Luke 19:28-48

Discussion Questions

1. The reactions to Jesus as he traveled up to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover varied widely. Some in the crowds were shallowly swept up in the celebration, while others who had encountered Jesus were radically transformed and followed him wholeheartedly. How do we respond to Jesus today? Are we following him unswervingly, or like many in the crowd are we joining in only when it’s convenient and culturally acceptable?
2. The gospel accounts of passion week are very familiar to many of us. Are we looking at these texts with fresh eyes and open hearts? Are we hanging onto God’s word like the people who heard him teach daily at the temple? What do we do with the greatest story ever told?
3. As we approach Holy Week, what are some specific ways that we can prepare our hearts and minds? Who or what can we commit to praying for this week? Who could we invite to join us at church? How can we live this week with a greater mindfulness of who Jesus is and what he has done for us?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel and we have extra copies. If you didn’t bring one and you would like one to follow along, just raise your hand up. We’ll drop one off at your row, your aisle. You may see up on the screen there are QR codes if you want the notes, quotes, the classic prayers. We usually put those up there as well as some of the songs. So, if you’re interested in that, just take advantage of that QR code.

I want to say hello to some of our friends that have joined us over the past week through our online ministry. I’m going to get these names wrong, so please forgive me if you’re watching again today and joining us, but we have some folks last week that joined us from Agartala, India, and from Cape Town, South Africa. I think I got that one right. From Menomonie, Michigan. Is that right? Anybody from Michigan? Whoo! And then I know this one: Portland, Oregon. So, we’re so grateful to the folks from all of those places near and far. Greetings to each and every one of you. And you others who are joining us by way of the internet from wherever that may be, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a little note. It’s so encouraging to us and to this community here of faith to know that the gospel is going out, that the scriptures are being taught, that folks are being filled with the hope of the gospel.

Today is indeed Palm Sunday. I’ve done 24 Palm Sunday messages. When that sort of thing keeps coming back around, I’m not quite the guy going, “Oh no, what am I going to say?” Because I know what I am going to talk about in general. And so, do you, don’t you? You know that this isn’t going to be sort of a teaching on infralapsarianism or something like that. We’re not going to some weird little doctrinal issue. We’re going to talk about Jesus coming in on Palm Sunday a couple thousand years ago roughly, and we’re going to talk about why He did that and why that is important and significant. It’s really important for us to do that, I think.

I’m going to call it “The Paradoxical King” this year as we study. We’re going to look at Luke’s account. There are four gospel records, as most of you know. They can be divided, and have been in English Bibles, to 89 chapters total between the four of them. Of those 89 chapters, four of them— that’s all, four—cover the first 30 years of the earthly life of Jesus. Eighty-five chapters focus on the last three-and-a-half years of the earthly life of Jesus, meaning His public ministry, including His teaching and His miracles, which there just is so much there. We can spend a lot of time there. 29 of those 85 chapters though zoom in on Passion Week, which we’re entering what we call Passion Week here today, Palm Sunday. It includes the arrival of Jesus, of course, the triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple, the teachings and miracles, the last supper, the betrayal and arrest, the interrogation trials, the torture, crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

I’m so glad we sang that new song this morning. Actually, that was your rehearsal for us to sing it next week because it’s all about the resurrection. But we have the blessing of living here 2,000 years after these events that happened in space/time history. We have the blessing of being able to remember what happened including the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem and all that is there, all the meaning, all the symbolism that’s there, as well as the reality of what happened that day.

And then we also have the benefit of studying this dark week in so many ways; for Jesus Himself, for the torture that He went through, for the scourging, for the way that some of the self-righteous religious leaders set themselves had been searching for a way to take Him down. And so, all of that, we don’t want to forget. It’s really important that we don’t forget that and that we don’t skip over it. But we have the benefit of being able to sing a song like that one this week knowing what’s on the other side of Good Friday: that is Sunday of next week, the Easter celebration. But we need to take the time to remember and recall the significance of what happened that whole week.

