Mosaic Teaching 147 - Mark 11:2-10; Matthew 21:4-9; Luke 19:37-38; John 12:13

Mosaic is an in-depth teaching discovering Jesus through all four of the Gospel accounts in the Bible. This teaching is led by Rev. Dr. Chad Foster, reaching into the Hebraic roots, Jewish roots, Torah references and messianic fulfillment of Jesus to find truth and life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Mosaic Teaching Service today. This is teaching number 147 as we continue the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as they are given to us in the inspired teachings and words of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and come to this critical junction in the narrative of the Gospels, and that is the triumphal entry, liturgically speaking, what would be known as Palm Sunday, but for us in a mosaic, looking at that time where Jesus enters into Jerusalem for what would be the final time in his earthly ministry, that critical time where he will be entering into his passion. And so we're gonna talk about that entry and some of its details today. And so we'll actually be kind of spanning Mark and Matthew, Luke and John. We'll be hitting uh all four Gospels today in some way or another. And so just kind of be prepared to do a little bit of flipping because uh all four gospels do kind of uh uh discuss this triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in his final um week of life here on earth. Uh but let's get started first with prayer. So if you will, uh let's bow our heads and pray. Blessed Lord who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, and grant that we would so hear them. Read, Mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that by patience and comfort of your holy word, we would embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given to us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Mosaic, we value our Bibles, cherish our Bibles, and always encourage you to bring your Bible with you to the Mosaic Teaching Service. Uh, if you need one today, not a problem, just grab one in the pew or chair around you, and you can uh make that your own personal Bible if you need to. But if you will, please take a Bible, hold it up, and repeat after me. This is my Bible. Jesus is who it says He is. I am what it says I am. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. My mind is alert. By God's grace, my heart is receptive. The Bible is the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living word of God. My encounter with the Bible today will transform and grow my faith. And together we say in Jesus' name, Amen. Before we do get started today, do you want to make you aware something I'm very excited about? Uh, a new book called The Ascent of Blessedness. Uh, it is a look at the Beatitudes, and specifically the kind of angle that it's looking at the Beatitudes from kind of twofold. Um, one recently I did a deep dive into uh a book that's about 1600 years old, uh, written in Koine Greek by an individual known as Gregory of Nisa. Uh, and it was his kind of commentary on the Beatitudes, and it, you know, I kind of read that as a way to keep my Greek fresh, but also as devotion. Uh, and it uh really impacted me and inspired me. And then I also took uh what we had kind of done in our Mosaic teachings when we were uh in the Beatitudes, as well as uh all the times I've been in the Holy Land and have taught at the Mount of Beatitudes and kind of put all that together and compiled it and put it in a book format for you. So it kind of just takes each of the Beatitudes and puts it in a nice devotional form. It also has kind of underpinning it the idea of what is known as theosis. Uh that is that one of the ideas or concepts behind the Beatitudes that Jesus is giving to us is that sequentially, there and they're meant to be sequentially, that that Jesus is giving us a way in which we can build our lives so that uh over time, as as these become who we are and our identity, we become more and more like who he is. Uh, and so that's part of the goal of the Beatitudes. And so it's called the Ascent of Blessedness because kind of how the book is cast is I try to take you on uh a journey up the mountain, up the mount of Beatitudes. So uh we kind of start at the the bottom and work our way up to the top uh through each beatitude. So we're kind of ascending uh these um these Beatitudes, this this mount of blessedness. Uh and so uh if you're interested in that, uh you can grab it after class. I'll be out in the nook with that. And hey, if you forgot it's Mother's Day, you got a brand new book hot off the shelf. Uh in fact, I'll even give a special deal today. Uh I'll give um 10 bucks for the book today. So that's a did that's a Mother's Day discount for you. Um but uh I do I'm I I enjoyed writing this one because um it's it's really kind of like if you can imagine like me sitting at my desk with Gregory of Nisa open and my Bible open and then my journaling, that's what this is. So and then it does have a section at the end that kind of gives you uh continued ways you can continue to uh apply it, other scriptures you can uh explore. And then it probably has, I don't know, eight to ten of my favorite pictures from the traditional site of where the Beatitudes were given. It's one of my favorite sites in Israel, it's just such a serene, pastoral, this beautiful place. Um, so I'll kind of put some of those uh images in there to kind of give you some just visual things to meditate upon as you kind of read through it. So that'll be available uh after class if you are interested. All right, so with