Holy Week

 Matthew 21: 1-10

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ² saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” ⁴ This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

⁵ “Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt,^[a] the foal of a beast of burden.’”

⁶ The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. ⁸ Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰ And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” ¹¹ And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

 

As we begin this week, it's important to remember a couple of things. One this week is a celebration that should occur throughout the year not just during one week, and two we should celebrate this week as a remembrance. It's also Passover week, (the feast of unleavened bread) The Jews were told as they left Egypt to remember the Lord their God who brought them out of Egypt.

A couple of things that stand out to me about our passage for today. 1. Obedience both on the part of Jesus and also His disciples. 2. The donkey

Let's dig in a bit. verse 5 prophetically predicts who Jesus would ride into Jerusalem, it's from Zechariah 9:9, you see without this verse telling the Jews what to look for they wouldn't have been able to know that their Messiah was riding into Jerusalem, and "if" Jesus wasn't the Messiah this prophecy couldn't have been fulfilled. The second part to this is that Jesus of course being God in the form of man knew this and was obedient to fulfill this prophecy, the second part of the obedience we see here is that Jesus told the disciples where they needed to go to get the donkey and if anyone was to say anything what they were to reply. The disciples did as they were instructed they followed His instruction to the letter and Jesus later riding into Jerusalem.

For our second part the donkey...Jesus could have ridden on anything He like, personally I would have chosen a roaring lion, but that's me and I'm not God nor do I want to be. Jesus chose a donkey, this was a sign, you see in those days the Jews were being oppressed by the Romans. They really had no rights other than to survive and pay taxes. They were looking for a king someone who would save them from their earthly troubles. Don't we often do that? We will often run to Jesus when things get hard, I can't tell you all the times that someone has come to me saying, "If only God would save me, I'll do this or that, but only if He saves me." This my friends is the wrong mindset to take we shouldn't run to God just to save us from our earthly troubles, but rather to save us from our sin and the eternal damnation. This donkey represents so much for us, it represents that Jesus came to not just save us from earthly  trouble but our sin and earthly damnation in hell.

Philippians 2:7-- ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,^[a] being born in the likeness of men.

 It represents He came as a humble servant who was to be that ultimate sacrifice the one final sacrifice so that we can spend eternity with Him, worshiping Him forever. Sadly though so many won't see this sacrifice, they are going to miss the servant while looking for the bigger and better thing. 

My hope today is that you would look to the Lamb of God, the One who rode a donkey humbling Himself so we are saved from our sin, we only need to be obedient to the call and surrender ourselves to Him. God's Word says "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved..."Acts 16:31

If you have questions please reach out...leave a comment or send an email. 

Blessings

Nick