A Joy-Filled Response

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

It’s possible that she is listening to me tonight, but several years ago my mother-in-law came out from North Dakota to visit us for Thanksgiving. When she arrived her in Michigan on that trip, she had an experience that is worth describing. In fact, I think it will help us center our thoughts for our passage this evening.

My mother-in-law didn’t know it during her flight, but there were apparently several current and former military personnel on her plane. She also didn’t that she was about to step into the middle of an yearly tradition at Bishop International Airport in Flint…in fact I only know about the tradition because I researched it after she told me what had happened.

As my mother-in-law stepped through the gate into the concourse she was met by a string of flags and military veterans lining it on each side. Before her and again after her travelers were greeted with loud cheers whenever they were identified as members of the military.

What she encountered was an annual holiday tradition. The Patriot Guard Riders each year line the terminal to give thanks to current and former military members as they come home for the Thanksgiving holiday in what they call “Operation Handshake.” They spend the entire day at the airport until the final flight of the day deplanes. Whenever a person steps through the gate carrying a military duffle, wearing a service cap or any other kind of identification indicating military service they receive a loud cheer of thanks by the Patriot Guard Riders for their service to our country.

Involvement:

I think that is a wonderful tradition. Our military personnel should receive praise for their service. Still, no matter how significant that service may be, it is only in pursuit of a temporal entity—the security of our country. How much more worthy is our Lord to receive praise for what He did in achieving an eternal victory?

Context:

As we acknowledged this morning, today is the annual day we call Palm Sunday—the day that commemorates the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem to loud cheers of greeting. This evening, I thought we would turn to John’s account of this event as it is recorded in chapter 12 of his gospel.

The setting of John 12 is the start of Jesus’ final week before His crucifixion. John doesn’t record the crucifixion until chapter 19 but from a time standpoint it comes 7 days from the event we will look at tonight.

Before we look this event, it may be helpful to review what is going on in Jesus’ life and ministry at this time. At this point the Jewish Sanhedrin—the religious leaders as well as the local government in Jerusalem—has decided to launch a plot to murder Jesus. In fact, they have even expanded their plot to include Lazarus who Jesus had raised from the dead recently. Lazarus has become a constant reminder that Jesus had the power to raise someone from the dead. They have issued an arrest warrant for Jesus and given orders to the people who are beginning to gather in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration that anyone who has knowledge of Jesus’ whereabouts are to inform them so that He can be arrested. Nice guys, these leaders…

Essentially direct violation to this arrest warrant, though, on the night immediately before the events we will be looking at—an event also recorded by John in the verses just prior to our verses—has a number of Jesus’ friends in Bethany hosted a dinner party in Jesus’ honor. If you recall, this was the dinner at which Mary, Lazarus’ as well as Martha’s sister, poured an expensive bottle of perfume on Jesus, drying His feet with her hair in a profound act of worship.

Preview:

It is important that we have all these details in mind as we pick up our passage tonight…the very next morning after the banquet. Jesus was the focus of the banquet and now in the morning, the morning that we have come to refer to as Palm Sunday, that attention explodes into public celebration by the thousands gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover feast.

This is a very familiar passage containing a story that we think about nearly every year. Tonight, though, I hope that we will be able to consider it in its context of Jesus’ final week. I believe that as we do so we should be asking ourselves how should we personally respond to Jesus? What parallels might there be between the events of that Sunday morning nearly 2,000 years ago and our lives today? If we ask questions like these, we will see that for each of us the proper response is that We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory. We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory. In fact, we can see that our great joy should result in two specific joy-filled actions.

Transition from introduction to body:

Let’s take a moment and read our verses…<read 12:12–19>. We should respond with great joy to the glory of the Lord’s glory. Our great joy should generate two joyful actions. First of all…

BODY:

I. We should respond with joyful praise.

The scene in our verses is incredible. Having spent the Sabbath and then the night following the Sabbath in Bethany, Jesus and His disciples now make their way the final two miles to Jerusalem. But they are not alone…apparently many of the people who had come out from Jerusalem the night before to see Jesus and Lazarus are with them forming a large crowd. Plus apparently some of the people have run on ahead, either returning to Jerusalem the night before or earlier in the morning at a faster pace…at any rate word made it back to Jerusalem that Jesus was on His way—word which traveled through the city like a flash fire. Remember, there would be thousands of people gathered in the city for the Passover festival. Now, when they hear that Jesus is coming the excitement becomes contagious…they all want to see Him…so these thousands of people stream out of the city to find spots alongside the road that they knew He would travel to get to Jerusalem…everyone wanted a chance to see Jesus.

