Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come, Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:15 As together, we Follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:19 Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith, and I am your host, and I’m here with my kingly co-host, John Bytheway. Welcome, John, to followHIM. Another week.

John Bytheway: 00:31 Kingly. I’ve been compared to a joker before but the king. As part of the King’s court, I’ll take that.

Hank Smith: 00:39 John, we are in Matthew 21 through 23 this week and also in Mark and Luke and John. We needed a Bible expert to come with us and he is here. Who’s joining us?

John Bytheway: 00:50 Yes. I’m so excited to introduce Dr. Keith J. Wilson, who we both know. But let me tell our listeners about Dr. Wilson. He was born in Ridgecrest, California, the fourth of 10 children. He came to BYU as an undergraduate, served a mission in Austria, where the hills are alive, we’ve heard. Came home, headed to medical school but then took a study abroad teaching job, fell in love with teaching. He has a master’s degree from BYU in German, a PhD from the University of Utah in educational administration. And he kind of focused on the university’s roots and how many universities began as religious institutions, became secular institutions and has some background and did his studies on that, which sounds really interesting. He has eight children and a foster son. He and his wife, they have 35 grandchildren and two in the oven. That’s amazing.

  01:49 Dr. Wilson actually started Wilson Diamonds. Came back to teaching though. He’s been everything from a nursery leader to a bishop. It’s remarkable how similar those two callings are. No, that’s a joke. He served most recently as a patriarch. He’s now currently serving a mental health mission, he and his wife, at South America, Northwest area and we’re just thrilled to have him. Our opportunities to have him may be limited as he could be heading to South America soon, so we’re happy to have him. Now I have to tell you, Hank, my personal connection. I have here my master’s thesis, which has been read by approximately six people and Dr. Wilson is one sixth of them, so I have his signature here. The poor man had to go through this. So we became friends and he’s a respected colleague and mentor to me for going through that process, so we’re so happy to have you here, Dr. Wilson. Thank you for being with us.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 02:52 Well, thanks. It’s an honor to be here and join you two in this podcast.

Hank Smith: 02:57 Yeah, we are grateful to have you, Keith. Are you heading to South America, do you know in the next couple of weeks?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 03:04 Yeah, we finally received our visas after waiting eight or nine months. We’re scheduled now to head down there, probably the mid to the last part of May. We’ll head down to Lima. I’ll get to practice my German/Spanish.

Hank Smith: 03:17 Keith, I’ve heard you say this before, you’re going as junior companion.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 03:22 That’s right. For 40 years I’ve been teaching religion, being a bishop and sitting on the stand and my wife has prepared herself to assist missionaries with their mental health needs. When we signed up for the mission, she told them all my qualifications and they said, “No, he’ll not receive a special calling. His calling will be to be your assistant.” And they knew it well because it’s all hands on deck. The workload is so high. Right now, missionaries are challenged with the kind of post Covid scene, with the early age, with the daunting task of missionary work and a mental health kind of counselor support person really is essential in kind of the mission structure. And so we work oh, 12, 14 hours a day, six days a week, just trying to help missionaries and it’s gratifying to see her touches with them. Really uplifting.

Hank Smith: 04:16 That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. All right. Today we are going to be spending our time in all four gospels, Keith. I don’t know if we could make this more difficult for you. In just a couple of hours. We’d like you to cover Matthew 21 through 23, Mark 11, Luke 19 through 20 and John 12. And the lesson, since I have my kingly co-host here, the lesson is called Behold Thy King Cometh.

John Bytheway: 04:41 Thy King Cometh.

Hank Smith: 04:43 Keith, where do you want to start here?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 04:44 Well, you’ve started in a great place just with your introduction, Hank, and that is, it’s not very often in the New Testament do you have a singular incident being reported in all four gospels. There’s just a handful of them. There’s the baptism, there’s the feeding of the 5,000, there’s the trial and crucifixion, resurrection, and there’s the triumphal entry. That’s what you have all four. And the reason behind that I believe is because everybody was reporting the things that to them were most important about the Savior’s ministry, but these were the high points. These were the mountain peaks of importance in the Savior’s ministry. The triumphal entry is just such a great one to zoom in on and to catch the importance of that.

Hank Smith: 05:29 Awesome. We want to start in Matthew? Do we want to start in Mark? Do we want to start in Luke or John?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 05:34 I think what I’d like to start with is I’d like to kind of give you a little bit of an overview as to why this triumphal entry and the events that follow right after that are so significant.

Hank Smith: 05:46 Let’s do it.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 05:47 And the place where I’d like to begin is with this idea. We all in life really thrive on positive reinforcement. Sometimes we don’t get as much as we’d like, but when we get encouragement from those that we love and trust, it just makes all the difference in the world. It’s the whole essence of community and family and loving other people. And I’d like to suggest to you that the triumphal entry is really one of those touches in Jesus’ life where He gets encouragement.

