Palm Sunday sermon on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, preached by Rev Harry Newton
A Palm Sunday sermon from Sumner-Redcliffs Church, New Zealand, preaching on Matthew 21:1–11.
Summary
Rev Harry Newton delivers a Palm Sunday sermon tracing the narrative arc from the raising of Lazarus through to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, arguing that these three episodes — the raising of Lazarus, the anointing at Bethany, and the triumphal entry — are deliberately layered with Judaic messianic symbolism pointing to who Jesus is. He draws on historical context, including Roman brutality toward Jewish uprisings, to explain why the religious leaders feared Jesus and plotted his death. Newton closes with a personal challenge to the congregation: are they willing to be publicly associated with Jesus, and what does their answer reveal about whether they love human praise or God's praise more?
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Welcome and Introduction to Palm Sunday
Rev Harry Newton: Welcome to church. My name's Harry. I am the minister here in Sumner-Redcliffs, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to church for Palm Sunday. Can I say, regardless of whether this is your first time, you've been here five decades, or anywhere in between, you're welcome here. And regardless of your spiritual orientation, I hope that today helps you take the next steps in your faith journey, whatever that looks like for you.
Today is, as I say, Palm Sunday. It's quite important in the life of the church. And every year in the lead-up to Easter — which, spoiler alert, is next Sunday, so if you haven't got your Easter eggs organised, you're all organised. Well done, you. Fantastic. We're not. We haven't bought any yet. Oh, Amy has. I haven't bought any yet.
Every year, across these three weeks, we hear the same stories. We start with Lazarus and it culminates in Easter. These stories are layered together, building up to the crescendo that is Easter Sunday, which is the pivotal part of the Christian faith.
The Raising of Lazarus and Its Consequences
And it all begins every year with the raising of Lazarus from the dead. We had that story last week. And as we heard, regardless of our modern-day scepticism, the raising of Lazarus wasn't just miraculous — it was actually incredibly public. We're told that large numbers of people had gathered to farewell Lazarus and to console his sisters in their grief, and that they saw it happen. And this wasn't just a ragtag group of randoms. These were the well-to-do, hoity-toity types — the Fendalton types, dare I say it. I can say that, I used to live in Fendalton. Anyway, I lost my train of thought.
They all came and they saw it happen. It was not just random. And when they saw what Jesus did, people took note, because this wasn't a miracle in a tiny backwater first-century Jewish village. I asked last week for an example of a Kiwi backwater and the two options I got were Gore or Auckland — so you fill in the blank. The equivalent in Kiwiana land is probably where my parents live: there's three houses and a school, and one of the houses burnt down recently, so there's not much there. We're talking about as much of a backwater as you can be, where rumours start and quickly get exaggerated into this amazing plethora of things. We're not talking about that. We're talking about a very public occurrence, seen by many, many people. This was a public raising of a man from the dead, four days after he died, in front of a large crowd. A genuine miracle.
And a miracle which, as I said last week, kicked off a chain of events that in turn sealed Jesus' fate. Because sadly, some of those present, rather than be amazed at what they'd seen, went back to Jerusalem, found the key religious leaders who opposed Jesus, and told them what had happened. And those men in turn held a meeting — a kura hui — and they sat together and began to make a plan for how they were going to get rid of Jesus once and for all.
The reason they did this was twofold. First of all, they saw Jesus as a threat to their power and authority. If you were to read the whole narrative from the beginning of the Lazarus story right through to today, across two and a half chapters, you would hear them say, "Look how the whole world has gone after him." There's a sense of resignation — oh my goodness, he's undermining us. And the second reason was that they saw him as an existential threat to the Jewish state. The Romans were known to cruelly oppress and put down any form of public following behind someone who might be an alternative to Caesar.
Roman Brutality and the Political Context
For example, in 4 BC, there was a man named Anthronges, the shepherd king. He and his brothers decided they were going to make him the new appointed saviour of the Israelites, gather everyone around him, and lead a rebellion against the Romans. And the Romans came through and absolutely massacred them.
About four or five years before Jesus was born, not far from Nazareth where he grew up, there was a town — I wrote it down to make sure I say it properly — Sepphoris. The local people had an issue with the local Roman prefect. Something happened, they rose up and took control of the garrison. They didn't actually do much violence. Their thing was they just wanted to be taken seriously and be given time to be heard by the governor. The governor, Varus, came through, razed the entire town to the ground, gathered all the men, women, and children in the district, and crucified every single one of them on the street.
The point is, the Romans were known to be brutal. And the religious leaders genuinely feared — we're told this in Scripture — that as Jesus gained more of a popular following and appeared in Jerusalem, the heart of the Israelite people in their holy city, the Romans might take notice. So all this means that they decided they were going to kill Jesus. We're told from that day on, they — the religious leaders — planned to put him to death.
