The Truth Will Win Out!

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Opening Prayer

Merciful God, right in the middle of chaos, You designate human agents to do Your will. You speak assurance and I praise You.

Read John 12:12-19

^[12] The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ^[13] They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” ^[14] Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: ^[15] “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” ^[16] At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. ^[17] Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ^[18] Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. ^[19] So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

Meditate

Remind yourself of a time when everything seemed hopeless, but then God stepped in and things turned around wonderfully. Tell the story to yourself, and thank God.

Think Further

After the build-up in yesterday’s passage, we expect the police to be knocking at the door in Bethany! Instead, there’s an excited crowd outside, waving palm branches and hailing Jesus as the King of Israel. The disciples clearly felt the oddness of it all, to judge from John’s comment in verse 16. Far from arresting and executing Jesus, the authorities are powerless before this wonderful movement of new faith, which surges forward on the excited witness of the crowd that saw Lazarus rise (17,18).

The truth cannot be quenched! This is the powerful message of today’s passage. And this is what verse 16 is about, too. The memory of the strange events of this day came back to the disciples later, when they connected the dots and linked them to the Old Testament passages that explain them. There is Zechariah 9:9, of course, which they realize Jesus was deliberately acting out by riding a donkey into Jerusalem. He is the King, entering his royal city to bring “peace to the nations” and to claim universal rule (Zech. 9:10). But the disciples also remembered the crowd shouting the amazing words from Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”–and attached to these words, the phrase “King of Israel” from Zephaniah 3:15, the only place in the Old Testament where this phrase is used of the Lord himself, in a passage which is also about the Lord coming to save his people. Wow! Jesus himself, the Lord, the King, arriving as Savior. The disciples had no idea what was happening, but the crowd seemed to know, deeply.

How encouraging! Even when all seems lost and we don’t know what is happening around us, no human power can finally suppress the truth.

Apply

Thank the Lord for this wonderful truth! Apply it to yourself in whatever way seems to fit your circumstances right now.

Closing prayer

Sovereign Lord, I need the eyes of faith to see Your hand working in my life. Even when all seems lost, remind me that You are still in control.

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