Too late. . . or too soon?

It was no coincidence that Jesus died at Passover. The feasts that God instructed the Jews to keep each year ­– Passover was one of them – had a prophetic significance. Passover was a remembrance of how the blood of a lamb had protected them from judgment and enabled them to be delivered from slavery. It spoke prophetically of a far greater sacrifice and a far greater deliverance that was yet to come.

The story began in Egypt. God had sent nine plagues on the Egyptians – blood, frogs, lice, flies, a pestilence on livestock, boils, hail, locusts and thick darkness – but Pharaoh refused to let the Hebrews go. God told the Israelites to take a male lamb for each household and set it aside on the 10th day of the month Nisan, apparently to check that it was without blemish.

The lamb was to be killed at twilight on the 14th of Nisan and some of its blood placed on the doorposts and lintel of the house. It was to be roasted and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. That night God would pass through the land of Egypt, and the firstborn in every house would die – except for the houses daubed with blood. “When I see the blood,” God said, “I will pass over you.”

The year that Jesus died, the 10th of Nisan fell on what Christians have come to know as Palm Sunday. As Jesus and His disciples walked towards Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage. Jesus sent two of His disciples into the village to bring the colt of a donkey that had never been ridden, that He might fulfil the prophecy: 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
   Zechariah 9:9.

Word quickly spread that the Messiah was coming. A great multitude gathered and began to shout “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” These were messianic greetings. You might have thought Jesus would rejoice to hear the crowd greeting Him as Messiah. He did not. When He saw Jerusalem, He wept.

“If you had known,”  He said, “even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. . . because you did not know the time of your visitation.” The crowd shouting a welcome to their Messiah was too late. Jesus knew a decision about the Messiah had already been taken by the religious leaders. He understood judgment was on its way: He foresaw a ravaged Jerusalem, the Temple destroyed and the Jews scattered.

Or perhaps the crowd’s messianic welcome was too early, depending on how you look at it. God has not finally finished with the Jews. The time is coming when the Jews will turn to their Messiah and Israel will become a believing nation. “And so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26). Nothing is more certain. But that time was not yet.