The Unexpected King

⁜ Prayer ⁜

Intro

My brothers and sisters... Today we find ourselves in a new place. We are still in our "God Redeems a People for Himself" series, but we have now jumped into the New Testament! And while that may seem like a big leap... especially considering that last week we were in Leviticus, it actually makes a lot of sense.

While we have missed many stories, we have certainly seen how God went about making a particular people, the Jews, to be his own; and that he did this not just for their sake, but really for the sake of the whole world.

That was their charter - to be a people whose lives - both as individual believers and as a nation - would bear witness before the nations that this God, who had revealed himself to them and called them to be his own, was the one true God, and that he was calling all the nations - through this particular people - away from their error and sin and into his abundant life.

And in today's reading we see all of that come to a head!

Today, we come to this passage from Matthew’s Gospel and our attention is squared directly on Jesus. Today, we move from all the signs that pointed to him, and can focus on the one who stands at the heart of human history - he who openly declaring himself to be his people's Sovereign, his people's king. And indeed he is more than king - he is God... he is God dwelling among his people!.

All of that is why we see that Matthew highlights that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises. (And he does this throughout his whole Gospel.)

So we read in today's Scripture passage that Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt is no random turn of events. No! Even the fact that Jesus rides into the city on a colt bears witness to the fact that this man is more than a mere man. He is the one in whom the prophesies of the Old Testament find their culmination. That is the reason why Matthew notes that Jesus "sent two disciples" and told them to find the "donkey... with her colt by her" and "bring them to" him (vv. 1, 2).

As R. T. France points out: Among the crowds of Galilean pilgrims arriving on foot in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, Jesus chose to make a conspicuous entry on a donkey. ...This [was] a deliberate act, meant to be noticed. ... It was... an acted allusion to Zechariah’s prophecy (Zec. 9:9–10) of the coming of the Messianic King.

So in this passage we see that:

The disciples and the Galilean crowd recognized the allusion, and turned the arrival into a triumphal procession. Their shouts in v. 9 made no secret of their belief that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, now coming to set up his reign in Israel’s capital.

So as we read this passage we see Jesus glorified by the people… but yet tension is stirring under the surface. Yes, Jesus enters the city as the King promised by God through his prophets so long ago… and the people hail him. But we also know where this story is headed - which is to Jesus' rejection and the Cross.

That is part of what we remember this Palm Sunday. We remember - as John says in his Gospel - "He came to his own" but we remember too that as that Gospel continues "his own did not receive him" (1:11). And it is that very fact which is highlighted so drastically in today's passage, when Jesus is greeted with a huge and joyous welcome. People come out waving palm branches, singing, and shouting: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven" (21:9).

We see here the problem of a merely human reception of Jesus. They recognized - rightly - that he was coming as the Messianic King, but they lacked an awareness of what that meant... who this King truly is... and what his full mission was!

Yes, He is hailed as "the Son of David;" which, as one can see in Ch. 1 of Matthew's Gospel, he truly is. Yes, he is Israel's king! But he is also so much more! The fact is, he is both human and divine! But the people did not understand that he was divine, they could only see his humanity.

And it is in his being fully man and fully divine that he can accomplish what neither the priests, nor Israel's kings could. Only he could reconcile God and man... only he could guide his people into righteousness as well as make them righteous. And the messages of the prophets confirmed this. They pointed out that there was one coming who would and could do what no mere man could do.

So we see the prophet Daniel write (7:13-14): "I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. ...he was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

But here is the problem! We see that the people welcome Jesus as the messianic king, but they misunderstood what that meant! Indeed, they were waiting for a merely human king... they were waiting for a leader to arise and free them from their subjection to Roman governance. They wanted a leader to enter into the scene, over-throw the Roman government, and make them into a great nation once again.

But in all of that they reveal that they had forgotten the purpose for which God had made them into a nation. They forgot that their existence was not a merely political one. Yes, they were a nation, but their nationhood hinged upon a central purpose... to be light in the world, to be a kingdom of priests …pointing the whole world back to God!

And so when they cry out - it is not a cry that is focused on that heavenly purpose, but a purely political one. This is why the people - even some of Jesus' closest companions - could not grasp why he spoke of the Cross.

