“Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you; righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
All of Jerusalem was making preparations for the Passover. Lambs were being chosen for sacrifice. All was being made ready to celebrate and to remember the night when the angel of death passed over the homes where the blood of the lamb has been applied to the doorpost. This was the feast of God where they were to remember how God had set them free from their bondage and slavery when they were in Egypt. They were set free by the blood of a sacrificial lamb. But they were not only to remember the past, they were also to look forward to a time when their Deliver would come, the promised Messiah.
We know now that it was the final week of Jesus’s life. Everything that unfolded that week had been foretold by the prophets. Jesus sent His disciples into the village and told them where to find the young donkey, on which no one has ever sat. They found everything just as Jesus had said. When they were asked why they were untying the donkey they responded as they had been instructed. “The Lord needs it.”
There was great rejoicing as Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day on the foal of a donkey! The words of Zechariah the prophet were being fulfilled. Many people were filled with expectation as they spread the leafy branches cut from the fields. They took off their robes and spread them on the road. Then those who went ahead and those who followed kept shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven” (Mark 11:9,10, Psalm 118)! And so their hearts were filled with hope and their mouths with praise. But, Jesus wept.
A rabbinic tradition said that when the Messiah returned, if Jerusalem was not ready, he would ride on a donkey’s colt. When Jesus wept He said, “ Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you had recognized your day of visitation!” Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day on a donkey’s colt and when He got to the temple complex He looked around at everything and then left and went to Bethany. The rabbinic tradition goes on to say that if Jerusalem was ready, the Messiah would ride on a white horse. We know from the prophecy in Revelation that there will be another triumphal entry, but this time Jesus will be riding on a white horse! “Now I saw the heavens opened, behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). Get ready.
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