Palm Sunday is celebrated in many churches in commemoration of Jesus\u2019 triumphant entry into Jerusalem during the Passover.\u00a0 It is an unambiguous declaration of His kingship, which is bathed in gracious humility.\u00a0 Before this moment, Jesus had refused to allow any public acknowledgment in His being the Messiah.\u00a0 He had avoided further intensification of conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. \u00a0Now the time is at hand.\u00a0 This important event is of vital significance in understanding the messianic mission of Jesus, and is recorded in all four Gospels (Matt.21; Mark 11; Luke 10; John12).\u00a0 The prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 makes a connection to His riding in on a donkey and His humility.\u00a0 He is bringing righteousness and salvation, and He comes humble and mounted on a donkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Churches usually hold their celebration of the two events: Jesus\u2019 Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem and His Resurrection from the dead at Easter, which are only one week apart, without too much meditation and reflection on Jesus\u2019 Passion during the week, missing the suffering in between. Mark\u2019s Gospel, more than any other (one-third of the Gospel), brings out Jesus\u2019 enormous suffering. He bears witness to the Lord\u2019s terrible loneliness in the suffering. If we hail Jesus with the crowd at His entrance, we must hail Him as the One who comes to die for our sins, not as the One who comes to bring us glory; the One who gives His life for the kingdom of God, not as the One who sets up the kingdom of David. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus is their King.\u00a0 But He is not here to purge Israel of foreign domination, but to purge His people of their sin!\u00a0 They want and expect a Savior only for Jews, but Jesus is a Savior for the whole world, a conqueror through the cross, for any and all who will believe on His name.\u00a0 \u201cBut to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name\u201d (John 1:12).\u00a0 \u201cI am the way, the truth, and the life.\u00a0 No one comes to the Father except through me\u201d (John 14).\u00a0 \u201cThere is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it\u201d (Acts 4:12).\u00a0 Christ\u2019s salvation and triumph would be the victory of life over death, salvation over sin, love over hatred, and forgiveness over condemnation.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With thanksgiving,
Samuel Chan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Palm Sunday is celebrated in many churches in commemoration of Jesus\u2019 triumphant entry into Jerusalem during the Passover.\u00a0 It is an unambiguous declaration of His kingship, which is bathed in gracious humility.\u00a0 Before this moment, Jesus had refused to allow any public acknowledgment in His being the Messiah.\u00a0 He had avoided further intensification of conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. \u00a0Now the time is at hand.\u00a0 This important event is of vital significance in understanding the messianic mission of Jesus, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[443,509],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10610,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10609\/revisions\/10610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scbc.com\/em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}