As D. A. Carson comments on this passage:

...even where Jesus was perceived... as King Messiah, he was not perceived as Suffering Servant. ...it was fairly easy for the crowd, after hearing Jesus’ preaching and seeing his miracles, to ascribe messiahship to him as much in their hope as in conviction. But it was far harder for them to grasp the inevitability of his suffering and death and the expansion of the “people of God” beyond the Jewish race.

But it was not only the crowd that misunderstood who Jesus was, and what his mission was all about.

We see in today's reading that even the priests and the teachers of the law (who were also called Scribes) did not get who he was! As we see in v. 15 they not only didn't understand what Jesus was all about, they actually grew "indignant" or "angry" towards him! Their hearts grew hardened.

Here our attention is turned to those who should have known better than anyone else what all of this was. These are the men who spent their lives studying the Scriptures and interpreting them for the people. They are the ones whose whole lives revolved around attending to the Scriptures and the Temple worship.

But yet, they failed to see that Jesus clearly was the fulfillment of everything they had read, studied, and taught about in the Scriptures.

How could this happen!? Well, the problem was that the priests and the scribes had gotten blinded by a transactional view of what the Temple and their worship was. They were certain that if they just followed the law and worshiped following strict protocols God would accept their worship!

We see that in today's reading where we find that there were stalls for selling the animals for worship. Yes, this was in some sense necessary. But scholars have noted that these money changers and animal sales men were charging inflated prices for the exchange of money and they were charging exorbitant amounts for the animals who were to be sacrificed.

In short - the temple had become a place of economic injustice - ripping off those who had come to get right with God and worship him... and the priests and scribes went right along with that... contrary to what Scripture clearly taught!

But note too that this was not the only issue which revealed corruption in the Temple. We see that Jesus not only drove out the money changers and sales people, but in v. 14 that he also welcomed and healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple.

Now to us today, this may seem like a nice extra little detail. But it isn't! You see - those who were blind and lame were not allowed to enter into the Temple (only its outer courts) and most of the Jewish authorities at this time forbade these people from coming before God and offering sacrifices to him in his temple. And they had good reason to do this. We find in both Leviticus and the 2nd Book of Samuel that people with physical ailments were restricted from entering the Temple.

But, what the scribes and priests failed to recognize was that Jesus - was God Incarnate and had every right to welcome the blind and the lame! This was his Temple. And his miracle of healing reveals his divine right to welcome these people into his Temple. However, many of the priests and scribes failed to heed the sign - and not only this sign but the signs and miracles that Jesus worked throughout his ministry.

They were so blinded by their adherence to their laws and traditions that they failed to see that God was doing something new! And what was that? Well, Jesus is revealing that even the blind and the lame - those burdened with ailments of all sorts - are precious to him and the Father. He shows us that all who come to worship and glorify God "in spirit and truth" (as John's Gospel puts it; 4:24) are welcomed before the God... because God has called them to him! But the scribes and the priests would not have it.

And that my brothers and sisters in something that was not only a problem back then. Yes, what we see in our Scripture today is a warning to us as well. Even today we must be careful to distinguish between what is revealed truth and our own layers of human traditions… what is essential and what are simply our preferences.

We can get so caught up in how things have always been done that we can actually grow blind to God doing something wonderful and new. If we are complacent and think that we can rest easy because God has called us in and made us his, but we fail to share the hope of the Gospel with those who are broken and in need of God's presence, comfort and grace in their lives, or if we stand in the way of the Gospel being shared with them, then we have failed to understand what it means to be God's people!

That is why Jesus went into the temple and cleansed it. He did that prophetic action to show that God's purpose in having his temple built had been perverted. The people had grown complacent and had started thinking of God in transactional terms; they saw him as being theirs alone and that their God existed for them as a nation - rather than a place where all the nations could come and experience the one true God.

And so, what we really see today when Jesus cleanses the temple is not so much a cleansing but a condemnation. His actions in the temple reveal that, as D. A. Carson put it: "the temple was not... fulfilling its God-ordained role as witness to the nations but had become, like the first temple, the premier symbol of a superstitious belief that God would protect and rally his people, irrespective of their conformity to his will." And so Jesus' action is a prophetic revelation that "[t]he temple would therefore be destroyed."

But we also need to understand that Jesus' action was not only negative. Yes, it pointed to the end of the Temple, to the end of its necessity. But it also is a positive action. For in entering into Jerusalem and revealing that the Temple was no longer necessary he was also revealing the reason why it was not necessary.