  06:25 We tend to think of Him, “Oh yeah, He’s the Son of God.” That He just kind of buckles up His belt and does His thing each day until He performs the atoning sacrifice. And yet we miss the personal side of Him. We miss Him when John the Baptist is beheaded, just wanting to have private space alone. He’s hurting. We miss Him smiling. We miss Him, kind of disappointed at times. We miss Him when He is a little bit upset. So to see this personal side of Him, to see the fact that the Father seemed to build in some events right close to when He would do the hardest thing of His whole assignment that He built in some reinforcement. I just love that.

  07:09 It’s like a mother when a little child comes, leaves her a little note and says, “Mom, I love you.” And she just melts. All the 24-hour day stuff that she’s doing. Or like a teacher when somebody comes up and thanks you for a lesson, and you can tell they’ve got a tear in their eye and they’re really sincere. And just a myriad of other places. A businessman when he says, “You know, you made a difference. You were so kind and so generous.” And you take it all across the spectrum, it’s part of our nature. And to be reinforced, I think in church terms, we call it tender mercies, places where the Lord touches us. The triumphal entry was a huge tender mercy for the Savior Himself. And so that’s kind of where I’d like to start us.

  07:56 Now there’s a second kind of tandem thing that I’d love to accomplish as we talk about these chapters today. And that’s this, as a people, as a religious faith, we have been chastised over the fact that we don’t do much to celebrate Easter. So I’ve thought often long and hard, “Why? Why don’t we as LDS do more with celebrating Easter?” There’s a statement by Gordon B. Hinckley, it was Christmastime. He said “There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter.” And so Easter is obviously the high point of our religious celebration and commemoration of what happened during this time in the Savior’s ministry.

  08:37 Why don’t we? Why aren’t we the top of the heap in terms of celebrating Easter? And I think there’s two or three things. One is, we don’t have any buildup to our Easter celebration. It’s a one-day celebration. And the second is, our general conference usually falls right in the same area. And we do have buildup for general conference. We all have been hearing the announcements in church and we anticipate that and there’s special sales in the stores and everything else. And then the third one is that we never know when Easter is. It moves around. It’s got a latitude of about four or five weeks. That’s crazy. We know exactly when Thanksgiving and Christmas is. We need a good influential person to say, “Let’s have Easter on this day.” And just fix the date, rather than attach it to some lunar cycle and everything else. So those are the three things.

  09:32 In today’s discussion, I want to hook you on the idea. I just want to, in a fisherman’s term, I want to set the hook, that we can do better with Easter. And it will be largely because we begin to focus on Palm Sunday, triumphal entry and realize that something huge is coming in our celebration. It’s easy for me to get kind of cranked up on this because I see such importance with us commemorating in a very appropriate way the resurrection of our Savior, the greatest miracle physically to occur.

Hank Smith: 10:07 That was great.

John Bytheway: 10:09 Oh man, I just agree that not only would there not be Christmas without Easter, think of all the other things that wouldn’t be. We wouldn’t be sitting here, the churches wouldn’t be sitting here. Christianity wouldn’t make any sense without the resurrection, that’s the ultimate triumph of the whole thing. And so a whole lot of things wouldn’t be, without Easter. Maybe it wouldn’t be the year 2023 since what? Since the birth of Christ. Why would we remember that if He were nothing but just another moral teacher? So yeah, everything kind of hinges on Easter. I like what you said.

Hank Smith: 10:43 That’s great. Thanks Keith. So you’re saying Palm Sunday should be the beginning of our Easter celebrations?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 10:49 Yeah, a little bit like Christmas Eve is to Christmas Day. And the cool thing about Palm Sunday is we know that it was the first day of the week. That then defines this what we call in Christian terms, the Passion Week. So there’s seven days kind of that are generally seen in the Passion Week and Palm Sunday is the first of those. Palm Sunday is just a huge thing. Look at all four gospel writers’ report on it. And the church has done quite a bit of work. You can go to their website now and they’ll have all seven days and things that families can do and the Ensign for March of this year, Brother Huntsman and another colleague published a thing about family traditions and things you can do during those seven days. And I just think, man, the more of that we can kind of internalize, the more appropriate our worship of Easter will be in this greatest miracle.

Hank Smith: 11:40 Awesome. So out of the four gospel authors, which one do we want to look at for the triumphal entry? Keith, we’re going to look at multiple or are we going to hone in on one?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 11:49 Well, I think we can certainly blend them and there’s some very distinctive differences between John’s account and the other three synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But I like to use Matthew because Matthew seems to be setting up a stage and sort of framing it a little more tightly than some of the other authors. So I’m going to stay with the Matthew outline there as he puts it forth.