that, let's dive into our text. Let's start with, as I said, we'll be kind of going in all the gospels, but let's start with uh Mark chapter 11. Uh again, they've left Jericho, Jesus and his entourage, a whole group of people, a massive crowd from the Galilee. Uh they're going up to Jerusalem for Passover. Passover is not there yet. They're gonna arrive before because some people are gonna need to go through some rituals to get pure so they can be part of the sacrifices and go up onto the Temple Mount, all these things we've talked about. But now they've uh they've made their way to Bethany, which is you think of the Mount of Olives, it's on the um backside of the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem's on the other side. Now Jesus has told them, hey, go and secure me a donkey, and he's going to ride into Jerusalem. Okay, and that's where we are picking it up today. So with that, let's read Mark chapter 11, verse 2. This, the triumphal entry, this what is known in liturgical language, the Palm Sunday entrance of Jesus, because if uh we follow the dating correctly in the Gospels and where Passover fell and everything, this would have indeed been on a Sunday. Uh and so let's uh read the verse together. He said to them, Go to the village that is across from you. When you enter there, you will find a tied donkey colt that no person has ever sat upon. Untie it and bring it. So, up until this point in his life and work, as we have discussed many a time in Mosaic, Jesus has largely tried to keep his messianic identity kind of under wraps. He's tried to keep it somewhat quiet or low-key. He has warned his followers and his disciples not to tell anyone who he was. Uh, he's hushed up the eerie voices of the possessed, such as when he they say, I know who you are, you're the holy one of God, or so forth. He he shuts them down. Uh whenever he does a miracle, he tells them, don't go blasting this out loud. Uh he basically tries to keep everything on the down low when it comes to anyone wanting to declare or manifest his identity. Even when Simon Peter confessed, you are the Messiah, he tells him not to reveal it to anyone. But by sending for a donkey, however, he is indicating a shift in public policy. So, an important point for us in the flow of the narrative, in the flow of things from a literary perspective, if you will, this is a shift in Jesus' public policy. By going and getting the donkey, Jesus is changing his policy on his identity and making it known. And you think, well, how in the world is that the case? Well, as we're going to explore, there is an intimate connection in Israel's history between the donkey and the Messiah. And so now Jesus is ready to declare to Israel that her long-awaited Messiah king is here. And he prepared to enter Jerusalem just as was predicted by the prophets, including the prophet Zechariah, where Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9 has these words. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. If not for the messianic enthusiasm frothing around him, his ride on a donkey would not have attracted much of any attention. For, on one level, for sure, donkeys in the first century provided a common mode of travel in the land of Israel. The disciples themselves most likely missed the allusion to Zechariah 9, verse 9. And not until Jesus had risen from the dead did they realize that he intended the donkey as a messianic claim. You get this in John chapter 12, verse 16, when it says, quote, then they remembered that these things were written of him. And so again, they're not fully comprehending everything that's going on, but it eventually does gel for them. But for us, we do have the benefit of knowing the story. So we know that Jesus sending for the donkey is indeed a proclamation of who he is, a very public proclamation of who he is. And so here it is in rabbinic literature unanimously, and I do mean that, it unanimously interprets Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9 as a messianic prophecy. It was universally understood not only now, but it was universally understood then as referring to the Messiah. Another prophecy about the Messiah's donkey appears in the Torah, where the patriarch Jacob predicted in Genesis chapter 49, verse 11, he said, He ties his foal to the vine and his donkey's coat to the choice vine. And together the two prophecies forged a link between the Messiah and his donkey. The rabbis interpreted almost every donkey reference in the Bible as a subtle allusion to the coming of the Messiah. So that's an important kind of cultural context for us to realize whenever you're reading your Old Testament, is that historically speaking, anytime you come across a donkey in the Old Testament, it has historically and universally been understood as having some kind of subtle connection to the Messiah. And so you have passages like in the Midrash, in Midrash Rabbah, Baresheit 98, 9, it says, His foal and his donkey's colt, referring to the Genesis 49 text, refer to that time when he will come, of whom it is written, quoting Zechariah 9, humble and melted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. In other words, this is an example from Jewish literature where they are interpreting Genesis 49 and Zechariah 9 from a messianic perspective. Then you also have Abraham's donkey in the story of Isaac. That has always been understood as foreshadowing Messiah for the time when he comes, of whom it is written, humble and mounted on a donkey. Again, from the same midrash. Likewise, Jacob's donkey in Genesis 32, verse 5, is understood to refer to the