Submitting To The King

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week that leads up to Easter. Mark 11 records that Jesus rode into town on a young donkey that had never been ridden. As He entered Jerusalem, the people began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” People were waving palm branches and laying them in the streets for Him to ride over. The palm branches in that culture represented victory. The other thing the people did was recorded in verse 8. It says they laid their garments in the street for Him to ride over. It’s an interesting picture to me. Why place their garments on the ground?

In 2 Kings 9:1-13, Elisha had one of the prophet’s sons go to Jehu with a private message. The kid was to tell him that he was now the king of Israel, to anoint him with oil and then to run away as fast as he could. When Jehu came back out, his friends asked what that was about. When he told them, they got excited. Verse 13 says, “Then they quickly spread out their cloaks on the bare steps and blew the ram’s horn, shouting, ‘Jehu is king!’” (NLT). It’s the only other time I can find where this happened for a king. It’s also something we read over and miss if we read it with a western lens.

In that culture, the bottom of your foot is significant. If you point the underside of your foot at someone, you’re signifying that they are beneath you like dust. For the people to take off their garments and put them under the feet of Jehu and the donkey of Jesus, they were submitting to their authority as king. The garments represent their concerns. Remember in Matthew 6 when Jesus said He clothes the fields and that we shouldn’t be concerned about what to wear? Each of us have concerns we wear like a heavy garment. It’s time that we submitted them to Jesus by placing them at His feet. We don’t need to carry them anymore. We need to submit to His authority and ability to provide for us as our king.

Blessings,
Pastor David