Palm Sunday Redux

Palm Sunday Redux September 8, 2014

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the disciples laid their robes on the ground before Him, creating a carpet. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the backs of the disciples, elevated like a king. 

It’s a gesture found only once in the OT: When Jehu is proclaimed king. Jesus, the new Jehu, is coming to Jerusalem as a conqueror. Like Jehu, He comes to announce the destruction of a temple.

John’s account is different. The people proclaim Jesus as king, but they don’t lay their clothing in His way; they lay palm branches (John 12:13). Jesus is the divine warrior riding over the tops of the trees into the city. 

Then in Revelation, John sees a great multitude with palm branches (7:9). It’s Palm Sunday again, and the multitude is celebrating the Lion who is the Son of David and the Lamb, celebrating the salvation He brings. The Lamb is yet again Jehu, and the palm branches hint at the Lamb’s eventual triumph over the beasts and their horns (ch. 17).

And the Lamb is another Jehu because He comes to destroy another Jezebel (cf. 2:20), the harlot city (ch. 17-18) that drinks the blood of prophets, as Jezebel did.


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