Hank Smith: 12:12 Okay, let’s do it. Matthew 21, right?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 12:15 Right. You’ll notice right off the bat, a real important thing is that this triumphal entry is huge. It’s just huge, is the only way you can say it. It talks about in Matthew, “A very great multitude spread their garments.” See in verse eight. And then in verse 10 of Matthew 21, “All the city was moved saying, ‘Who is this?” Now what contributes? Because this is an important thing. In Jesus’ ministry, most of the time He’s seen by Jerusalem, which is the heartthrob of Judaism at His day. He’s seen by Jerusalem and those that control things as being just some wacko up there in Galilee. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Come on, give me a break.” And things like that. And now we have Him coming into town and it is huge.

  13:07 Now, there’s three things that if you read carefully contribute to the size of the triumphal entry. Maybe we could mention one of the good commentary Bibles actually says that they estimated that there was somewhere close to a hundred thousand people. If you’ve ever been over to Jerusalem, you’ll know it’s a pretty tight little city and for a hundred thousand people, it just would be teaming and crawling and jam-packed with people everywhere. Because the scholars estimate that Jerusalem at the time of Jesus is probably oh, 10,000 people, maybe five to 15 are some of the estimates that you’ll see. But still a fairly small city compared to our modern cities. But then in ancient times for that to swell to a hundred thousand and a few scholars go way off the edge and say a million plus people. So this thing is big. So what causes it to be so big?

  13:58 So if you read there in John 12:10, “But the chief priest consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death.” The chief priests are so upset with Jesus taking control and being so much in charge. So one of the things that contributes to this is the raising of Lazarus, and you’ve done a nice job of talking about that already, this raising of Lazarus. Now it’s only reported in John, so it’s nice that he brings us the aftermath of it here too. But it had a big impact probably just a week before this, and it’s right in Jerusalem’s backyard. It’s in Bethany, which is just up over the hill top. Number one thing that contributes to the size is Lazarus.

Hank Smith: 14:38 I’ve often thought that maybe the raising of Lazarus is the Savior’s, when it comes to His mortal ministry, it’s His crescendo moment. He’s been building to this moment and building and building, and then the raising of Lazarus is too much for anyone to look the other way. It’s His big moment which leads to His triumphal entry. Am I seeing that right?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 14:58 I think so. Now, it certainly did not sway everybody in the crowd that saw it. Some started to disbelieve, but it was so… I mean those that had any kind of a heart that could be penetrated were just blown away with Lazarus just coming out there. Lazarus is the first thing that seems to do it. A second is the Passover itself. This is a pilgrimage festival in the Law of Moses and there were three pilgrimage festivals, feasts in which people were supposed to travel to the temple and offer sacrifices, and yet this one was the granddaddy. It was the equivalent, parallel in our culture, of Christmas. That was Passover. For ancient Jews, that’s a big thing because Jesus comes right during Passover, right at the start. In John’s record, it says, “six days later is Passover.” So there’s a big one.

  15:48 Now, the third one though, you have to catch kind of systemically from the whole of the Savior’s ministry in the scriptures, and that is His ministry is crescendoing. He started to get even a large following in Galilee with things like the feeding of the 5,000 and others and word is spreading just like wildfire. There’s a guy that can do these things and things like that. You’ll notice six months before the triumphal entry as far as we can determine is the Mount of Transfiguration and what we call the Feast of Tabernacles that just precedes that.

  16:23 And in that John 7, when Jesus is coming back, and that’s another one of these pilgrimage feasts, when Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, He sends His disciples in ahead of Him and He comes in discreetly. See, His ministry then is taking off and He doesn’t want for it to come crashing down prematurely. He sends His disciples in and then He kind of sneaks in through the back door. And that’s just indicative that He’s getting more and more popular and things. The triumphal entry is kind of the crescendo of that popularity. So it was just huge.

Hank Smith: 17:01 One thing, John, that I don’t know if we’ve discussed very well that we probably ought to is the point Keith is making here, and that is that Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee where the Savior did a majority of His work and miracles and ministry, they’re far apart from each other. You might think, “Oh, they’re right next to each other. Word is spreading.” But you’ve got Judea in the south, you’ve got Galilee in the north. That’s a good three-day journey if you’re going to make the trip from one to the other. And you’ve got Samaria right in between. And am I saying that right, John?

John Bytheway: 17:34 Yeah, that’s the way I understand it. And how is this news traveling? Is this all word of mouth for travelers going back and forth?

Hank Smith: 17:42 Yeah, I would think so. And when the Savior, He comes to Jerusalem. Sometimes, I think before I went to the Holy Land, maybe both of you can identify with this, but before I went there I saw Galilee and Jerusalem as close to one another, not realizing how far apart they were. And that Jesus doesn’t actually spend a lot of time in Jerusalem, He just travels down for these pilgrimage feasts that Keith was talking about. There’s three of them every year, and then He returns home to Galilee. So the miracles are happening in the north and the people in the south are hearing about them. Although according to the Gospel of John, He has done some miracles in Jerusalem. Am I getting that right for both of you?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 18:20 Yeah. And the separation, I think you can highlight that quite a bit. You said three days. Oh, it’s 75 to 90 miles depending on which route you take. This is a good week, maybe even 10 days if you’ve got a lot of baggage and things. There’s a real barrier there.

