Palm Sunday Triumph (2)

Introduction

[READING - MARK 11:1-10]

Mark 11:1–10 NASB95

1 As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, 2 and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. 3 “If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.” 4 They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. 5 Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. 7 They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. 8 And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. 9 Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!”

[PRAYER]

We began this morning look at four CHARACTERISTICS of King Jesus, four CHARACTERISTICS that we can see in His triumphal entry if we have eyes to see.

One CHARACTERISTIC of King Jesus is His humility.

Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was hailed as King.

In His humility our King lived the perfect life we should have lived and died the death that we deserved on the cross.

Another CHARACTERISTIC of King Jesus is His rule.

People put their coats under Jesus and laid their coats in the road before Jesus because they were hailing Him as King and in effect saying, “King Jesus rules over us.”

But King Jesus rules over us from His throne because of what He did for us on His cross.

Philippians 2:8–9 NASB95

8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

[TS] Now, we have two more CHARACTERISTICS tonight that will help us understand King Jesus better and embrace Him more fervently…

Major Ideas

When we embrace Jesus, we embrace a victorious King (Mark 11:8b).

Mark 11:8 NASB95

8 And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.

[EXP] Mark says they spread leafy branches, and John tells us that they were leafy palm branches (John 12:13).

God’s people had a long history with palm trees.

God commanded palm branches be used by His people during the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:40).

The first city that Israel conquered when it entered the Promised Land was Jericho, which was called the city of palm trees (2 Chron. 28:15).

During the time of the Judges, Deborah used to sit under a palm tree and render judgment (Judg. 4:5).

Solomon’s temple was engraven with palm trees (1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35).

Ezekiel’s vision of a new temple was decorated with palm tree ornaments (Ezek. 40:16, 22, 26).

Psalm 92:12 says that the righteous man will flourish like the palm tree.

But as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that Sunday, the people waving the palm branches probably weren’t thinking about any of that.

They were probably thinking about Judas Maccabeus, a Jewish hero who drove out a foreign king named Antiochus about 200 years earlier.

As they waved their palm branches, the people were probably hoping that Jesus would be someone like him.

[ILLUS] After Alexander the Great died, his vast empire, which included the Promised Land, was divided up between five of his generals. After some fighting between the generals, Seleucus I ended up with the Promised Land and established the Seleucid Empire, which lasted about 200 years.

Antiochus, who called himself Theos Epiphanes or “God Manifest,” was a ruler in the Seleucid Empire, which meant that he (at least humanly speaking) ruled Jerusalem for a while—and he ruled it with a heavy hand.

After deciding that Jerusalem needed to be Hellenized (i.e., made to be like the Greeks), he viciously pressed his cultural and religious practices on Jerusalem’s people.

The Jewish rite of circumcision was outlawed.

Sabbath-keeping was forbidden.

Sacred Jewish Scriptures were burned.

The Temple mount was put under siege.

And to top it all, Antiochus even defiled the Temple by setting up idols and sacrificing pigs on the altar.

This all ended, however, when a Jewish family named Maccabee organized a resistance. Listen to this bit of history from the apocryphal 2 Maccabees…

“Judas Maccabeus and his followers, under the leadership of the Lord, recaptured the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

“They tore down the altars which foreigners had set up in the marketplace and destroyed the other places of worship that had been built.

“They purified the Temple and built a new altar. Then, with new fire started by striking flint, they offered sacrifice for the first time in two years, burned incense, lighted the lamps, and set out the sacred loaves.

“After they had done all this, they lay face down on the ground and prayed that the Lord would never again let such disasters strike them. They begged him to be merciful when he punished them for future sins and not hand them over any more to barbaric, pagan Gentiles.

“They rededicated the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev, the same day of the same month on which the Temple had been desecrated by the Gentiles.

“The happy celebration lasted eight days, like the Feast of Tabernacles, and the people remembered how only a short time before, they had spent the Feast of Tabernacles wandering like wild animals in the mountains and living in caves.

“But now, carrying green palm branches and sticks decorated with ivy, they paraded around, singing grateful praises to him who had brought about the purification of his own Temple,” (2 Maccabees 10:1-7).

The palm branches were used during the Feast of Tabernacles to celebrate victory over Egyptian oppression.

The palm branches were used during Hanukkah to celebrate victory over Seleucid oppression.

The palm branches were being waved as Jesus rode into Jerusalem because the people hoped to also celebrate victory over Roman oppression.

They were embracing a victorious King!

So, imagine their shock when their victorious King was crucified on a Roman cross!

When they saw Him crucified perhaps some of them thought, “Put the palm branches away, this Jesus is no deliverer; He’s no Moses, and He’s no Judas Maccabeus either.”

If they thought that, they couldn’t have been more right, for Jesus is much greater.

[ILLUS] To explain to you how Jesus is the greatest Deliverer, I want to reimagine with me the story of David and Goliath.