And what was that reason? Yes! Because he himself was God. He himself was the one who would very soon go to the Cross, shed his blood, and die. And in doing all of that he would do what the Temple rituals could never fully accomplish. In going to the Cross Jesus would definitively end the need for the temple sacrifices because he was the lamb who would offer himself, he was the lamb who only needed to be sacrificed once and for all! And in that one sacrifice he would cleanse his people’s sins and purchase people from every nation to be God's own people.

That is the glory of what we celebrated today on Palm Sunday. We celebrate Jesus' self-revelation regarding who he is and what he was sent to do. And we also celebrate the cross, the shadow of which lengthens as Jesus' impending passion draws near.

Brothers and sisters, we have seen that neither the people nor the scribes, nor the priests mentioned here fully grasped who Jesus was. And in that we also find one last thing that we need to remember on Palm Sunday. And that is, that we are given a moment to consider that today’s Scripture the events we find recorded there challenge us to examine our own faith.

What do I mean? Well, turn with me to the final verses of our reading. There we see the priests and scribes grow indignant at the children's joyous cries acknowledging Jesus as the messiah, the Son of David.

But how does Jesus reply? Well, unlike his silence at the same cries from the people who lined the streets as he entered Jerusalem; here we see him commend the children's cries. And why is that? Because as he himself says in v. 16 "From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise."

We read earlier, in v. 10 that "the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” Well here we find the answer. And it comes from a surprising place. It comes from the mouths of little children!

What no one else could grasp - not the people, nor the priests, nor the scribes; these children were able to understand. These little children could see and understand who Jesus was! They perceived what his miracles and his welcome of the outcast meant... it meant that God had finally come to his people! It meant that humanity could no longer imagine that God was far away - locked up in a distant heaven.

Instead God was dwelling among his people and calling both them and those who were not yet part of his people to be renewed and to come to him.

That is what these children could understand in the simplicity of their vision and faith. And Jesus confirms this as he quotes from Ps. 8 - by which he is pointing out that it is those who are humble and childlike who can perceive the truth. This is in part what Jesus meant when he taught in the Sermon on the Mount: "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 5:3).

So Jesus commends the simplicity and humility of childlike faith... for that type of faith are the ones who can grasp and believe that he is the divine messiah - and no mere human political savior. It is not those who pridefully deem themselves wise, or knowledgeable, or those who seek to use God for their own ends who rightly grasp Jesus.

Indeed we see Jesus condemn all of that here. And instead he points us to the faith of children - which is not an uneducated faith, rather it is a faith which hears and receives not by human wisdom or power, but by the grace of God and his Spirit guiding and leading his people into the way of his Kingdom.

My brothers and sisters, let us hear this message today. Let us be open to beholding how God can surprise us as he establishes his reign in our hearts and in the hearts of those who we may not have expected him to draw to himself.

And let us not stand in the way of that work, but rather point to Jesus and reply to the question "who is this" with childlike wonder and joy, saying: "This is Jesus, the prophesied son of David... the Son of God, who sets us free and draws us into a life-long journey of deep and intimate companionship with God. He is the one in whom we have come to be called sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. Come and join us in discovering the one who is both our King and our brother... the one who fills our hearts with joy!"

That is also the joyous message we celebrate this Palm Sunday - that God's kingdom has come... and it has come in unexpected ways. And while Palm Sunday leads us to remember the Cross - which looms right around the corner - we know that the cross is no defeat. Instead it is God's wondrous victory over the powers of hell which continuously seek to enslave humanity. But hell has no power over those who are the children of God - we rest secure because of Jesus.

So let us always rest in Jesus, with faith like these children in todays reading. And let us commend him to those who are trying to make sense of life and its meaning. And as we do all of that - let us be careful to not put God in carefully constructed boxes, creating a "safe" God who does what we want him to do and who we can manipulate to our own ends. For that is not the God we encounter in Scripture, and it certainly isn't who Jesus is.

Instead let us always be ready to encounter Jesus as he truly is, and to listen to the Holy Spirit guiding us to faithfully present Jesus to a world which is hungering for truth... truth which is found in Jesus, the Messiah, the King humanity did not expect… he who fulfills our deepest and most unexpected desires, as he draws us into his life.

Amen!

⁜ Let us Pray ⁜