Triumphant On His Terms (Luke 19:28-40)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
A. Preliminaries
A. Preliminaries
Good Morning.
We continue our series on the book of Ezra this morning. And as you might recall, last Sunday, we really hit the high point of everything we’ve been waiting for. The Temple is built! And the first thing they do is throw a party. So to speak.
Please join me at the end of Ezra, Chapter 6. Specifically Ezra 6:19-22
On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.
Now, I said once the Temple was built, they threw a party. And that’s putting it in terms that are a bit glib. The biblical term for what they did was a festival, specifically the celebration of the Passover, which was immediately followed by the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
Now in Louisiana, Festival tends to mean something a bit different. When we have a festival, it is a 2 or 3 day party with food and live music. For the Jews, the annual festivals were matters of joy and celebration, certainly. They were also obedience and remembrance. And Passover was the most important one. It’s importance in our modern calendar might mirror Christmastime.
It was the first of three feasts at which all males in Israel were bound by law to appear before God in Jerusalem. The other two were the feast of weeks (in the summer) and the feast of tabernacles in the early fall.
But Passover--perhaps a better comparison that Christmas would be July 4 for us. Passover celebrated the beginning of their history as a nation. It was the night when God, in the form called The Destroyer moved through all Egypt and took the life of the firstborn children as a judgement on all houses, except those whose doorposts bore the blood of the lamb.
Old Testament Scholar Alec Motyer comments that
Up to the moment of the Passover, the danger to Israel had been human, the genocidal policy of Egypt. On the Passover night, however, the threat became divine, for the Lord himself enters Egypt in judgment.
—Alec Motyer, The Story of the Old Testament, ed. John Stott (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 30. Cited in Derek W.H. Thomas, Ezra and Nehemiah (REC, 2016, pg. 99).
And so Israel comes together at this time, after the Temple is rebuilt to celebrate the Passover. And they have just sacrificed 12 male goats according to the tribes of Israel which is interesting since only three tribes came back. Judah, Benjamin, and Levi.
And so they feast.
And I want to bring out at least three things in our text this morning about this Passover Feast. It was...
1. A Feast for Exiles
2. A Feast for All
3. A Feast of Joy
Let’s Pray...
Grant, Almighty God, that as you shine on us by your Word, we may not be blind at midday, nor willfully seek darkness, and thus lull our minds asleep; but may we be roused daily by your words, and may we stir up ourselves more and more to fear your name and thus present ourselves and all our pursuits as a sacrifice to you, that you may peaceably rule, and perpetually dwell in us, until you gather us to your celestial habitation, where there is reserved for us eternal rest and glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(A Prayer by John Calvin)
I. A Feast For Exiles
I. A Feast For Exiles
On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover.
And what we noticed in the text is that this a feast for returned exiles. This would be like coming home for Christmas after being away from home for decades and decades. And just as the main purpose of leaving Egypt was to bring a people to worship God at Sinai (Ex. 3:12), so too here we have a people returned to Jerusalem to worship God there.
And this is a good reminder for us, because it’s not immediately obvious why the restoration and centrality of worship should get so much focus in Ezra. But this language of exiles come home reminds us why worship is at the center of the Book of Ezra--because worship is always a response to the grace of God. Worship is always a response to God’s kindness, to his forgiveness, to his deliverance. This is why so much of our music is just soaked through with those very themes. God’s forgiveness, God’s love, God’s grace, God’s kindness, God’s mercy, we keep singing about them all the time because worship is our glad response to all God has done for us in Christ.
What tho' my joys and comforts die?
The Lord my Saviour liveth;
What tho' the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night he giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that refuge clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?
And remember also that this Passover feast would have been the first time Passover had been celebrated since Jerusalem fell and they were exiled. When you grasp that, it really magnifies the significance of the celebration. This is much bigger than just coming home for Christmas after decades. This is coming home for Christmas and while you were gone, nobody has been celebrating.
In all likelihood, at this point in the story, most of those present had probably never seen a Passover Celebration before, and had only heard about it in Grandma and Grandpa’s stories.
Because Passover required sacrifices in Jerusalem. You couldn’t celebrate it with no Temple and no Jerusalem.
So they would have gathered to remember the night when God himself went through the land of Egypt as a terrible judge. Pharaoh had been the subject of negotiations with Moses. God had called that Israel be sent away from Egypt, because why? Because Israel was his firstborn son. That’s not in there by accident.
And when God came through on Passover night for the firstborn of Egypt, it was because he meant to deliver his firstborn son. And there was no negotiating with this King. And as Derek Thomas observed, at that time, you only had one of two options. There was either a lamb who had died laying on the table, or a firstborn son who had died in the house.
Passover was therefore a picture of the coming redemption of Christ. The redemption that you and I have today and that is offered freely to all who will hear of it. The reality of a holy God, before whom we have no hope of arguing our case. Our sins have offended against the highest and holiest majesty, and all we deserve is judgement, including judgement for all the excuses we make to try to establish a case why we don’t deserve judgement. Such excuses don’t actually excuse us, they just end up making the case against us worse.
And into our hopeless situation, Jesus Christ comes and says “Take me instead.” Take my blood instead. Pour out the judgement on me instead so that there is no judgement left for my brothers.
And just like the blood of the Passover lamb, the blood of Christ propitiated God’s wrath, satisfying God’s justice for all who claimed its protection. It saves us because it is our substitute. Just as in every home in Egypt, as Derek Thomas notes, on that Passover night, someone laid dead, either a lamb or the firstborn. And on that night, God’s firstborn was spared at the cost of another.
II. A Feast for All
II. A Feast for All
For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.
