Behold! Your King Comes

I grew up in Indiana, and I went to public high school. It was totally different than it was today. Most of the things that kids do today were also there but they were done in the shadows, and in the corners of the class room. I never got involved with that stuff, but I remember hearing some of the kids across the room talking about certain things. There was a place off campus called cancer corner, it was in the back alley behind the candy store, a place where the kids would hang out and smoke and all sorts of shadowy questionable things. But it seems like in our day and in our context, what once was done in the shadows is now done in full view. People who used to lurk in the shadows have now stepped boldly in the light, right has become wrong and wrong has become right.

The Prophetic fulfilment of Jesus Kingship

Jesus was very aware of the significance of this moment. There are many times throughout the Gospels where Jesus had told others whom He had healed and even His disciples to tell no one of the miracles that were done. Christ knew that the time of His own crucifixion was drawing near and the time to be revealed as the lamb that was to be slain was come. It is very interesting that this very day of the triumphal entry was the 10th day of Nissan the 7th month in Jewish reckoning the day when the Passover Lamb was to be revealed and was to enter into the house of every Jew.

So Jesus was that Lamb that was to enter into Jerusalem to be revealed in the house of God. He later would actual enter into the house of God and over turn the tables of the money changers. This was to be a royal procession the king of Jerusalem and the world to be revealed for all to see. Kings do not hide but men who do evil deeds in secret hide themselves from their king.

Revelation 5:13 ESV

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

Ephesians 1:10 ESV

as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

The royal conqueror who would 4 days from now be crucified has come to rescue his people from thier sin.

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Israel is referred to as the daughter of Zion, she is the damsel in distress that is surrounded by hostile nations and even ruled by a people who are hostile. Jerusalem has been laid waste because she has rejected her Messiah.

During the American revolutionary war, the Americans and the Brittish would line up in conventional linear formations and fight by volleying back and forth in the conventional type of warfare, however the war became somewhat of a hybrid as some very succesfully began to employ more unconvention types of guerilla warfare where they would hide in wait and ambush the unsuspecting armies. Nathaniel Green was said to have used this successfully against Lord Cornwallis of the Brittish army.

“My empire has passed away. I founded it upon the sword, and it is gone. Jesus Christ established an empire upon love, and it will last forever.” Alexander the Great

The Polarizing effect of Christ Kingship

There is no neutral ground with Him. in Matthew 12:30 He says, you are either for me or against me.

There are alot of people who think that just because they are not actively or outwardly against Christ, that they are ok. But neutrality in regards to Christ is a myth, there is no neutral ground, all who refuse to bow the knee and acknowledge His kingship shall be cast our of his presence.

Most of the crowd responded in the right way to the Kingship of Christ and attributed Psalm 118 to Him. But there were certainly religious rulers in the crowd as well who rejected His claim as king. These are the same rulers who had Him just 4 days later would have Him arrested under cover of darkness because they feared the crowds who held Him to be a prophet.

The Lord Jesus revealed Himself in full light and they in their sin and rebellion tried to arrest Him in the middle of the night, breaking all sorts of rules concerning His trial.

Later on in this same chapter the Lord Jesus indites the very same leaders because they refused to acknowledge His authority and kingship. He tells of the parable of the vineyard owner who send his servants at the harvest to collect the fruit and the tenants whom the religious rulers represent killed the servants and eventually killed the vineyard owners son. Jesus actually quotes the same Psalm 118 referring to the stone that the builders rejects having become the chief cornerstone.

Matthew 21:43 ESV

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

Here in this passage and in others we see that the religious rulers refused to recognize Christ as the Messiah and partly due to the fact that they misunderstood that the Messiah would come from a humble place called Nazareth in Galilee. John tells us that there was a division among the people because He was from Nazareth. Even though He was born in Bethlehem as the scriptures spoke He grew up in Nazareth.

John 19:14 (ESV)

Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

Just a few verses later they shout back we have no king but Caesar.

Philippians 2:10 (ESV)

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Our only hope is to step out of the shadows and acknowledge the Lord to call out , Save us!

Psalm 118:25 ESV

Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!

Give us success not to enter through the shadowy gate but into the gate of righteousness. That he would lead us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

It was not fitting that the Lamb of God should come to be slain on Calvary privately and silently. Before the great sacrifice for the sins of the world was offered up, it was right that every eye should be fixed on the victim. J.C Ryles