Jesus orchestrates his triumphal entry.

When they came to Jerusalem (via Beit Fagí and Beit Anya, by the Mount of Olives), Jesus sent out two of his students. He told them, “Go into the village nearest you. Immediately once you enter it, you’ll find a colt tied up, on which no one has ever sat. Untie and bring it. When anyone tells you, ‘Why’re you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he’ll send it back here soon.’”

The students went off, found the colt out in the street—tied to a door—and untied it. Some who were standing there asked them, “What’re you doing, untying the colt?” The students told them what Jesus said, and the people permitted them: They brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their coats on it, and Jesus sat on it.

Many people spread their coats on the road; others, palm branches cut from the fields. Those who went ahead, and those who followed, were shouting,

“Save us!”

“The blessed one who comes in the Lord’s name!”

“The blessed Kingdom Come of our father David!”

“Save us by the Highest God!”

Jesus entered Jerusalem, entered the temple, looking around at everything. Since it was already the evening hour, he went to Beit Anya with the Twelve.

—

Orchestrating the entry.

The other gospels all have this story, and tell it a little differently. I won’t get into the differences here. I’ll just remind you they wanted to emphasize different things, and you can read the other gospels to look at their take on the story: Matthew, Luke, and John.

Christians have historically called this “Jesus’s triumphal entry,” which is confusing when you use the current English definition of triumph, “a great victory.” People don’t really see the victory, since Jesus seems to have been defeated—arrested and executed a few days later. But the Latin word triumpus refers instead to an invading army—then later, the victory party in Rome, when the conquering general would paint himself red, show off all the spoils he took from his enemies, and execute his enemies before the Roman gods. Jesus’s “triumphal entry” was an invasion, much like the invasion he’ll make when he returns.

This wasn’t a spontaneous outburst. This was deliberately orchestrated by Jesus. He sent two students to a nearby village to get him a colt to ride into Jerusalem, and if anybody questioned their action, they were to tell them, O kýrios aftú khrían ékhi/“Its master has need.” Usually this is translated, “The Lord has need of it,” and misses how the students actually said “Its lord”—meaning Jesus, the King, had claimed possession of it. Because he’s the King.

Matthew and John state this colt wasn’t a young horse, as anyone who reads the Greek word pólos might first assume. This was a young donkey, and meant to remind everyone of when King David had his son Solomon ride into Gihon on his own personal mule so Solomon could be anointed king of Israel. Yeah, horse/donkey hybrids were forbidden in the Law, but whatever; let’s not get into David’s various violations of the Law just now. Riding a donkey to one’s christening became the custom for anointing kings, and was referred to in Zechariah, which both Matthew and John quote.

Rejoice greatly, Zion’s daughter.

Shout, Jerusalem’s daughter.

Look, your king comes to you.

He’s a righteous savior.

He’s poor, and riding on a donkey;

on a colt, the son of a female donkey.

—

So if the Messiah’s gonna come to Jerusalem to be anointed and take his throne, the Jews expected him to ride into town on a young donkey. Exactly as Jesus had. And they treated his arrival precisely like that of a king’s arrival: They shouted, they waved branches, and they threw down their coats for his donkey to walk on—representing their submission to him, for in that culture, a king had the right to walk on their backs if he so desired.

Hosanna.

Most Christians don’t know what the Aramaic word hoshaná/“hosanna” means. Most bibles leave it untranslated, and as a result, Christians get the idea it’s a term of praise. The NLT and GNB translate it, “Praise God!” and the Amplified Bible has “Be graciously inclined and propitious to Him!” But that’s what we mean by hosanna nowadays. It’s not what the Jews meant.

We treat hosanna like a generic praise word, and sing it in our hymns, and say it in our prayers. But it’s not a praise word: It’s a prayer request. It means “Please save!” Where most bibles have “Hosanna in the highest!” it doesn’t mean, “Praise God in the highest [heaven],” but “Please save us, by means of the Highest [God]!” It was calling on Jesus to call upon his Father, and rescue them from their enemies.

Jesus’s name Yeshúa literally means “savior,” and Zechariah referred to the king as a savior. It’s easy to figure the Jews expected Jesus to save them from the Romans, and not so much their sins, although God knows the sins are a way more serious matter. Still, the point is this wasn’t just praise. This was an expectation. The Jews figured Jesus had come to rescue them. They were publicly saying so. They were doing it in Aramaic, though—a language the Romans weren’t as familiar with, ’cause they didn’t want to be easily understood. But any Aramaic-speaking Jew would know precisely what they meant.

Mark doesn’t get into how much this freaked out all the current leaders of Jerusalem—those who had thus far collaborated with the ruling Romans, were comfortable with the status quo, didn’t want to get crucified for treason, and pleaded with Jesus to shut his followers up. The other gospels do that.

But if the Jews expected Jesus to straightaway throw out the Romans and establish his Kingdom, they were disappointed. Jesus’s timetable is quite a lot different from the Pharisees’ End Times Timeline. Mark only points out how Jesus looked around at his city—the temple in particular—and then went back to Beit Anya, or Bethany, a town about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) east of Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives. Jesus’s friend Lazarus lived there, and likely he was staying with Lazarus’s family.

And thus ended the first day—which Christians celebrate as Palm Sunday after the palm branches draped in front of Jesus’s procession, and waved around in celebration. We don’t know that these events happened on a Sunday; we just celebrate the Sunday before Easter ’cause that’s when we’re usually all in church together.

What was Jesus’s point?

Up to this point, Jesus had been keeping a low profile. Whenever people called him Messiah, i.e. the king of Israel, he told them to keep a lid on it. He didn’t want to prematurely get into trouble. But now, Jesus was letting the secret out. He was making it known—in a really obvious, public way—that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the King and savior of Israel and the world.

Plenty of skeptics claim he never said any such thing. Mainly that’s because they don’t know squat about history. They’re only looking for instances where Jesus point-blank said, “I’m Messiah,” and because he never used those precise words, they figure he never taught or believed any such thing. They ignore the fact that every time someone called him Messiah, Jesus never corrected them. Likewise Jesus never corrected any of the times people called him all the synonyms for Messiah, like “son of David” or “King of Israel” or “son of God.” He only told them to hush.

Everything changed once Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem. No more hushing. No more secrets. Cat out of the bag. Everyone who suspected Jesus of being the Messiah were now openly proclaiming it. While they figured it was ’cause Jesus was now gonna come into his own, Jesus correctly knew—and had warned them several times—it was instead gonna get him killed. Which was part of the plan. Not their plan; the Pharisees never believed Messiah would die, no matter how many scriptures there are to the contrary. This was all Jesus’s plan.

By deliberately, publicly revealing himself, Jesus forced the Jerusalem leaders to move to suppress him. In so doing, all the prophecies would be fulfilled. Jesus’s triumphal entry wasn’t a celebration cut short by a shocking arrest, trial, and death. It looked that way, if you wrongly assumed celebration and victory was the plan. It wasn’t. Death and atonement was the plan. The triumph was a deliberate provocation. Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to take it over, and then get sucked into tragic circumstances beyond his control. We interpret things this way because we’d like to think of Jesus as a hapless victim. But while he was a victim, he definitely wasn’t hapless. He knew precisely what would happen. He set the circumstances in motion. He always had control. He made this happen.

Something to remember whenever we get caught up in tragic circumstances. We can easily lose control. That’s why we have to turn to Jesus, and ask him, “Hosanna—Please save me, Lord.” He can take control of our situation and fix things. He’s the master of his circumstances, and knows what he’s doing.