NOTES for Mat 21:1-17

The people greet Jesus with joyful cries: “Salvation to the Son of David!” Many of us came to faith with the same joy, meeting Christ for the first time and suddenly realizing that He is truly alive, that He truly answers prayer and guides us through life. But the enthusiastic cries of greeting are followed by decisive changes: the Lord confronts the complete mismatch between the Temple, the center of Jerusalem's spiritual life, and the purpose for which it was built; the spiritual blindness of the religious leaders; and the unfaithfulness of the people, who are ready to shout both “Hosanna!” and “Crucify Him!” He encounters all of this at the “micro level” as well, when He enters the life of an individual who, though glad at the Savior's coming, has already turned from a temple of the Holy Spirit into a “den of robbers,” and who will prove unfaithful and blind to Him many more times. But, as we know, this is not yet the end of the story...