Symbols of Easter

The day before Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, he had performed one of his better-known miracles. And more than likely, Jesus performed this particular miracle to foreshadow what was going to happen to him in the coming days. 

Right before the disciples had a meal to celebrate the Jewish Passover, Judas slipped out, went to the chief priests, and agreed to hand Jesus over to them. Matthew writes about what happened later that night in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was asking his friends to wake up.

More than 500 years before Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the prophet Zechariah painted a picture of what the future king of Israel would look like. See if this sounds familiar to how Jesus entered the city.

For hundreds of years, Jews would bring lambs to the temple, and a priest would sacrifice the lamb as a payment for a person’s sin. However, the lamb was never viewed as a permanent payment for sin.

For several hundred years after Jesus’s death, the cross would serve as a grim reminder of the torture Jesus endured. But beginning around the fourth century, there would be a shift.