Palm Sunday Bible Story for Children

A holiday was coming. Passover was an important holiday to Jews in Jesus' time, even more important than today. Jews from all over the world would go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the Temple. They would travel so far that it wouldn't be practical to bring the sacrifices with them, so they would buy them at the Temple.

Jesus was going to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, also. But he knew that the people there would try to kill him. He had been out in the country preaching, teaching, casting out demons, healing people, and doing all kinds of miracles. He was so popular, that the people had decided he was surely the new King of Israel.



He sent his disciples to borrow a donkey, so that he could ride into Jerusalem instead of walk. He wasn't being lazy, he was doing what a verse in the old testament said he would do. Check out Zechariah 9:9. Anyway, the disciples borrowed the donkey and put their coats on his back as a saddle for Jesus. He hopped on, and to Jerusalem they went.






A large crowd was on the road to Jerusalem, they didn't think that a donkey being ridden by the King should have to walk on the ground. So they started putting their coats on the road so the donkey wouldn't get his feet dusty! That's how much they loved and adored Jesus on that Sunday. And when they didn't have enough coats to lay on the ground they started cutting the leaves from palm trees and lying them on the road. That's where we get the name "Palm Sunday." Cool. If Jerusalem had been in Alabama (we have a lot of Pine trees) it would probably be called "Pine Sunday!"


While all of this was going on, the crowd was yelling stuff like, "Hosanna to the son of David!" They were giving him the royal treatment. Yelling praises, trying to shake his hand, trying to get his attention. He was getting more attention than Mark McGuire got last year after hitting all of those home runs. All of the visitors that were in town for the holiday started asking who this dude was. I guess that everyone who had heard or had seen what Jesus had done were proud to tell the visitors about Jesus. They were talking about people getting healed of blindness, him turning a few fish sticks and rolls into enough food to feed 5000 men and their families, even how he made dead people come back to life! This was going to be their new king, the Savior! Don't you think the disciples were proud to be with Jesus on that day?

Well, that's all we know about Jesus' last Sunday before Easter. Jesus probably prayed a few hours, and went to sleep. He was starting the hardest week of his life, and he knew it. He knew that in a few days, he would be dead.

-Copyright 2000 by Gene Powell-