So triumphal entry, you’ll find, if you run through the sermon notes sometimes, I know we have some home groups that do that, or if you and your family would like to, here the four gospels all record this event of the triumphal entry of Jesus as it’s called. We’ll be looking at the Luke in account today. And first though, I would ask you to join me in prayer for illumination.

Our Father in Heaven, as we’ve gathered to worship You today, we are aware that someone in our fellowship today needs to hear You call their name. They need to also respond, and they need to receive Your grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Please overcome their fears that they somehow are too unlovely for You. Please help them with their fears that You might not want to love them. Please override their pride, their pride-inflicted resistance to You, override that. Lord, overpower all the dark forces that might seek to bind them and blind them. Come now, Lord Jesus, light of the world, set all of our hearts and voices free to worship You and to join with the chorus of Palm Sunday, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. Amen and amen.

Turn with me then to Luke, chapter 19 and let’s just take a look at these verses 28 through 48. Let me just put that back up on the screen for you so you have that to look at. “And after he had said these things…” Remember Jesus has been coming through on His way to Jerusalem. And especially with our Timeless Truth podcast and some of these books and all four gospels that we’ve studied before, most of you will know that He’s gone through Jericho, the lowest point on the Earth that isn’t underwater. And Jericho, almost a thousand feet below sea level. A lot happened there.

Blind Bartimaeus was healed of his blindness. Jesus met a man named Zacchaeus there who was probably the most hated man in Israel, the chief tax collector, not just one of the many tax collectors, he’s the chief tax collector and a Jewish man who was literally extorting money from his own people and giving it to the Roman government. And whatever he could skim off the top, he would take for himself. So, in every way, this guy is hated by his own people. He’s there and he’s been remarkably transformed just by his encounter with Jesus.

And then that Jericho Road: 17 miles to Jerusalem, 3,000-feet of elevation. Those of us who have been there and ridden the bus know how you think the bus is not going to make it. And then the tour guide on the bus starts playing chariots of fire on the sound system in the bus and you’re starting to feel really good. And then they play some song, Jerusalem, as we crest the hill and it’s so amazing. Even hardcore cynics like me find their eyes filled with tears because you know this is the path, this is the general direction that we’re about to read about because He came from Jericho and He went to Jerusalem on that similar route. And so, it’s pretty remarkable after He had said these things, all of this stuff had happened in Jericho. And He did some teaching about money usage as recorded in Luke here.

He was going on ahead ascending to Jerusalem. By the way, this is the last time He will ascend to Jerusalem. In Jewish thinking, you always ascend to Jerusalem even if you’re coming from the north, you’re going up to Jerusalem because it’s the holy city. There will come a day when Jesus will descend, and He will come to set the world to rights. Now He’s coming, and we’ll see. You guys know the story. I’m not spoiling it. But now He rides on a donkey. He will one day come on a fiery steed and wrap up human history. But for now, He was going on ahead ascending to Jerusalem. It came about that when He approached Bethphage and Bethany, these are two smaller villages on the mount that is called all of it, it says right there in verse 29. “He sent two of the disciples saying, ‘Go into the village opposite you, in which as you enter, you’ll find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asked you why you’re untying it, thus shall you speak. “The Lord has need of it.”’”

Had Jesus arranged this in advance? I don’t know. Is Jesus predicting something and making it happen in the spirit realm, sort of making it happen? Is this a supernatural thing? I don’t know. Could He do that? Yes, He could do that supernaturally. Why? Well, because He created everything out of nothing, and it would be nothing for Him to do that. And if He created everything out of nothing, all of the miracles, all of what we read about in the Bible would be nothing for Him compared to creating everything out of nothing.

So, whether that’s the case, we just know it happens just like He said. They were sent, verse 32 says. “They went away and found it just as he had told them.” How many of you find it to be true just as Jesus had said it to be, whatever it may be? You don’t have to raise your hand, but I think most of you would. He’s right about everything. He knows about everything, and that’s why it’s so great to know Him as king and Savior and Lord because of who He is. I rest in what He knows. I rest in what He controls. I rest in His sovereignty because of who He is.

