Palm Sunday, Year B — exegesis on the Gospel, Mark 11:1-11

Palm Sunday is March 24, 2024.

Readings for Year B’s Liturgy of the Palms can be found here. The Lectionary editors give us a Psalm and the choice of one of two Gospels.

My post also includes several posts explaining the importance of what happened on Palm Sunday.

I wrote an exegesis on John 12:12-16 in 2021.

As for an Epistle, may I suggest Philippians 2:5-11, which my Anglican church is using (emphases mine):

Philippians 2:5-11

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

The alternative Gospel is as follows:

Mark 11:1-11

11:1 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples

11:2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.

11:3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’”

11:4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,

11:5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”

11:6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.

11:7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.

11:8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.

11:9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

11:10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

11:11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

As long as they are scriptural, I always enjoy reading different perspectives on our Lord’s life and ministry.

John MacArthur’s 2011 sermon does not disappoint. It shows that, as flawed and human as the crowds were, they played a part in God’s plan for His Son:

The week begins with His arrival in Jerusalem. The year is 30 A.D. by the best chronology, the month is the first Jewish month, Nisan, and the arrival is on the tenth, and the crucifixion is on the fourteenth; and that all matters, because God has established a very firm time table. Importantly, it is the Passover week of that year, and Friday will be the day when tens of thousands of Passover lambs will be slain, none of which can take away anyone’s sin. However, on this Passover, there will be one sacrifice made for sin that will take away the sins of all who have ever believed through all of human history, and it will be the sacrifice of the true Lamb.

The week begins with a very strange event. It begins with what would have to be considered a bizarre event. We call it the triumphal entry; but that is really not an appropriate title to capture what’s going on. I don’t want you to think that this is anything really official. It isn’t official in a Jewish sense, it isn’t official in an earthly sense, and it isn’t official in a heavenly sense.

That is why I’ve titled the message, “The False Coronation of the True King.” There really is no question about Christ, that He is the Messiah, that He is the promised King, that He is the son of David, that He is the one with a right to reign. His lineage checks out, His mother and father both in the line of David. He has all the qualifications. He is the Son of Man, He is the Son of God. He has demonstrated His deity and His full humanity throughout His ministry. He is the true King, but this is a false coronation.

That’s why it’s such a strange event. It is not a true expression of faith. It is not a true expression of praise. It is not a true expression of a claim. And it certainly isn’t God’s coronation any more than it is a true human coronation. What did happen on this day was an odd, bizarre event, not like any other coronation of any king …

Coronations aren’t humble, they aren’t unexpected. They aren’t unplanned. They aren’t unofficial. They aren’t spontaneous. They aren’t superficial. They aren’t temporary. But this one was all of those.

Coronations are not to be reversed in a few days so that the one exalted and elevated becomes rejected and executed, like this one. This was no real coronation. Let it be said, Jesus is the real King, deserving of all exaltation, all honor, all worship, and all praise. So this is the false coronation of the true King.

The true coronation of Christ has two parts: one has already happened, and one has not. The first phase of the coronation of Christ, the true coronation, occurred at His ascension, when He left this earth, as described in the first chapter of Acts, and ascended into heaven. We are told, by the writer of Hebrews, that He took His seat at the right hand of God. This was His first coronation and it was a heavenly coronation. Philippians 2 says that when He arrived, He not only took His seat at the right hand of God, but He was given a name; and the name that He was given is the name Lord which is the name above every name, and everyone in existence bows to that name. He has already had His heavenly coronation. He is reigning at the right hand of the throne of God. He is the sovereign of heaven and the universe. But He’s not yet had His earthly coronation.

Philippians 2 describes His heavenly coronation, Revelation 19 and 20 describe His earthly coronation …

This is neither the heavenly coronation of Christ, nor is it the earthly coronation of Christ. It is not a coronation of Christ at all, it is a mock coronation, it is a false coronation, it is a fraud. There are no formalities here in this coronation. There are no dignitaries. There is no regalia. There is no fanfare …

Now up to this point, Jesus had never allowed such an occasion as this. He had never allowed an open, public demonstration declaring Him to be the Messiah. He had never allowed anything like it. In Galilee on one occasion when there were some people who wanted to press Him into sort of taking authority and acting like a king, He fled the scene, because He knew the implications. And the implications were not positive. It was not the way that He would want to establish His purpose, not by taking authority, wielding power, and establishing the kingdom. That would come, and it will come when He returns. This time He came to die.

