They only wanted a king who could overthrow the powers of Rome. Ezekiel’s vision was left unfulfilled. Needless to say, Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” was not so triumphant.