Mark 11:8

And many spread their garments upon the way; and others branches, which they had cut from the fields.

Cranfield's allegation says this "demonstration was quite a small affair."[3] Such a comment is shocking, not because of any possible truth in it, but because it is almost incredible that an intelligent man would make it. As these lines are being written, President Richard M. Nixon has just enjoyed a triumphal reception in Egypt where over two million people enthusiastically hailed him; but does anyone suppose for a moment that nineteen centuries afterward people will be studying that entry into Egypt by an American president? This entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem is still hailed by millions some two thousand years after the fact. It was immortalized by four historical records, hated to be sure, but still true, still standing as fact, still received as the word of God to mankind, still loved, honored, and revered by people of all nations. That such results could have flowed out of some "very small affair" is utterly impossible of belief. On this day, the palm branch became forever afterward a symbol of victory, which, as Dummelow said, was a thing unknown to the Jews.[4] Some "small affair"!

This great outpouring of Jerusalem to welcome Jesus our Lord was a vast spontaneous demonstration in which the great masses of the people participated with Hosannas and praises and the casting of their clothes in the street before the Lord (they didn't even do that for Nixon). The King had indeed come to his people, and they hailed him as "the King of Israel" and as "the Son of David." The priests were furious, saying, "Lo, the world has gone after him" (John 12:19). As a matter of fact, it had!

[3] C. E. B. Cranfield, op. cit., p. 353.

[4] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Whole Bible (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 694.