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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Friday, 01 August 2008 14:52 |
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Luke 19:28-44
March 16, 2008 - Lindsborg Cov.
“The Tearful Entry”
(Palm Sunday - Triumphal Entry)
Sermon
To say that Jesus was becoming popular would be a gross understatement. Jesus was an earth-shattering cultural icon in first century Palestine. By the time Palm Sunday rolled around, He was arguably the single most famous religious leader in all of Israel. He had just recently performed two of His most astonishing miracles. He had restored sight to two blind men, an absolutely unprecedented miracle. It had never happened in the entire history of the Old Testament. And, He raised a man back from the dead. Even if that had happened before it never fails to get our attention.
So, when the rumor got out that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover Festival there were hundreds of thousands of Jews who were anxiously waiting and watching for His arrival. Of course, Jesus was not just going to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. He was going there to die. He knew exactly what was in store for Him there.
Jesus had made all the necessary preparations. On that first Palm Sunday He and His disciples were on their way to Jerusalem. When they reached the Mount of Olives, near the towns of Bethany and Bethsaida, Jesus gave instructions to two of His disciples. He said, “I want you to go into that village ahead just ahead of us. The first thing you will see is a young colt tied up. No one has ever ridden this colt. I want you to untie it and bring it to Me. If anyone challenges you, just tell them ‘The Lord needs it.’”
So, the disciples did as they were told, and they found everything just the way Jesus had predicted it would be. And sure enough, just as they were untying the colt they were caught. The donkey’s owners called out, “Hey, what are you doing, untying that colt?” They responded just as they were instructed, “The Lord needs it.” Enough said.
They brought the colt to Jesus and took off their cloaks and put them on the back of the donkey to make Jesus more comfortable. Then they put Jesus on the colt and began to lead Him in procession towards Jerusalem.
Now, I want you to get a picture in your minds of the whole scene. As I said, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over making this pilgrimage to the Holy City for the biggest feast in the Jewish calendar year. There are also thousands of Jews living in Jerusalem who have heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. When they get word that Jesus is on His way into Jerusalem, many of them leave the city to go greet Him and then escort Him back into the city. So, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews pouring into Jerusalem, and thousands of Jews coming out of Jerusalem, and right in the middle of it all sits Jesus, riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The people are very excited, and who can blame them? They have been waiting for thousands of years for this day, and it has finally arrived. The Messiah, the promised deliverer is here, and His Name is Jesus! They begin to shout and sing God’s praises for all the miracles they have seen Jesus do. They cut down palm branches and threw them on the path before him. Some of them even took off their cloaks and threw them down on the road as well, creating a kind of red carpet treatment for this royal dignitary. They are waving their palm branches back and forth and shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the Name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And as they were shouting and singing and dancing and praising God, there sat Jesus on the donkey, weeping. Strange, isn’t it?
There are only two recorded times in the gospels where Jesus wept in public. The first time was not long ago, at Lazarus’ funeral where we read the verse that is famous for being so short: Jesus wept (Jn 11:35).
And today’s story is the second time Jesus wept. We are told that as Jesus and His disciples came over the crest of the hill on the Mount of Olives, they looked across the valley and when Jesus saw Jerusalem He simply broke down sobbing. He wept bitterly over the holy city. His words are recorded for us.
“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.” (Luke 19:41-44)
It is such a strange scene. This massive celebration is going on all around Him. People are shouting and singing and praising God, and in the middle of festivities Jesus is crying. Why? What is Jesus thinking? What are the people thinking?
To get our heads around this a little bit, we need to do a quick review of Israel’s history. As many of you know, Israel was supposed to be an independent theocracy. They were God’s special people, a chosen people, set apart to God. God said, “You will be My people and I will be your God.” This is how it was supposed to be.
But this is not how it always was. Israel had a long history of being periodically occupied and even enslaved by foreign oppressors. God repeatedly sent leaders, prophets, judges, military generals, kings, even priests to lead them into battle against their religious and political enemies and delivered them from bondage. The most famous of these was Egypt, when God delivered His people from the hand of Pharaoh.
Now Israel is once again occupied by a pagan nation. The Roman empire was not only polytheistic, which offended the Jews, but it was ruthlessly imperialistic as well, not to mention grossly immoral, capricious, and cruel.