Goliath taunts the Israelite army, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day; give me a man that we may fight together.”

David hears the taunt as he delivers food to his brothers and can’t believe his ears. Will no one take up the challenge? Will no respond to this Philistine monster’s taunts?

David say he will go fight.

David approaches the battle line, and Goliath does too, his shield-bearer going before him.

David takes his sling and stone and sinks one into the head of Goliath’s shield-bearer who drops dead.

Elated, David runs back to Israel's army proud and expecting congratulations.

"Did you see that? Did you see what I did?"

"Yeah. You killed his shield-bearer, but Goliath is still out there! He was the big threat, not his shield-bearer!”

[APP] The Egyptian Pharaohs, the Seleucid Kings, the Roman Emperors were just shield-bearers for Satan. With his weapons of sin and death, he waged war against us, and we died in our sins.

But Jesus crushed the head of the serpent by way of the cross and won for us the victory over Satan, sin, and death.

Jesus came to deal-not with shield-bearers, but with the serpent in scale-armor who had taunted the people of God ever since the fall.

Because Jesus died and rose again, Satan's weapons of sin and death are useless. Sin has lost its sting, and death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54-56).

1 Corinthians 15:57 NASB95

57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And we celebrate our victorious King in eternity to come, we will do so with palm branches in our hands…

Revelation 7:9–10 NASB95

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

[TS] When we embrace King Jesus, we embrace a humble King, a reigning King, a victorious King, and finally on this Palm Sunday…

When we embrace Jesus, we embrace a saving King (Mark 11:9-10)

Mark 11:9–10 NASB95

9 Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!”

[EXP] What the people shouted as He rode into Jerusalem, they took from Psalm 118.

Psalm 118 is a Hallel psalm, a psalm of praise, the most quoted psalm in the NT due to its focus on the messiah. The psalm says that He will be rejected, but the people will cry out to Him…

Psalm 118:25–26 NASB95

25 O Lord, do save, we beseech You; O Lord, we beseech You, do send prosperity! 26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.

The people in Mark 11 hailed Jesus as the one who came in the Name of the Lord!

They hailed Him as promised Davidic King who would save God’s people!

The people cried out in Mark 11, “Hosanna,” which means, “Save us, save us please, or save us now.” They cried out, “Hosanna in the highest,” but the highest salvation most of them could conceive of at this point was being saved from the Romans.

Rome and its oppressive occupation of the Promised Land was a great thorn in the side of God’s people.

The Jewish people saw the Promised Land as their land, while Rome saw it as a part of the Roman Empire, which meant that its inhabitants ought to pay taxes to Rome and bow down to Caesar.

What’s more, the Jewish people were monotheists while the Romans were polytheists.

And the Jewish people had a high standard of morality while the Romans did not.

This meant that the Jews didn’t understand the Romans and resented their presence in the Promised Land.

The Jews often actively resisted the rule of the Romans.

This also meant the Romans didn’t understand the Jews and resented their presence in the Roman Empire.

The Romans often brutally assaulted the resistance of the Jews.

That was the political and social climate when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on His donkey intentionally announcing Himself as King.

It’s why the people cried out, “Save us,” and surely meant, “Save us from Rome most of all.”

But why was Rome in the Promised Land? Why was Greece there before Rome? Why were the Persians there before Greece? Why was Babylon there before the Persians?

All these nations had ruled over the Promised Land at one time or another for one reason: God’s people had rebelled against Him.

My point is that the people who called out to Jesus for salvation as rode in Jerusalem didn’t need to be saved from Rome most of all; they needed to be saved from themselves!

They needed to be saved from their own sinfulness!

They needed to be saved from their own rebellion against God!

[ILLUS] Let’s say that one day I’m arrested for a crime I committed. The police put me in handcuffs. I’m tried before a jury who decides I’m guilty because I am. The judge then sentences me to prison. I’m locked in a cell by guards who monitor me and my fellow inmates day and night.

Let’s say that as I lay in my cell on that first night I cry and cry out to God, “Save me, Lord! Save me from the police who handcuffed me! Saved me from the jury! Save me from that judge! Save me from these guards and these other inmates!”

But who committed the crime that put me in prison?

It wasn’t the police, the jury, the judge, the guards, or the other inmates; it was me.

Therefore, the one I really need to be saved from is me!

[APP] The Jewish people in Jesus’ day needed to be saved from themselves, and we need to be saved from ourselves too!

We followed Satan.

We sin against God.

We provoked His wrath against us.

We are the problem.

But Jesus is the solution.

He lived, died, and rose again so that we could be made new creations with new hearts through faith in Him.

And everyday His Holy Spirit works on us so that little by little we become more and more like Him.

[TS]…

Conclusion

Have you embraced Jesus as your humble, reigning, victorious, and saving King?

It is right to hail Jesus as King, but let us understand our King.

[PRAYER]