Jesus’ Triumphal Entry
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning. Welcome to CHCC. We are now entering a vital part of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. We took one week in April to look at the parallel of this passage from Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is now entering the city of Jerusalem as Passover is coming up very shortly.
Jesus has been making this intentional journey for some time. In fact, Luke first records of Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem back in chapter 9.
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
With steely determination and resolute focus, Jesus makes way for the city of Jerusalem, planning His arrival during the week leading up to Passover. During this journey, He has healed many people as well as given many teachings and parables. A visual here gives us an idea of this journey He has taken.
SHOW IMAGE
This journey that took roughly nine months was purposeful and planned out. He began in the Galilee region, then made His way to the area of a Samaritan city where He is not received and so they journey on another way as this map shows. He continues south all the while continuing to minister, revealing His power and authority to the people. During this journey, Jesus stopped and ministered in some 35 localities, culminating with the perfect timing of His arrival into the city before Passover. But just before then He comes to the city of Jericho where He heals a blind beggar, dines with the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, and then tell the parable of the ten minas which we looked at last week.
It is that parable that sets up for us the expectation and the reality of what will take place when Jesus gets to Jerusalem.
The people had understood the prophecies of the promised Messiah to mean that He would immediately take His throne, free the Jewish people from the oppression of the Roman empire, and rule and reign physically from the throne of David.
Jesus’ parable of the ten minas reveal to us that He would be go away to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return. We understand this to be the promise of the second coming of Christ. Jesus’ Messianic fulfillment comes in a way the people did not initially expect, but is, in fact, so much greater. His fulfillment is that He frees us from the bondage of sin and death and invites us into eternal fellowship with Him—for those who would place their faith in Jesus—those who proclaim Him as Lord and Savior over their lives.
The Parable of the Ten Minas prepares us as modern day readers for what comes next. So this morning we focus on Jesus’ triumphal entry, His weeping over what will become of the city and people of Jerusalem, and then we will look at His righteous anger burning against the people who have turned the temple into what Jesus calls, “a den of robbers.”
We have a lot to unpack this morning, so if you would turn with me to Luke’s gospel, chapter 19, we will begin in verse 28.
PRAY
The Triumphal Entry (vv. 28-40)
The Triumphal Entry (vv. 28-40)
And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 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, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Standing on the Mount of Olives elicits the image of Zechariah 14 that we looked at last week.
4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward… 9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
The purpose of Jesus’ coming will soon be fulfilled. He has time and again revealed His power and authority to the people. He’s healed people of terminal illness, cast out demons, controlled the wind and waves by just His voice. He has fed thousands with two fish and five loaves of bread. He’s dined with sinners and tax collectors. All of this done in such a magnificent way as to not just reveal His heart for the people, but to reveal His deity to the people.
And all of this now reaches a crescendo where the people are expecting the Kingdom upon His arrival in the city of Jerusalem. Because of this, the tension is nearly palpable. Will Jesus make His move to take the throne? If so, when? Let’s follow Him and see what happens!
And so the moment is upon us; everything in Luke’s gospel has led us up to this moment. Jerusalem is less than one mile away as they are stand on the Mount of Olives looking down into the city. But before waltzing into the city, Jesus makes a deliberate stop to obtain a colt of a donkey for His entrance.
When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”
The purpose of obtaining this colt is simply to fulfill prophecy.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
This is a very significant moment in Jesus’ ministry; while He has made declarations to forgive sins, called Himself the Son of Man, made mention of His purpose was to seek and to save the lost, this is really the first time He will be making a large public demonstration with the proclamation of His His Messiahship. The people of the day were well versed on the prophecies and knew the signs to look for. And this would be a big one. “Your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
And here He would—for this very purpose—obtain a foal of a donkey and ride into Jerusalem during the busiest week of the year with a large crowd all around Him making proclamations.
The fulfillment of this prophecy also reveals to us the very nature of Jesus. He is righteous; Through Him and Him alone do we find salvation. And perhaps the hardest one to wrap my head around is His perfect humility. Almost sounds like an oxymoron. The Perfect King of kings took on humility in the form of mankind that He may take the penalty of sin upon His own shoulders that we may receive salvation and walk with Him in righteousness. As Andrew Murray states,
He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death”
Andrew Murray
And His death wasn’t for Him, but for us.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
But this passage is such a pure picture of Jesus’ humility. The King of kings, the Creator of Heaven and earth has come into His Creation and rides into the city not on a majestic horse or a chariot. He rides in on the foal of a donkey, one that He had to borrow no less!
Clarence Macartney wrote,
How strange a contrast to the triumphal entry of ancient warriors and conquerors into the cities which they had taken! This time no wall broken down for entry; this time no garlanded hero standing in his war chariot, driving down the lane of cheering subjects past smoking altars, and followed by captive kings and princes in chains. Instead of that, just a meek and lowly man riding upon the foal of a donkey.
As Jesus receives the foal, He prepares to make His entrance; verse 35.
And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 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,
The laying of cloaks on the road was a sign of reverence; this was often done as an act of submission before royalty. We see something similar with king Jehu in 2 Kings.
Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, “Jehu is king.”