The Old Testament makes literally hundreds of predictions that God is going to send a deliverer, the anointed one of God known as the Messiah who would dramatically and decisively save His people. Most of the Jewish population naturally assumed that it would be business as usual, that God would send a powerful military general who would also be a great political leader who would reclaim David’s throne and then lead the people in a spectacularly one-sided revolutionary war to throw off the chains of Roman tyranny. Remember that the people were groaning under the heavy burden of an unfair tax system and the cruelly oppressive military presence. If there was ever a good time for God to send in the Cavalry, it was now.
And this is when Jesus shows up. And Jesus shows up sounding just like a prophet who stepped off the pages of the Old Testament. He teaches with great authority. He performs powerful signs and wonders. He is immensely popular with the general population. He manages crowds well. He is fiercely courageous in the face of the religious leaders who unfairly oppose Him. He has demonstrated a brilliant mind and quick wit. And He talks constantly about how He is about to usher in the very Kingdom of God on earth.
For vast numbers of Jewish people, this is it. Jesus is the one they have been waiting for. Anyone who can feed an entire army with only a little bit of bread and fish, calm a raging storm with a simple command, heal the sick and wounded with a single touch, and raise the dead back to life, surely a man like that can lead an uprising against Rome and easily defeat these godless pagans! It was time. It was time to overthrow the Roman Empire and re-establish Israel as a sovereign theocratic state.
That, I submit to you, is what many, if not most of the crowd was thinking. And Jesus knew this. That is why He was weeping.
Jesus wept because the people misunderstood. They misunderstood His mission. They misunderstood His ministry and His message. They were looking for a political king and military general to crush the Roman Empire and restore the former glory of the nation of Israel. He wept because they just didn’t get it.
You see, Jesus had come to establish a kingdom of an entirely different sort - a kingdom of the heart. They thought He had come to Jerusalem to take up the sword, but He had not. Jesus had come to Jerusalem to take up the cross. They were having a pep rally around their newest political/military hero because they thought this would bring peace and glory back to Israel. Jesus wept because He knew that their way was the world’s way and would end in bitter destruction. He wept because so many were fighting the wrong enemy on the wrong battlefield using the wrong weapons. He had not come to conquer Rome. He had come to conquer them. He had come to conquer Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. He had come to conquer their hearts, not with demonstrations of power, coercion, and violence, but with demonstrations of love, service, and sacrifice.
The Jews were imagining that the Kingdom Jesus spoke of would be like the Old Kingdom. But Jesus was here to usher in an entirely different kind of kingdom, a New Kingdom, as I said before, a kingdom of the heart. Jesus would not pick up the sword against Rome because Rome posed no threat to the establishment and the advancement of His New Kingdom. In fact, Rome was almost irrelevant to His New Kingdom. Jesus would not use manipulation or force to make people change their behavior, because He was not trying to change people from the outside in. He was here to change people from the inside out.
Remember what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4? He said, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” This, I believe, is what Jesus was trying to communicate by choosing to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.
A little cultural background will help us here. You see, in that culture, kings only rode horses in battle. If a king rode toward your city on a horse, you knew that it was a declaration of war. But Jesus did not come on a horse. He deliberately chose a donkey. Now, in our culture, a donkey is a lowly animal, almost a despised creature. But that was not true in the Jewish culture. The donkey was a noble animal, fit for royalty. If a king rode in on a donkey, it was a sign of peace. Everybody knew that. Jesus was sending what should have been an unmistakable signal to the crowd of worshipers. He did not come to fulfill their messianic expectations. He did not come to save them from Rome. He came to save them from themselves.
Later that week, on Thursday night, as Jesus was being arrested, Peter drew a sword and attempted to protect Jesus by killing one of the soldiers who had come to arrest Him. Jesus rebuked Peter. He told him to put away his sword because violence only leads to more violence. Jesus said He could call on tens of thousands of angels as an invincible army to completely destroy the Roman armies and establish an earthly kingdom. But that was not the kind of Kingdom Jesus was building. So once again, as if to drive home the point, Jesus demonstrated for them the kind of Kingdom He was building by performing His very last miracle. He healed the ear of the soldier Peter attacked. (Matt 26:52-54)
Jesus knew that most of this crowd did not want the New Kingdom of God. They wanted another version of the Old Kingdom. He knew that many in the crowd who shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the Name of the Lord” on Sunday would be shouting “Crucify Him!” on Friday. He knew their hearts were filled with the idolatry of political freedom. Their loud Hosannas were empty and so Jesus wept.
