When Jesus Wept Palm Sunday – John 12:12-13 – Bible study
When Jesus Wept
Palm Sunday
John 12:12-13
by Cooper P Abrams III
INTRODUCTION: We are told that woman cries five times a month. The average man only once. Weeping shows emotion. With an infant it is a way to communicate. Crying for them is health and a sign of life. As a child gets older it cries less as it matures and learns to talk.
Women are more openly emotional than men are and they cry more. My English teacher once told the girls on our High School class if they found a boy who would shed tears at a movie…he as a good candidate for marriage.
In this passage in John we learn:
- 1. Jesus had six days earlier arrived at Bethany, and the home of Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. It was the home of Mary and Martha, Lazarus’s sisters.
2. Many had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. Great expectation.
3. For three years Jesus had been traveling all over Palestine, preaching, and doing miracles with his disciples.
- a. He claimed to be the Messiah! John 12:42-49
b. All his claims were disavowed by the religious authorities. They claimed He was a deceiver and sought to kill Him.
c. Most of the people sided, as the world’s way is, with their religious leaders.
He did miracles, He had great power, yet if the religious leaders said he was not the Messiah, —- well they should know! John 12:37
d. Yet there were some in whose ears and hearts still sounded the message He had preached. They had loved God, and were seeking the Messiah. The Old Testament Scriptures said it was the time of his coming. How they longed, for the coming of the Messiah!
He said, to the Pharisees, that if they had known the Father, they would know who he was!
But only a very few believed! They were sure He was the Messiah! Like Nicodemus in John 3, they knew that one could do the miracles He did, if He were not the Messiah. They had seen Him raise, heal the man who was born lamb. They saw Him give sight to the man born blind. They witnessed Him raising Lazarus from the grave. In the history of the world no one had done these things.
Yet, the religious leaders had rejected Him, and sought to kill Him.
His disciples were concerned as the traveled to Jerusalem. His last trip ended with them trying to kill Him. What would His enemies do?
I. JESUS ENTERS JERUSALEM.
- A. Matthew 21:1-11:
- 1. Just outside the city, at the Mt. of Olives Jesus sent His disciple to get a colt to ride on when he entered the city itself.
2. Matthew quotes, Isaiah 62:11, & Zech. 9:9
- “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”
3. As He entered through the gate of Jerusalem the people gathered in great numbers and spread their garments in His path. Others cut branches from trees and laid them in his path.
4. A great number joined the procession, going ahead of Jesus, who was followed by Lazarus, Mary, Martha and the disciples.
They shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is he the coming in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest”!Hosanna is a word to express the highest adoration.
5. Those in the shops and homes in Jerusalem heard the sings and came out and asked “Who is this?” The answer, “This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.”
6. Jesus then went to the temple and cast out of it the merchants who were mechanizing the temple.
7. This greatly upset and made the chief priests mad. They approached Jesus, and “Don’t you hear what this crowd is saying!?
B. Luke records, (Luke 19:28-44), that the some of the Pharisees also, has he entered had ask the same question, why don’t you rebuke the people for showing you such adoration reserved for a king or the Messiah.
- Jesus said, “Yes, Have you never read Psa. 8:2, which says, “out of the mouth of babies and sucklings thou hast perfected praise”
Luke adds, that Jesus, told them that if these were to be silenced, that the stones would immediately cry out. (Luke 19:40)
He then left Jerusalem and went back to Bethany.
II. THE COMPASSION OF JESUS. LUKE 19:41-44
- A. Luke records the compassion of God for man.
- 1. Jesus, seeing the response to His entry, wept openly. Luke 19:41 He saw their rejection of salvation. He saw the coming destruction that occurred in 70 AD. He wept because they would not accept the grace of God. They had their reasons. But all their reasons were nothing compared to the result of their actions.
2. You see, He wept for those who were rejecting the salvation, and eternal life that He was offering.
3. You see, salvation is in the person of Jesus Himself, not a religious system!
4. They were rejecting Him, and thus rejecting salvation.
The whole city was about to celebrate the Passover in five days. Passover, was a picture of Christ’s atonement for sin and salvation. The were preparing for the ritual and ceremony….yet before them stood the Savior, their Messiah and they would not accept Him. They followed their religious leaders….and rejected the Lord Jesus the one who created the world and was about to atone for their sins.
That day, the Messiah stood in their midst, for almost 1500 years, Jews had kept the Passover, which was a symbol of the coming redemption.
Now Christ was come, and they –refused Him.
With open arms and shouts of rejoicing the whole city, should have received theyKing, yet He wasn’t quite what theyexpected…and they refused to accept Him.
Why, you say, why reject the Messiah!!
Jesus earlier stated the answer, “Men lovedarkness, rather than light because theirdeeds are evil” John 3:19
B. And Jesus wept!!!
- Can’t you see why? They could immediately receive eternal life! All they had to do it to believe on Him. To receive Him as their Lord. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life and heaven was being offered.
What joy, what peace, what an opportunity! Yet, they would not.
Earlier in Luke 13:34-35:
- “O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto thee; how oft would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”
Jesus saw the whole and stark truth. He fully understood, the fate of those who reject Him!
- It broke His heart!
He knew that in a few days, He would bear alltheir sins on the cross. And he knew thatthey would not accept His sacrifice for them.
He knew that for so many, the suffering wouldbe in vain…yet He did it anyway!
For He was God, He love every soul of everyman, woman boy or girl.
CONCLUSION:
- The day Christ entered Jerusalem is long since past.
Yet, the offer of salvation to those who will believe andaccept Him, is a real and truth as the day he offered it to those in Jerusalem.
Those that believed, and have long since died, now rest in the very presence of Christ, even at this hour. Do you realize that within a short time you and I too will past on. People who lived only a generation or so back are mostly forgotten. I visited the Abrams cemetery in Crisp, NC. My great great grandfather was named Elisha Abrams. No one knows who his dad was and few of the details of his life. All we know is what if written in the front of a Family Bible and what my dad , who also has passed on know.
But God has never forgotten even one person who put their trust in Him. They all are in heaven at this very moment with Him. And because of His death, burial and resurrection they to will one day arise from the grave and be transformed, given new bodies and forever be with the Lord Jesus.
And yet so many still reject Him, so useless, such a tragedy is the fate of those who so foolishly rejected Christ.
Is Christ, weeping over you?
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