Hank Smith: 18:36 I think that’s an important part because you’re thinking, well, if the chief priests have seen all these miracles, well they likely haven’t, that they’ve only heard of a couple in Jerusalem and maybe heard of a lot of them in Galilee. That’s helpful. So Jesus dies away from home.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 18:53 Yeah. He really does. But first we have the size and just what an incredible outpouring it is, and I’d like to depict it sort of as Jesus’ day in the sun. And I find that fascinating, at the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah come and Luke records, “To speak to Him concerning His death.” And then Joseph Smith adds, “His death and resurrection.” Well, what’s going on that heavenly messengers have to do that? I like to interpret that as they were encouraging Him because He’s coming up to this greatest of His assignments and He’s like, most of us, we have daunting things in our lives. And I believe it begins to weigh upon Him. He’ll make statements to that effect. “My hour is not yet, but is nigh.” And so it’s a big thing. And specifically there’s a couple, two or three things in which He is just framed right here in the sun as the Messiah. So we need to talk about those.

Hank Smith: 19:54 Talk about them. I think you’re right about the Mount of Transfiguration, Keith. If I remember right, I’m opening up to the Bible dictionary, “Transfiguration, Mount of,” in one portion. In the second paragraph, there’s three paragraphs. It talks about how these beings Elijah, Moses, even John the Baptist. Here it is. “The event was important in many ways. Priesthood authority was conferred upon Peter, James and John. The significance of the Savior’s work was emphasized and the unity of various dispensations and the close relationship of Jesus and His prophets was demonstrated.” So I can second witness that. I think a lot of these angelic beings are there to encourage Him, which is the way you started us out today, which was wonderful. He needs that encouragement just like all of us do.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 20:41 One of my colleagues described the Mount of Transfiguration as a celestial correlation meeting to encourage and to make sure that He was still willing to go through with this. So now we’re at the doorstep, literally, of Him doing that with the triumphal entry.

  20:56 Now let’s talk about the ways that the people respond and the symbols that he employs in the triumphal entry, because that’s also something that every family ought to incorporate into their Easter celebration. You’ll notice in Matthew 21 talks about, “When they drew nigh to Jerusalem or come from Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying, ‘Go ye over into the village.” Now, so we have this idea or this event of Jesus asking them to bring Him a colt or a young donkey, an ass, and there aren’t two animals there. That’s probably something that an editor made a mistake in the reading of Matthew. Because you can compare the other ones and all of them are just a singular, and it makes no sense for Him to kind of be trying to straddle two animals or something in this triumphal entry. He’s supposed to do that. Now why? Do you remember what He’s doing there? He’s fulfilling prophecy. And the prophecy is Zacharias 9:9. John, do you want to go to that and just read it for us?

Hank Smith: 22:01 You got that one memorized, John?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 22:05 Zacharias is a beast. It’s hard to find right there at the end.

John Bytheway: 22:09 Yes, Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion, shout oh daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 22:27 Isn’t that interesting? I feel pretty certain that Jesus knew His scriptures well enough in the way that He studied and recites the Psalms and things, that He was aware of this and He specifically directs them to go and get an ass, a young donkey for Him to ride into town on. This also is reminiscent of Solomon when he was crowned king of ancient Israel. Instead of riding on a horse or anything, he specifically summoned a donkey and he rode an ass into town. And that became the symbol, kind of a king lowly and humble, but still a kingly kind of entrance.

Hank Smith: 23:07 Kind of a symbol of being a peacemaker.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 23:09 Exactly. If He’d been conquering the town, He would’ve come in, of course, on a horse. But He comes in on a donkey, a domestic animal, a burden of peace.

John Bytheway: 23:20 I actually have in my margin written here, “He’s coming lowly on an ass versus coming on a warhorse in Revelation 19 at the second coming.” So I think it’s interesting. The animal is a symbol of what kind of message is coming at that point, so.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 23:39 Oh, that’s a great point. Yeah. Now as you continue reading there in Matthew, so He mounts this colt and they set Him on it. And then why don’t we do the next two verses? They’re real significant too. Hank, do you want to do those, eight and nine?

