Jesus · c. AD 30
Chapter 48
The King Comes
On the next day a great multitude had come to the feast. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,they took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet him, and cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”
For parents
This chapter tells of plots to kill: the chief priests plan to put Lazarus to death (John 12:10–11), and the chief priests and scribes look for a way to destroy Jesus (Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47–48). Weeping over Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of enemies who will surround the city and dash it and its children to the ground (Luke 19:43–44), and he speaks of his burial and of the kind of death he will die (John 12:7, 32–33). Judas, who would betray Jesus, is called a thief (John 12:4–6).
Six days before the , came to . was there, the man who had died and whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
They made a supper for him there. did the serving, and Lazarus was among those at the table with him.
Then , the sister of Martha and Lazarus, took some very costly ointment of pure : a Roman pound of it, about twelve ounces. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. The scent of the ointment filled the house.
But , Simon’s son, spoke up. He was one of Jesus’ , the one who would betray him. “Why wasn’t this ointment sold for three hundred and given to the poor?” he asked. Three hundred denarii was about a year’s pay for a farm worker.
He said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. He looked after the money box, and he used to steal what was put into it.
But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you always, but you don’t always have me.”
A large crowd of the Jews heard that Jesus was there, and they came. They came because of Jesus, and to see Lazarus too, whom he had raised from the dead.
But the plotted to put Lazarus to death too. Because of him, many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.
Luke says that Jesus had just told the story of the nobleman who went to a faraway country to be given a kingdom. After that, Jesus went on ahead, going up to .
When they came near Jerusalem, to and Bethany at the , he sent two of his disciples.
“Go into the village across from you,” he told them. “The moment you go into it, you will find a young donkey tied up, a colt no one has ever sat on. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it,’ and right away he will send it back here.”
In Matthew, Jesus told them that as soon as they went in they would find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. “Untie them and bring them to me,” he said. “If anyone says anything to you, say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and right away he will send them.”
Matthew says that all this happened so that the words spoken through the would come true:
Tell the daughter of :Look, your King comes to you,humble, and riding on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The two went and did just as Jesus had told them, and they found things just as he had said: a colt tied at a door, out in the open street. They untied it.
Some of the people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” In Luke, it was the colt’s owners who asked, “Why are you untying the colt?”
The disciples gave them Jesus’ answer, “The Lord needs it,” and they let the disciples go.
They brought it to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, and Jesus sat on it. Luke says they threw their cloaks on the colt and sat Jesus on them.
In Matthew, the disciples brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them, and Jesus sat on them.
As Jesus went along, they spread their cloaks on the road. Matthew and Mark say that a great many spread their clothes on the road, and still others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds going ahead of him and the ones following kept shouting, “ to the son of ! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
In Mark, those going ahead and those following cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our ancestor David that is coming in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Luke tells it this way. As Jesus was getting near, where the Mount of Olives slopes down, the whole crowd of his disciples was filled with joy. They began to praise God at the top of their voices for all the mighty works they had seen. They said, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”
Some of the from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, scold your disciples!”
“I tell you,” he answered them, “if these were silent, the stones would cry out.”
John tells of a great crowd that had come for the feast. The next day, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches from the palm trees and went out to meet him. “Hosanna!” they cried. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”
John says that once Jesus had found a young donkey, he sat on it, as it is written: “Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your King comes, sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
His disciples didn’t understand these things at first. Later, when Jesus was glorified, they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him.
A crowd had been there with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead. They kept telling about it. That was also why the crowd went to meet him: they had heard that he had done this .
So the Pharisees said among themselves, “You see? Nothing you do is working. Look, the world has gone off to follow him.”
When Jesus came near, he saw the city and wept over it. “If only you, even you, had known today the things that belong to your peace!” he said. “But now they are hidden from your eyes. The days will come on you when your enemies will put up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side, and dash you and your children within you to the ground. They won’t leave one stone on another in you, because you didn’t know the time when you were visited.”
When Jesus came into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred up, and people were asking, “Who is this?”
“This is the prophet, Jesus, from of ,” the crowds said.
Mark says that Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem and looked around at everything there. It was already evening, and he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
The next day, when they had come out of Bethany, Jesus was hungry. In the distance he saw a fig tree that had leaves, and he went over to see if there was anything on it. When he reached it, there was nothing but leaves, because it wasn’t the season for figs.