Verse 33. “And as they were untying the colt…” it’s funny how many times the word “untie” – the verb “untie” – appears here. It’s just interesting. There’s so many things that Jesus comes to untie. What part of your life needs untying? What relationship in your life needs some untying? A part of you needs some untying. The only one I know that can make that happen is Jesus Himself. Here these guys, they untie the colt. Its owners did say to Him, “’Why are you taking it? Why are you untying the colt?’ And they said, ‘The Lord has need of it.’” And evidently, that’s all they needed to say, just like Jesus predicted it would be. “They brought it to Jesus [this colt]. They threw their garments on the colt and they put Jesus on it.” It’s interesting that Luke’s the only one that says it quite that clearly, that they put Jesus on it.

Now, the other gospel records will say, “And Jesus sat upon it or they let him on it,” or whatever. But this is interesting. In the first chapter Luke tells us he’s really investigated everything quite meticulously. He wants all the details. He’s a doctor, he’s a historian, doctor, theologian; he’s got a mind for precision and for detail. And he’s the one that tells us a little bit of a light shone. I wonder if when they set Jesus on that donkey, I wonder if these Jewish men raised with the Old Testament thought to themselves, “Zechariah 9:9 is about to come true.” And I’ll show you that in a little bit if you’re not familiar with Zechariah 9:9. As He was going, they were spreading their garments in the road as they would have for approaching royalty in ancient days.

It helps to know some of these things, it really does. We call this Sunday, Palm Sunday. But maybe some of you know, the palms are not mentioned in any of the three synoptic gospels. It’s John that tells us there are palms involved. But there are some leafy branches, but not palms specifically mentioned until we get to John’s gospel. But here, Luke does tell us though that these folks were throwing their garments down in the road. Why were they doing it? Well, they wanted to make straight the paths for the one who’s approaching in the name of the Lord. They want to fill in the potholes. They want to cover over every rock that might make His entry bumpy. They want Him to be welcomed. What do you want as far as welcoming Jesus in His approach to your heart and your life and to all of the different categories of your life?

Verse 37, “He was now approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives.” And those of you that have been there, we’ve been up on the Mount of Olives, you know, don’t you? Some of you will recall, the bus often leaves us. In six times I’ve been, I think four or five of them, they leave us at the top. And when we walk down this road down the Mount of Olives, I’m not kidding you, I’m a fairly agile kind of a climber kind of a guy, almost Spider-Man like, but I got to hold on. This road is narrow. And the people, the board of tourism or somebody is really smart. They have stuck some rails into all of the walls as you go down this road on the Mount of Olives because they know some of us are clumsy and have slippery shoes. And we didn’t think to wear our On Clouds. We wore our hard shoes.

Some people do that here at church. I want to put a sign-up that says, “Wear your quiet shoes.” Because if you have to go to the bathroom here at the Village Chapel during a service, we are all going to know it with our hardwood floors. And there you go. And Kim is trying to pray. And somebody’s not going to hear her prayer because… No. Anyway, I’ve gotten so far afield.

They’re coming down this very steep hill on the Mount of Olives, Jesus on this donkey. And if you’ve ridden a horse, if you’ve gone down, as you’re going down a steep decline, you know what it’s like? You got to lean way back on the saddle and hold on for dear life. And so, this is happening as they descend the Mount of Olives. The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen. So, they were not Methodists, okay? They were not Presbyterian. Probably not Baptist. And me? This may be a Pentecostal bunch. I got to be honest. Some of you, you Pentecostal amens, I’m seeing you. You’re getting excited about this already. They begin to praise God joyfully.

Now when you come in here, do you praise God joyfully? I mean some of you need to notify your face about what’s going on here, okay? Because I’m up here all the time watching with the band. Everybody’s up here. Every now and then we’re looking… And by the way, there is a camera that does catch your face sometimes. So, our sweet people that are watching online, they know that you need to notify your face about the joy of the resurrection and the promises of God and all that. That doesn’t mean we want to put on some kind of false thing, not at all. It doesn’t mean we want to be hypocrites playing a part, acting if you will, just pretending that if we can, “Oh, we’re shiny happy people here at the Village Chapel because we’ve not lost our religion.” Nobody ever listened to REM, I guess. No, we don’t want to do that.

