Who Do You Say He Is?

by Katie Harding on April 3, 2023

When God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, He reoriented their calendar and made the month when they were released the first month of their new year, signifying a new beginning. Then He instructed them to celebrate Passover, every year from that point forward, as a remembrance of the night the angel of death passed over their homes and didn't strike their firstborn because they smeared the blood of an unblemished lamb on their door posts.

God gave them strict guidelines for the preparation and celebration of Passover. He said that on the tenth day of that first month, the month of Nisan, each family should choose their paschal lamb (their sacrificial lamb) and take it back to live with their family for a few days. On the fourteenth day, they were to kill and offer the lamb as a sacrifice.

Yesterday many churches around our world celebrated Palm Sunday — the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as palm branches and cloaks were being spread on the road in front of Him. What we don’t often realize is that Palm Sunday is also the tenth day of Nisan, the day when families who had traveled to Jerusalem watched as the paschal lambs were herded into the city, so they could make their selection. Through the Sheep Gate all the lambs came, not thousands but hundreds of thousands, and in their midst rode Jesus — God’s paschal lamb. “He was being led like a lamb to slaughter.”

Every year when I read this story, I always wonder who was in the crowd around Jesus. How could they bless Him on Sunday and yell, "Crucify Him," on Friday? In reflecting on it this year, I came up with four different groups of people who were present that day.

1. Some in the crowd were His disciples. Jesus was their Lord and they loved Him deeply. Even though they didn't always get everything right, in their hearts they desired to follow Jesus and do as He instructed. They were willing to make sacrifices for Him and offered whatever they had for His purposes.

2. Others along the road thought of Jesus as their long-awaited king, shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David." They thought Jesus would restore God's physical kingdom and rescue them from the domination of other countries — at that time the Romans. They weren't as concerned about what they could do for Jesus as much as what He would do for them.

3. Another group was the bystanders, those who noticed all the commotion and yet had no clue what was going on. When they saw a man on a donkey in the midst of the lambs, they asked "Who is this?" Learning it was just Jesus, “…the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee,” they accepted the answer and continued to move along with the crowd — not fully grasping who He really was.

4. The fourth and final group was the super religious, the chief priests and teachers of the law. Jesus wasn't what they expected in a Savior. He was doing things differently and disrupting centuries of traditions and teachings — and gaining the praise of the people. Their expectations became the source of their greatest conflict.

Do you see yourself in one or more of these groups? As we journey through Holy Week this year, I encourage you to take some time and ask yourself, "Who is Jesus to me?"

Scripture References: Exodus 12, Isaiah 53, Matthew 21:1-11