Hank Smith: 23:54 Matthew 21:8-9, “And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way, others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before that followed cried saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 24:13 So now we have the second two symbols that are very prevalent in this triumphal entry. He’s sitting on this donkey, riding into town. They put their clothes in front of Him. Now the clothes was a sign of great respect. And you can imagine back in ancient Israel, even when Jesus is crucified, the soldiers try to decide who gets His clothes? Because clothing was so hard to weave and to procure, and you probably only had one set of clothes and things like that. But they take their clothes, their cloaks, and they put them in front of Him so that instead of riding on the dirt or cobblestone or whatever the surface was, He’s riding on something softer, something that’s cleaner. And it’s become really the welcome for the red carpet treatment and a kingly kind of royal welcome. So there’s the first big symbol that they do.

  25:05 And then the third is they use tree branches. Okay, it says they put tree branches in front of Him. Now, John of our four authors is the only one that defines those tree branches. John, do you remember what he says about those?

John Bytheway: 25:22 Are those the palms?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 25:23 Exactly. They’re palm branches. And John says that specifically in his, that’s kind of interesting that John would pick up on that, because John has Jesus in a very, what we call high Christology, where he sees Him very closely connected as the Son of God. In the other gospels you see a little bit more of the mortality of Jesus, but John has Him more connected as the Son of God in that sense of divineness, the fact that they do palm branches.

  25:51 Now, what’s the palm branch represent and why was it so specifically not just a tree branch? In the ancient Middle East, the palm tree was seen kind of associated with kings and sort of shade, and they used it for a lot of things. Shade was kind of symbolic. Also, its fibers, ropes and writing using parchment from palms and things like that. But the symbol that seemed to co-opt it the most was Greek mythology. Nike was the athletic kind of God, and Nike was symbolized by a palm branch. So it became kind of the sign of victory in competition and things like that. It’s just interesting you have these three symbols.

  26:36 Now I have a slide here that I’d like to show for those that are watching with the video, but in that, there’s these three symbols, the donkey, the clothing, and the palm branches. And here’s the symbolic interpretation of those. Remember, they’re putting their clothes down because He’s royalty. So the Prince of Peace, He’s riding the domestic animal of peace, rides into the city victorious. Isn’t that cool, to see the convergence of these three symbols.

  27:10 Now as a family, do you want to know what we could take from this on our Palm Sunday observance? We should reenact the triumphal entry and use branches and things like that to just kind of symbolize. And then the great shout which they made, which was the capstone of everything, and it really set the Pharisees and chief priests and everything on edge. And that was, Hosanna is the way that they’d say it in Hebrew. Hosanna. And that was coming from Psalms 1:18. That was where the word was coined. And in Hebrew it meant, “save us” or “save us now, we beseech thee.” Salvation is now.

  27:51 When they say that, and that’s a messianic psalm from the book of Psalms and David’s kind of prophecies, when they use that phrase, “Oh, that is the final deal. That seals the deal. We are accepting this Man as the Messiah, the promised Messiah.” And you can see the Pharisees are just beside themselves. In some of the accounts it says, “Don’t you see how the whole city has moved and we are nothing?” And they come back at Jesus and say verse 15 of Matthew 21.

John Bytheway: 28:23 “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were sore displeased, and said unto Him, ‘Hearest thou what these say?’ And Jesus saith unto them, ‘Yea, have ye never read, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thou has perfected praise?”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 28:45 Okay, so do you notice something here? Jesus just kind of throws this in back in their face. It’s like He gets to say, “Isn’t this great? They’re acknowledging Me as the Messiah.” And the chief priests and everything are beside themselves. Now He does one thing there that just really draws the chief priest into the argument and wanting to bring Him down, and that is Matthew has Him cleansing the temple on the very day of the triumphal entry. Look at verse 12. “Jesus went into the temple and cast out all them.” And then look at 13, “And said unto them, ‘It is written My house.” Now, in the book of John before, at the start of His ministry, He goes into the temple and cleanses it, but there He refers to it as whose house? Do you remember?

John Bytheway: 29:30 He said, “My Father’s house.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 29:32 Exactly. And so now He’s taking direct ownership of the temple. Do you know how threatening that would’ve been to the Sadducees and the Pharisees? The Pharisees are there to kind of show their purity and things, but the Sadducees are running the temple.

Hank Smith: 29:47 It’s a cash cow for them.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 29:48 It’s the National Bank of Ancient Judaism. And He’s taking possession of it symbolically as He comes in. It’s like throwing gasoline on the fire. This just causes such animus towards Him. But this is the one day when He just kind of says, “I’m not worried about what you think. I am here to present Myself because this is My assignment.” It’s a really cool setting. Most of the time, Jesus doesn’t ever get to be the guy that the crowds cheer for and things, because there’s not crowds. But this one, the crowds are cheering for Jesus, maybe a hundred thousand people, cheering for Jesus.

Hank Smith: 30:29 Yeah, that’s beautiful.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 30:30 Have any of you ever been over to Jerusalem at the Easter celebration and the Palm Sunday?

