Holy Week: Entering Jerusalem

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

—Luke 9:51

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival [of Passover] heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting,

Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—
the King of Israel! [Ps. 118:25–26]

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion.
Look, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt! [Zech. 9:9]

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.

So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify. It was also because they heard that he had performed this sign that the crowd went to meet him.

—John 12:12–18

LOOK: Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem from Daphni Monastery

---

LISTEN: “Ride On to Die” by Michael Card, on Known by the Scars (1984)

Sense the sorrow untold as you look down the road
At the clamoring crowd drawing near
Feel the heat of the day as you look down the way
Hear the shouts of “Hosanna the King!”

Refrain:
Oh daughter of Zion, your time’s drawing near
Don’t forsake him, oh don’t pass it by
On the foal of a donkey, as the prophets had said
Passing by you, he rides on to die

Come now, little foal, though you’re not very old
Come and bear your first burden bravely
Walk so softly upon all the coats and the palms
Bare the One on your back oh so gently

’Midst the shouting so loud and the joy of the crowd
There is One who is riding in silence
For He knows the ones here will be fleeing in fear
When their shepherd is taken away [Refrain]

Soon the thorn-cursed ground will bring forth a crown
And this Jesus will seem to be beaten
But he’ll conquer alone both the shroud and the stone
And the prophecies will be completed [Refrain]