The Crucified Is My Love. Johann Ernst von Holst

      The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him … Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it.

       And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

       As he was drawing near – already on the way down the Mount of Olives – the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

       John 12:12–14; Mark 11:8–10; Luke 19:37–40

      WHILE THE LORD WAS IN QUIET BETHANY there was tremendous excitement in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had come to celebrate the Passover, and the royal city, which was already crowded, was filled to overflowing. One question filled the thoughts and conversations of all: Will the prophet of Nazareth, the great conqueror of death whom the council excommunicated, also come to the festival? Will he dare to do so? Then the news spread rapidly that he was already in Bethany and was preparing to enter Jerusalem.

      His enemies were enraged, his followers encouraged, the indifferent were roused, and great and very mixed crowds set off for the Mount of Olives and waited for him in tense excitement. The cry rang out: “There he is!” The King of Peace came into sight at the top of the hill riding on a donkey, surrounded by his disciples and many other followers. At the sight of him, reverence for this wonderful man of God, which was repressed till now, breaks forth with irresistible power in the crowded throng. They recognize him as the promised Son of David, the longed-for Messiah King. They spread their clothes in his path, break green branches from the palm trees and wave them joyfully in the air. In this way they receive and accompany their great yet so unassuming King. An enthusiasm from above takes possession of their souls. They begin to sing songs of praise: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” These psalms spread from one throng to another: “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

      The enthusiastic singing continues to ring out more and more powerfully right up to the gates of the capital city – indeed, right up into the temple precincts: “Hosanna to the king of Israel! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

      What a blessing might have dawned upon Israel that day if the whole nation had paid homage to its king and been faithful to him unto death! But the higher the waves of the people’s joy rise, the fiercer grows the hatred of the enemies. Standing by the roadside, they call out to the Lord in their exasperation, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He, however, accepts the people’s homage and rebuts these grim elders with the words, “If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

      But the populace is fickle while the hatred of the adversary remains firm. The king enters his city, but his crown will be a crown of thorns, and his throne the cross on Golgotha.

      How do you, my soul, honor your King? How are you, his church, accompanying your Savior on his way to death? How are you keeping your pledge of loyalty?

      12

      Monday Evening

      Immanuel’s Tears

       And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

       Luke 19:41–44

      WHEN THE LORD had reached the top of the Mount of Olives, the royal city with the gleaming gold of the temple lay in all its glory before his eyes. But in the midst of the disciples and rejoicing throngs around him, a deep sadness filled his holy soul at this sight, and his eyes overflowed with tears.

      If a child weeps, we feel pity; if a hero weeps, our hearts are unnerved. But when Jesus weeps, Jesus the Son of God and of man, the lion of the tribe of Judah, it brings us to our knees, and we fearfully have to ask, “What is the cause of such tears?” The Lord himself answers us in words of deep emotion. He is not weeping for himself. He is not weeping because of his own approaching suffering. He represses these feelings. They are tears of love and sorrow that he sheds for his unhappy Jerusalem. He knows that there is still a time of grace for Jerusalem, that she may still be saved and raised to her true glory if at the last moment she turns with her whole heart to the Messiah who is just entering her. But he also sees Jerusalem’s hardness of heart. He sees how she rejects her only helper and savior, and that because of this the storm clouds of God’s judgment gather ever more darkly over the beloved city. He sees her at last, broken and ruined by the iron military power of the pagan Romans, sinking in smoke and rubble.

      Jesus’ tears also have significance for us. He weeps for us, too, as long as we rush unrepentant along the broad way that leads to destruction. The tears of a mother for her morally corrupt child ought to wake him out of his sleep of sin. The tears of Immanuel ought to fall into our sinful hearts like drops of smelted gold, burning, startling, and shaking us up.

      How many nations are still blinded like Jerusalem of old! They build their houses and palaces and set up their governments without fear of God and without prayer, obstinately relying on their own strength. They do not see God’s approaching judgment; they do not feel the quaking of the earth under their feet; they reject all admonitions to repent and turn around. How many people who call themselves Christians, even the old and infirm, do not see their death coming! They do not make use of the time of grace still given them; they do not lay hold of the one who alone can save them and make them blessed. Oh, that the tears of Jesus’ love may still move us all, before it is too late, to consider what gives true peace.

      13

      Tuesday Morning

      The Grain of Wheat

       Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

       John 12:20–26

      WHEN THE LORD HAD ENTERED the forecourt of the temple after his solemn entry into Jerusalem, some Greeks also wanted to see Jesus. Just as after his birth the wise men from the east approached him, so now before his death these Greeks come as representatives of the nations of the world. Moved by the news of the raising of Lazarus, struck by the jubilation of the surging crowd, they expressed their wish to see the Lord – the very deep and mostly unconscious longing of all pagans and indeed of the whole human race.

      Jesus himself saw in their coming the beginning of his future glorification, which was to reveal him not only as Israel’s Messiah but also as the head and savior of all nations. At the same time in the parable of the grain of wheat, he taught his hearers that his way to glory could only be through death. As at dawn the