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This Sunday is Called Palm Sunday as well as Passion Sunday.
Jesus entered Jerusalem fulfilling the prophecy from the prophet Zechariah (chapter 9 verse 9), "Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you.
He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey, riding on a donkey’s colt".
That is only one of over 300 Old Testament prophecies that Jesus Christ fulfilled. God was not doing things in the shadows where no one could see. He was displaying His powerful work of salvation for all to see.
This Sunday is called Passion Sunday because the record of Jesus' trial, crucifixion and death are read from one of the eye-witness accounts from the Gospels.
Here is an amazing thing! As Jesus hangs, nailed to a Roman cross,
He cries out the first words of Psalm 22.
Some say that here, Jesus was showing His “Hebrew-ness”. In any kind of painful struggle, the lament psalms would come to the mind of any Hebrew. It was a God-given way to cry out in real honesty…not pious patter!
The common folk around misunderstood Him thinking He was calling upon Elijah to come and save Him. The Rabbis, Pharisees, Sanhedrin, lawyers and scribes knew better. And at that very moment Jesus made it VERY clear to them who He was and what was going on. They couldn’t run from it.
How deep the Father’s love for even the prodigals who had stubbornly refused to “come to their senses” and turn again toward home. Luke records in Luke 23:48 that after Jesus died, when the people there saw what happened, they went home beating their breast in deep sorrow because they SAW!
Here is why the remorse: Remez. That’s right, remez! It so happens that Rabbis, when discussing theological matters would speak to each other in what was called: remez. The word in Hebrew means “hinting”.
If, as a Rabbi, I wanted to give you my thoughts on a doctrinal issue, I’d use a phrase, a sentence or sometimes just a specific word of Holy Scripture and in the mind of the other Rabbis in the conversation, a whole body of the biblical text would come to mind. I would thus make my point clear from the text I had used to answer.
Rabbis memorized the Old Testament backwards and forwards. The test they were given to establish themselves as Rabbis was to give them a short passage of the Old Testament and they had to quote massive passages before and after the passage in question.
The Chief Priests and rulers were there wagging their heads at Jesus and mocking Him, and He quotes the first verse of Psalm 22. All of the following was brought to the forefront of their memories in blazing color.
Psalm 22 uses these images:
A worm…not a snake that strikes back (Jesus never fought back)
Scorned and despised by all
Sneered at and mocked
Wagging their heads
Enemies surround me with no way out
Life (blood) is poured out like water
Bones are all out of joint
Strength dried up
Tongue stuck to roof of my mouth
Dogs surround me (Gentile Roman soldiers)
Pierced my hands and feet
Divide my clothes and gamble for my clothes
His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born. They will hear about everything He has done!
Isn’t that amazing! All of Psalm 22 was immediately called to mind when Jesus cried out.
The very things happening before them, their actions, the very words coming out of their mouths were recorded centuries before they happened. Crucifixion was not even a means of execution when David wrote this Psalm.
God wanted it to be clear. He wants to make it clear to us and the world around us.
May be an image of 9 people and people standing
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