He didn’t allow this thing to happen, and the reason is because it would precipitate the aggressive action of the leaders who already wanted Him executed. Understand, from the beginning of His ministry the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Him. It started out that way, because the first act that He did when He got to Jerusalem three years before this was go into the temple and attack the place and dismantle it, and discredit their entire religious system. And then He spent three years discrediting their theology, and undermining their interpretations, misinterpretations of Scripture. It was an all-out assault on false apostate Judaism. They despised Him, they wanted Him dead.

Any kind of massive demonstration that made them think His popularity was expanding would then be a threat to the leaders and would only hurry up their act of murder against Him. So He never let it happen. But here He lets it happen. Here the real planner by divine providence is God, because this is the week He must die; and therefore, their desire to kill Him must be escalated to its fever pitch.

They weren’t really prepared to execute Him on the Passover. In fact, the New Testament tells us they didn’t want to arrest Him and execute Him on the Passover because they were afraid of the people. But they didn’t have a choice. They were so fearful of His escalating power that they sped up their murderous intent, which is exactly the way God wanted it, so that on Friday on the Passover, He would be the Passover Lamb.

This is a false coronation for a purpose that none of them would ever have understood. It is strangely designed by God, not as a legitimate exaltation, but to inflame His enemies at exactly the precise time to get things moving so there would be time for a trial and an execution on exactly the right day. He wanted this display with the greatest possible mass of people, the largest crowd possible, so that His enemies would be severely threatened and would execute Him on the divine schedule.

It is estimated that as many as two million people would be in Jerusalem at a Passover even in ancient days. And one of the ways we get at that is ten years after this, 40 A.D., there’s a record in Jewish history that two hundred and sixty-thousand lambs were slain at that Passover – over a quarter of a million. Usually there was one lamb per ten people. That would put it at 2.6 million people possibly. It was a massive crowd. The crowd around Him must have been in the hundreds of thousands. This was the time and this was the place to allow this to agitate His enemies so that He would die in God’s perfect timing.

Mark tells us that when Jesus and the disciples were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of them (verse 1), to the village ahead of them and, immediately upon entry they would find a colt that had never been ridden; they were to untie it and bring it (verse 2).

John MacArthur recaps our Lord’s ministry up unto this point, which culminated in His raising Lazarus from the dead:

The ministry in Galilee finished. The ministry in Judea finished. Final ministry in Perea on the east side of the Jordan completed, a few weeks in Perea. He crosses the Jordan near Jericho, comes through the town of Jericho, which is the base of the mountain from Jerusalem down into the area of the Dead Sea; and from Jericho, the road ascends to Jerusalem. So He passes through Jericho, heals two blind men, one named Bartimaeus; saves them spiritually. Brings into His kingdom the most hated man in town, Zacchaeus the tax collector.

Having gathered those souls to Himself in Jericho, He then ascends the twenty-five hundred-plus feet up into Jerusalem for Passover week. He is accompanied by His apostles and His disciples, and an entourage of people that has been growing, because He is, after all, the miracle worker, and He’s proven that by what happened in Jericho. He is compressed in the middle of a crowd; they’re in front of Him and behind Him and all sides of Him.

The word has circulated throughout that area and will continue to circulate throughout Jerusalem that He raised one, Lazarus, from the dead. And that is a true miracle, because there was plenty of evidence that he was dead. They held his funeral, he had been dead for days, and there’s plenty of evidence that he’s now alive because he lives in Bethany. So the escalation of this information about the miracle worker of Jesus, led by the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, has this crowd excited, and they’re following Him. They’re enthusiastic as they ascend the hill, because the Passover is the great event of the year. And they approach Jerusalem. And that’s how Mark begins this final week.

MacArthur gives us the meanings of the names of the two towns:

Bethany is that town, that village two miles east, down the slope from Jerusalem. The old name they think means “house of dates.” Bethphage, on the other hand, is a smaller little tiny village we don’t know anything about. Some people think it means “house of figs,” but it speaks of the agricultural life of the area. Both of them very near the Mount of Olives, which is directly east of the temple mount in Jerusalem. You come up from those villages over the Mount, and then you see Jerusalem. When you’re behind the Mount on the downslope, you can’t even see the eastern part of the city, or any of the city for that matter. So these little towns near the Mount of Olives are the location for this event.

Both our commentators point out the continuing humility that so characterised our Lord’s earthly life.

