Palm Sunday-1

INTRO/BACKGROUND

If you have your Bible you can turn to Luke 19 today as we talk about what is famously known in the world of christianity as the triumphal entry. If you don’t have a Bible you can grab one of the Bibles around you or you can just follow along on the screen as well.

Before we get into the text today though, I want to stir up your minds a little bit. Turn to someone next to you and ask them “What are you waiting for!?” Now ask them in a demeaning voice, what are you waiting for? have you ever wanted to ask this to someone? What are you waiting for, apply for the job! Marry the girl! Make the move! There are many situations where we wonder what others are thinking, or what we This question is going to come up many times in our message today, but the first way it is going to come into play is through asking Jesus this.

Jesus what are you waiting for to reveal to everyone that you are the messiah! This is what the Disciples have been wondering, possibly since the first time they saw Jesus’ first miracle. But in order to understand why they wanted to know this question, I want to try to set up the scenery to the text today so we all can hopefully understand the magnitude of this moment.

BACKGROUND/JOURNEY PICTURE

The Israelite people have been hearing about a coming messiah forever. This is what they are praying for, this is why they study the scriptures, this is what they live for. When will our savior, messiah come and save us. When will he establish the kingdom of David? And we don’t have enough time today to talk about the multiple prophecies and scripture that Jews would hold onto, quote, and remind each other about this messiah that was coming. One of those will be seen in today’s passage. Yet we have thousands of years of waiting, hoping, praying, messiah come save. Then Jesus shows up. And time after time he is fulfilling prophecy after prophecy and people keep asking him, are you the messiah? Are you the one that is to come? And he doesn’t reveal to them that he is. And then one of his disciples even asks him, not verbatim, but what are you waiting for?! When are you going to reveal who you are to the people? And Jesus, after three years of ministry, tells them, guys, we need to go to Jerusalem. But this time it is going to look different, I’m going there with a purpose to reveal to everyone who I am. And he tells them, go get a donkey (which was a messianic prophecy from Zechariah 9:9-10) And then this is the journey he goes on into Jerusalem, for one of the longest weeks of his life. So this is where we pick the story that we are about to read and I’m praying you can feel the weight of longing that the people have as they hear that Jesus is coming. The heat of the middle eastern sun as they look off in the distance for this Jesus, who is finally going to reveal himself as the messiah to come.

BODY

36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.

So, just a reminder, there are more people in Jerusalem at this time because of celebrating the passover. So Jerusalem had many more people from around the area, areas that Jesus was doing his ministry, gathering for this annual festival. We are not sure how word got around that Jesus was coming and people started to gather. But word got around quick, and instead of being in the city, by the temple, thousands flock to this man riding in on a donkey coming down from the mount of olives.

37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

So they are praising God and rejoicing, did you catch why? Ya, for all the mighty works that they had seen. All the healings, the delivering people of demons, the feeding of the 5,000, and so many other things that kept them believing that this man, this carpenter from Nazareth could be the messiah. And the song/psalm that the people are singing is from Psalm 118, which was a well known messianic psalm. It comes in verse 26 but in verse 25 is the phrase save us! Which translated out, means Hosanna. Save us, messiah! Why Luke did not include that part and the Gospel of Matthew did, we don’t have time to talk about in detail right now. But what is happening here must have been incredible. This wasn’t planned like a flash mob where they planned it all out before and then surprise people. This was spontaneous praise because of Jesus coming in on a donkey. This is what the people have been waiting for! This was the time and moment that, for many of them, their whole lives were focused on. This messiah that was coming to save them! Here is our king! Worship is the right response to Jesus, and we know that to be true. However, there were some that did not find this a joyous occasion.

39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

If you are new to the story of Jesus, there were people that loved Jesus, there were people that were interested in Jesus, and then there were people that hated Jesus. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. The men who spend hours everyday and day after day and year after year studying the prophecies, the old testament that we have now, were mad at the son of God. This blows my mind, makes me sad for them, and also sobers me up real quick. These were the pastors of the day. The theologian, the ones who took church seriously, who tithed, and did all the “right” things. And yet, here is Jesus riding in on a donkey gladly welcoming praise as the promised messiah, and instead of rejoicing and worshipping. They are rebuking Jesus. They are telling him to shut it down! Hey Jesus, WE ARE TRYING TO GET THE PEOPLE TO CALM DOWN SO WE CAN CELEBRATE THE PASSOVER! CAN YOU KNOCK IT OFF! And yet look at Jesus’ reply again.

40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

This is so powerful. What are you waiting for, pharisees!? What more do you need? The living God is here and you won’t even worship him. If you won’t, the sinners and tax collectors will. And even if they don’t, these rocks will. The whole earth will shout out Hosanna! They will praise me! And you can probably see the veins in their necks start popping out as their anger rises. Yet Jesus continues on towards Jerusalem in the praise and adoration of the crowds and his disciples.

APPLICATION

So just to be clear on what Jesus is proclaiming here as being the messiah, let’s review some things that he is stating

JESUS AS MESSIAH MEANS:

He has come to save

The people we singing a messianic salvation song (Psalm 118) and he was in agreement with what they were saying. He didn’t shut them down and say, oh guys, sorry, I am not going to save you I am here to just get some attention. He would save them, but as they would soon learn, it wasn’t from the roman government like they were hoping for. He would be saving them from the government in every man’s heart, sin. So he is saying, yes, I am the savior.

He is King

The palm branches were a sign of victory. They were not randomly looking around like, hey what should we wave at this guy? Oh look some palm branches! No they were intentionally saying, you are the victorious king that we want to lead us. You are the promised seed of Abraham, the son of David, the king we have been longing for.

He is worthy of worship

The disciples were worshipping God for Him. Yet, we know that Jesus himself is worthy of worship for what he has done and who he is. And he had no problem with it because when the pharisees asked him to shut down the party, he was not going to do that.

Now for all of us here who do follow Jesus, these things seem pretty basic. Pretty normal statements. But we need to do a diagnostics check on our hearts today by asking what is our actual response to Jesus being messiah in our lives? Are we more like the Disciples or more like the pharisees? We can cognitively agree with these statements, but what do our lives show in these statements? So lets take a look at both to see what is going on in our own lives and then we will talk about how to change if that is needed today. Let’s start with the pharisees first.

Pharisee Response to Jesus as the Messiah

1.Rebuke

Passion disturbs pharisees. People who are religious are usually skeptical more than they are supportive of powerful moves of God. This has happened all throughout history. We see it in scripture, we see it in church history, where many different revivals happen and people have profound encounters with God. And yet, there are people there just to watch and critique, and make sure it shuts down because, and here is the key, it is out of their control. Because, newsflash, you can’t control God. Pharisees want control, they want to make sure everything is in alignment and nothing is out of their grip. So for us today, when we see Jesus as savior, as king, as worthy of worship, to we look around us and make sure everyone is in order and try to control? Or are part of the revival of the disciples? Excited to worship the king of Kings and the one who has come to save.

2.Anger

Now I understand I am taking some liberty in saying this because it does not specifically say “and they were angry.” But considering the fact that many times these guys walked away from a miracle wanting to figure out how to either arrest Jesus or kill him. And I am guessing that they