From Palms to the Garden Tomb

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Matthew notes that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy of a meek king (21:4–5; Zechariah 9:9), while crowds spread garments and branches in His path and shouted “Hosanna,” a plea meaning “save now” (compare Psalm 118:25). The whole city asked, “Who is this?” (21:10). Mark places the cleansing of the temple on the following day (Mark 11:11–15), so it fits this Monday. Jesus drove out the money changers and quoted Isaiah: “My house shall be called the house of prayer” (21:13; Isaiah 56:7). Then something easy to miss happens: the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them, while children kept crying “Hosanna” (21:14–15). He cleared the temple so it could be a place of healing again.

🔗 Cross-references

• Zechariah 9:9 ↗The prophecy of a king coming to Jerusalem “lowly, and riding upon an ass.”
• John 12:12–13 ↗John adds that the crowds took branches of palm trees to meet Him.
• Doctrine and Covenants 88:119 ↗The Lord describes His house as a house of prayer, fasting, faith and learning.

In the days before His death, Jesus told a parable about a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. The invited guests “made light of it” and went off to their farms and businesses; some even mistreated the king’s messengers (22:5–6). So the king sent his servants into the highways to gather everyone they could find, “both bad and good” (22:10). The invitation is astonishingly wide. Yet one guest arrives without a wedding garment and is speechless when asked why (22:11–12). The parable ends, “many are called, but few are chosen” (22:14). In latter-day revelation the Lord explains why few are chosen: their hearts are set on the things of this world (Doctrine and Covenants 121:34–35). The invitation is free; accepting it still asks something of us.

🔗 Cross-references

• Doctrine and Covenants 121:34–35 ↗The Lord explains why many are called but few are chosen.
• Revelation 19:7–9 ↗John sees the marriage supper of the Lamb and the fine linen of the Saints.
• Doctrine and Covenants 58:9–11 ↗The Lord invites all nations, rich and poor, to the supper of the house of the Lord.

Jesus’s last long sermon in Matthew ends with the King dividing people as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. What decides it is strikingly ordinary: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, taking in the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned (25:35–36). Both groups are surprised. “Lord, when saw we thee?” (25:37, 44). The righteous did not think of their service as serving Him; they simply saw people in need. Then comes the key: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (25:40). Only days before His own hunger, thirst, arrest and nakedness on the cross, the Savior told His disciples that He would be found in every person who suffers.

🔗 Cross-references

• Mosiah 2:17 ↗King Benjamin teaches that serving our fellow beings is serving God.
• James 1:27 ↗Pure religion includes visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction.

Matthew 26 moves from devotion to betrayal to agony. At Bethany a woman pours costly ointment on Jesus’s head; the disciples call it waste, but He says she did it “for my burial” and that her act will be told wherever the gospel is preached (26:7–13). At the Passover meal He foretells betrayal, and each disciple asks, “Lord, is it I?” (26:22). Then He takes bread and a cup and gives them new meaning: His body and “my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (26:26–28). In Gethsemane, sorrowful “even unto death,” He falls on His face and prays three times, ending, “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (26:38–39, 44). Latter-day revelation tells us this suffering caused Him to bleed at every pore (Doctrine and Covenants 19:18).

🔗 Cross-references

• Luke 22:39–44 ↗Luke adds that an angel strengthened Him and that His sweat was as great drops of blood.
• Doctrine and Covenants 19:16–19 ↗The Savior describes in His own words the suffering of the Atonement.
• Alma 7:11–12 ↗Alma teaches that He took upon Himself our pains, sicknesses and infirmities so He could succor us.

Good Friday. Matthew records the trial before Pilate, who washes his hands of a decision he has the power to make (27:24). Jesus is scourged, crowned with thorns and mocked, and Simon of Cyrene is made to carry His cross to Golgotha (27:26–33). Passersby taunt Him: “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (27:42). They meant it as mockery, but it was true in the deepest way; He stayed on the cross in order to save. Darkness covers the land from the sixth hour to the ninth, and He cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (27:45–46). When He dies, the veil of the temple tears from top to bottom, and a Roman centurion says, “Truly this was the Son of God” (27:51, 54). Faithful women watch to the end (27:55–56).

🔗 Cross-references

• Luke 23:33–46 ↗Luke records His words from the cross: forgiveness, paradise for a thief, and “into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
• John 19:25–30 ↗From the cross He cares for His mother, and then says, “It is finished.”
• Hebrews 10:19–20 ↗Paul teaches that the veil is His flesh, a new and living way into the presence of God.

What was the Savior doing while His body lay in the tomb? Peter gives a brief answer: He “went and preached unto the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). On October 3, 1918, as the First World War was ending and months after his son Hyrum, an Apostle, had died, President Joseph F. Smith sat pondering those verses (Doctrine and Covenants 138:1). He saw a great company of the righteous dead waiting with joy, and the Son of God appearing among them “declaring liberty to the captives” (138:18). He also learned that the Lord did not go in person to the rebellious but organized messengers from among the righteous to carry the gospel to all the spirits of the dead (138:29–30). Even in death, the Savior was gathering Heavenly Father’s children.

🔗 Cross-references

• 1 Peter 4:6 ↗Peter explains that the gospel was preached to the dead so they could live according to God in the spirit.
• Doctrine and Covenants 138:57 ↗Faithful elders of this dispensation continue their labors among the spirits of the dead.

Easter Sunday. Early in the morning, women come to the tomb and meet an angel: “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (Matthew 28:6). They run “with fear and great joy” to tell the disciples, and on the way Jesus Himself meets them and says, “be not afraid” (28:8–10). John adds the personal scenes: Mary Magdalene weeping in the garden until He speaks her name (John 20:11–16), the disciples behind locked doors hearing “Peace be unto you” (20:19), and Thomas invited to touch the wounds and answering, “My Lord and my God” (20:27–28). John tells us why he wrote it all down: “that ye might believe” (20:31). Today, read these witnesses slowly, and add your own.

🔗 Cross-references

• Luke 24:13–35 ↗The two disciples on the road to Emmaus feel their hearts burn and know Him in the breaking of bread.
• 3 Nephi 11:10–17 ↗The risen Lord invites a multitude at Bountiful to feel the prints in His hands and feet, one by one.
• Doctrine and Covenants 76:22–23 ↗Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon’s latter-day testimony: “That he lives!”