END OF MONTH NOTE: SALVATION HAS COME

[cimi]

"They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set [Jesus] on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road" (Matt. 21:7-8). I love this imagery of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, with praise and open worship on the streets!

Matthew tells us that Jesus rode into Jerusalem so that "it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet" (v.4). Jesus was the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, "Behold your King is coming to you...lowly and riding on a donkey." Matthew also ties in words from the prophet Isaiah: "Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Surely your salvation is coming' " (62:11).

The word for "salvation" in Isaiah is the Hebrew equivalent for Jesus: Yesha or Yeshua. It may just as easily have been understood as, "Jesus has come!"

To the throngs along that stone road, lined with garments and palm fronds, Yeshua/Salvation had come as a King-gentle, and riding on a donkey. They welcomed Him with shouts of "Hosanna," which means, "Please, deliver us!" and called Him "Son of David," an idiom for "the Messiah," the rightful king of Israel.

It seems the masses had a grasp of who the One was riding that donkey. What they did not understand was His mission. He was not coming as a King to rule, but as the King who would wear a crown of thorns, who would be nailed to a tree, die, and rise again.

Those triumphant steps into Jerusalem began a week-long journey that affirmed time and again, as the prophets foretold: Surely your salvation--Jesus--has come!

__Kevin Williams