Daily devotion – the first coming of Christ
Palm Sunday is an amazing day that I especially look forward to. As a child I have vivid memories of the church I attended, being filled with palms and also each one of us being given a cross made from one palm leaf.
It seemed a very joyous Sunday and vastly different to the following Easter Sunday service where it was more solemn than usual as we remembered the Cross and Christ’s blessed Resurrection.
Jesus had put a lot of preparation into the events leading up to Palm Sunday’s public entrance into Jerusalem.
He had organised for a colt and her foal to be available for pick up by His disciples and His entry would be at the same time as the Passover lambs were being herded into the city for sacrifice. Josephus tells us that the population of Jerusalem on Pam Sunday increased by more than 2 million visitors not including the residents.
Five hundred years before the event, the prophet Zechariah had declared this day would happen in detail – 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
The prophet Daniel had revealed the very day that Christ would ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday – Dan 9:25 Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes.
Now in Nehemiah 2:1, we are told that in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, in the month of Nisan, Nehemiah was bearing the cup to the king. The Encyclopedia Britannica tells you that Artaxerxes began to reign in 465 B.C. The twentieth year of his reign would be 445 B.C. The month of Nisan in 445 B.C. was March 14, in the Julian Calendar. So, interestingly enough the Lord provides from history the very day that the commandment went forth from Artaxerxes to Nehemiah to rebuild the city, which was March 14, 445 B.C.
Now according to the prophecy, four hundred and eighty-three years later, the Messiah the prince will come. Taking the four hundred and three Babylonian years of three hundred and sixty days, is one hundred and seventy-three thousand eight hundred and eighty days. Which when you put it over against the Julian calendar figures out to April 6th, 32 A.D., four hundred and eighty-three years.
We are told that Jesus began His public ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberias Caesar. The fifteenth year of Tiberias Caesar was the year 28 A.D. The public ministry of Jesus lasted through four Passovers. It began at a Passover time and lasted through four Passovers, or three years of public ministry, which means that being crucified on Passover, it would be the year 32 A.D. And, Passover is always on the 14th of Nisan, but in the Julian calendar Passover was on the 10th of April, on a Thursday. If you come back four days, you come back to the 6th of April, four hundred and eight-three years to the day from the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.
But He had not allowed public acknowledgment or recognition, until April 6th, 32 A.D. Then, He took special pains to prepare for this day by telling His disciples to, “go get the donkey in that village over there. He is tied on a particular corner. Bring him to me.” When they had brought the donkey to Jesus, He sat upon it, and they laid their clothes in the path and they began to wave palm branches and they began to acclaim Him as the Messiah, singing the Hallel Psalm of the Messiah, 118. “Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; save now, save now.”
When the Pharisees said, “Lord, rebuke them. That is blasphemy.” Jesus said, “If they would at this time hold their peace these very stones would cry out.”
The people just weren’t ready – even though God had gone to such extremes to give them the very day of their Messiah’s coming.
Christ is coming again, how many will be ready for His Second Coming?