The people waving the palm branches were right to sing and shout and celebrate. They were right to proclaim Jesus as their Messiah and Jesus defended them to the religious leaders who tried to silence them. But their enthusiasm was largely misplaced. So, we have this very odd scene where the object of their adoration was sad. The parade was being held in His honor, but the grandmaster of the parade was not smiling and waving to the people. Their king was crying. The center of their celebration was sobbing. Their worship made Him weep.
It is Palm Sunday again, and here we are gathered in this place today to celebrate Jesus, just as they did. We sing His praises, just as they did. We proclaim Him as our Messiah, just as they did. We shout “Hosanna in the highest!” We even wave palm branches. And we are right to do all of this, just as they were.
But, as I studied and meditated on this story, I could not help but wonder if our enthusiasm is sometimes misplaced, just as theirs was. I wonder if we have some wrong expectations, just as they did. And I wonder if Jesus sometimes weeps over our worship, just as He did theirs.
Have we misunderstood the true nature of the New Kingdom Jesus came to usher in? Do we even know and understand what Jesus’ mission is? Two questions: 1. What is our mission?, and 2. How are we to accomplish our mission? What is our goal? What is our objective, and what are the tools God has given us to accomplish our goal?
I am asserting that Jesus’ mission has not changed, nor have His methods. As I said before, Jesus mission was and is to change people from the inside out. Listen to the mission as it is described in Acts 26:17b-18: “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
And Ezekiel is famous for communicating God’s heart. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) Jesus is here to perform a radical transformation, and that change begins in the human heart.
So, how did He accomplish His mission? What methods did He use? Well, He did it primarily by loving people. He did it by serving them, by feeding the hungry, delivering the demonized, healing the sick, uplifting the downtrodden, protecting the vulnerable, loving the unlovely, accepting the outcasts, and touching the untouchables. As people began to see in Jesus the goodness and grace of God their hearts were touched. Their hearts were softened. They responded to His great love with love in return and wanted to serve, obey, and follow Him.
So, I pose this question to us today. Are we seeking to do Jesus’ work Jesus’ way? Are we doing Jesus’ work Jesus’ way?
For example, when our civil rights are stripped away from us because we love Jesus, is our primary calling to file lawsuits, to lobby congress, and to complain about how the liberals and secular humanists are ruining our country, or is our primary calling to lay down our lives and suffer for the sake of those who hate us?
When we see gross immorality and sin in the lives of unbelievers around us, is our primary calling to avoid them, to rebuke them, and to pass more legislation to force them to behave the way God wants them to, or is our primary calling to pray for them and find ways to serve them?
When our political leaders disappoint us, is our primary calling to criticize them, gossip about them, and complain about their policies, or is our primary calling to pray for them, to ask God to give them humble spirits, integrity of character, wise counselors, and hearts open to the gospel of Jesus? (1 Tim 2:1-2)
When we observe the culture around us and we see homosexual weddings and skyrocketing divorce rates, is our primary calling to define and protect marriage through laws are through our own example of godly living?
Or what about when it gets really personal? When someone deliberately does something hateful and hurts us badly, are we called to hate them back, to seek revenge, and then laugh at their destruction, or are we called to forgive them, to bless them, and to pray for their well-being?
And this one strikes very close to home. When Muslim terrorists attack and kill our people, are we called to demonize them, to go to war against their people, and to pray that God will help our soldiers kill them, or are we called to pray that our missionaries reach them before our military does?
On this Palm Sunday, are we guilty of doing the same thing the Jews did on that Palm Sunday long ago? Do we celebrate Jesus as our King but then demand that He serve our agenda instead of submitting to His? Do we sing the praises of our King as long as He comes to us on our terms? Do we come here to celebrate a King who will help us accomplish all our political, economic, personal, and social goals, or do we come here to lay down our own agendas in order to take up His Kingdom call?
I want you to leave here this morning with that Kingdom call ringing in your ears. Listen to the call of the New Kingdom. These are the words of our Lord Himself.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)
On that Palm Sunday long ago, Jesus wept over Jerusalem and lamented, “If you, even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes . . . because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
May we never hear our King say that of us. Instead, may we hear our Lord and King say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!: (Matthew 25:21) Amen.
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