Sunday 5th
This week being Passion Week our devotions will reflect on events that happened during the week, mainly taken from John’s gospel.
John 12:12-26
Today is what is known as Palm Sunday, the day that we recall the event of Jesus riding into Jerusalem.
Thirty-three or so years earlier Joseph and Mary had made the journey from their home in Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem to be recorded in the Roman Census that was to be taken. Traditionally at Christmas children sing a song ‘Little, donkey, little donkey on a dusty road, got to keep on plodding onward with your precious load.’ On this occasion the precious load being carried by this little donkey was the unborn son of God in the womb of his mother Mary, the one Isaiah had prophesied about, ‘For unto us a child born and a son given.’ (Isaiah 9:6)
When we get to John 12, the ‘precious load’ had been born and had lived as a man in the surrounding area and is now himself sat on a donkey, riding toward another city, the city of Jerusalem. In the song the children sing ‘the precious load’ was going to soon be born, but, here in John 12 thirty-three years later ‘the precious load’ was soon going to die! In that short space of time 33 years, we move from a Roman Census to a Roman Crucifixion.
Here in our chapter for today, we have a Roman Crowd. Scripture says it was a large crowd, they had branches of palm trees and were crying out ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.’
They had seen and heard what the ‘precious load’ had become. An itinerant preacher, a teacher, a healer and a miracle worker, there had never been anyone like this man before, he taught with authority, he spoke with authority, so much so that not only did demons flee when he confronted them and sickness vanish when he touched the sick, and storms become still when he spoke, but, he even claimed to be able to forgive sin! And so, they followed him, in their droves, as we know from the feeding of the 5000 men plus the women and children.
But there was a problem – a big problem, even though they had seen him and heard him they hadn’t fully understood his message and they hadn’t fully comprehended who he really was. They had seen him as a prophet (Matthew 21:11 ‘this is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth.’) but now as he rode into Jerusalem, they were proclaiming him as a king, but not in the right sense of his kingship. The crowd were tired of the Roman empire, they were tired of being held in the sway of Roman rule, they wanted their own King and to them Jesus was going to be the answer – ‘Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ (Matthew 21:5)
To them, Jesus was going to be the one who would deliver them from Rome and establish a throne in the City of Jerusalem. And yes, he would – but not yet. If they had been more diligent when they had heard him preaching (John 2:18-22, John 3:14) and had been more diligent in reading the Scripture (Isaiah 53) they would have known that before the crown, this man riding upon a colt would first have to go the Cross.
Yes, he had come to deliver, but for now, during this week we call Passion week it was not going to be deliverance from the Roman Empire, it was going to be to deliver from something else that was more vital and urgent, something that held them (and the world) in even greater bondage than the Empire and the deliverance he would bring would be available not only to Israel, (the Jew, the people of God) but for the whole world. Jesus was about to bring deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan and the curse of death and Hell. (John 12:27-32) As Jesus rode toward Jerusalem, the crowd had a crown of triumph in their minds, this was it, a new king in the city, a coronation, but Jesus had the Cross and a crown of thorns in his mind, a crucifixion. The Crowd were really only thinking of themselves and want they WANTED Jesus to do, but Jesus was thinking of you and me, the world and what he NEEDED to do, he was looking further ahead than that week, he was thinking ahead into eternity. Before he would become a King in the city, he would become king in the hearts of the redeemed.
‘King of my life, I crown thee now, thine shall the glory be; Lest I forget thy thorn-crowned brow, lead me to Calvary. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony, let I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.’
As we go through this week, may we have a fresh understanding and appreciation of what our Saviour has accomplished for us. If you happen to be reading this and you have never committed your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you to consider what Jesus has done for you. He took your place; he took my place as we will see later in the week so that we can know eternal redemption. If you have made a commitment but haven’t fully surrendered, how about this week making it your goal to surrender fully to the claims of the gospel. He gave his all for us, such love demands my soul, my life, my all.
You are the King of Glory
You are the Prince of Peace
You are the Lord of heaven and earth
You are the Son of righteousness
Angels bow down before You
They worship and adore You
For You have the words of eternal life
You are Jesus Christ the Lord
Hosanna to the Son of David
Hosanna to the King of Kings
Glory in the highest heavens
Jesus the Messiah reigns
Mavis Ford CCLI 788682