The True King Has Come

Prayer

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week, week that we follow along with Jesus in the last week of his life, all the events that led to his crucifixion and resurrection. Today is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. These are the events that are at the very heart of the Gospel.

And we can see how central they are just in terms of the sheer amount of coverage each of the Gospel writers give them. In the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, this last week (out of a three year public ministry) make up 1/4 to 1/3 of what the gospel writers share with us. This is it, we are hitting the culmination of what Jesus came to do for us.

This morning, as we continue asking the question of what it means to be Good News People, we’re going right into the story, this time in the Gospel of Luke, his telling of Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem. We’ll break it into sections, beginning with Luke 19:28-38:

After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.” 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. 37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: 38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

So it’s finally happening - Jesus is making his way toward Jerusalem. He is going to do that which he came to do, to die on the cross for our sins. He’s passing through the villages that sit outside of Jerusalem that sit atop the Mount of Olives. It’s here that he sends two of his disciples ahead in order to secure a colt, a young donkey, that no one has ever ridden on.

The disciples do exactly that, bringing the colt to Jesus, throwing the cloaks on it and then Jesus himself. So Jesus begins to ride the donkey towards Jerusalem. Just to paint the picture of the geography, the Mount of Olives sits just west of Jerusalem, with the Kidron Valley in-between. So Jesus is riding down the Mount of Olives and then he’ll go across the Kidron Valley, then back up into Jerusalem, through one of the city gates. The temple is right there, he’ll be making his way right into the temple court area.

And as he’s riding the donkey, the crowd starts responding. Now, since this was the beginning of the week of Passover, there would have been hundreds of Jewish pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem for the festival. Many of them would have been making their way with Jesus and his disciples all the way from the area of Galilee.

What’s very telling here is seeing how the crowd responds to Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. They start taking their cloaks and laying them down on the ground, on the road, as a sort of a red carpet entrance for Jesus. And they start erupting in praise - note how Luke describes who they are - “whole crowd of disciples”. So this is not just the twelve, but a whole crowd of Jesus followers.

And they are excited. They are shouting their praises out. They’ve seen the amazing miracles Jesus has done. They believe he is the Messiah, the promised king, and he is finally - finally - making his way into Jerusalem to begin his reign. They are praying one of the psalms that was traditionally proclaimed during Passover, but with a significant change:

Comes from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” But here’s the thing, if you go to Psalm 118:26, it doesn’t say “king”. It just says he. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, a way of saying that those who join in the festal procession, making their way into Jerusalem, are blessed. But the crowd is making it about the king.

Because they see Jesus fulfilling one of the messianic prophecies, from Zechariah 9:9, Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Jesus is the king coming to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, a colt. So they are rejoicing greatly.

Quick note here, that donkey, mule, was mount of choice for Jewish kings, at least for civic processions (as opposed to a military one). Absalom, David’s son who rebelled against him, was riding a mule when he got stuck in the branches of the oak tree. Solomon rode his father, David’s mule, when he was being taken to be anointed king over Israel.

It’s not just the disciples who respond to what Jesus is doing, it’s the Pharisees as well. We’ll finish out the rest of the story here, Luke 19:39-48, Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” 40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” 41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” 45 When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” 47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. 48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

So, as you can see, the Pharisees are not quite as excited about what’s happening. So they go to Jesus, since he is their Rabbi, telling him to rebuke his disciples. But Jesus refuses. The moment has come. He is receiving the praise and blessings of his crowd of disciples. This moment will not be silenced - if the people won’t proclaim, the very stones will cry out.

Then we get two powerful scenes of emotion from Jesus - grief and anger. He’s coming up to Jerusalem, seeing the city, and he weeps. Not just eyes watering up with tears but out-and-out weeping. Because he knows the tragedy of what is coming to Jerusalem - when could have had peace. Shalom, wholeness. If only they had received him, received him as king. But he knows they will reject him. Because of that, Jerusalem will be destroyed - and it is destroyed, in 70 AD, besieged by the Romans, the city - and the temple - destroyed.

So, this moment of deep grief, how he longed for it to be different - and then this moment of anger, as Jesus goes into the temple courts, wide open areas where Gentiles were permitted to go. It’s where animals for sacrificing could be purchased, as well as currency exchanged - apparently those coming from out of town were being taken advantage of. Right there in temple area, the place where God resides with his people, his presence among them. Jesus is filled with righteous indignation, so he drives out all those selling. That, too, makes the Jewish leaders angry. But they don’t do anything about it - yet.

Good News People - Our King Has Come

So, what does all this mean for us? Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, crowd of people joining in on the festive procession, laying their cloaks down, shouting praises to God. That’s exactly what we want to look at, the same thing we’ve been looking at over the last six weeks in this season of Lent - what is the good news here, and what does it mean for us, as far as being Good News People.

Remember one of the main points we’ve been making all along here is that when we hear the good news, it’s both news to receive, to belief, trust it’s true (as opposed to the Pharisees and the religious leaders, who rejected it), and not just to receive it, but to live it. To receive it as an invitation to live our lives in response to the good news.

This is the good news here. The King has come. The true king is here. Jesus comes to us as king, and he is a better king than we could hope for.