But I agree fully with CS Lewis who said, “If you don’t feel love for somebody, act as if you love them. Pretty soon you’ll come to love them.” Amen. And I think that sometimes is my case when I come in this place. I got to come into this place and every now and then stop thinking about how everything out there is going down the toilet and be in this moment with God’s people and with God and let God be the object of my worship and not me in my misery. See, some of us find our identity in our misery. We got to stop doing that. Your identity, if you belong to Jesus, your identity is in Jesus. It doesn’t mean you don’t go through moments that are tough. You do. Jesus did. He did it for you and He did it for me.

But here He is going downhill. The whole crowd is joyfully praising God with loud voices. What have they got to praise? What is it they’re praising about? The Roman Empire, the oppressive Roman Empire, is occupying their country. They got heavy taxation. People like Zacchaeus who worked for the Roman Empire have been really ruthless in trying to get and manipulative in getting their money, extracting all the money. What do these people have to praise God about? Well, partly the answer I think is it’s what they’ve been looking for is actually happening. At least some aspect of it is happening now. And they fully believe that, and it actually mattered to them that day, okay?

And so, here’s what they sang. Verse 38, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” This is remarkable. It’s from Psalm 118, overflows with messianic tones and phrases. And so here they are as they see Jesus, riding on a donkey, not looking like Zorro, not looking like the Lone Ranger, not looking like King Arthur, but just coming down the hill on a donkey. It’d be like, I mean it’s just like a little tricycle with a little bell on the front and you hope it’s got some brakes. I mean there’s nothing. And they’re rejoicing. How is that? What connection are they making? And the answer is in the aforementioned Zechariah 9:9, which I’ll put up on the screen in a minute. Some of the Pharisees though were there as well and they were in the multitude. These self-righteous religious leaders had the habit of sort of hiding themselves in the crowd as they stalk Jesus all through His earthly ministry.

And so there they are in the crowd. The crowd knows who most of them are. I mean because they’re religious leaders. And this is a religious context. Even though it’s got a political context that’s Roman and a cultural context that’s Greek, it’s very much a Jewish context on a religious level. Those Pharisees get upset here in verse 39 and they say to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” And I love Jesus’ answer. He answered and said, “I tell you, if these,” meaning his disciples, he probably pointed to them, “if they become silent, the stones will cry out.” In other words, “You want me to squash their hosannas, but if I do that, we’re going to have a bunch of singing rocks and they’re all going to be singing hosanna.” And your mind is going to be blown by just because the very purpose of creation, the telos of creation is what? The glory of God.

The heavens declare the glory of God, we’re told in the Psalm 19, but all of creation is His. He’s the one that designed it all. Have you ever marveled at a rock – just a stone? Many years ago, we took a trip up to Oxford and we were able to walk on Addison’s way, this pathway that CS Lewis used to walk with JRR Tolkien and all, and he used to talk about God. Matter of fact, late into the night sometimes their conversations would be. Kim and I went there once and were able to walk. It was just thrilling. We were able to see the room that he used to teach in his tutoring with his students and all. But we’re out there on our essence walk.

This is a little confession; I took a stone. I put it in my suitcase, and I brought it home. It sits on my computer, and it sits right there on the desk. I see it all the time. It just keeps reminding me over and over of that place, but also reminds me of this. I don’t want that rock taking my place. You don’t want rocks taking your place. And here these Pharisees are saying basically, “What we despise, and hate is that You, Jesus, are being praised and worshiped and God is being glorified. We don’t want that.”

And it’s so ironic that religious people, you would think good religious people, would be interested in Jesus being praised and glorified. But they want to shut it down. And then this is really interesting, that verse 41 is a real change, a real shift. “When he approached, he saw the city, Jesus, and he wept over it.” Two times, we’re told, Jesus wept. The other time Jesus wept was outside the tomb of… Lazarus.

