Passion Week Through Jewish Eyes: The 10th Of Nisan

In Matthew 21, as Yeshua is riding into Jerusalem, it would seem that we have the proclaiming of a king. Behold your king is coming to you (Mt. 21:5); Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David (Mk. 11:10).  From all outward appearances it looks as if the people are proclaiming Yeshua to be the long awaited King-Messiah. 

However, since we don’t have kings in America, we are not really experts on the subject of crowning kings. In fact, we were established out of a revolution against having a king. You might say we were anti-king. 

Probably the closest we come to knowing anything about this topic is when we watch the British family going through all their ceremonies on TV. But we don’t really have much familiarity with the ceremony and coronation of royalty — just what we watch. Not really our cup of tea. 

But in our text, we actually find a coronation as real as any coronation ever was. And that is because this is really a king. The people are proclaiming Him as a king as they are hoping to usher Him into His Kingship, in a sense, as we read in Matthew 21:1-11.  But it seems to be lacking the pomp and majesty and splendor that we would expect from the coronation of a king. 

But this is not like those coronations. A donkey’s colt, some old clothes and a bunch of palm branches?  But then this is no ordinary king. And He has no ordinary kingdom. He said to Pilate, “I am not a king like you think kings are. My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). 

Nevertheless, this is a very important event in these eleven verses because it begins the final week in the life of our Lord prior to His crucifixion. This is His last public act, the last event in His ministry before He is crucified. 

It deserves our full attention and respect. It must be understood for what it really is or you won’t understand what comes after it. 

I really believe that this earthly coronation of Yeshua, referred to as the triumphal entry, gets bypassed too much. Especially within Messianic circles; probably because it is referred to as Palm Sunday, and that belongs to a different religion. 

It is a very significant event. And you will see that significance unfold as we dive deeper into the text to see what this event actually represents, and what follows.  

The things that happened over the next few days following this Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem are related to a specific event that takes place during Passover. 

The Triumphal Entry is usually interpreted to be the time when Yeshua rode into Jerusalem and presented Himself to the Jewish people as Israel’s King and Messiah. 

But that is not a good interpretation. Yeshua had already been offering Himself as the Messiah and King of the Jews for 3½ years. And the Jewish leaders already rejected His Messiahship 1½ years ago (Matthew 12:22-45).  

It was at that time, 1½ years earlier, that Yeshua said THAT generation was guilty of committing the “unpardonable sin.” As a result, God’s judgment would come in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. 

The Kingdom He came to bring did not happen – the offer was rescinded from that Jewish generation (painful to talk about it), and will be offered to another Jewish generation, the generation coming out of the Great Tribulation. 

When He rode into Jerusalem on that particular day He was not offering Himself as the King…there was a different purpose during THIS Passover.  

We will explore that purpose in our next Blog post.