SS Lesson # 1 Palm Sunday 

Lazarus had come with Jesus to Jerusalem and the people, hearing that Lazarus had been raised from the dead, had flocked to 
see them as they entered Jerusalem. The chief priests had discussed how they could kill them both because the people were 
believing in Jesus. This was too much of an assault on the priestly domain of the chief rabbis. They had to have been 
terrified. They had on several occasions sent spies into the crowd to, not only report back on the sermons of Christ, but 
also his activities and travels. They had even instructed some of the spies trained in the art of rabbinic dialectic, try to 
trip him up in his teachings. They had to have been desperate people to have gone to this extreme. They knew that if He were 
to continue in this fashion that it would not be long before the masses would turn on them and destroy the artificial 
theocracy that they depended upon.  Christ had forced their hand. He knew that if he were to return to Jerusalem that the 
Rabbinic council would have no alternative but to destroy him. He could just as easily have gone to Jerusalem alone and 
entered the City quietly. He intentionally turned his entrance into a victory parade, the same thing as a Roman Triumph. 

I am sure that Jerusalem (not being all that large a city at the time, (buildings of the day did not have glass in the 
windows) the hew and cry of a thousand people yelling “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the King of Israel!” 
would have been heard in every quarter including the government offices which the Sanhedrin occupied. Like most people, I 
feel sure they were drawn to the goings on in the street. After the throng had passed I can just see them standing with 
something of a chagrinned look on their faces watching the disappearing crowd and kicking the trampled palms in the dusty 
streets as the triumphal entrance passed into the center of the city. They must have said to themselves “Do you see this? We 
have nothing with which to fight this!! Good Grief, the whole world has gone after him.” I can hear them muttering among 
themselves probably saying, “Either we kill them both or it will be us the crowd will be after. There is certainly nothing 
in our philosophies that can match this. This world is not big enough for the both of us!!”  For any political entity, 
balance is the key. You can not tolerate a vacuum of power nor can you survive the chaos of opposing equal powers. Stability 
requires one leader and admittedly the most efficient government is a benevolent monarchy. I am sure that they saw a 
benevolent theocracy as ranking right up there; besides they had God on their side they thought.  So getting rid of this 
burr under their blanket was not only essential but dire.  The street people believed that He was the Son of God! Where 
would that leave the Sanhedrin?    

There was apparently some kind of custom at Passover where one prisoner would be set free and one prisoner killed. I am not 
sure what this is in reference to but it was mentioned when Christ was taken to Annas the Father in law of Caiaphas. 
Caiaphas was the head or chief Rabbi of the Sanhedrin on a rotating basis. Apparently all members of the Sanhedrin had a 
chance at being Chief Rabbi. It just so happened that this year was Caiphas’ turn. (They have recently discovered his very 
beautiful bone box covered with carved rosettes in a rock tomb in Jerusalem). I think the term used for his position was 
Head Speaker. Now, I certainly don’t intend to imply that the government was bicameral by any means but the Roman tradition 
was that once they had conquered a people they pretty much left them alone so long as they paid their taxes to Caesar. Their 
governments and bureaucracies stayed in place. So, when the Romans left the Sanhedrin to govern the people it was with the 
understanding that they do so at the behest of the military garrison which was supervised by Pontius Pilatos from the 
Praetorium in the Fortress Antonia. So the goings back and forth of Christ were in essence a tracing of the chain of 
command. Since the Sanhedrin did not want the blood of Christ on their hands they foisted Him off on Pontius Pilatos, who 
could find “nothing wrong” with Him. But, understanding crowd mentality, he felt that they would not be happy until the 
crowd was given some kind of blood sacrifice, he let them choose which of the two they wanted killed. It is interesting to 
me that just recently with in the last 5 years they have discovered a door lintel inscribed with the builders name as being 
“Prefect Pontius Pilatos.” 

Barabbas was apparently a popular local trouble maker. I have searched everywhere and can find nothing about him other than 
the Bible says he killed a man in an insurrection against the Romans. He was a nobody as far as I can tell. The fickle 
nature of crowd politics can hardly be lost on the reader of this narrative.