It is a sign of acceptance and allegiance. What is more, is the rejoicing and praising God that follows Jesus from the large throng of people.
This caused me to pause and consider, “Do I do this on a daily basis?” Do I offer my allegiance, do I give myself in submission to Jesus every day?” Or do I take the day for myself? Our culture’s natural bent is to self-sufficiency. And in that leaning, we become the kings and queens of our own lives, submitting to our will, our desires. Stephen B. Clark puts it this way:
Contemporary society … does not value personal submission. Rather, it teaches that the ideal, the highest position a human being can attain, is that of personal autonomy.
Stephen B. Clark
But the call of the believer requires so much more and so much less. It requires more in the sense that we are to give up our will and our desires over to the Lord. “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done”—it was modeled for us by Jesus in the Garden. It requires more in the sense that we give over lordship of our lives to the One True Lord of Heaven and earth.
But it also requires so much less in the sense that now God is in control of all things. And we climb mountains and traverse valleys with the understanding that Jesus remains King over all and He is in control and His will will be done.
As R.C. Sproul says,
Living in submission to what God commands is the essence of faith.
R. C. Sproul
And if you’ve walked in submission to God’s commands in your own life for any time, you probably recognize that sometimes those commands and those callings seem overwhelming. “This doesn’t make any sense, God. I don’t understand.”
But we don’t always need to understand. It isn’t a matter of understanding. It is a matter of submission and a matter of trust and a matter of faith.
So the question for each of us this morning is do we find ourselves in the midst of the people laying our cloaks down before the Lord? Or do we cling tightly to it, cinching it shut, making sure it never touches the soil before the feet of God because we, WE ourselves desire to be Lord of our life?
I pray that would not be so for each of us. I understand that submitting may be one of the hardest things we may ever do at times—certainly in the moment of letting go—but it may also be the most beautiful thing we do as we learn to lean on God, trust Him, and faithfully serve Him.
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, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Not only are they people praising God for all the mighty works they had seen Jesus do, they also continually say, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”
This is a line from the Hallel Psalms (Psalm 13-118) or “Praise” Psalms. This particular shout of praise we see from the crowd comes from Psalm 118:26. The only change made by the crowd is the word He is changed to “the King.”
The second proclamation of the crowd reminds us of a passage early on in Luke’s gospel.
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The heavenly hosts sang of peace on earth and the earthly hosts sang of peace in heaven. As one theologian put it: “They sang of more than they knew, for peace on earth is dependent on peace in Heaven.”
While this certainly is no grand entrance of a Roman emperor or one of the mighty kings of Persia from of old, this is still a remarkable picture.
Hundreds, probably thousands, are gathered around Jesus making there way down from Bethphage, Bethany, and through the Mount of Olives, eventually into the city all the while continually shouting these praises over and over.
Now of course there were always Jesus’ detractors and we find them here in our passage this morning.
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Jesus had some awesome responses to the Pharisees throughout the Gospels! “Listen, buddy; all these people could stop their shouting and their praises but then creation itself will sing my praises.”
All the earth worships you
and sings praises to you;
they sing praises to your name.” Selah
But while the crowds joyfully shout and praise God, Jesus is overwhelmed with grief and tears begin to run down His face…
Jesus Weeps Over the City
Jesus Weeps Over the City
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
These final sections of Scripture in chapter 19 evoke so much emotion. First there is joy and excitement as Jesus is making His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Now there is a heaviness and a sorrow that envelop the scene. And as we will read shortly, a righteous flash of anger as well.
But here, Jesus speaks a prophetic word and the reality of that prophecy overwhelms our Lord to the point of heavy sobs and tear stained cheeks.
Along with all the emotion in these verses we also continue to see the heart of Jesus on display. We’ve seen His humility and kingship and now we see His heart of love for His people.
When I’ve read the Old Testament prophets I’ve never really paused to consider the weight that many of them must have felt when God gave them the words to proclaim. There is a reason Jeremiah is called the “Weeping Prophet.” All of his warning to the nation about their impending doom and destruction all the while it goes entirely ignored as the people continue in their depravity.
The word of prophecy Jesus speaks of would come to fulfillment in AD 70 when the temple would be leveled by the Roman army led by General Titus.
Jesus knew of the impending destruction and death that would fall upon the people of Jerusalem and it broke His heart. This was a heart of a different kind of king. This was the very heart of God. As one pastor put it: “The body was human but the heart was divine.”
R. Kent Hughes puts it this way:
This is how Jesus Christ and God the Father and the blessed Holy Spirit sorrow over hearts that miss their “day” and “the things that make for peace”—namely, repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ…The tears of Christ measure the value of your soul.
As Jesus enters the city He makes His way to the temple, and what He finds there fills Him with a righteous fury…
A Necessary Cleansing
A Necessary Cleansing
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
This passage, just as the passage of Jesus’ entrance, is also prophetic. His entrance upon a donkey fulfills Zechariah 9:9, and His entrance into the temple fulfills a prophecy found in the book of Malachi.
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
There is a purposeful intent here by Jesus to make His way to the temple. But what He sees is something entirely unholy and so He begins to drive those who were selling goods in the temple out of the premises.