King Messiah. And so to the donkey that belonged to Moses. Moses also had a donkey. And so again from the midrash. Rabbi Berachiah said in the name of Rabbi Yitzech, the latter redeemer will be like the first redeemer. Very important maxim we've had in Mosaic, right? That the Messiah will have qualities that are reminiscent, are in the vein of Moses. The latter redeemer will be like the first Redeemer. Well, what does, quoting Exodus 4, verse 20, say about the first Redeemer? So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey. So at the time of Israel's redemption, their salvation from Egypt, what happens? The first Redeemer mounts the donkey. In the same way, the latter Redeemer will come, as it is stated, and again, quoting the Zechariah passage, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Again, the expectation was that when Messiah came, he would be like Moses when the time of redemption came, and he would be humble and mounted on a donkey. In one midrash, the donkey of Messiah is even related to Balaam's donkey, the talking donkey of the book of Numbers. And this fact it is described as even being the same donkey upon which both Abraham and Moses rode. The midrash likes to even speak of this donkey almost as being the Messiah's donkey, an immortal donkey that just lives forever through history and always is present at times of redemption. It always shows up, and the redeeming figure always appears on this particular donkey. And so again, from the midrash, this one is from Pirke de Rebi Eliezer. It says, Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey. Genesis 22, verse 3. Upon this donkey Abraham rode. This donkey was the offspring of the donkey which was created during the twilight of the sixth day of creation. The same donkey was also ridden by Moses when he came to Egypt, as it says in Exodus 4, verse 20. And so Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey. And the same donkey will be ridden upon in the future by the son of David. Because it is written, Behold, your king is coming to you with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey. And so that is why we know when Jesus sins for a donkey, that is a change in his public policy because of the intimate connection of the donkey with the Messiah. There is a little more going on with Jesus mounting the donkey. But this is a particular rich one because of the Messiah donkey connection. In Hebrew, there are no vowels in the language, right? You essentially know what it the word is or how to pronounce it by context. So you may have like just the two consonants D and G, and you're like, well, is that dog? Is that dig? Is that dog? You know, like what is it? And obviously context would tell you, but you just have the two consonants. In Hebrew, it's built on a system of either two consonant roots or three consonant roots. And those consonants, the roots, are related to one another. And so when you get to the word donkey in Hebrew, a donkey in Hebrew is Kamor. And you would transliterate that into English as C-H-A-M-O-R, a hard C-H sound. So Kamor. C-H-A-M-O-R. Komor. The Hebrew word for matter, like you know, matter that things are made out of, dust, dirt, you know, the matter of creation. That word is comer. C-H O M E R. Now, if you take out the vowels, what do you see? It's the same root. They're related. And there's good reason for that on a practical level. The donkey is a beast of burden. It's an animal that carries the material of the world and uh it's an animal of the land and all of that kind of thing. But related to the idea of Messiah mounting a donkey is that when he mounts the Kamor, he's also showing his dominion over a Khmer. Right? That he is ruling over all matter. And that he in many ways it's like mind over matter. He's subduing all things under him. And so it's a it's a, you know, you often will hear you know, Jesus rides in on a donkey, and that's an image of humility, versus if he entered into a horse, that would be like a general, and it would be a sign of military prowess, and that he's not coming in peace and so forth. There's truth to that, but there's an actual deeper, subtle claim with Jesus being on a donkey that is actually claiming a deeper victory than a political victory. He's claiming complete victory over all of creation. Okay, the Khamor and the Khmer connection. And that is discussed a little bit more in depth in the book that I written called The The Land, the Lamb, and the Light. I go a little more in depth about this connection of Khmer, Khamor and Khmer. But I want you to be aware of that because it's no small thing that Jesus is riding a donkey. And it is more than just that it's a sign of his humility. It is that. It absolutely is that. And it absolutely is him fulfilling prophecy in Zechariah 9. It's absolutely both of those things. But it's even more than that. It's a much bigger deal than that. And people, some at least, would have picked up on that, including and especially the priesthood and the leadership. That cause them to essentially kill him. Getting on a donkey and entering into Jerusalem, believe it or not, is on the list of things that he they would have said, this is another reason why he is a blasphemer. This is another reason why he is worthy of death. You know, and for us it flies right over our head most of the time. It's no small thing that he mounted a donkey. All right, let's keep uh reading here, upon which no one has ridden. All right, so again, Mark 11, 2, let's reread this again. A tied donkey colt that no person has ever sat upon. Uh, you know, there's no insignificant detail