Right. Jesus wept. Shortest verse in the Bible. And here Jesus weeps, the word is pretty strong. It’s sort of a gut-wrenching, he convulsed. This wasn’t just one little tear in his eye. This was that kind of thing that you just, “Oh no.” And so, there’s quite a change in verse 41. Why? Why was he feeling like that at that moment? This chapter is so rich in the emotions of feelings of the human/divine God/man, Jesus. He’s every bit as human as you and I are. And part of that is that your gut gets wrenched by some things once in a while.

I hope your gut still can tremble. You can still be moved into tears over some things in this world. “If you had known…” Jesus says this out loud. Some of the disciples clearly heard it. Luke finds out about it as he does all this research and reports here that this is what made, as He was crying, as Jesus was gut wrenched crying, He said this, “If you had known, Jerusalem, if you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace but now they have been hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you.”

It’s not a bank like First Tennessee Bank. This is an embankment. This is a military term. This is a term describing how there’s going to be a siege against Jerusalem. “Before you and surround you and hem you in on every side and will level you to the ground and your children within you. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

What Jesus is basically saying there is that in about… and He doesn’t give us a number here, but those of us live on this side of all of these events, we know what happened in 70 AD. We know that some 40 years after Jesus says this, it literally comes true when Titus and the Romans come in and literally destroy Jerusalem and literally drive every stone in the temple mount from each other and push them over into the Roan Valley below. You can still see some of those stones today.

Why’d they do that? Well, they had started a fire in the temple that was so hot, all the gold in the temple, and there was a lot of gold in the temple, had melted and it ran down between the stones. And what the Romans wanted was the gold. It wasn’t just about being mean-spirited toward the Jews, although they were that. But it was also about getting that gold. It’s interesting that Jesus would predict that that would happen and that it would literally happen 40 years later and that we now sitting here today can look back on that and say, “Look, what Jesus said actually came true. Maybe we should listen to some of the other stuff He said.”

Finish chapter 19 with me. “He entered the temple.” And this is likely right at the beginning, He goes in and out of Jerusalem throughout Passion week, but He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling saying to them, “It is written. My house shall be a house of prayer. You’ve made it a robber’s den.” So instead of praying, P-R-A-Y, they were preying, P-R-E-Y on the poor. And if you want to know what makes Jesus of the Bible really angry, you take advantage of the poor. You take advantage of the weak.

You take advantage of those who can’t defend themselves and you will find yourself on the other side, the bad side of the wrath of the God of the Bible. And so, Jesus is calling them out and He literally what’s called “cleanses the temple.” It’s the second time He’s done it. We read in John’s gospel about the first time He did it, early on in John’s gospel. And this is the second time He does that kind of thing, and He literally wants to take and drive them out of there.

There are a couple of Old Testament prophecies that are referred to here. Isaiah 56:7 being one. “He was teaching daily through the Passion week in the temple, but the chief priest and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him.” Here’s an unholy alliance, chief priest and scribes and the sort of prominent leading businessmen, if you will. There has been an unholy alliance, the Herodians for instance, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they’re all an unholy alliance against Jesus, trying to find a way to do away with Him. “But they could not find anything that they might do for.” And the reason is right here, “For all the people were hanging upon his every word.”

I hope that describes me. I hope that describes us as a church. Are we hanging on His every word or are we ho-humming our way through life as Christian believers? Are we just really happy when He behaves like we want Him to behave when all of what He says aligns with all of what we want and what we think? I remind you that if you do that, if that’s the route you take with God, that you’re just creating a God in your image. And I know for myself, I can’t come up with any kind of a God that is actually loving and just, kind, if it’s left up to my imagination. And the reason is because I’m not loving and just and kind, and neither are you.

None of us can bear the burden or carry the weight of defining who God is. All of us can receive the revelation offered to us by the God who is really there. And if He really is a God and He’s really there and He’s given us the ability to communicate, we ought to think that He could communicate too. And if He did communicate, what would He do? How would He do that? And so, the New Testament gives us that answer and talks about the prophets who have come and spoken on behalf of God. Talks all about the Scriptures, talks all about Jesus being the exact representation of God, and so we look to Jesus.

