The Passion Week - Sunday

The week will begin with today, Sunday, with Christ's entrance into Jerusalem.  Mark's account is from Chapter 11 verses 1-11.  Background information may also be added for each day with the source noted.  Let us first look at the Scripture:

Sunday

Mark 11:1-10

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Craig L. Blomberg, in his book "Jesus and the Gospels," states that "this ragtag band of followers accompanying a Galilean peasant riding a donkey would have looked like a parody of the standard welcome and fanfare for governors and generals astride their white horses with a retinue of soldiers." (314) The prophetic passage for the "triumphal entry" is Zechariah 9:9.  Note also 2 Kings 9:13 and 1 Maccabees 13:51 (And entered into it the three and twentieth day of the second month in the hundred seventy and first year, with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and with harps, and cymbals, and with viols, and hymns, and songs: because there was destroyed a great enemy out of Israel.) for other historical accounts of the greeting of rulers.  Jesus was not on a warhorse like the messiah many would have expected, but He was riding a donkey - "an animal of peace and humility."  (Blomberg, 315)  The time for Jesus to ride on a horse will come later... (Revelation 19:11 ff.)

Was riding into Jerusalem the only thing Christ did on Sunday?  No, after His entry, note verse 11 -

Mark 11:11

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple and looked round on all that was going on. And then, since it was already late in the day, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Jesus also went into the temple area.  Perhaps He was just seeing what he had to do on Monday.  (Mark 11:15-19)