Triumph, Tears, and Tables

Good morning, Ambassadors! It’s great to be back with you! I’m looking forward to diving into our text this morning. We’re going to be covering large area of , so I hope you’ll be able to keep up and enjoy learning together through God’s word. As we go through these verses, we’ll encounter 3 different sections of the same story. This text is the beginning of the passion week for Jesus, who would ride into Jerusalem on the very first “Palm Sunday.” Luke doesn’t discuss palms, but, we know from the book of John that the entry into Jerusalem that Jesus rode on this young, unblemished colt over palm branches.

It’s a beautiful picture to see a righteous king being coronated, and even more-so to see Jesus honored as the king of Kings, even for this short time. Jesus entered into Jerusalem for the last time before His death riding as a humble king, very similarly to the way he entered the world - a humble king.

With that said, our 3 different sections of the text this morning lead me to the title of the message for this morning - “Triumph, Tears, and Tables.” Each section is a progressive part of what was going on with Jesus as he approached the end of His ministry and as he prepared for his death, burial, and resurrection.

The first section of the text is “Triumph.” If you have your Bibles open, many of them will say the “Triumphal Entry”

I like to use the format of going through a passage by asking What, So What and Now What

Triumph

This, I guess we could say is the main “What?” of the story (What is going on or is the main part of the story

Luke 19:28–40 ESV

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.”

Luke 19:28-

The joy of victory in Christ is often ushered in by willingness and obedience

The triumph of Christ in our lives is not in our circumstances, but in His redeeming all of creation to himself

Luke 19:40 ESV

He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Tears

This we can call the “So What?” of the story (So what is going on in Jesus? So what matters about the Triumph?)

Tears are such an integral part of the story of Jesus. Not just of this passage, but of His whole time on earth. One of the names of Christ is Man of Sorrows. Jesus was the Man of Sorrows because He took upon himself the sorrows of sin and confronted death in its most raw form. Jesus’ tears over Jerusalem were real and true. Let’s read together.

Luke 19:41–44 ESV

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.”

As we read these verses, let’s contemplate 2 reflections on these verses

The tears of Christ were not for His own death, but for the people who would soon reject Him

Jesus not only wept for the sinful hypocrisy of the people that would betray Him, but also for the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the end of Israel’s time as the people of God

As we reflect on the nature of tears, this is one of the areas where we can be thankful to have a Savior who knows how we feel. So much of our life is filled with moments or seasons of tears. These tears are the result of sin and fallenness, or they are the result of longing and the “already but not yet” paradigm. We often weep for those that we miss and weep for the circumstances that are not in our best control. I have found myself in these situations a countless number of times.

I can’t say that I look forward to further tears, but I hold fast to the fact that tears and triumph go hand in hand, just as they did here for Jesus. Jesus was preparing to enter into the city as king, just to be betrayed and murdered, then to be resurrected in that city the risen king, just to leave it again, then to return it and claim His kingdom forever. It’s a cycle of triumph and tears that we see throughout Scripture. We cannot know the heights of the joys until we feel the depths of the sorrows.

Tables (Transactions)

This is the “Now What?” of the story (Now what does Jesus do in this final week? Now what should my posture be as I wade through triumph and tears?)

Luke 19:45–48 ESV

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.

Here in the last section, I’m using the tables not for the fact that Jesus was turning over tables (He did that earlier in his ministry, as recorded in ). But tables were certainly being set up and used for transactions of business and commerce. The fact that Jesus had to drive them out again points to the stubbornness of the people. Last time, Jesus turned over their tables and chased them out of the temple courtyard with a whip, yet, they returned and set up their tables again to conduct their business and take advantage of the grace of God for their own personal gain. The temple and its courtyards were places set up for people to gather and meditate on God, pray, and make sacrifices to God for the remission of sin. Because of the nature of this, there were and are natural processes that needed to be accessible for people to worship.

Jesus didn’t have a problem with tables and the things that happened at them; Jesus was angered that the tables of commerce had become more important than the altar of repentance. The life of the Temple was basically becoming more and more secularized, a place to gather and earn a living - not a place to restore relationship with God and live a life of holiness.

This important distinction helps us see that Jesus cares about our service, our livelihood, our “tables;” but He first and foremost cares about our relationship to him. We can even see the movement in the text. The focus in the temple completely shifted from tables/transactions to teaching. This teaching was so rich and life giving that verse 48 tells us that they were “hanging on his words.” Oh, that we would step away from the tables of spiritual commerce and hang on the words of Jesus! Remember the work of Martha and the devotion of Mary a few chapters ago, how Jesus knew that it was more important to be with Him than to do for Him? The same spirit applies here.

For us, how does this translate? It’s quite simple, really. We need to let Jesus drive out the money changers in our life. I don’t mean people, I mean the things that keep us from a real relationship with Him and his people. We need to eliminate the transactional nature of our relationship with God and move to the part where we are hanging on every word! There’s no formula, there’s no step-by-step process; but I do have a recommendation - take stock of your faith and relationship with God; identify the things/behaviors/sins that are keeping you from growing; confess it before God and dive into life in His Word and in His Church. The tears that you may experience in this process will ultimately lead to the triumph of joy in Christ.