Read: Matthew 21:1-11 NIV – Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King – As – Bible Gateway
“The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Hosanna in the highest heaven!’” Matthew 21:9 NIV
This week we enter Holy Week (Passion Week) as is referred to by Christians across the world. It starts with the celebration of Palm Sunday when Christ made His triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. Perhaps you attended services yesterday where this was the sermon for the week. It began with a light of freedom on Sunday for the followers of Jesus who laid down palm branches before Him as He rode into Jerusalem. It ended in darkness for those followers who were looking for a king to overthrow Rome and grant them independence and economic freedom. But that is not the whole story and Jesus came to earth.
The story begins in the gospel of John chapter 1 where it says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it……The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” (Jn.1:4-5, 9-11 niv) John wrote the ‘true light’ was coming into the world to give us light in this dark world. All of us in the world have scales of darkness over our eyes because of sin. We can only see darkness around us in this world in which we live controlled by the evil one. Jesus came as the light of the world to remove the scales from our eyes, taking us from darkness into the light and granting us salvation through His death, burial, and resurrection.
The crowd laying down their cloaks and palm branches had it half right when they shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ Jesus is the Son of David who came in the name of the Lord, but He came to save mankind from the darkness of sin, not freedom from evil governments and the darkness of the world. We live in a dark world, but every Christian has the light of Christ within them to display before others and to lead us in the direction He wants us to go.
Word for the Soul 