What was supposed to be a house of prayer and a house of worship has instead become a market where many people had set up shop in order to wheel and deal and line their own pockets with money. No doubt this was something that really got out of hand during Passover when thousands upon thousands of people would travel to the City for the festival.
Many of the travelers would come and desire to make a sacrifice to God at the temple. But many would not bring their own animals for this. But fortunately for them, shops lined the temple where they could purchase their sacrificial animals! The only issue is that the sellers were not doing this for any spiritual reasons, but in order to make money. They were selling the animals for exorbitant prices—gauging these travelers based off their needs.
This is similar to how if you go to an NFL game or any professional sports game, and while you’re there you get hungry. So you go to buy a simple hot dog. Well that’s $15! Okay, but you need it because you’re starving and it’s only the first quarter. Well now that you ate your hot dog, you find yourself parched. So you go to purchase a pop. Well now you find out that is going to be another $10. Insane prices but what can you do?
But to make matters worse here, these people are doing this in the house of God! Even the money changers are setting unrealistic fees, taking advantage of all these out of towners who are using foreign money.
Mark’s account gives us more detail to this event.
And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.
Have you ever seen a table flipped over? Some of you are thinking, “I have flipped a table over.” It’s pretty intense! I imagine everyone stopped chatting and all eyes are on Jesus. We see His gentle and loving heart as He wept over the city and now there is an intensity as He sees defilement in His Father’s house.
Jesus, by His own definition of Himself, is gentle and lowly. He is the epitome of meekness. But we see this passage and may wonder where has this meekness gone?
What we must understand is that meekness does not equate to weakness. Perhaps the best definition I’ve heard of meekness is “strength under control.” Meekness is the strength not to defend oneself (just as Jesus willingly took the cross). It is also the ability to boldly defend others, which we see here also with Jesus as He defends His Father’s holiness.
Jesus, after driving out the people and turning over the money-changers tables, gives a word—quoted from Isaiah.
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
What is so interesting here—(at least to me)—is that the money-changers would set up shop in what was called “The Court of Gentiles,” which was the outer-courtyard of the temple and the only place where non-Jews were allowed to enter and worship.
So the prophetic word from Isaiah and the word Jesus quotes is revealing in the sense that His salvific plan is for ALL peoples. From Jew to Gentile. As Paul would write to the Galatians…
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
This was the purpose of Jesus driving out the salesmen and the money-changers. First it was to honor God the Father’s name. The second was to bring salvation to all people.
The second part of Jesus’ statement is also an Old Testament quote—taken from Jeremiah. This passage from Jeremiah is from His speech given in the temple warning the people of Israel who had been living in great sin but felt they were safe from God’s wrath simply because they were Israelites. Because of their depravity, Jeremiah warned them that destruction would come upon them and the temple.
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.
And everything now in Jesus’ day is coming full circle. Jesus weeps over the coming destruction of the temple because it had failed in its function as a house of prayer—instead, becoming a den of thieves. It was run by corruption rather than a heart for God.
The warning remains for believers today. We would be foolish to rest on our laurels for our safety and salvation. We must not think like the Jews did in Jeremiah’s day and in Jesus’ day.
Paul gave warning to the early Jewish Christians about this and the warning stands today for us as well.
For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
So Jesus enters His Father’s temple and cleanses it from the inside out. And then began teaching from the temple itself.
And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
As John Nolland suggests, “Jesus, in conscious fulfillment of Mal. 3:1–2, is coming as Lord to his temple to purge like a refiner’s fire.”
And is that not the same with us as believers? Does He not enter into us and begin to burn away at the impurities of the heart and change us from the inside out?
The image of Jesus entering the temple and driving out the money-changers and swindlers is not so dissimilar to what He does in our own hearts; chipping away at the sin and the filth and removing our worldly desires and crumbling our pride and self-righteousness and just as He took to the temple steps to teach and preach, He then speaks to our hearts by His Word and begins to change us to become more and more like Him.
And while refining burns, it also cleanses. It is a necessary work to purify the metal. I love what Spurgeon says of this.
The refiner is never very far from the mouth of the furnace when his gold is in the fire.
Charles Spurgeon
And let me say, you are His gold. You are His greatest treasure.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I know we’ve unpacked a lot here this morning, but what are we to make of it?
First of all, I want us to consider what we do with our proverbial “cloaks.” Have we laid them before the feet of Jesus? Have we given Him our allegiance? Have we fully submitted our lives to Him? Or have we cinched the cloak tightly to ourselves, unwilling to give over our lives to His Lordship?
It is vital that we willingly give the reigns of our lives over to God, following His leadership through the hills and valleys of life.
Secondly, while Jesus came to cleanse the temple, He Himself is everything the temple ever was meant to signify.
Jesus is the very presence and nature of God.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
He is our access to God.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
He is our sacrifice.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
He is our mediator.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
He is our protector.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the most simple terminology I can put it: Jesus is EVERYTHING. I pray that if you have not yet come to that realization or understanding in your own heart, that God would lead there this very day. Jesus is EVERYTHING.
COMMUNION//PRAY
