Palm Sunday (2)

INTRO

If you have your Bible today you can turn to Matthew 21, and if you didn’t bring a Bible you can use one of those around you. As many of you may know, we are celebrating Palm Sunday, so if you havn’t already, give someone a palm Sunday high five. If you are unfamiliar with this story, don’t worry we will be discussing it in depth today. But also, if you are familiar with this story and have heard it many times, I’m wanting to show us how this ties to Jesus’ return. And through looking at both incredible events should cause us to live in a different way. So that’s where we are going, but I did want to give a little background before we jump into the scripture today.

BACKGROUND

Jesus has been doing his ministry of healing, casting out demons, performing miracles such as feeding the 5,000, and preaching and teaching in many areas around and in Jerusalem. However, whenever he was pressed by the crowds or the religious rulers, he would not reveal to them that he was the Messiah. The term messiah, really means savior, but to the jews it meant so much. It was what they were praying for, searching the scripture for, and believing that Moses spoke of a prophet to come that would save them. That David would have a son that would rule and reign just like David did. That they would have someone come and save them from the oppression of Rome and make everything right again for them as a nation. So Jesus knew that if he revealed that to the people, they would try to put him into power, but he didn’t want that. So in the third year of his ministry, without anyone knowing when he would reveal himself as the messiah, finally shows himself. And this is where we pick up our text today and see how he does it in such a powerful and prophetic way.

TEXT

21 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.

3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”

4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

5  “Say to the daughter of Zion,

‘Behold, your king is coming to you,

humble, and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”

Matthew, the author of this book does this a lot to show how Jesus fulfilled many prophecy’s. Here he quotes Zechariah 9:9 to show that Jesus is king. This would have been a very familiar verse to the jewish people because what many people thought a “king riding on a donkey” meant was that he was bringing peace. Which is true, Jesus was bringing peace, but not in the way that they thought they needed peace. He was coming to bring peace with God.

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.

8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

So the crowds that Matthew is talking about here are not just people in Jerusalem but people from all over the sounding areas that Jesus had been doing his ministry. They were there for the passover and when this happened, the amount of people in Jerusalem sometimes doubled in size. How this heard that Jesus was coming, we are not sure. But they start doing some weird stuff, at least in our eyes. Why the palm branches and cloaks? Well laying cloaks down from someone was a sign of honor. And the palm branches were a sign of jewish nationalism and victory. So the people are saying to Jesus, “ You are worthy of honor and to be our king. You will bring the victory!” But that is not the only way they showed their allegiance to Jesus, look at what they were singing.

9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

What they people were singing and saying was coming straight from the jewish hymnbook. It is psalm 118:25-26, which is a messianic psalm, where it says “Save us, Lord!” Also known as hosanna. This is where, in the Gospel of Luke, the pharisees get mad and tell Jesus to shut down the craziness. But Jesus tells them that if they don’t cry out, then the rocks will! Jesus has unashamedly stated that he is the messiah. But people were still confused because it says,

10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

Now it might sound demeaning that they are saying Jesus was only a prophet and not the messiah. But it is actually pretty interchangeable where they all knew they were looking for “the prophet” that moses spoke about. So, this is a profound moment for the people of Israel at this moment. Some of these people have been waiting there whole lives for this moment. However, as we know, what is about to unfold for Jesus is a ceremony that no king should endure. Yet here today we get to celebrate that he is the savior, the messiah, the prophet, and he is worthy of honor, kingship and praise!

SECOND COMING CONNECTION

I want to take a little bit of time to show how this triumphant entry is somewhat prophetic to Jesus’ second coming.

And why I am doing this is because I think it is easy to dismiss ourselves from this story of the the first triumphant entry and presume that we would be with the crowed praising God. And maybe we are presuming that we will be on the day that he Lord returns? But I don’t want to assume that, I want to have confidence in knowing that I would be ready for when he comes back, even though no one knows when he will come. I want to be like the 5 wise virgins in Matthew 25 that stored up oil, and when the Lord appeared, they were ready, don’t you? This is so essential to palm Sunday because it is a Sunday where we rejoice that Jesus is king, not only now but forever. So how do we worship him now and king and prepare for him as king? I believe in our text today there are ways that show us how to honor Jesus now and prepare our hearts for his second coming.

HONORING KING JESUS NOW AND WHEN HE RETURNS

1.Faithful to Jesus’ words

You have to think about the disciples that Jesus told to go get a donkey in the next town up might have struggled with that command. No Jesus, we want to stay with you, isn’t there a better job we can do? Are you going to send us out again to cast out demons, that was fun! We don’t want to go get some donkey’s. Yet, whether they knew it or not, their obedience and faithfulness to Jesus’ command would cause a fulfillment of prophecy.

We live in a time where this reality of living faithful to Jesus’ words is becoming radical. It is becoming more and more difficult because of many different things, but one of them being that our fight is not against flesh and blood. But when Jesus returns or when we meet Jesus through death, will he say to us “Well done, my good and faithful servant?” Good and faithful to what? A successful ministry? Fitting in with the culture just enough yet still being a christian? No, good and faithful to Him and His words. So, here is a shocker that you have never heard me say before, keep getting into the Word. Keep obeying the Word of God. Even when it doesn’t make sense there could be more than you can see.

2 .Looking to Jesus

As I said before, we are not exactly sure how people heard that Jesus was coming in at that moment. We don’t know how the word got around and that crowds started gathering to him. But there is this idea, at least in my mind, that people who were supposed to be focused on the religious things of the day, because of passover and things happening in the temple, turned and lifter up their eyes to see Jesus. There was probably an inconvenience for some of them to leave what was familiar to go to Jesus and worship him. This will be the case for us too for us to be ready for the Lord’s return. As hebrews 12 tells us,

Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Where are your eyes these days? How much time do you look to him in prayer, in your daily schedule, in your stressful moments, in your inconvenience moments?

3.PRAISING AND HONORING KING JESUS

As I mentioned before, in Luke 19 the pharisees actually tried to make Jesus stop the crowd from praising him. They were mad, and they were not in control, something that religious people do not like, having no control. But Jesus says, if they don’t, all creation will praise me. I think we need to take time to think about what heaven actually is. That it isn’t just our favorite thing happening for eternity. It is us with Jesus who died for us, gave us His Spirit to live by, and we get to live and reign with him forever. And when you close your eyes and imagine that, what kind of praise are you giving? Are you excited? Are you shouting? Are you absolutely unaware of everyone else around you because Jesus is king? Do you think you would be willing to worship Jesus a little bit more loudly knowing that he is the one that has saved you? He is the prophet, king, and savior that we were longing for. And he is the coming one who will come to make all things right. But are we preparing for that day?