Jesus, therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness, and he remained there with the disciples. Meanwhile, the men who had been plotting to kill Jesus made it known that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know so that they might arrest him. And as the upcoming Jewish Passover festival approached, rumours began to circulate as people wondered whether Jesus was going to make his appearance or not. The tension, the drama — it's high. It's almost Netflix-worthy.
Jesus Returns to Bethany
Then, six days before the Passover — if you don't know about Passover, it's a very important feast in the Jewish faith to this day, celebrating and remembering the day God delivered them out of slavery in Egypt — Jesus appears six days before this festival back in Bethany, the exact same village where he had raised Lazarus from the dead. And the next morning, he heads off to Jerusalem, and we hear the story that Kalinica read aloud for us before.
But just before that, something else — I think, at least — very interesting happens. You see, there are four accounts of the Jesus story: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, named after their authors. Each author has their own emphasis on the Jesus stories. They're writing for different cohorts. Luke, for example, is writing for a predominantly Roman or Roman Hellenistic-leaning audience — people who have a faith in either Judaism or Christianity, or are interested, but don't necessarily have a huge understanding of the Jewish perspective. Matthew, on the other hand, writes exclusively for a Jewish audience. So we've got these different, competing emphases.
As a result, they tell us different stories. Sometimes you don't hear all the same stories across all four accounts — except this story. The triumphal entry appears in all four accounts, because for them it's really important. Now, with the exception of John, the other three are quite macro-level, but John focuses in on the nitty-gritty details. He's the one who gives us a day-by-day, blow-by-blow timeline of who went where, when, and why.
Jesus Identified as Messiah
In John's account, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and in doing so he's publicly identified by Martha, Lazarus's sister, as the Messiah, the Son of God. The word Messiah is really, really important. The original text in Greek, the word used is Christos, and it comes from the Hebrew word — and I'm really sorry for my pronunciation — Meshiach, which means "anointed one."
For a first-century Jew like Martha, Messiah meant something very specific. Has anyone heard of King David? He solidified the borders of Israel many, many moons before Jesus, reunited the twelve tribes of Israel, and brought in a period of comparative peace and prosperity. He was the guy who, to this day, people look back on and say, wow, that guy was amazing. He's essentially the beginning of Israel as a nation state in its then-current form. And the Jewish people wanted this king — descended from this great king, King David — to come and bring God's kingdom: justice, peace, and deliverance from their oppressors.
And as we explored last week, there's this recognition at play that, as the prophet Samuel says, "God brings death and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and he raises up." Given that Jesus makes alive and raises up Lazarus, there's this overt statement at play about who Jesus is. So when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and Martha makes her declaration, the whole point of that story is a public recognition that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the anointed one. He is the Son of God.
The Anointing at Bethany
But then Jesus goes bush for a few days, and he only arrives back at Bethany the night before the triumphal entry. And it's that night — the night before Palm Sunday — that John recounts something which is not only interesting but, I think, incredibly important. He writes this:
"Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honour. Then Mary, one of the sisters, took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, and she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume."
And we're told that some of those present protested, because the money for the perfume could have been given to the poor instead. To which Jesus replies, "Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."
Now, the reason I say that little story is really important is because anointing someone with expensive perfumed oil was an ancient Jewish symbol of kingship. Has anyone heard of Saul, the king? Complete twit — if you don't know the story, go read it. But when he is first brought in and anointed to be king, they anoint his head with oil. Then he's replaced with King David. What happens to David? He's anointed with oil. Do you know, by the way, what David and Saul's biggest qualifying characteristics were for being chosen? They were handsome and ruddy of complexion. It says that in both accounts. If you don't believe me, go check it out.
Then there's Solomon, the son of David, an incredibly wise man who oversaw Jewish prosperity to such an extent that they had so much money he started doing — well, he was anointed with oil too. Because those original kings were all anointed on the head. What does Mary do? She pours it on the feet. There's this implication that Jesus is the true king, but he is the humble, self-giving king who came to serve rather than be served.
The Crowd Gathers
And at that point, the whole narrative leading up to Easter changes gear. We're told that, quote, "When the great crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead."
Incidentally — we skipped it last week and this week — there's a little verse in there about how Lazarus and his sisters had to go on the run, because the same people who wanted to have Jesus killed decided they were going to have Lazarus killed too, since he was very obvious proof that Jesus had raised someone from the dead. They ran away eventually to Cyprus — a Cypriot island, not a Greek island, I should know better, I grew up there. And Lazarus was actually buried under the local church, the Church of St. Lazarus. We used to go down to the crypt and have ice cream next to him after school because it was the only cool place — there was no air conditioning. Anyway, that's by the by.
The Triumphal Entry
The story continues. The next day, the great crowd that had come to Jerusalem for the festival heard that Jesus was coming. And as the disciples approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there with a colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. They spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those who followed began to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
And then Jesus enters the city to face his fate at the hands of his enemies.
