Jesus Enters Jerusalem

In Mark’s account Jesus came up to Jerusalem shortly before the Passover by way of Bethphage and Bethany, villages on the Mount of Olives (Mark 11:1; 14:1). He sent two disciples into the village ahead to untie a young donkey on which no one had yet sat, and to say to anyone who asked, “The Lord needs him”. They brought the colt, threw their cloaks over it, and he sat on it (Mark 11:1–7). Matthew speaks of a donkey and her colt (Matthew 21:2, 7).

Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread branches they had cut (Mark 11:8). John says that the crowd took palm branches and went out from the city to meet him (John 12:12–13). Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”, a cry taken from Psalm 118 (Mark 11:9; Psalm 118:25–26). Each Gospel adds words that speak of a king or of David: “the kingdom of our father David” in Mark, “the son of David” in Matthew, “the King” in Luke, “the King of Israel” in John (Mark 11:10; Matthew 21:9; Luke 19:38; John 12:13).

Matthew and John connect this with the words of the prophet Zechariah, who told Zion that her king would come to her lowly and riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:4–5; John 12:14–15). John adds that the disciples understood this only later (John 12:16), and that the crowd came out because it had heard of the raising of Lazarus (John 12:17–18).

Luke reports that some Pharisees asked Jesus to silence his disciples, and that he answered that the stones would cry out if they were silent. As the city came into view he wept over it and said that its enemies would surround it and leave not one stone on another (Luke 19:39–44). In Matthew the whole city was stirred and asked who this was, and the crowds answered, “This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:10–11). In Mark he went into the temple, looked around at everything and, as it was already evening, went back to Bethany with the twelve (Mark 11:11).

Earlier, in Galilee, Jesus had withdrawn when a crowd wanted to make him king (John 6:15). Here he accepts the acclamation, and the week that opens with it ends with his execution under the title “King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26). Christians keep its memory on Palm Sunday. Egeria, a pilgrim in Jerusalem in the 380s, describes the people of the city coming down from the Mount of Olives on that day with branches of palm and olive, escorting their bishop as the Lord had been escorted (Egeria, Itinerary 31.2–3).