MacArthur says:

This really is very similar to His birth. In His birth, His mother arrives in Bethlehem in humble obscurity riding on a donkey; here, He arrives in Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Yes, He is the true King, King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, Savior, and no monarch in all human history remotely compares to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is none so magnificent, powerful, wise, sovereign, just, pure, and holy; and all the elite and all the monarchs of all human history collectively together stacked on top of each other wouldn’t go high enough to touch the hem of His all-glorious garment.

Matthew Henry looks at the fact that Jesus borrowed and did not own things:

This colt was borrowed too. Christ went upon the water in a borrowed boat, ate the passover in a borrowed chamber, was buried in a borrowed sepulchre, and here rode on a borrowed ass. Let not Christians scorn to be beholden one to another, and, when need is, to go a borrowing, for our Master did not.

Jesus gave His designated disciples the following instruction (verse 3), ‘If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”’

Note that Jesus returned what He borrowed.

That said, Henry tells us that, even in this simple, humble scene, Jesus shows His power, including omniscience:

… there were several rays of Christ’s glory shining forth in the midst of all this meanness. 1. Christ showed his knowledge of things distant, and his power over the wills of men, when he sent his disciples for the colt, v. 1-3. By this it appears that he can do every thing, and no thought can be withholden from him. 2. He showed his dominion over the creatures in riding on a colt that was never backed. The subjection of the inferior part of the creation to man is spoken of with application to Christ (Ps 8 5, 6, compared with Heb 2 8); for to him it is owing, and to his mediation, that we have any remaining benefit by the grant God made to man, of a sovereignty in this lower world, Gen 1 28. And perhaps Christ, in riding the ass’s colt, would give a shadow of his power over the spirit of man, who is born as the wild ass’s colt, Job 11 12. 3. The colt was brought from a place where two ways met (v. 4), as if Christ would show that he came to direct those into the right way, who had two ways before them, and were in danger of taking the wrong.

MacArthur posits that Jesus knew the colt’s owner believed in Him:

… it does assume one thing, that Jesus knows that whoever is in charge of this animal or owns this animal knows who the Lord is. This must be a believer. This must be someone who has put His trust in the Lord. He doesn’t even give them an explanation, “Just say, ‘The Lord has need of it,’ and immediately he’ll send it back here.”

He knows he’ll respond. He knows where the animal is. He knows who the man is. He knows what the man believes, and He knows what the man will do. That’s divine omniscience. That’s miraculous.

The disciples went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street; as they were untying it (verse 4), some bystanders asked why they were untying the colt (verse 5).

The disciples told them what Jesus had said and allowed them to take the young beast of burden (verse 6).

Meanwhile, MacArthur reminds us that John’s Gospel says that the hard-hearted Jewish hierarchy plotted to kill Lazarus. They could not bear the fact that Jesus resurrected him:

But in John 12, it says, “A large number of Jews came to Bethany the next day.” So on Sunday a large number of Jews came to Bethany. And it says, “They came to see Jesus and Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.” Now you get the story. The city is swelling with Passover pilgrims. The word is spreading about this guy that was raised from the dead. He is a curiosity. So people are walking the easy two miles because they want to see this man and they want to see Jesus.

This is a problem for the leaders. So John 12 tells us the chief priests took counsel – get this – to kill Lazarus. I mean, how hard-hearted are you when you don’t even deny that the guy was raised from the dead, you just try to kill him again?

Continuing with our reading, the disciples returned to Jesus with the colt and threw their cloaks on it; our Lord sat on the colt (verse 7).

MacArthur reminds us of similar verses from the Old Testament:

And didn’t David ride a mule? And wasn’t Solomon riding a mule even, in 1 Kings chapter 1, on his coronation? Is this supposed to connect Jesus with Solomon and David as a son of David?

Even so, MacArthur says that the main point lies elsewhere — in Zechariah’s prophecy:

But that’s not the main point. Mark doesn’t really tell us why this happened, but Matthew does. Okay? Turn to Matthew 21, Matthew’s parallel account. Matthew tells us why it happened, and it’s not vague.

Verse 4, Matthew 21. Verse 3 says, “If anyone asks you anything, just say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’” Then verse 4, “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet.” What prophet? Zechariah. Five hundred years before, Zechariah 9:9, Zechariah said, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your king is coming to you gentle and mounted on a donkey,’ – not even a donkey, but – ‘even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden, the foal of a donkey.’”