ever recorded for us in scripture. So the fact that it's telling us no person has ever sat upon it, you know, have you ever wondered why did it tell us that detail? What's the importance of that? That also matters. Jesus' donkey, it's his colt, was unbroken. No one had ever ridden or sat upon it. Animals used for certain ritual purposes, such as if they were going to be a sacrifice in the temple like a lamb, they needed to be in a similar virgin state, right? They had to be without spot, they had to be without blemish, they could have never been used for any other kind of purpose. They had to have this kind of virgin state about them. And so again, an animal designated for sacrifice, it could not subsequently be used for some other purpose. A suitable red heifer could not have ever worn a yoke, for instance. And so the colt on which no one has ever sat signifies that no one before Jesus, nor no one after Jesus, could fulfill the messianic prophecies, such as Zechariah 9, verse 9, or those that were alluded to back in Genesis, that only Jesus could fill those shoes. That this particular donkey was filling not only a prophetic role, but it was fulfilling a ritual role in that only Jesus could fulfill it. The words on which no one has ever sat also reminds of the tomb, which in Luke chapter 23, verse 53 says, where no one has ever lain. That's also in a very important detail. Uh, that when Jesus is buried, he is buried in a virgin tomb, a tomb that has never been broken in either. It's not a pre-existing family tomb, it's not a tomb where there were uh which would have been common in the first century, uh, or it's it's it was brand new, never been used before. Those who have experience with foals or unbroken steed animals may also realize that one does not simply climb upon a colt upon which no one has ever sat. So, again, I mean, think about, you know, a horse, a donkey, a colt that you just kind of see out in the wild that no one has ever trained, and no one has ever sat on before, no one has ever ridden before, no one has ever broken in before. Uh, you probably have seen at least videos of that, right? Or seen in movies, right? Where the first time someone gets on this type of animal, how does it usually go? What does the animal usually think about someone hopping on its back? Like, get off my bat, right? Like, so um, as with horses, a donkey has to become slowly and carefully accustomed to the idea of carrying a rider. And by most accounts, donkeys are apparently more difficult to train than horses. Hence, we get the idea of being a stubborn A double S, right? Under ordinary circumstances, an unbroken donkey would have quickly bucked its rider from its back. And so, regardless of the messianic implications of the auspicious occasion, again, Jesus mounting this unbroken donkey, and we not getting stories of it bucking Jesus 10 feet in the air again is mind over matter. It is getting on the Kamor and having mastery over the Khmer. And Jesus right into Jerusalem and an unbroken donkey represents another miracle of Jesus, another aspect of his control, another aspect of his kind of mastery of the situation, and that he is indeed in complete control of everything that is happening. Now, let's flip over to Matthew while we're at it. Hit our Gospels, because in Mosaic, again, our goal is that we are going to hit all of the chapters and verses in all four gospels when all is said and done. And one of the ways we accomplish that is when there are parallel accounts, we take them into account. So Matthew chapter 21, verse 4. Let's read this together. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. So both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John, they directly quote the messianic donkey prophecy of Zechariah 9, verse 9, as they tell the story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem. Now in Matthew's gospel, just as a kind of structure, kind of if you uh Matthew intentionally structures his gospel with several kind of skeletal skeletons in there. Uh we've looked at uh some of them uh before. Uh this is going to be another one of them, and that is ten times in Matthew's gospel, he uses the formula quotation. This was to fulfill what was spoken. Ten times. So ten isn't an insignificant number in the Bible, right? So the fact that Matthew uses it ten times is one to help you remember. Remember, this is going to be, this was originally written in a time where not everyone got to go carry this around with them. So you have things to help you remember. You have ten of these. This is number nine. Uh if Matthew's ten, this was written to fulfill what was spoken. But Matthew does something very first century Galilean in how he quotes the Old Testament. That is, he doesn't quote it exactly. Both Matthew and John truncate Zechariah 9, verse 9. Neither Matthew nor John convey Zechariah's address, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Matthew reduces it to say, Say to the daughter of Zion. And John simply reduces it to, fear not, daughter of Zion. But Matthew does something more typical of a first century rabbi kind of move, a very first century Galilean move, and that is he actually takes two different passages of the Old Testament and slams them together and makes himself a new verse that doesn't exist anywhere. And that is very acceptable in the first century Galilee. It's known as Gezera Shiva. Gezerah Shava. I often will call it a verbal tally or a verbal analogy, but it's very, very common. In fact, you can do it with more than two passages. You can do it with three, four, five, six passages. The