“May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” Jesus said to the tree. His disciples heard it.
Matthew and Luke tell what happened in the temple right after Jesus rode into the city. In Mark, it happened the next day, after the fig tree. They came to Jerusalem, and Jesus went into the temple. He began to throw out the people who were selling and buying there, and he turned over the tables and the seats of those who sold the doves. He would not let anyone carry a container through the temple.
And he taught them: “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers!”
In Matthew, his words are: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!” In Luke they are: “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!”
In Matthew, the lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
The chief priests and the saw the wonderful things that he did, and they saw the children in the temple calling out, “Hosanna to the son of David!” They were angry, and asked him, “Do you hear what these are saying?”
“Yes,” Jesus told them. “Didn’t you ever read, ‘From the mouths of children and nursing babies you have made praise perfect’?”
The chief priests and the scribes heard about it, and they began looking for a way to destroy him. They were afraid of him, because all the people in the crowd were astonished at what he taught.
Luke says that Jesus was teaching every day in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes, along with the leading men of the people, were trying to destroy him. But they couldn’t work out what to do, because all the people hung on to every word he said.
When evening came, Jesus went out of the city. As they came by in the morning, they saw that the fig tree had dried up from the roots. remembered. “, look!” he said to Jesus. “The fig tree you cursed has withered away.”
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered them. “I tell you for certain, whoever tells this mountain, ‘Be picked up and thrown into the sea,’ will have whatever he says, if he has no doubt in his heart but believes that what he says is happening. So I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you will have them.
“Whenever you stand praying, if you have something against someone, forgive, so that your Father who is in heaven may forgive your wrongs too. But if you don’t forgive, your Father in heaven won’t forgive your wrongs either.”
In Matthew, Jesus left the chief priests and the scribes and went out of the city to Bethany, and he stayed there for the night. In the morning, as he was going back into the city, he was hungry. He saw a fig tree by the road and went over to it, but there was nothing on it but leaves. “Let there never be fruit from you again!” he said to it, and right away the fig tree withered.
The disciples saw it and were astonished. “How did the fig tree wither away all at once?” they asked.
Jesus answered them, “I tell you for certain, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you won’t only do what was done to the fig tree. Even if you told this mountain, ‘Be picked up and thrown into the sea,’ it would be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer, if you believe, you will receive.”
There were some Greeks among the people who went up to worship at the feast. These Greeks went to , who came from in Galilee. “Sir,” they said to him, “we want to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told . Then Andrew came with Philip, and they told Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “The time has come for the to be glorified. I tell you for certain, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it stays by itself, alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
“Anyone who loves his life will lose it. Anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it safe for eternal life. Anyone who serves me must follow me. Where I am, my servant will be there too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
“My soul is troubled now. What should I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? But this is why I came to this time. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came out of the sky: “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
The crowd who stood by heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said, “An has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered, “This voice hasn’t come for my sake, but for yours. Now the judgment of this world has come. Now the prince of this world will be thrown out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
By saying this, he was showing what kind of death he would die.
The crowd answered him, “What we have heard from the law is that the remains forever. So why do you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little while yet. Walk while you have the light, so the darkness won’t overtake you. Whoever walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, in order to become children of light.” Jesus said these things, then went away and hid himself from them.
But though Jesus had done so many signs before their eyes, they didn’t believe in him. This was so that the word the prophet spoke would come true:
Lord, who has believed what we have reported?Who has been shown the Lord’s arm?
For this reason they couldn’t believe, because Isaiah said this too:
He has blinded their eyes,and he hardened their heart,so they would not see with their eyes,and understand in their heart,and turn back,and I would heal them.
Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and he spoke of him.
Even so, many of the rulers themselves believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they didn’t say so, so that they wouldn’t be put out of the . They kept quiet because they loved people’s praise more than God’s.
Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me doesn’t believe in me, but in the one who sent me. Anyone who sees me sees the one who sent me. I came as a light into the world, so that whoever believes in me won’t stay in the darkness.
“If anyone hears my words and doesn’t believe, I don’t judge him, because I didn’t come to judge the world; I came to save the world. Whoever rejects me and doesn’t receive my words has a judge: the word I spoke will judge him on the last day.
“What I have spoken didn’t come from me. The Father who sent me gave me a commandment: what I should say and what I should speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. So when I speak, I say things just as the Father has said them to me.”