All right. A couple of things I want to highlight for us here. Remember, the four things we always look for: How does God reveal himself in this passage? What are the lessons of humanity’s weakness and our need for redemption? Three, where is the glorious song of the Gospel on display here? Four, what does this passage, what is it looking for in terms of a response from us? I think all four of them are here.

When you think about Palm Sunday, what has this observance that we kind of bring up every year for last 2,000 years or whatever, what does that make us think about? Just why did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the donkey? Why did the crowd shout Hosanna? What made them dance and sing “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord?” Why that particular psalm? There’s 150 Psalms. Why that psalm and not one of the others on this day in that moment? How might some have understood, and some maybe misunderstood, what Jesus was doing that day? We have the blessing, the 2020 vision, or at least 2030 vision, of being so many years later we can look back. We’ve got the whole New Testament. We can interpret what He did in light of all that’s in the Old Testament and the New Testament. What timeless truths about God’s love for sinners is on full display right here? I think it’s really important for us to ask those questions.

The paradoxical king is who Jesus is. He comes and He’s deliberate in this move that He makes. It was Jesus’ instructions for His disciples to go get the never before ridden colt, the foal of a donkey. How did they know that that donkey right there had never been ridden? I mean, I don’t know anything about horses or donkeys. I know I got to talk to Pastor Matt a little bit about this because he’s got a couple donkeys out there at his farm. But how did they know that it was never before ridden? Maybe it didn’t have a saddle. And so, they used their coats and they put them on there for Jesus to sit on those.

While most of us in the West might miss this, the Jewish people on the ground that day, I don’t think they would’ve missed Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, Oh daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, Oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold your king is coming to you. He is just. He’s endowed with salvation, but he’s humble and he’s mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey…” a young donkey. A donkey that’s never been ridden, you might even say. And this is Zechariah, hundreds of years before the time of Jesus.

Here’s the first point, this connection if you will, that I want to pull out. There are several though that I think are worth pulling out. Some of the more well-known Old Testament prophecies about Messiah include prediction of a ruler in the line of Judah all the way back in Genesis. The prophecy of a prophet like Moses, Deuteronomy 18. The promise of the virgin birth, Isaiah 7. Prophecy of a suffering servant who would bear the sins of many, Isaiah 53. Prediction of a humble king as we just saw here riding on the colt of a donkey who would come in righteousness, who would be bringing salvation and peace.

But it wouldn’t look like some people thought it would look like. Some people, and even today, some people still want Jesus to fit into their political scheme. And if your idea of who Jesus is fits into your political scheme, you got the wrong idea of Jesus. I’m just telling you, He transcends all political schemes. He didn’t come to be a political messiah. He came to save sinners. I’m grateful. I hope you’re grateful as well. I think that’s what we all need. And I’m so glad He has done that for us.

All four gospels include the triumphal entry. Any casual reader can connect the dots, if you’ve read your Old Testament and you now read this, between these passages and how Jesus really does seem to be fulfilling so many of these things. He controlled the timing, Jesus did. He was deliberate. He controlled the method. He controlled the outcome of even these events. Some would say, “No He didn’t. He went to the cross. Are you crazy?” That’s because he came to lay down his life on the cross. He was in charge of that too. I don’t know if you noticed, but this is the very first time. And those of you who have studied the four gospels with us before, you understand, there was this thing all through the four gospels up until this point called the Messianic Secret where Jesus is basically doing all kinds of amazing things and He tells people, “Let me heal your blind eyes. Don’t tell anyone.”

And so, there’s this pacing of His ministry and He doesn’t want everybody to be sort of rushing before Him, throwing Him up on their shoulders and crowning Him a political messiah. He doesn’t want to be a political messiah, so He gives Himself plenty of time, three-and-a-half years to go through the entire region, preaching, healing, raising a few people from the dead, controlling nature itself. I mean His miracles are mind-blowing. But again, anyone that can create everything out of nothing can walk on some of the nothing called water that He created and defy some of the gravity that He created as well. It’s nothing for Him to do those things. And it’s really something that He came for sinners such as we are.