author of Hebrews does this quite a bit in his book. It's where you take passages of the Old Testament that use essentially the same words, and you're like, oh, they're using the exact same words, so they must be talking about the same thing. So I'm just going to create a new summary statement that uses the key words and bam. And when I say this new summary statement, you're supposed to be so biblically literate that you know all the verses I'm talking about, right? Now, thankfully, many of us uh rely on the hard work of others, and we look in the center column of our Bible and go, Oh, oh yeah, I see. That's why by verse 4 it has like six other verses referenced, right? If you ever wondered where there's references, someone's done some of the hard work for you, or you can use great uh soft built Bible software programs like Lagos or the Blue Bible or you know, uh Olive Tree and so forth, and it'll do some of this work for you. But it's mind-blowing to me that people like Matthew did this in the first century because this is how well they knew the Bible, like in their brain. And so Matthew not only sees Jesus fulfilling Zechariah 9, verse 9, he sees him fulfilling Isaiah 62, verse 11, because of the address daughter of Zion, and Isaiah's connection with the daughter of Zion and the coming of Messiah. So you can compare Isaiah 62, verse 11. Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. In Zechariah 9, verse 9, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming to you, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. And so Matthew certainly intends to import Isaiah 62, 11, and all of its context and all of its meaning, and combine it with Zechariah 9, verse 9, in a very good first century Galilean fashion, and then both texts elucidate one another. John's address, fear not, daughter of Zion, has no exact equivalent in the prophets, but our good friend, Rabbi Liechtenstein, explains it as a paraphrase that conveys the sense of the prophecy, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. The prophet tells the daughter of Zion to rejoice, because she need no longer fear her enemies, as the previous verse said in Zechariah 9, verse 8, which says, I will camp around my house because of an army, and no oppressor will pass over them anymore. And so when John truncates it, his truncation kind of is building on the overall context of Zechariah 9:9 and is addressing why there need be no more fear, which is the greater context of Zechariah 9. But unlike John, Matthew preserved the original parallel repetition of the Biblical Hebrew. The Zechariah prophecy refers to the Messiah's steed as a donkey as well as a colt, the foal of a donkey. Such repetitions, which is known as synonymous parallelism, occurs regularly in biblical poetry and ancient Near Eastern poetry, and they rarely imply a literal repetition. Zechariah called the steed both a donkey and a colt, the foal of a donkey. But the prophet had only one donkey in mind. The rabbis, however, often capitalized on these kinds of repetitions in Hebrew parallelism for exegetical purposes. They enjoyed interpreting the repeated elements as if they literally conveyed a change of subject. And Matthew does the same thing when he tells the story of the Messiah's donkey. Instead of finding one donkey, Matthew has the disciples finding a donkey tied there and a colt with her. Matthew 21, verse 2. They brought both the donkey and its colt to Jesus, and they laid their colts over both animals as makeshift saddles, and Jesus sat on them, which might imply that somehow Jesus straddled both animals, or that he rode one for some distance and switched to the other. But only the Gospel of Matthew has the double donkey interpretation. The other three do not. Which again just highlights the very Jewish nature of Matthew's gospel. Let's keep looking in our text, but let's flip over to Luke. Let's go to Luke chapter 19. Luke chapter 19, verse 37. Let's read these verses together. He drew near to the slope of the Mount of Olives, and the entire crowd of disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice about all the acts of power that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the heights. So a fifteen-minute hike from Bethphage arrives you at the summit of the Mount of Olives. The crowd of disciples and the Galilean pilgrims accompanying Jesus would have broken to cheer when they laid eyes on the holy city, and they began to joyfully bless and praise God for all the miracles that they had seen through the hands and the work of Jesus. So again, we know, remember, we know where this crowd that is around Jesus is coming from. We know this crowd who would have been willing to say Hosanna, and blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and lay down their branches and put their clothes on the donkey and all that. Remember, Jesus has first been in Bethany. We're not too distant in the past. He had been there and raised Lazarus from the dead, and many came to believe in him there because of that. And now he's kind of come back, and so he's clearly a hometown hero. This is only two miles outside of Jerusalem. This is really only on the backside of the mountain outside of Jerusalem. And so, as Jesus is going to go from here to here, they're going to go with him, right? And so he's going to have this crowd going with him. And so this crowd that is going with him and cheering him is not going to be the same crowd that in a handful of days that is yelling, crucify him, crucify him. Then it's not the same crowd, okay? It's not uh the proverbial sermon where look how fickle