Hank Smith: 30:35 I’ve never been there for Easter.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 30:37 It is quite the thing. Usually about 30 to 50,000 Christians assemble over on the Mount of Olives, Bethphage and things right there, and then they do the processional up. It’s just such an incredible kind of fun thing as a Christian community to celebrate Easter that way and reenact the triumphal entry.

Hank Smith: 30:59 We’ll have to go there on Easter, John.

John Bytheway: 31:00 One of the things I’ve always wondered about the triumphal entry is, were they expecting the messiah of popular expectation as we’ve heard it coined sometimes. That He’s going to deliver us from the Romans. He’s the redeemer of Israel, meaning political Israel. Or were some there knowing He was going to deliver us from death and sin. And I wonder if Jesus knew what kind of welcome was He getting? Were they welcoming Him as the political messiah or as the spiritual Messiah? What do you think?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 31:32 John, I believe that they would’ve known the Psalmic verse 1:18 there closely enough that they would’ve sensed that that was referring to their salvation, and it was beyond just their physical deliverance. Now, He did a couple things to let them know. Now the cleansing of the temple could have been seen still as a political messiah come in and overthrowing. But then what did He do? Matthew records in verse 14, “And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them.” Right there in the temple, He heals them. And how that must have been such a moment in which there is no doubt as to what kind of Messiah He is.

  32:13 Yeah, I think you’re right. On the surface, some could have just said, “Oh, this is a big phony that’s coming in the town and it’s a circus act and things.” But at its core it was messianic. It was salvific. He makes that point again and again. Now we have a parallel, interesting parallel in our own LDS worship today with the triumphal entry that I’d love for families also to kind of capitalize on. And that is we have the Hosanna shout in one of our own religious rituals or practices, if you will. When does that occur? Tell me a little bit about that.

Hank Smith: 32:52 That’s temple dedications, right?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 32:53 Exactly. And now with the church doing kind of this close circuit temple dedication, everybody, whether they live close to a temple or not, pretty much has the opportunity to experience temple dedications. I’ll never forget the first time that we as a family went to one of the temple dedications. It happened to be a while back. It was the Palmyra Temple dedication, and it was a beautiful service. We all dressed up, they canceled church that day and we drove to the stake center and we were there early and there was quite a reverential feeling with the music, the prelude and everything. And then the service commenced and it was just… Everyone in white. And the temple itself was spectacular, and the talks and the singing, the spirit of God, like a fire is burning. And I just had a real deeply moving spiritual experience.

  33:46 And as it ended, we quietly left our stake center as a family. We got in the old family van and started to drive home. And I just wanted my kids to remember the moment. And so I said, “So what did you like most about the temple dedication today?” And they piped up with, “Oh daddy, it was beautiful to see the chandelier and to see everybody in white and singing. The Spirit of God was so cool. And the talk that President Hinckley gave.” And they went on and on and then they kind of trailed off, but they hadn’t hit the one point that I was hoping that they’d remember. And I said, prime the pump a little, and said, “What about the Hosanna shout?” And there was dead silence in my big old van as we drove. And then my oldest daughter, also my most outspoken probably, she piped up from the back of the van, “Dad, it was weird.”

  34:36 It kind of was a shock to the heart. But then I realized that I hadn’t taught them anything about the historical significance of the Hosanna shout and the fact that anciently, people were accepting Jesus into their lives, into their city, acknowledging Him as their Messiah. And that I’d fallen short with that. And all my daughter saw was just kind of this ritual waving of a hanky kind of in a robotic way and things like that and not realizing that it was the hanky and the waving was to say, “We welcome You into our lives, into our hearts, into the center of our city.” So that one’s always kind of stuck with me. So if families, as they celebrate the triumphal entry can incorporate that in, I think it will tie two things together, our temples with the fact that we’re entering the house of the Lord as He entered the city.

John Bytheway: 35:29 What I think is also unusual about that is the idea of shouting. I mean, we have the kids sing, “The chapel doors seem to say to me, be still.” What’s that joke, Hank? We spend the first two years teaching our children to walk and talk and the next 16, telling them to sit down and be quiet. To actually have something where we are supposed to shout is unusual. It reminds me of, the Spirit of God, “Like a fire’s burning we’ll sing and we’ll shout with the armies of heaven.” So, this is a good point. We need to teach them, “This is an appropriate time to shout for joy and as you said, to welcome the Savior and to say, ‘Hosanna, teach us how to be saved. Come and save us.” So I’m glad we talked about this. I don’t want them to say, “That was weird.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 36:18 This is a fun thing for a family to do. And it’s just so appropriate on Sunday, the triumphal entry or the Palm Sunday, weave these things together in your family worship. And then everybody’s looking forward to the culmination of that, which is the following Sunday and the resurrection. And so you have a great way to start it.

