Luke 19: 28-48, The Long Anticipated Messiah

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem for the Passover Feast.  (He has just finished teaching a parable on faithful action while the king is away.)

Luke 19: 28-40, Jesus enters Jerusalem as the Messiah

After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

They replied, “The Lord needs it.”  They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives,the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Bethpage and Bethany were "suburbs" of Jerusalem, outlying towns, within a few miles of the city.

The Old Testament passage of Zechariah 9:9 is fulfilled here and the crowd seems to be expecting this. One suggestion (See here, for example) is that the crowds were aware of a prophesy of Daniel, interpreting the 70 "weeks" of Daniel 9 as a timetable to the entrance of the Messiah in Jerusalem.

The phrased used by the crowd, "Bless is the king..." is from Psalm 118:26. It is clearly Messianic and angers the religious leaders. Jesus's response is confident, indeed arrogant. He makes it clear that the crowd is correct!

Luke 19: 40-44, Weeping over Jerusalem

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls.They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, about forty years after Jesus wept over the city.

Luke 19: 45-48, Driving out the temple merchants

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’;but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 as he cleans out the temple.

The Jewish leaders have been conspiring against Jesus now for some time, but now that he is amongst them they are paralyzed by fear of the crowds.