“The Righteous of God”

Scripture: Leviticus 23:39-43, John 12:12-16, Revelation 7:9-10



The Palm

Today’s Symbol of the Christian faith is the Palm. Of course, the Palm is best known for the part it played on Palm Sunday. But in Psalm 92:12-15, we read “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.” The Palm, in Hebrew tradition, has come to signify Righteousness.

In those few days before Jesus would be crucified for heresy and blasphemy, he received honor and glory from the people, and was being proclaimed as a Righteous Man. The Pharisees and priests who served as members of the Sanhedrin must have been quaking in their sandals. Plans were underway to charge him with capital offences, and here he was being honored and praised by the people. But before we open that passage, we need to consider one of Israel’s annual feasts that incorporated palm branches.

Read Leviticus 23:39-43

This is one of three annual and mandatory feasts for Israel. The Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Booths, is one of seven festivals that God had ordained for his people, and this one was to celebrate all that the Lord had done for them throughout the centuries. He had rescued them from bondage in Egypt, he had brought them through those 40 years of wilderness living, he had carried them into, and then out of, exile, and had given them produce from the fields and vines that sustained their lives in the Promised Land.
In preparation for the festival, they were to take branches from several different trees, including palm trees, and build shelters, or booths, to live in during the eight days of celebration. These shelters symbolized the crude housing that they used during their years in the desert, and were to be seen in contrast of the better homes that they now lived in.

Worship and sacrifice were integral parts of this week, as was celebration and remembrance of all that Jehovah God had brought into their lives. But it was even more than that. It was also the Lord’s way of telling them that even greater things were on the way. It was to be the promise of Messiah’s coming, with all that God was putting in place for them and the entire world. And it would also represent God’s plan for Messiah, that Jesus would come, not just once, but that he would return to earth to take his beloved people to live with him in a glorious eternity (John 14:1-7).

The feast of Tabernacles was a time to show honor and praise to their Righteous Lord and King.

Read John 12:12-16

The feast that this passage refers to is Passover, another of the three mandatory festivals for the Jews. No matter where they lived, whether in Judah, or in the Galilee, or in a foreign land, this was a time to come home to celebrate the goodness and saving grace of their God. Little did they know that this year, and during this celebration, the gift that the Lord was going to bring to them would dwarf all that he had done for them during the past 1,500 years! And when the people began to wave the palm branches, and lay them at Jesus’ feet, they were proclaiming his glory, and majesty, and the righteousness that was his very nature. And they didn’t have a clue as to the best part of all – that he would convey that righteousness and glory to all who would accept him and his ways as the Son of God.

And each of the praises that they shouted out had their own powerful significance, whether they fully understood what they were proclaiming or not.

“Hosanna” – they were calling on Jesus to save them. But his salvation wouldn’t be from the oppression of the world - it would be from their sin and the condemnation that it could one day bring to their lives.
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” – Psalm 118: 25-27 is a further affirmation of just who Jesus is.
“Lord, save us; O Lord, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you. The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar.”
“Blessed is the King of Israel!” From Zechariah 9:9, we read:
“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
And the passage goes on to proclaim the peace that will rest upon them when all the implements of war are taken away. And verse 11 testifies:
“As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.”

These three expressions bring everything about Easter into context.

But did the crowds actually understand what they were saying? Did they realize that their shouts of welcome and joy were really affirmations of what the scriptures had proclaimed about Jesus many centuries before? Did they know that He could be their ultimate salvation, their King of kings and Lord of lords, their decisive righteousness, and that the blood of his covenant would have infinitely greater power for their lives than the lamb’s blood of Passover?

They probably didn’t, unfortunately.

Read Revelation 7:9-10

Again, palm branches, being held by the righteous people, who will come “from every nation, tribe, people and language”, and they now knew the victory that faith in the Lamb of God would bring to those who were faithful to the life and teaching of Christ. The brilliantly white robes were a sign of victory, and as we read in chapter 7, we discover that this whiteness comes from none other than through the power of “the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:13-14). Righteousness, victory, purity, glory – all of it made possible for the people of earth by the love, sacrifice, and commitment of Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

The righteous nature of God, proclaimed from the beginning of Israel to the final victory for the people of earth. On Palm Sunday, when we all hold the palms of Jesus’ triumphal entry, not just into Jerusalem, but into our hearts and lives, remember the righteous victory that he brings to all who will just believe in him.

May his glory and righteousness and promise of eternity rest upon us all.