Palm Sunday
Beloved. What a truly marvelous scene we have before us on that first Palm Sunday. It is marvelous because it teaches us both our Lord’s glory and dignity and also His great humility. Both those teachings are already taught in the OT and prophesied of the Savior, Jesus. The holy evangelist records the prophecy from St. Zechariah: Tell the daughter of Zion: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Your King –that’s our Lord’s glory and dignity. And we see that in the actions of the crowd. They recognized that Jesus is the long awaited Savior, the very God Himself and welcomed Him as such. Taking palm branches, they went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” By taking palm branches and waving them and spreading their clothes on the ground, the people were honoring and submitting to Jesus as king. They recognized Jesus as their King and the Messiah and by their acclamation of praise confessed Him: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Crying out, Hosanna in the highest! That was a prayer for mercy and rescue.
And what reason did the crowds have for recognizing and zeroing in on Jesus as their King and Savior, the long awaited Messiah? St. John tells us: The crowd that was with [Jesus] when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead kept telling what they had seen. Jesus’ great sign of raising Lazarus from dead after four days—a sign that was pointing forward to His own resurrection—was the great, clear sign that Jesus is indeed the long-awaited Savior. And this day He was entering Jerusalem and was welcomed as such by the crowds.
But remember the prophecy: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Although Jesus is their King and Savior, He comes very humbly and lowly to them—just as He said He would through the OT prophet. Jesus does not come, though, as a worldly king of great power and might, although His kingdom, the Church is a world-wide and eternal kingdom; but His kingdom is not of this world. He does not enter in chariot or on a noble steed, but riding a lowly beast of burden. And then as Holy Week unfolds, we see Jesus enthroned—on the cross; we see Him crowned—with thorns. Jesus is king—but not merely an earthly king over some kingdom which is here today and gone tomorrow. Again, His kingdom is a heavenly and eternal kingdom—and He came to set it up precisely by His suffering and death and He draws people into it by His holy cross, that is, by His suffering and death for our sin so that we may be reconciled to God and have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And Jesus gives us, His subjects, all these gifts and blessings.
After Jesus’ entry on that first Palm Sunday into Jerusalem, St. Matthew records: And when [Jesus] had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” And that is still the vital question for us today: “Who is this?” We ponder that question in light of what St. Paul writes in today’s epistle: Though [Christ Jesus] was by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When he was born in human likeness, and his appearance was like that of any other man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. As we do so, we will see that Jesus is the God-man and our Savior from sin, death, devil and hell—all our spiritual enemies.
In a very beautiful way—almost like weaving together a hymn and a creed—St. Paul describes Jesus’ humility—especially the humility of Holy Week, that final week of our Lord’s earthly life that ended with His betrayal, trials, suffering, and death and which would then lead to His resurrection Easter morning. So getting back that most vital question, “Who is this?”, St. Paul answers: Though He was by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant.
This is Jesus of Nazareth! He is the one, true, eternal God and also true man, born of the virgin in Bethlehem. So when God took on human flesh in the womb of St Mary and became also true man and was born, He did not stop being true God. What does St. Paul write in our text? He was by nature God. Jesus shared that full divine nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is equal to the Father in wisdom and power. Yes, at times Jesus even showed Himself outwardly as God—for example each of His miracles was a glimpse at the divinity of Jesus; and at His Transfiguration He let His divine power and majesty shine forth. Later we read in Scripture [Hb. 1.3] that Jesus is the brightness of [God’s] glory and the express image of His person. That means that the Father and the Son are equally God. Jesus, the Son, is not “less” God than the Father. But the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God—yet there are not 3 gods but one God. Our text: [Jesus] did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed. Hear that? – equality with God. Jesus, the Son, is not and cannot be less than God. Jesus, the Son, is equal to the Father not by seizing/ grabbing ahold of this divinity/ equality with God and holding on to it like a hard won prize, not letting it out of His fingers. But that Jesus is equal with the Father is part of Jesus’ very nature—it is who He is. That means that when the Son of God took on human flesh and blood and became one of us, He did not “dilute” His divinity, He was not any less God. It simply means that He assumed/ took into His divinity our humanity. Jesus is the God-man; He is both true 100% God and true 100% man. That means that no mere man was entering Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, but the very God Himself—Jesus, the God-man. Your King none other than God Himself is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.
