Matthew 20:17

And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way.

A Palm Sunday discourse

Year by year let us go up to Jerusalem on the Palm Sunday with Christ.

1. Some go up without any special interest.

2. Others are moved by curiosity.

3. There are those who hate Him and His servants.

4. Some who believe in Christ but fear the world.

5. Some are in dark despair thinking that the cause of religion is about to perish because of organized opposition.

6. Others, a faithful few, like the small group around the cross. (M. Dix, D. D.)

Christ coming to Jerusalem

What an approach! The cities are the strongholds of the world-Babylon-Nineveh-Tyre, the centre of commerce. To none of these could our God have come expecting a joyous reception. They were of the world. But He came to Jerusalem, the city of God, the centre of true religion; a beautiful city for situation, renowned for its great age and greater history. It was a consecrated city, above whose roofs arose, day by day, clouds of smoke from the morning and evening sacrifice; an awful city, in which God had, from time to time, appeared. It held for awhile the place of the throne of the living God! It is to this city Jesus approaches. Surely to Him the gates will open and He will be greeted with songs of joy. (M. Dix, D. D.)

Going up to Jerusalem

Who shall hereafter “ have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city” (Psalms 24:3 and Revelation 22:14). Those whose conduct shows that they are going up to Jerusalem. This may be said to imply-

I. A growth and an advancement in those things which are good. Those who “go up” to the heavenly Jerusalem gradually increase in holiness by a diligent use of the appointed means.

II. Another evidence that we are “ going up to Jerusalem” is love to God.

III. If our faces are indeed turned to Jerusalem, like travellers who have a long journey to accomplish, we shall be most anxious to lay aside any unnecessary weight, and to overcome the corrupting influence of our besetting sins. We cannot be going up to Jerusalem if our affections are rooted in the earth; we must be conscious that our course is turned thitherward. Why this loitering by the way. Let us refresh our souls with spiritual food. Let the world offer what attractions it may, our purpose is firmly fixed “to go up to Jerusalem.” (J. H. Norton.)

Jesus betrayed and condemned

I. The language of the text is the testimony of our great Prophet concerning His own sufferings. You see it is a prophecy; the event had not yet taken place.

1. His suffering was substitutional.

2. Acceptable.

3. Covenanted.

II. The hands employed.

1. The ruthless traitor.

2. The infidel priesthood.

3. The far-famed literary men.

III. The end accomplished. “They shall condemn Him to death.” (J. Irons.)

How the faithfulness of Christ toward His disciples appears in the announcement of His impending sufferings.

I. It is seen in the gradual manner in which He makes the fact known. From the first He had intimated that His path was one of suffering; but, while putting an end to their spurious hopes, He had never said anything to cast them down.

II. He now set it before them in all its terrors. He dealt candidly with them. Return was still possible for them, though, from their former decision, He no longer asked them whether they would forsake Him.

III. He placed before their view the promise awaiting them at the end, thus establishing and encouraging them by this blessed prospect. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)

Why Christ saw His cross afar off

1. It was predetermined from the beginning, and He saw it everywhere throughout His course.

2. From the first He prepared for it, and experienced its bitterness in many preliminary trials.

3. It was the harbinger of His exaltation, and ever and anon He anticipated His coming glory. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)

Communion with Jesus

I. The party-Jesus and His disciples. The great Head of the Church and His members.

1. Their interests were mutual.

2. They are a united company.

3. They were distinct from the world.

4. Are you of the party?

II. Their union and communion-Jesus took the twelve disciples apart.

1. We sometimes try to take Christ apart, it is better that Christ should take us.

2. This communion has love for its origin.

3. He would not have them associated with the world, He was about to touch on matters He wished His disciples to know.

4. He not only invites His Church apart as an act of love, but every grace of His Holy Spirit’s implanting is then called into exercise.

5. He took them apart to talk about the atonement.

III. Mark now the travelling itself-“going up to Jerusalem.” Ours is not a stand-still religion. We have no continuing city. We are in company with Jesus.

1. Decision is implied.

2. Progress is implied.

3. There was expectation as they journeyed.

4. Jesus was going up to Jerusalem for the accomplishment of redemption; and we must go to the Jerusalem above in order to fully enjoy them. (J. Irons.)

Christ’s sufferings and ours

What are all our sufferings to His? And yet we think ourselves undone if but touched, and in setting forth our calamities we add, we multiply, we rise in our discourse, like him in the poet, “I am thrice miserable, nay, ten, twenty, an hundred, a thousand times unhappy.” And yet all our sufferings are but as the slivers and chips of that cross upon which Christ, nay, many Christians, have suffered. In the time of Adrian the emperor ten thousand martyrs are said to have been crucified in the Mount of Ararat, crowned with thorns, and thrust into the sides with sharp darts, after the example of the Lord’s passion. (John Trapp.)

The resurrection of Christ

He wraps up the gall of the passion in the honey of the resurrection. (Lapide.)

The saddest yet happiest event in human history

Our Lord’s last journey to Jerusalem. The prediction of the sufferings of Christ a great evidence

(1) of His prophetical character;

(2) of His willingness, as a Priest, to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin;

(3) of His confident expectation of victory as a King. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)

The sufferings of Christ

As the precious stone called the carbuncle to look at is like a hot burning coal of fire, shining exceeding brightly, the which feeleth no fire, neither is it molten, changed, or mollified therewith; if thou shalt take it, and close it fast in a ring of lead, and cast it into the fire, thou shalt see the lead molten and consume before thy face, but the carbuncle remaining sound and perfect without blemish as before, for the fire worketh upon the lead, but upon the carbuncle it cannot work; even so Christ, our Saviour, being in the hot, scorching fire of His torments, suffered and died as He was man, but as He was God He neither suffered nor died. The fire of His afflictions wrought, then, upon His manhood, but His Divinity and Godhead continued perfect and utterly untouched. (Cawdray.)

Crucifixion of Christ

The cross was the perfect manifestation of

(1) the guilt of the world;

(2) the love of Christ;

(3) His obedience;

(4) the grace of God. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)

Christ’s sufferings were foreseen

As astronomers know when none others think of it, that travelling through the heavens the vast shadow is progressing towards the sun which ere long shall clothe it and hide it, so Christ knew that the great darkness which was to overwhelm Him was approaching. (Beecher.)

Christ’s resurrection

His resurrection was necessary to His being believed in as a Saviour. As Christ by His death paid down a satisfaction for sin, so it was necessary that it should be declared to the world by such arguments as might found a rational belief of it, so that men’s unbelief should be rendered inexcusable. But how could the world believe that He fully had satisfied for sin so long as they saw death, the known wages of sin, maintain its full force and power over Him, holding Him like an obnoxious person in captivity? When a man is once imprisoned for debt none can conclude the debt either paid by him or forgiven to him but by the release of his person. Who could believe Christ to have been a God and a Saviour while He was hanging upon the tree? A dying, crucified God, a Saviour of the world who could not save Himself would have been exploded by the universal consent of reason as a horrible paradox and absurdity. (R. South.)