Right About Everything Except What Mattered

Introduction

Picture the scene we are coming upon in our text: it's loud, it's festive, it's a parade. Palm branches, cloaks on the road, a crowd singing.

What are you imagining when you picture this scene? Most of us picture something triumphant, celebratory, victorious.

There’s even a deep sense of rebellion against the Roman oppressors and sense of justice coming… the Roman occupation is no doubt present and looking on. It’s making the Pharisees nervous, so much so they tell Jesus to rebuke His disciples. There is ample evidence of Jesus claiming who He says He is, but they are making a calculated decision here when speaking to Jesus.

Then, the man at the center of the parade is weeping. Not at the end of the week — right now, as they cheer. What does Jesus know that the crowd doesn't? If the crowd knew what Jesus knew, would they be weeping as well? (*pause for a moment) Did they really know who this Jesus was that was coming riding in on a donkey?

Palm Sunday is not simply a victory parade — it is a collision between two incompatible kingdoms: the one the crowd was projecting onto Jesus, and the one Jesus actually came to establish. The crowd shouted the right words and held the wrong expectations. Jesus, knowing this, did not correct them from a distance. He wept over them. The triumphal entry and the lament of Luke 19:41–44 are inseparable. You cannot understand one without the other.

The ache of being close to something true and missing it. The mercy of a King who weeps over a city that will crucify him within the week — and still rides in anyway.

We are very good at celebrating a version of Jesus we've constructed. We are less good at receiving the Jesus who actually shows up.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, would you turn to Luke 19:28-44. If you are willing and able, would stand with me as I read God’s word this morning. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. Let’s pray. Please be seated.

Jesus Comes As King (vss28-38)

Jesus is coming as King, fulfilling prophecy:

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.”

Zechariah 14:4 “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.”

There is beautiful picture here as well. There is so much intentionality and symbolism here. (Pic)

You’ll remember that the garden that was in Eden, was where the LORD was in relationship with the man and woman, Adam and Eve. That when they disobeyed, the ushered them out of the Garden to the East. That as man got more and more wicked, they were moving more and more East (Cain when to Nod further East of Eden after killing Abel.)

The temple opened up to the East with the Holiest of Holies being in the heart of the temple. Jesus from the mount of olives is moving West, towards the Holy of Holies, symbolizing bringing man back into relationship with God. It’s very powerful imagery.

This is what the people that day, on the road from the Mt. of Olives to the city, thought that this is what was taking place. He’s finally going to liberate us from the oppressor! This is why they are quoting

Psalm 118:25–26a “Lord, save us! (hosanna) Lord, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…”

This was the greeting of pilgrims and of the King coming to the temple to worship.

Followed by a phrase/line similar to that the angels declared to the shepherds when Jesus was born.

Luke 2:14 ““Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.””

Cultural — Why it won't work

The crowd on Palm Sunday is doing what every generation does: they are asking Jesus to be the solution to their most pressing problem. For them, it was Roman occupation. For us, it might be political instability, cultural decline, personal pain, family dysfunction. The Hosanna (God save now) is real (though Luke omits this word, many think because the Greek reader would not understand the meaning.) The longing underneath it is real. But the king they are expecting — a Davidic military liberator — is not the king who is showing up.

"Jesus is on our side" is the ongoing religious temptation. From Constantine to the Crusades to every election cycle, we keep trying to recruit Jesus into our cause rather than surrendering to his. The crowd wanted a Barabbas-style insurrectionist with God’s stamp of approval.

They crowds were reading their Bibles, they knew that this is what God was wanting to do… God will stand at the end of history when he comes to judge and restore. Jesus, along with every Jewish pilgrim of the passover, knows the geography. They all know what Jesus was declaring.

But they missed the signal… not a warhorse, a donkey. Not conquest, peace. Not force, sacrifice. The crowd is quoting the right psalm (118:26) but expecting the wrong kind of king.

The Intensity of the Moment Revealed (vv39-40)

We don't actually know why the Pharisees pushed back. Luke doesn't tell us their motive, and it's worth resisting the urge to make them the bad guys here. Maybe they were worried about Roman repercussions — don't call anyone a king in an occupied city if you want to keep the peace. Maybe, like when they warned Jesus about Herod back in chapter 13, they were genuinely concerned for his safety. Maybe they just disagreed. We don't know.

What we do know is how Jesus answered them.

"If these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

Don't read that as a clever deflection. Read it as a statement about the nature of what is happening on this road. Because Scripture has a pattern — creation doesn't just observe redemptive events, it participates in them. The ground was cursed when Adam fell. Isaiah pictures bears and cows grazing together when the king finally reigns. A star appeared over Bethlehem. The earth shook and rocks split when Jesus died. The sun went dark while he hung on the cross. Creation groans and shudders and strains along with us.