He will come in fulfillment of prophecy. That’s why I love to call this a faithful, a faithful arrival, a faithful arrival. He comes faithful to the prophet’s words five hundred years, as I said, before the prophet had said, “The people of Jerusalem would hail their Messiah riding on a donkey’s colt.” This is not His true coronation, but this is that event that happened that day in Jerusalem. He comes humbly on a donkey’s colt, because He comes not to reign, He comes to die. He comes not as a sovereign, but as a suffering servant and a Savior.

Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields (verse 8).

Henry looks at the humble scene, which he says is the example for us to follow as Christians:

The persons that attended, were mean people; and all the show they could make, was, by spreading their garments in the way (v. 8), as they used to do at the feast of tabernacles. All these were marks of his humiliation; even when he would be taken notice of, he would be taken notice of for his meanness; and they are instructions to us, not to mind high things, but to condescend to them of low estate. How ill doth it become Christians to take state, when Christ was so far from affecting it!

On the other hand, MacArthur explains that throwing cloaks or greenery on the ground signified the people’s submission. That would all change by the end of the week, of course, but in that moment:

Why would they spread their coats in the road? That was an old, ancient gesture, a custom that showed submission. “You can walk on me, you can step on me; I’m below your feet.”

Kings were always elevated and people were under their feet. And this was a way to symbolize that: “You can walk all over me; I am submissive to you.” You see it in the coronation of Jehu in 2 Kings chapter 9. “We place ourselves under your authority.” This is an affirmation, at least superficially, “You’re our King. You’re our sovereign” …

They show their fealty to Him by spreading leafy branches under Him. John 12:13 says, “They were palm branches.” And palm branches in the Scripture can be symbols of salvation joy, as they are in Revelation 7:9. Throwing down these branches was a symbol of joy. “You are our deliverer. You are our source of joy.”

They misunderstood our Lord’s purpose in coming to earth to save us from sin:

Their hope for the kingdom was really high; but they had their own view: “Attack the Romans; throw out the Romans. Give us our place in the world, and fulfill all the promises of the Old Testament to us.” And they were all superficial and earthly.

Similarly, MacArthur says that John’s Gospel tells us that our Lord’s disciples understood this scene only later, not at the time:

And His disciples didn’t get it. Did they get the omniscient part? I think they did. Did they get the prophetic part? No. John 12 says, in writing of this very event, John 12:16, “These things His disciples didn’t understand at first; but when Jesus was glorified after His ascension, then they remembered that these things were written about Him, and that they had done these things to Him.” The details, all recorded in the Old Testament, they didn’t understand at the time; but later they understood. This is a faithful arrival, He is fulfilling prophecy.

Jesus also fulfilled a prophecy from the Book of Daniel:

In Daniel 9 we’re given a really important prophecy, Daniel 9:24 to 27, that it’ll be four hundred and eighty three years, sixty-nine weeks of years – sixty-nine times seven, four hundred and eighty three – four hundred and eighty-three years from the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem, which was in 445 B.C., four hundred and eighty-three years to the arrival of Messiah. If you do the calendar work on that, four hundred and eighty-three years from the decree of Artaxerxes lands you on this day when Jesus came into the city. God’s timing is perfect, down to the clearest detail. It was a faithful arrival, faithful to the divine purpose, prophecy, and timetable.

Continuing with our reading, those ahead of Jesus and those following Him shouted (verse 9), ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Also (verse 10), ‘Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Henry says that this was all part of God’s plan:

It was God that put it into the hearts of these people to cry Hosanna, who were not by art and management brought to it, as those were who afterward cried, Crucify, crucify. Christ reckons himself honoured by the faith and praises of the multitude, and it is God that brings people to do him this honour beyond their own intentions.

MacArthur tells us what ‘Hosanna’ means in Psalm 118:

That’s an exclamatory plea that means, “Save now. Save now. Deliver us now.” And they’re talking about an earthly, political, military deliverance. They’re shouting Psalm 118, verse 26, a psalm of salvation, sometimes called “the conqueror’s psalm,” which a hundred years before, the Jews shouted at Maccabeus because he was triumphing over the Syrians.

Matthew adds, “They said, ‘Hosanna, save now, to the Son of David.’” That’s the most common messianic title. So they were identifying Jesus as the Messiah: “Save now, Messiah. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” That’s the Psalm 118, verse 26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

They said, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. Hosanna in the highest.” All these are messianic accolades; and they’re shouting at the top of their voice. Luke adds that they even said, “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.”