Some of you are fascinated by prophecy, Old Testament prophecy, messianic prophecy, eschatological prophecy, all that stuff. Some of you are fascinated by the 70 weeks of Daniel, all that stuff. There’s lots of material on that. I’m not an expert in it; I’m not drawn to it. I find a lot of people sort of get real agenda up in a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for what ends up being them just being in awe of who Jesus is. I just wanted to rush past all the speculation and get to awe in Jesus, okay? I don’t see anybody really having figured this out. Too many books have been sold, X number of reasons why He’s coming in 2025. And then in 2026 they sell the sequel to that book as well. So, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I know this; it was very deliberate that He came. On purpose, He came. And He arranged it all, and He’s in charge of it all as we go along.

Secondly, it was dramatic. You got to say it was dramatic. Bookends of donkeys. Jesus came into the world, and we read about Him, and Mary and Joseph. He’s in utero and He’s literally riding on a donkey. And now here He is on a donkey again. And at the beginning of Matthew, right as the baby Jesus is born, we read that all Jerusalem was stirred. People were nervous because Herod the king was really upset to hear about a baby king being born. He was paranoid that somebody was going to take away his political power. And so, the bookends of donkeys, the bookends of Jerusalem being stirred, a baby celebrated and now a messianic king being celebrated, dancing and singing, children rejoicing, waving palms, laying down their coats, a crying baby and a weeping king. Wow. Pretty amazing story that we have here, isn’t it?

Dorothy Sayers, “The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man, and the dogma is the drama.” See, you have people in our day and time, “Don’t want dogma. I don’t want to hear any dogma. I want Jesus on my own terms. I want God on my own terms.” You know what? That’s kind of what’s wrong in the world. Everybody wants to be their own little-g God, and that’s why we can’t get along. At the heart of what’s wrong with us is that we, each of us, want to be the ultimate final say and last word. And until we start recognizing something higher than ourselves, it’s going to be a problem for us societally, nationally, internationally, all of that.

But the Christian faith, yes, Sayers was right. It’s the most exciting drama. And the drama, it’s the dogma that is the drama. The fact that we can say God became a human being, a baby born to a peasant couple in a pass-through nation, that really didn’t matter in the grand scope of things. Except for now as we look back on it, it mattered because He was there, and He came there. And now all nations are being blessed by the work of Christ, which was predicted by the way, all the way back in the Book of Genesis, really powerful.

The paradoxical king was deliberate. He was dramatic, and he demanded a response. And we see that here, don’t we, as we look at this. What were the responses, the approach to the approach of Jesus, that first Palm Sunday? They were quite varied. I have a little post-it note in here. I got to read this. I got to just read this to you. This is so old. You know how you write sometimes with a pencil and it just over time, it just oxidizes and fades out? I have to keep going back and rewriting this one. But look at the multitude. There’s five. Look at the multitude. Some were tourists and some were pilgrims. Tourists are just there for the show. “Oh, cool. Oh, great. Oh yeah, let’s wave some flags.” You know? Some like just the parade. Parades are only good when they keep moving. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that. It feels to me like parades need to keep moving, and they’re better when they keep moving.

But pilgrim is a little different. Pilgrims are people who travel a long way to get somewhere and see something and experience something. And far too many of us in this life are tourists, I, myself included, sometimes, we need to think pilgrims. That’s why I like old books like Pilgrim’s Progress. I dare you to go back and read it. Some of you read it when you were kids. There’s a reason why it’s one of the bestselling books of all time still, Pilgrim’s Progress, yeah.

So, the multitudes. I think when I think about who’s in that crowd, and I’ll spend just a little time here, when I think that Blind Bartimaeus is in that crowd possibly, when I think that the most hated man in Israel, Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, he might be in that crowd that day, when I think that the formerly dead Lazarus is in that crowd, when I think that the formerly demon possessed Mary Magdalene, seven demons Jesus cast out of her. When I think that they’re all in this crowd, not to mention hundreds if not thousands of others that Jesus healed from their illnesses, from their demonic oppression, possession, whatever it is; that’s the crowd that comes into Jerusalem that day. And if there’s hope for them because of Him, I want you to know I don’t care who you are today, there’s hope for you. There’s hope for me. In whatever category you might be broken or battered or bruised, there’s hope for you because of Him.