What a glorious thing we see here this first Palm Sunday—and what we celebrate today—Jesus was not self-seeking in possessing His divine majesty: he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When Jesus was sent to be obedient in suffering, He did not use His divine power to get out of suffering. Instead, He humbly went the path of suffering so that we could be forgiven our sins and reconciled to God and have the hope of heaven.
St. Paul describes this in our text this way: but [Jesus] emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When He emptied Himself, Jesus did not stop being God. He still had all His divine power, glory, majesty, wisdom. But He did not always show it. He concealed His divinity; He did not always make full use of it here on earth while carrying out His work to save us. Contrast, for example, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, with His coming in all His glory on the Last Day [Mt. 25.31]: When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. Same Jesus, same God-man but on Palm Sunday not making use of His divine glory, power, majesty; on the Last Day, He is making use of His divine majesty and power. All during His earthly ministry, Jesus, as man, does not for the most part use His divine glory. Again, Jesus did not give up His divinity—He is still God—but He voluntarily laid aside the glory. He emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. And this means that Jesus voluntarily shared our human condition—in everything except sin. Jesus knows exactly what life on this sinful world is like for us. He knows what it’s like to be one of us because He is one of us. He is like us in our afflictions, fear, sadness, sufferings and sorrow; He is like us in our joys and happiness; and yes, He is like us in being tempted, although unlike us He never sinned, even though the temptations He faced were real and more severe than we could ever imagine. During His earthly ministry, Jesus willingly gave up the use of His divine glory and the “privileges” of a sinless nature to be truly one of us.
St. Paul writes in our text: When he was born in human likeness… his appearance was like that of any other man. So when Jesus entered Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, only by the eyes of faith did the welcoming crowds see the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Though true God, Jesus seemed to be just an ordinary man. Even of the disciples the Evangelist writes: At first, his disciples did not understand these things.
How difficult it is to understand this humility of Jesus, the God-man! Although true God, Jesus did not use His divine power, majesty and glory—and why? For us and our salvation! He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. How great is Jesus’ humility! Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Here Jesus comes as king—as a conquering king to conquer our greatest enemy: death. The way that Jesus conquered death was not by the great display of His divine power but by His humility as He became obedient to the point of death—death that enslaved all people. By humbling Himself—by not making use of His divine glory and power but by dying—Jesus entered death and destroyed as He rose from the dead.
What great love we see Jesus has of us as He humbled Himself for us to save us from our sin. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. That phrase, even death on a cross, is a powerful one. There the apostle points out that Jesus’ death was a violent and accursed death, one worthy of the greatest felon. But in it we see the totality and climax of Jesus’ obedience; we see there as He cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me, that God’s curse of the wicked fell on Him, that He was cut off from God. It is to this that Jesus—the holy and sinless God-man is willingly and knowingly riding into Jerusalem to do first Palm Sunday.
But precisely because He does that, we see and know Him as our Savior who is entering Jerusalem that day. Because of Jesus’ humble mind and willing obedience even death on a cross, He is our Savior. He conquered and destroyed death. That’s what we’ll hear next Sunday on Easter. Here the apostle writes: Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, which He willingly and humbly offered on the cross, is the perfect, once for all sacrifice for sin—yours, mine, all people’s. The Father accepted it and also highly exalted [Jesus] and gave him the name that is above every name. He did that by raising Jesus from the dead and placing His acceptance and stamp of approval on Jesus and His saving work. With Jesus’ resurrection, we have God’s pronouncement on the world: Forgiven! You need never doubt your salvation or your forgiveness. Jesus took on Himself the sins of the world and humbled Himself and went to the cross to suffer the penalty for our sin; He entered death to destroy it. But He rose—and now Jesus, the God-man is highly exalted … and [given] the name that is above every name. Now Jesus is in full use of His divine glory, honor, power and majesty. He did not stop being true man but from the moment of the resurrection on into all eternity, Jesus, as God and man is exalted. He is the one Savior of the world and come the Last Day all will have to confess/ admit that Jesus is the God-man who is also our Savior—the Christian in great joy and the non-Christian reluctantly—and submit to Him. This same Jesus that the Father exalted and all will have to recognize as God and Savior, is the same Jesus who entered Jerusalem, humble and lowly to be our Savior and die. INJ