In the instructions for the original passover celebration, you had to be pronounced ceremonially clean before you could enter the temple. Lambs would be sacrificed for each household, and then taken back home to be eaten.
And at that point specific instructions were given to the young people in the home. They were catechized to ask certain questions. Exodus 12:26-27
And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.
Now notice that word “our” in verse 27.
Underline “our”
That possessive pronoun remained in place throughout their generations. Which sort of makes you think--I mean, did a day come where one of the kids said “Wait a minute. That happened many years ago, Dad. It wasn’t our home that God spared.” But yes, it was. They continued to celebrate the Passover in the first person, because they believed that through the years this continues to be their story. And so it is with us. Every Sunday when we gather around the Table we continue to remember the night of our Lord’s Betrayal during Passover. And we take and eat and take and drink because all these promises are for us. Not just our fathers, or the early Christians, or the 12 disciples. But for us today. This is why Paul says 1 Cor. 5:7
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
But for our purposes in this text this morning, I want to point out something really important.
Look at Ezra 6:21
It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.
So the Passover Lamb was eaten not only by the returned exiles that we read about back in verse 19, but also, any who had come to join them.
Now, you might remember back in Chapter 4, the Samaritans had offered to help them in the building of the temple and they had declined and said Ezra 4:3
“You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
We’re not told from the text what has happened, or if any kind of shift has occured in their thinking. If I had to venture a guess it’s because the people in Jerusalem are making a distinction between who God has selected for His Work (his people, set apart for this task) and who is welcome to know the salvation of the God of Israel. And who is that? All who believe. All who separated themselves from the false Gods, and came to the true God of Israel.
And this distinction holds some value for us today I think. We want to be mindful of a wide open door to all who will come, and we want to make it relatively easy to join for all who repent of sin and turn to Christ.
Derek Thomas observes
In an age such as ours, with little or no understanding of truth or the doctrines that are considered vital to Christianity, ecumenism becomes the default, and those who fail to practice it, on whatever grounds, are considered mean-spirited and judgmental. When megachurch TV evangelists and preachers bend over backward not to appear negative or condemnatory about anything, careful not to employ “shaming language” lest their image be tarnished, the gospel that is preached becomes merely another form of self-help in a postmodern, therapeutic culture.
—Derek W.H. Thomas, Ezra and Nehemiah, Reformed Expositional Commentary (REC), P&R, 2016, pg. 104.
The same strong temptation is always confronting us, because the self-help Gospel that appeals to the therapeutic culture will always bring us warm accolades if we preach it.
But now that the Temple was complete, all the ones seeking Yahweh were brought in, so when it came to the celebration of the Passover, things were just as true about that old celebration as our celebration today in the New Covenant. All were welcome who could make a profession of faith, together with their children (who were present for Passover) and are prepared to worship and obey the God given to us in the Words of Scripture.
The door was open to all those who would repent of their sinful ways, and trust in the security offered beneath the shelter of the blood of the lamb.
And so what we see here is that the bridge (so to speak) between the Old Covenants and the New Covenant has always existed, but its probably never been clearer than what we see here. These believers in Ezra did not experience as much of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, but we do see something here that whispers of the New Covenant realities that were yet to come. And that is rest in the completed work of our Lord and Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Who loves us and has given himself for us.
III. A Feast of Joy
III. A Feast of Joy
And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.
So they keep the Passover, and immediately afterward comes the feast of unleavened bread. Which would have included matzo, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, and vegetables, and special sweet desserts. And it’s a time that children really looked forward to.
We see here the feast was celebrated with joy, and we see why.
Because one of the kindest things the Lord does is makes us joyful. It’s also in a way, one of the most offensive things. When times of celebration come, it is good to be joyful. To rejoice. But if we are honest, there are plenty of times when the call to be joyful falls on our ears as a burden.
When we hear the Apostle Paul say
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
We tend to bristle. It sounds like pure work and burden to our souls. But what if this is exactly what it sounds like, with the reminder that God, by the Holy Spirit, always provides what he commands? If the command was “Be mopey and full of complaining all the time” that would be a condemnation and a burden.
But the fact that God himself means to supply us with joy means that it’s our place to pray for it, and our privilege to fight for it, with the help of our brothers and sisters beside us.
John Piper reminds us that
God's work in us does not eliminate our work; it enables it. We work because he is the one at work in us. Therefore, the fight for joy is possible because God is fighting for us and through us.
—From John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God
And also, God gives us means for our joy. He doesn’t just give us joy jolts or joy zaps. He reminds us of his promises. He gives us victories to celebrate. He gives us testimonies to refresh our hearts. He gives us a history of faithfulness, and promises of future faithfulness.
In fact, look at the text!
The text gives you the reasons for their joy!
Why were they joyful?
Because of past blessings--the Lord had worked in the heart of the king. The whole reason we are here is because God did an absolute miracle in the heart of a pagan king.
And how else could they see the Lord’s hand in their past? Keep reading.
The Lord had been their help in their work.
So notice those two kinds of “looking backward” for encouragement.
God has done wonderful things that seemed impossible, and God helped us when we weren’t strong enough.
So what feels impossible for you in your life right now? What has God called you to that feels twice your size? How is God readying you for your next testimony to be able to say “God worked, and he was our help.” Those are the stories he loves to write, and we have examples right here in Chapter 6. How else has he been kind? It is good to reflect on this for your soul and your own encouragement.
He grants us pleasant phone calls with old friends. He gives us fellowship feasts after the preacher finally wraps it up. He gives us promises to hope in and reminds us that hope does not disappoint. He gives not just calls to joy but reasons for it.
In Jesus’s Name, Amen.