  36:38 Now in the scriptures, it’s difficult to tell which day, which things happened. In Matthew chapter 21, 22 and 23, even Matthew chapter 24. The next real strong marker we get is Passover. And we usually assign that to Thursday even though there’s some scholarly discussion about that. So the first, second and third days, they kind of meld together. Now the writers themselves, you’ll notice in Matthew, he says in verse 17, “He left them and went out of the city into Bethany, and He lodged there.” First off, let’s stop just to take that specific point. Why would He go back to Bethany? Didn’t He like the Golden Arches Hotel in Jerusalem? I mean, because Bethany’s a good couple of miles out of the city and up over a steep hill. Why Bethany?

Hank Smith: 37:27 Maybe He wanted to check on Lazarus, make sure he’s still feeling well.

John Bytheway: 37:30 Mary & Martha are there.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 37:31 That’s very good. In fact, that’s where He stays.

Hank Smith: 37:33 Yeah. I wonder if He’s trying to get away from not being taken. Arrested.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 37:38 Exactly. And the way you can see this is there’s such vitriol and some of the accounts there, it says when He says things that are really pointed towards the Pharisees and the leadership chief priests and scribes, it says, “They sought to lay hands on Him.” They want to take Him right then and bring Him down. It’s not the moment, even though it’s close in which He’ll turn Himself over to them, He still has some things to accomplish. The crowds are His buffer because all the crowds are with Him. So then at nighttime when everybody dissipates, He’s got to be out of sight or they’ll arrest Him prematurely. So He goes out to Bethany and seems to lodge there each evening.

John Bytheway: 38:17 I imagine every time He comes to Jerusalem, if He’s staying in Bethany, that He brings a big entourage with Him and that I can see why Martha is saying, “I’ve got a lot of work to do whenever You come here.” Right?

Dr. Keith Wilson: 38:29 Good point. Now you’ll notice then in verse 17, so He goes out to Bethany, that’s Matthew 21:17 at the end of the day. And then when He is coming back in the next morning, He curses the fig tree when He wants just something to pick a piece of fruit off of that because He’s hungry. But that sequence is different in the book of Mark. So Mark has Him cleansing the temple on the second day. So it’s hard to tell sometimes what happened on which day, but do your best to do that. Remember, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. That just because all of the four accounts aren’t completely harmonious on each detail, that’s the function of human memory. We remember things differently. And that’s the beauty of it. To me, it says this really is a real event because people remember it differently and they’re not just copying the same text.

  39:23 Generally from Matthew’s lead, we have the cleansing of the temple, and then we go into the day two and day three. Two and three are very hard to differentiate between the two of them. In fact, there’s no clues in Matthew 22 and 23 which one happens on which day. But here’s the overarching thing that I’d like you to remember on these chapters, and that is Jesus is portrayed and acts very messianically. He is in control and He fields questions from them, and He will poke right back. He’ll put parables out there that are so scathing, and the Pharisees and Sadducees, they know that He’s talking right to them and condemning them, but they can’t do anything because of the crowd. So He is very messianic in His teachings and the way He fields questions.

Hank Smith: 40:13 He gives them a couple of entrapment parables in Matthew 21 where they condemn themselves. Kind of like with David and Nathan, what we studied last year. He tells them about the two sons and the one about the wicked husband and the wicked renters who kill anybody who come to take the rent. And both times they answer the question. And then in verse 45 it says, “And when the chief priest and the Pharisees heard these parables, they perceive that He spake of them.” That’s great.

John Bytheway: 40:40 “Hey, He’s talking about us.”

Hank Smith: 40:42 “I think He’s talking about us.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 40:45 Yeah. Now a couple of little notes on that. If you combine the three accounts on this wicked husbandman, both Mark and Luke refer to him not as his son only, but as his beloved son or his well-beloved son. Oh, look at the similarities of that. “This is My only-begotten son.” This is the beloved son. And it’s no wonder that they get it. They know exactly that He’s jabbing at them. And the parable, the two sons, Matthew’s the only one that records that parable. It’s in chapter 21 there. But it’s just so apparent that He’s saying to them, “You’ve been commissioned and agreed and now you’re not coming.” And then the other. So He really goes after them.

  41:26 Now, just a quick comment about before we leave it there on this morning of the second day when He curses the fig tree. Occasionally you’ll have people, Bible readers, various scholars, take a shot at Jesus and say, “Oh, He was angry. A tree that doesn’t have fruit, He just wants to beat up on it.” And things like that. And so you have to think through that. Brethren, do you want to give some reasons why He might have done this other than just a temper tantrum when He is hungry?

Hank Smith: 41:56 Yeah, I doubt Jesus is just hangry here.

