I have always sensed there was something strange about the original Palm Sunday celebration in Jerusalem. A huge question mark looms in the background. There is a glaring discontinuity about the whole event. Think about it...A crowd estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 lines the roadsides to cheer an itinerant preacher from Nazareth named Jesus; yet they are not really sure why they are cheering. They are not even sure who Jesus is. What if a ticker-tape parade were held down New York's Fifth Avenue for an unidentified celebrity...and a half-million people showed up?! That is about what happened on the first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem.

The city of Jerusalem was bursting at the seams with religious pilgrims there for the annual Passover Festival. It has been estimated that some 2.5 mi…