Three Movements, Layered with Meaning
I want to make the point that there are three movements here. You've got Jesus identified as the Messiah at the raising of Lazarus, because he does only what God can do — Martha says he's the Messiah, and he proves it by raising this man from the dead. Then there's the anointing of Jesus in a very royalistic tone, but yet it's completely topsy-turvy. Then we have the triumphal entry. And as I say, it's layered with meaning.
You've got these palms being waved — they're a nationalistic symbol of hope connected to the failed Maccabean revolt, not that long before. During the 60s prior to 70 AD, when Jerusalem was sacked and destroyed by the Romans — and that was essentially the end of Jerusalem as it was known — so many people were killed that we're told the fields turned red from the blood flowing through them, and bodies would slither down the streets because they were piled so high. Horrific destruction.
And preceding that, about 850 years prior, there was a man called Jehu — King Jehu. He was told by the prophets that he was going to be the new king. And they thought, how do we make this look more royal? So all his commanders and his troops took off their cloaks and laid them on the floor before him, and he came into Jerusalem. That was etched into their memory.
So there are all these overtones at play, but it doesn't end there. You've got the donkey — the donkey is the fulfilment of the ancient prophet Zechariah's prophecy in chapter 9, verse 9, that God would send a saviour who would enter the city in the nature of a humble servant king, on the back of a colt that had never been ridden before. And then on top of that, Solomon, the great king of old, descended from his even greater father David — when he entered Jerusalem to become king, it was ordered that he should ride his father's mule as a symbol of his kingship and his servanthood into the city.
Do you see what's happening here? There's layer upon layer upon layer of Judaic messianic meaning laced into the story. None of these elements are random. They are deliberately layered. We have these three stories building on top of each other, all of which are pointing towards who Jesus is. Mary's declaration of Jesus as Messiah, Jesus having authority over life and death, the anointing of Jesus with oil, the procession into Jerusalem in the manner of a king, the greeting of Jesus with palms and cloaks and cries from Scripture — the authors of the four accounts of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are all working towards the same goal: to make it clear who they believe Jesus to be. The one true king. Not just king over Israel, but the king of all creation.
The Failure of the Religious Leaders
But what's kind of sad in all this is what John tells us as he sums up this dramatic sequence of events. He writes this: "Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him." And then he tells us why. "Many, even among the leaders, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. For they loved human praise more than they loved the praise of God."
They — the religious leaders — men who should have known better, men who knew the Jewish Scriptures literally off by heart, who should have seen and understood the implications of everything they'd been seeing happen over the last couple of weeks. Not just the raising of Lazarus, the healing of the blind man, the healing of the deaf, all the amazing things he'd done, but everything else he'd done over the last three years of his public ministry. They should have seen it all there. They weren't lacking evidence. They were lacking courage. They were afraid of the cost. They were afraid because to be associated with Jesus entailed risk — both from the Romans with their potential reprisals, and also the potential of being cut off socially, economically, and religiously from their own community.
Their Story Becomes Our Story
And that is where I think their story becomes our story, for those of us who follow Jesus. Because here's the thing: the Jesus who raises from the dead, the Jesus who receives anointing, who serves others with humility, who fulfils ancient prophecies and enters Jerusalem in the manner of an ancient king of old — that Jesus requires allegiance.
When you sign up to the New Zealand Defence Force, you put your hand on a Bible or the flag — it's your choice — and you make an oath of allegiance to the monarch. In my case, it was the Queen. We never thought she would die. I don't think she's dead. I believe that's one conspiracy theory I believe — just putting it out there. I think she's still alive. But seriously, though — why do we do that? Because when we sign up, we are making an oath of allegiance to our monarch. A monarch requires allegiance. You don't just tap in and tap out when you kind of feel like it.
And what ultimately makes Jesus Christ worthy of allegiance is what we're going to celebrate this coming Friday and Sunday — his death and resurrection. Because all of this is simply just a good yarn, unless something actually happened that Easter. And next time we're going to hear about how it all reaches its climax, and how believing in the Jesus story isn't just appealing — it also makes legitimate sense.
A Closing Challenge
But for now, I want to leave you with this question: are you willing to be publicly associated with Jesus? If not, why not? And if so, why so? Is it fear about what people might think? Is it doubt about whether any of this is actually true?
If you do struggle with doubt, I genuinely encourage you to come here next Sunday, because we're going to be looking, as I say, at the legitimacy of the Jesus story. But if it's fear, I want to encourage you to ask yourself: what do I love more? Do I love human praise or God's praise more? And I don't mean that in a judgmental sense. All of us who follow Jesus struggle at times with doing just that. Following Jesus is hard, particularly when you live in a society where your faith is sometimes quietly looked down upon.
But for your own sake, I want to encourage you — ask yourself: am I willing to be publicly associated with Jesus? Why? And then next Sunday, come along, because we're going to be going a bit deeper into it.
I'm going to invite Mark. He's going to come and pray for us, and then we're going to respond by having communion.