John Bytheway: 42:00 It’s fun to kind of make a list over the things that the Savior demonstrated he had power over. And men? Yes. Women? Yes. Children? Yes. Animals? Yes. And here we have plants, the weather. Yes. And all of these things I think demonstrated of course first His compassion and His love for people, but secondly, it demonstrated who He was. And I think to have this fig tree come out in the Institute, the Religion 211, 212 manual, it says, “The leaves on the fig tree indicated that it should have had fruit, but it did not. With its misleading appearance, the tree symbolized hypocrisy.” So He was being a teacher and its fate perhaps represented what awaited those who professed righteousness yet plot the Savior’s death. And my understanding of fig trees, and it might be fun to mention, how did you say it, Bethphage? Beth, how do you say that?

Hank Smith: 43:01 Bethphage. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 43:02 Bethphage means House of Figs. So take your PH and change it to an F. House of Figs, Bethphage. So that was a common symbol around there. But my understanding is with a fig tree, the leaves and the fruit grow at the same time. So if the leaves are there and there’s no fruit, this is kind of a symbol of, “You’re all leaves and no fruit.” What’s the Texas phrase, “You’re big hat and no cattle.” So, there’s a look of hypocrisy to the tree itself. So Jesus used that as a symbol. So that’s how I’ve always understood it. What do you think, Hank?

Hank Smith: 43:37 I think so too. I’ve always saw it as an object lesson. I even told my students, “Jesus probably knocked all the figs off that tree the day before. He’s prepping His classroom for His object lesson.” Right out of the manual, Come, Follow Me manual. First paragraph, “The Savior was hungry after traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem. And a fig tree in the distance looked like the source of food. But as Jesus approached the tree, it bore no fruit. In a way the fig tree was like the hypocritical religious leaders in Jerusalem. Their empty teachings and outward demonstrations of holiness gave no spiritual nourishment.” I’ve also thought too, that in about less than a week, He’s going to be hanging on the cross and people are going to say, “He has no power. He has no power to save Himself.” I think the disciples who see this are saying, “No, I’ve seen Him. He has the power to destroy. I know that. I’ve seen it right in front of my eyes. So He’s choosing not to destroy when He is hanging on the cross”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 44:32 In one of the accounts, Peter comments back and says, as they pass the fig tree that’s been all withered up, he says, “Wow, Lord, look what happened to it after You cursed it.” And here’s another interesting thing. That fig tree would’ve been on the Mount of Olives there, Mount Scopus and everything. And as they came back down into the city each day, just like you said, the manual pointed out, it was symbolizing the hypocrisy and the form of religion without the conversion of the heart and-

John Bytheway: 45:00 Without the fruits.

Dr. Keith Wilson: 45:02 Exactly. And the breezes, the sea breezes come in, and that’s how Jerusalem stays kind of cool and temperate. With the warm temperatures year round is you’ve always got a breeze. But when you kill a tree mid-season, okay, and the leaves are on it, the leaves don’t fall off. They stay attached. So the breeze with the attached leaves would’ve been almost like an audio reminder, even a visual audio thing there. The leaves are rustling as they go by kind of warning them, “You’re going into an area here that is full of form without content.”

  45:37 Now, another thing too, what time of the year is it? It’s April. It’s Passover. Does fruit come on a tree in April? I’m a small little orchardist and I have about 100 trees. That’s my avocation. I love it. But I can guarantee you the earliest fruit around here is cherries and apricots, and they’re still July. And the real fruit season is September. Apples, plums, peaches. You just go down the line. They’re all on then. Why? Because the tree uses the growing season to put fruit on and make it sweet, put sugars and things into it.

  46:13 So why is Jesus expecting it? The fig, like John pointed out earlier, is an anomaly. It’s what they call an early leafer, and it puts out its starchy fruit just right with the leaves. It wouldn’t have been the most succulent fruit, but it still would’ve been edible. That’s what Jesus is going for. He’s not having a temper tantrum over a tree that shouldn’t have even had fruit on it at that time of year. The fig was an exception, like you’ve pointed out. It was showing His power over all things. It was just such a multifaceted, symbolic thing that He did there. It’s far, far from Jesus having a temper tantrum because He’s hungry.

John Bytheway: 46:51 So rather than saying, “Oh, Jesus was angry.” It’s, “No, He’s always a teacher. He took another opportunity to use something right in front of them and teach.” That makes me go, “Oh yeah, He is always teaching in a beautiful way.”

Dr. Keith Wilson: 47:05 So messianic, isn’t He, in this last three days here. And then He goes really into hiding, not hiding, but He celebrates the Passover with just a few people. And then Gethsemane, three people are aware that He’s there suffering. This is His messianic kind of pulpit, if you will. He’s standing up and just doing things to teach them right here at the last, the multitudes.

Hank Smith: 47:27 I was going to say, Matthew 21:21. I’ve always laughed when Jesus says, “If you have faith and doubt not, you can also kill trees.” That’s the dream right there. And you could remove mountains.

John Bytheway: 47:43 Please join us for part two of this podcast.