people are and how quick we turn on Jesus and so forth. It he has a crowd that believes in him from Bethany, and he's moved to Bethphage to get on the donkey, and now he's gonna go down the Mount of Olives with this group. And of course they're gonna be cheering him. And as we've seen when he was headed to Jericho, even those that were accompanying him from Galilee, what did it repeatedly tell us? Even though they didn't understand fully what it meant, they repeatedly told us what? They knew something big was going to happen. They were fully expecting something big to happen in Jerusalem, they were fully expecting Jesus to do something in Jerusalem, right? And so they're naturally there, they're they're pumped, they're excited. And so this is the crowd that is accompanying uh Jesus and the roads leading to Jerusalem's gate, you know, would have been carrying other pilgrims, giving thanks in the name of the Lord as well. They would have been chanting from the book of Psalms, praises to God. They would have been mainly the Psalms of Ascent. So if you turn in your Bible toward the end, well kind of toward the end, around Psalm 120-ish, there's a series of psalms. And if you look at the headings, they're called the Psalms of Ascent. Those are the psalms that pilgrims would sing, that they would chant, uh, that as a group, you know, like that they would sing as they were entering into Jerusalem as pilgrims. And so you think of Psalm 122, verse 1. Uh, I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord, right? House of the Lord's the temple. Or Psalm 120 verse, uh 122, verse 2. As they would have passed through the gates, they would have said, Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. And so when you read those Psalms of Ascent, you know, you can you can in many ways envision, you know, the praise music uh of what they were singing in this crowd. And we'll even look more specifically at one of those psalms in a moment. Um slip back in our Bibles to Matthew. I told you I'd keep you on your toes today. Matthew chapter 21. Matthew chapter 21, verse nine. Let's read the verse together. The crowd of people that were walking ahead of him and behind him called out, saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the heights. So he has his entourage, he has his people from Bethany, he has all the people that believed in him because of the raising of Lazarus, he has the people that believed in him that came with him from Galilee, he has his disciples. Uh he has now word is spread. So even those who didn't come with him, who've heard about him, have kind of gathered them around. All of this is now kind of circling around at the top of the Mount of Olives. Even those who had not yet personally seen the power of the miracles or heard the wisdom of his teaching, had no doubt been told about it. The prophet from Nazareth had arrived and he had approached the city mounted on a donkey. Two processions converged on the Mount of Olives, right? Jesus' procession and all of these other ones. And the Galilean pilgrims who were traveled with Jesus and his disciples began the descent down the Mount of Olives into what is known as the Kidron Valley that lies beneath the walls of Jerusalem that would go up and into Jerusalem. And they walk both ahead and behind of Jesus. Any ordinary day, they could have made this descent down the Mount of Olives in 15, 20 minutes. When I take a tour group there and we go from the top of the Mount of Olives down to the Garden of Gethsemane, it maybe takes 15 minutes, and that's a maybe. Probably can do it in less. But this day. I would guess a half an hour, if not more, because you've got tens of thousands of people, right? Um, frequently blocking the way, crowd eager, engaging. Um, John chapter 12 says this a large crowd who had come to the feast, and they had been waiting for Jesus' arrival. As the Galilean crowd descended from the mount, this crowd ascended from the city. And again, John 12, verse 12. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet him and began to shout, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. Now Jesus had already enjoyed some popular acclaim among the Galilean pilgrims who had come up for the festival. Many of them had either already heard the stories of his miraculous work, or they had actually experienced it themselves, or they had heard his teaching, or they had been transformed by him in some way or another. But his popularity was not limited to the Galileans. Six months before Passover, Jesus was back, was in Jerusalem for the festival of Sukkot, the festival of tabernacles. This was back when we in Mosaic were talking about John chapter 7, 8 and 9. And there many of them had a great impression made upon them, and many began to say he must be the Messiah. And the resurrection of Lazarus added fuel. And John tells us that those who had seen this spread the word. John 12, verse 17. People who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify about him. And for this reason, people went ahead to meet him, because they had heard he had performed the sign. And so all of these factors combine to create a very spontaneous, joyous, amazing welcome to Jerusalem that gives the Messiah Jesus what we now call the triumphal entry. And I think we'll stop there for today. We will pick it up next week with what is known as the Halel, our Psalm chapter 18, which would have been another psalm that would have been upon the lips of the people. And it was such an impact upon the apostles that it finds its way woven throughout the New Testament. Very impactful for them.