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Luke 19:28–38
“As [Jesus] was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’” (vv. 37–38).
It has taken Luke the evangelist some ten chapters to narrate the final journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–19:27), but we have at last arrived at the point where our Lord entered the Holy City on the way to the cross. Luke 19:28–40 describes Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
For most of His ministry, Jesus was reluctant to have people publicly declare that He is the Christ—that is, the Messiah (e.g., see 9:21–22). This was likely because most of the Jews had a mistaken understanding of the Messiah’s role and because for Jesus to proclaim Himself King of the Jews would invite the Roman authorities to arrest Him before it was time. With the triumphal entry, however, Jesus showed Himself no longer hesitant to have others recognize Him as the Messiah. The time was at hand for His death, so there was no need to conceal His identity any longer.
The triumphal entry reveals Jesus’ messianic vocation in several ways. First, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. The disciples procured this donkey by telling the owner that “the Lord has need of it” (Luke 19:28–35). Matthew Henry notes that this shows the dominion of Christ, for He simply had to tell people what He required and they gave it immediately.
We read in Luke 19:35–36 that people spread their cloaks on the ground for our Lord to walk on as He entered the city, riding on the donkey (see also Matt. 21:8). This echoed what happened when Jehu was appointed king of Israel (2 Kings 9:1–13), drawing a further connection between Jesus and royal rule. John 12:13 tells us that the people also waved palm branches. By the first century, the palm branch was a widely used symbol for the Jewish people that was associated with political independence, since the Maccabees who had thrown off Greek rule nearly two hundred years earlier used palm branches in celebration of their victory. The crowd was hailing Jesus as the King who would secure their independence once again.
Finally, Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). This comes from Psalm 118, which the first-century Jews regarded as a messianic psalm proclaiming the final victory of God and His King at the last day. Jesus, of course, was about to defeat sin, Satan, and death once and for all, but it would soon become clear that the people were by and large looking for a different kind of triumph.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Many of the first-century Jews missed that Jesus is the Messiah because they were looking for a king to give them political independence. Their expectations made them blind to the truth. If we are not careful, we can develop wrong expectations that can make it hard to see God’s truth. Let us seek to have Scripture inform our expectations of God’s character, reign, church, and other areas that it speaks to.
for further study
- 1 Kings 1:28–40
- Psalm 124
- Mark 11:1–11
- John 1:35–42
the bible in a year
- Isaiah 4–6
- Galatians 3