What happensPermalink
Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey covered in His disciples’ cloaks amid cheering crowds waving palm branches. Jesus cleanses the temple. He curses the fig tree. He confounds the chief priests asking about His authority. Parable of the husbandmen.
Why it mattersPermalink
Jesus seems to deliberately antagonize the chief priests and elders: He enters in a procession fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy of a Davidic king, disrupts their profitable temple enterprise, demotes them below tax collectors and whores, and compares them to thieves.
Key versePermalink
“For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.”