Secondly, the disciples themselves specifically, I think they were emboldened. Thirdly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, they were furious. Look at the responses of the people, all the broken people joyfully following along. “Praise, O Lord! Hallelujah! Hosanna!” Hosanna means save now. I like Hosanna. It’s a great word. Say it: Hosanna. Shout it: Hosanna!

It feels better to shout it, doesn’t it? Something about it, yeah. It means “Save now, Lord.” It’s a great word. We need to be like them. The Romans: What do you mean the Romans? They aren’t even mentioned here. Just my point. They’re indifferent. They’re indifferent to Jesus’ approach. Maybe you’re like them today. I don’t know. Maybe you’re indifferent too. I find this is true in a lot of folk that I talked to about the Christian faith, they don’t believe it, but they don’t know why they don’t believe it. Or they don’t believe it because they actually misunderstand it. They think it’s some religious nut job they met some time ago or some really brutal mean-spirited group of people who are religious, and so they think that’s what the Gospel is.

It’s our job, Village Chapel, those of you who are Christians and those of you who are online, it’s our job to let the Gospel flow freely from us to be heard in our speech, to be seen in our relationships and in our deeds. And that’s why we’re still here. That’s why He hasn’t wrapped up human history. We are here to be His ambassadors, His witnesses if you will. So, we need to stir up the world. The other response I like is the response of the donkey owner. I know he is not mentioned, but you know what his response is to Jesus? “What’s mine is yours.” I like that response. I think that’s a really great response.

All right, a couple of quotes and I’ll let you go. Keller: “In Jesus, we find infinite majesty yet complete humility.” Notice the juxtaposition of these categories. “In Jesus, we find perfect justice, yet boundless grace. In Jesus, we find absolute sovereignty, yet utter submission.” He submitted Himself to the Father’s will. He came and died in my place, in your place. “All sufficiency in Himself, yet entire trust and dependence on God.”

I want to be like Jesus. Justin Brierley has a fairly new book called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. In the day and age where we kind of hear of a lot of people deconstructing their faith and all that sort of thing. And I think what they’re really deconstructing is their religious rule following. I think maybe some people need to deconstruct what they thought the Christian faith is so they can get back to the Gospel. And yes, there are some people that have walked away from the Lord altogether, but I love what Justin Brierley, this book is so good. He interviews a bunch of pretty hardcore atheists who have actually become believers in Jesus.

“New evidence, recent scholarship mean the Bible needs to be taken seriously, not only as a work of literature that has had a dramatic impact on the world, which it has, but also as a work of history. It means taking its central character, Jesus Christ, seriously too.” Yeah, I think that’s so true.

Let me close with this poem by Malcolm Guite. It’s a prayer. Make it our prayer today on Palm Sunday. Perhaps it will reflect your response to Jesus and the approach of Jesus this day. He’s still doing this kind of work. This was quite literal and about a specific act in space/time history. He was coming to lay down His life on the cross that week and then to rise again from the grave, which we’re going to celebrate. So come to Good Friday, please. We want to honor the finished work of Christ on the cross. We want to look at that and take that very seriously. We also want to come on Easter Sunday and rejoice in His glorious resurrection. But this is from our friend, and he’s been here before at the church, a poet from over in the UK named Malcolm Guite, and this is his Palm Sunday. Make this a prayer. Would you close your eyes and I’ll read this to you?

“Now, to the gate of my Jerusalem, the seething holy city of my heart, the Savior comes. But will I welcome Him? Oh, crowds of easy feelings make a start. They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing, and think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find the challenge, the reversal. He’s bringing changes to their tune. I know what lies behind the surface flourish that so quickly fades. Self-interest, fearful guardedness, the hardness of heart, its barricades. And at the core, the dreadful emptiness of a perverted temple. Jesus, come, break my resistance. Make me your home.” Amen and amen.

Jesus is the only one that can do that. He’s the only one that can radically change a heart that’s turned to stone into a heart of flesh again, a heart that beats and teems with the life of God in it. Turn to Jesus. He really is the one you need. Look no further. Amen.