So when Jesus says the stones would cry out, he's not just saying the disciples have every right to praise him. He's saying this moment is so cosmically significant that the whole created order is leaning into it. The disciples aren't being excessive. They are giving voice to what everything around them would say if it could.

Which makes the weeping that follows even more striking. The rocks are ready to shout. And Jesus is in tears.

The Heart of God Revealed (vv41-44)

Luke doesn't stop at verse 40. Verses 41–44: the weeping. The city named for peace missed Peace himself. Jesus names what they could not see: the things that make for peace.

Luke 19:42 “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.”

And then he tells them what is coming — not in anger, but in grief. Judgment preceded by tears.

The cure is not political wisdom or better theology. It is this: a King who knows you will turn on him, and rides in anyway. A King who weeps over you before he judges. A King who comes not to win by force but to win by dying. The parade is the announcement of the passion. The hosannas are being sung over the one who is walking toward the cross.

If you don’t have the peace of God and are not at peace with God, do not leave here without it.

The city named for peace didn't recognize Peace riding through its gates. And Jesus wept — not because he was defeated, but because he knew what was being missed. He knew what was at stake. He knew what they truly needed. He knew what it would cost to make available what they couldn't see.

And then he went and paid it.

But before he did, he told them what was coming — not to punish them for missing it, but because he loved them enough to name the cost of what they were walking away from. Forty years later, in 70 AD, every word came true, Roman general Titus besieged Jerusalem in response to a Jewish revolt that had begun four years earlier in 66 AD. The siege lasted several months. When the Romans finally breached the walls they systematically destroyed the city.

Grief came before judgment, this is the character of God. John 3:16–17 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

What Do We Do With This?

(1) Examine and look at your Hosanna — what are you actually asking Jesus to save you from? Save us from our enemies. Save us from our circumstances. Save us from the other political party. Save us from our pain. All of these are Hosannas the crowd understands. Jesus came to save us from something deeper and more devastating than any of those: from the sin that separates us from Him. Don’t look past him, He is the King that we actually want and need.

Before Easter, sit with this. What is your Hosanna actually asking for? Bring it honestly to the King

(2) Sit with the weeping — don't rush past Luke 19:41 to get to Easter Sunday. What does Jesus weep over? Cities that don't know what makes for peace. People who have the truth in front of them and cannot receive it. People who are so certain about what they need that they cannot see what is being offered.

That is not just Jerusalem in 33 AD. That is us. That is our city. That is our country right now. And the King who wept over Jerusalem weeps over Bremerton too. Let that be more than a sentiment. Let it be a posture that shapes how you engage your neighbors this week.

(3) Follow when you don't understand — the disciples didn't know what was happening, and they walked with him anyway. John 12:16 “At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.” says the disciples didn't understand what was happening as they walked with Jesus into Jerusalem. They participated in something they couldn't read yet. They obeyed before they comprehended. And it was only later — after the resurrection — that the pieces came together.

You are probably in the middle of something you can't fully comprehend right now. The faithful response is not to wait for clarity before you obey. It is to walk with Jesus into the thing in front of you, trusting that the meaning will emerge on the other side.

Conclusion

When we think about the beginning of Holy Week, that's what this week is. Palm Sunday is the announcement. Friday is the answer to the question of sin. Sunday answers the question of death.

The peace you have been looking for — the peace that no election, no relationship, no achievement, no amount of control has ever quite delivered — it was riding on a donkey into Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and it is available to you right now. Not because you've figured it out. Not because you're on the right side of history or the right side of theology. But because a King who knew you would turn on him rode in anyway. Because he wept over people who didn't recognize him — and then died for them.

That's the gospel. It's not a self-improvement program. It's not a political platform. It's a King who absorbed the judgment you deserved, so that the peace you couldn't earn could be freely given.

This week, before Easter: identify one place where you have been worshiping a version of Jesus that serves your preferences rather than conforms you to his. Repent of it. Come to Good Friday and Easter Sunday having surrendered something.

If you don't have peace with God, that peace that Jesus was talking about, today is the right day. You're standing at the beginning of the week that changed everything.

You don't have to have it all figured out. The crowd didn't. The disciples didn't. You just have to be willing to receive the King as he actually is — not the one you constructed, but the one who came.

If that's you today, don't wait. Talk to someone after the service. Or just talk to him right now, right where you're sitting. He's not far. He never was. He was weeping over you before you knew his name.

Let us pray.