Because here’s the thing - we were made by God to rule. If you go back to the book of Genesis, very first chapter of the Bible, we see that God made us to rule. He explicitly gave us, as those made in his image, to be like him, reign over the earth. Dominion - God’s creation, earth, was put in our care. We were given the responsibility and the authority over it. But - and this is an essential point - not on our own. God created us to share in his rule, to rule under him. To align our rule, effective range of our will, what we control, with his. In submission to him (which is usually the part we forget).

This is where we go astray - we don’t want to submit our rule to God’s. We want to live on our own terms. We prefer to be our own kings. But here’s why that always, always fails. Our rule is really, really limited. We have far less control than we think we do. I’d go as far as to say that we are ruled by our desires and our habits far more than we realize. So deeply ingrained in us. This is why the Bible talks so often about how sin enslaves us. It has mastery over us - we need a better ruler, a better king.

Why I want us to take a closer look at Jesus here, because even here, in this brief passage, we see so many wonderful aspects of why Jesus is the true and better king.

Think for a moment about his lament over Jerusalem - he’s weeping for his people - the very people who want to put him to death (and indeed will, in five days). Yet he’s weeping because he knows what they are losing because of that rejection. They could have known peace, now they will only know destruction. This king does not gloat over those who have made themselves his enemies, he weeps for them. Because he wants good even for them. The same good he wants for us.

Then we see it, too, in the description from Zechariah of how he comes riding in on the donkey. He’s not coming as military aggressor, not riding a horse, looking to conquer, to exert his will by force. Remember that phrase in Zechariah, he comes righteous and victorious, lowly, riding on a donkey. Another translation is he comes humbly. I want you to see how beautiful this is, what this says about the heart of our king, Jesus. Jesus does not force us to surrender to him as king, compel it - he invites us. He opens his arms and declares to us how much he has to give us, if only we will give ourselves over to him.

Listen to Jesus express that invitation in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

It’s the only place in the Bible where Jesus’ heart is explicitly described - gentle and humble. And he says, come to me, I know you’re overwhelmed. I know you feel beat up. I can give you rest. I can set your heart at ease. All it takes is taking my yoke upon you (connecting yourself to me, following me, learning from me). Quit trying to do it all on your own. Quit giving yourself over to other things. Come to me.

And yet, as humble and gentle as Jesus is, he is still the one true king. He reigns, he has the authority, the power - authority we see him asserting when he takes it upon himself to clear out the temple courts of all the sellers. This is my Father’s house. I will defend it. I will make sure all those who come here are treated justly. That, they, too, can come to my Father unimpeded.

If you read the very next passage in Luke, you’ll see the Jewish leaders challenging Jesus on his authority (who died and made you king, buddy?!). Jesus comes in his own authority - he is the true king, whether they acknowledge it or not. Whether they bow down to him or not.

By the way, we’ll see Jesus’ authority in full display next Sunday, why he is indeed the King of Kings and Lord of Lords - because he showed his power by rising from the dead, conquering the ultimate enemy, sin and death. The very things that have mastery over us, sin and death, what we can’t conquer, Jesus already has. He is the one true king.

So, in Jesus, we have a king who’s very heart is for us, so much so that he’s willing to weep over us. He’s good, he is for our good. And we have a king who is humble and gentle of heart. He meets us in the midst of our shame and our brokenness and our weariness and invites to come to him for rest and healing and forgiveness. And he is a king that truly has the authority. He has the name that is above every other name. He is Lord. As we sang before, He reigns.

As we’ve said repeatedly, the good news is news to receive, to believe, to take in - Jesus is the true and better king! And it should be blatantly obvious what the response should be in terms of what the good news also is - because it is an invitation to live in a new way according to the good news. This one is really easy - if Jesus is indeed the one true king, then the invitation is to submit to him as king. That he would be Lord of your life. To follow him. To serve him. To live in obedience to him.

It’s really easy to get, incredibly hard to do. We resist surrendering our lives over to Jesus. We do not want to give up control. That ultimately is what sin is all about, our hearts rebelling against God. And if you don’t believe me, it’s likely because you’ve never tried to surrender yourself completely to Jesus. That’s when you find out all the places you resist it.

Spiritual Disciplines: So I want to finish there - how do we put this into practice, living the good news that Jesus is the King?! How do we - as we put it in one of our core values, Live in Obedience to Jesus?

The best place to start, I believe, is by making the commitment. By declaring to Jesus that he is the king. And that your intention is to give your life to him. And if the idea of that is scary, then you have some sense of what that means. Like I tell every couple I’ve done a wedding for, you should be nervous when you make the vows. You know the weight of that commitment. And like marriage vows, it doesn’t mean you’ll keep this commitment to Jesus perfectly, it means that you’re letting this commitment keep you. We fail, we resist, but you keep coming back to it, this is what I’m committed to, this is what I want to become, a person who lives willingly under the reign of Jesus. Make the commitment, and make it daily. Every day, surrender yourself to Jesus and his will for your life.

Second is to take Jesus’ words literally, as he meant. He invites us to come to him, to take his yoke upon you and learn from him. This is a question you should take seriously - where in your life do you come to Jesus, where are you learning from him how to live? On a day-to-day basis, where does that take place? This is what the spiritual disciplines are all about, taking time each day to be with Jesus, in order to learn to be like him and do the things he did. What does that look like in your life? If you have trouble answering that, we can help you learn how to do that.

Closing Prayer - time to reflect - declaration of Jesus as King.