This is mob hysteria. They know that these things relate to the kingdom. The kingdom will be a kingdom of salvation. The kingdom will be a kingdom over which the son of David rules. The kingdom will be the kingdom promised to David with all those promises fulfilled. The kingdom will be a kingdom of peace, and the kingdom will be a kingdom of glory. Everything shouted is true, scriptural, borrowed out of the Old Testament, accurate. This is God’s King, but this is not God’s time.

Mark ends his account by saying that Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple but, as it was already late, He and the Apostles went out to Bethany (verse 11), where Lazarus, Mary and Martha lived.

Henry gives us this analysis. It was the following day when Jesus overturned the moneychangers’ tables, which is what follows in Mark’s Gospel:

Christ, thus attended, thus applauded, came into the city, and went directly to the temple. Here was no banquet of wine prepared for his entertainment, nor the least refreshment; but he immediately applied himself to his work, for that was his meat and drink. He went to the temple, that the scripture might be fulfilled; “The Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, without sending any immediate notice before him; he shall surprise you with a day of visitation, for he shall be like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap,“ Mal 3 1-3. He came to the temple, and took a view of the present state of it, v. 11. He looked round about upon all things, but as yet said nothing. He saw many disorders there, but kept silence, Ps 50 21. Though he intended to suppress them, he would not go about the doing of it all on a sudden, lest he should seem to have done it rashly; he let things be as they were for this night, intending the next morning to apply himself to the necessary reformation, and to take the day before him. We may be confident that God sees all the wickedness that is in the world, though he do not presently reckon for it, nor cast it out. Christ, having make his remarks upon what he saw in the temple, retired in the evening to a friend’s house at Bethany, because there he would be more out of the noise of the town, and out of the way of being suspected, a designing to head a faction.

MacArthur says similarly:

He entered Jerusalem, came into the temple, and looked around at everything. What’s He doing? I’ll tell you what He’s doing. He’s casing the place. He’s planning a strategy for the next day.

And what happened on the next day? Verse 15: “He entered the temple, began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, overturned the table of the money changers, the seats of those selling doves. He wouldn’t permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. He began to teach and say to them, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? You have made it a robber’s den.’ The chief priests and the scribes heard this, began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.”

They’ve got a problem now. He’s attacked them at the very heart, and He’s got this massive crowd all stirred up. All this by God’s design to precipitate His death on Friday. No, He’s just checking it out. He’s just developing the strategy for the next day when He goes in and assaults the place.

When Jesus came to Jerusalem, they were ready to hail Him as their Messiah if He did for them what they wanted. Okay? And when He didn’t, they turned on Him and cried for His blood. He left the end of that day and He went back to His friends at the time of dusk, because once it was dark, there was nothing to be done, and it was late in the day; and He left. But He had made His appraisal of the horrific corruption of the temple religion.

MacArthur concludes with an explanation of the people’s fickleness and a contemporary example of a false coronation:

It wasn’t the Romans He would attack, it was the Jews. It wasn’t pagan idolatry He would attack, it was the worship of Judaism, whose religion had been corrupted, whose praise was selfish and superficial.

Did the people know He had the credentials of Messiah? Yeah; born of the line of David, miracle worker, heal sick people, cast out demons, raises dead people. How could they possibly decide to crucify Him? I’ll give it to you real simple: if Jesus doesn’t do what the sinner wants Jesus to do, the sinner will turn on Him.

Can I tell you something? False coronations like this go on every day, all the time. Just turn on your television to some charismatic TV station and watch all the hoopla about Jesus, and watch all the swaying and groaning and moaning and singing and praising, and then listen to the people say, “Jesus will make you rich. Jesus will heal you. Jesus will give you all your dreams. Jesus will fulfill all your desires.” And I will tell you all the praise and the hoopla will go on until Jesus doesn’t deliver the goods that the fallen sinner wants; and they’ll turn on Him.

That’s a very deadly thing to do and very dishonoring to the Lord. That’s why the prosperity message is so dangerous, it lies. It promises the sinner what the fallen sinner already wants in his corrupt condition. What a true believer wants is what will glorify God, honor Christ, and increase His attractiveness to the people around him. The sinful heart can be very interested in Jesus. The sinful heart can be very, very religious until Jesus attacks that false religion.

MacArthur gives us the correct way to approach Jesus:

… when you crown Christ the true King, when you put your trust in Him, you will, as a true believer, say, “Lord, give me what You would want me to have. Reign in my life according to Your will, not mine”…

May all reading this have a blessed Palm Sunday.