We are very close to Palm Sunday. This pivotal day in history. There are several passages of Scripture that are dear to me and this part of Mark 11 is one of them. Let’s read this together:
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:1-10 [ESV])
The triumphal entry of our Lord was prophesied hundreds of years before. And not only that it wasn’t as if it was prophesied that some day it would happen, but the prophesy gave the year and day. That is beyond incredible in my estimation.
The words the crowds cry out – Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! – come from Psalm 118, one of the Messianic Psalms. But, also, this event was prophesied in Daniel.
9:24 “Seventy weeks have been determined concerning your people and your holy city to put an end to rebellion, to bring sin to completion, to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual righteousness, to seal up the prophetic vision, and to anoint a Most Holy Place. 25 So know and understand: From the issuing of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince arrives, there will be a period of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will again be built, with plaza and moat, but in distressful times. 26 Now after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. As for the city and the sanctuary, the people of the coming prince will destroy them. But his end will come speedily like a flood. Until the end of the war that has been decreed there will be destruction. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of that week he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt. On the wing of abominations will come one who destroys, until the decreed end is poured out on the one who destroys.” (Daniel 9:24-27 [NET])
Daniel wrote these words some 600 years earlier than the Triumphal Entry. He writes, From the issuing of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince arrives… That prophecy is fulfilled to the day it was declared.
We don’t have time here to unpack all the passages of Scripture that makes this prophecy true and fulfilled, but I can give you the following quote that summarizes the math and the exact day it did happen in history. “Sir Robert Anderson by a careful analysis of the prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 calculated that Jesus, to the very day, fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy concerning the appearance of the Messiah. Dr. Alva McClain has written, ‘April 6, 32 A.D., therefore, is fixed definitely as the end of the era of the first 69 Weeks; and according to Daniel’s prophecy, it should mark the very day of Messiah’s manifestation as the Prince of Israel.’ Without attempting to enter into the clear but intricate chronological calculations set forth by Anderson in his book, The Coming Prince (Pages 95-105), I shall simply state his conclusion that April 6, 32 A.D., was the tenth of Nisan, that momentous day on which our Lord, in fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, rode up to Jerusalem on the ‘foal of an ass’ and offered Himself as the Prince and King of Israel.” Alva J. McClain, Daniel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969), p. 20.
So what you may ask. Well many times we talk about leaps of faith people need to make to believe in this whole gospel, Christian thing. Well because of passages like these we know there are no leaps or hops or steps. The gospel is plain and simply laid out for us in Scripture and that’s why we read the Bible through each year. We see more and more of God’s proof that what he says and does and true and trustworthy. April 6th is just around the corner. Set an alarm for that morning and remember what Jesus has done for us.
Sixty-six books in a year 