Illustration

I think I got a little bit of a feel for the commotion that would have been associated with this event when I attended the Thanksgiving parade down in Detroit. Grace and I took our kids, along with my mother-in-law the same year that she saw the Patriot Guard Riders, to see the Thanksgiving parade in person. But we were far from alone; we were joined by thousands of other people who also wanted to see the parade. The entire parade route was lined by a massive crowd of people all looking for strategic spots from which they could have a good view when the parade passed by. I remember that there as a palatable excitement that came along with being part of that crowd. Everyone was anticipating the same event. The younger kids especially got really excited when the first big parade balloon was spotted coming down the street. There were squeals of joy and excited fingers pointing as it was first seen bobbing over the heads of other people.

I imagine that the excitement in this crowd in Jerusalem was somewhat like that, although I suspect it was even greater. We have to remember Jesus was the celebrity of the moment…He was the biggest name in Israel. He was the One everyone was talking about. They had been wondering whether He would show up or not…and now the word was out that He was on His way. The people were ecstatic as they rushed out of the eastern gate of the city to find a place to see Jesus along the way.

Now, hopefully you have some picture in your head of this large, excited crowd pouring through the gate, streaming down the road and finding spots along the side. At the same time, remember there is a similar crowd following Jesus, surrounding Him as He travels. I have got to believe this crowd was at least as excited as the crowd which came out to meet Jesus from Jerusalem…after all they were already seeing Him. They were right there as He was making His grand arrival. Imagine the commotion when the two groups met each other with Jesus and His disciples in the middle.

Illustration

I imagine that a roar of joy arose. The picture that comes to my mind is what I experienced one time when I was in Rio de Janeiro during a World Cup tournament. I know that I have mentioned this before, but it is an event that stands out uniquely in my mind. I had no interest in the World Cup, but Brazil was playing one of the teams playing at you can believe that the Brazilians had an interest in it. I took a walk through a region of the city because the streets were practically empty…it was a good chance to look around. Apparently Brazil scored a goal because suddenly this incredible roar arose. It seemed like cheer simultaneously came from every open window in the city…the city practically shook with the roar.

That is the kind of picture that I want us to have in our mind’s eye of the scene on this road. Now, pause for a moment and consider why these people are so excited to see Jesus. Why is He the celebrity of the day, the Man of the hour?

Of course, we know the interest in Jesus has been building for the past three years. He has done a number of miracles which people have heard about. He has had several confrontations with the religious leaders which have been very public. All this has combined to make Him a well-known name. But there is more to the excitement than just His famous name at this particular point in time. John has been careful to tie this moment to one significant final event—the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is this event, what John calls a “sign” in verse 18 of our chapter, that has generated the off-the chart excitement. You see, we have to remember that the Jews were under Roman rule which they absolutely despised. They hated being under the thumb of a foreign government and they were yearning for the day when the promised Messiah of the OT would come and free them. God had promised them a Deliverer who would throw off all oppression and establish them as the greatest nation on earth.

Of course, that was not what Jesus came to do at this point in time. He came to free them from a much more serious oppression than Roman occupation...He came to provide freedom from the oppression of sin. <insert Gospel as required>.

So while we can rightly conclude that people were looking for the wrong thing, we cannot fault them for the excitement they showed over Jesus. You see, they had seen and heard about the glory of the Jesus displayed in the incredible miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. They were awed that Jesus simply called Lazarus out of the tomb and that was all that was required to raise him from the dead. This display of power and glory they rightly attributed as a clear demonstration that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah.

Jesus must be the Messiah so they responded with joyful praise to His glory. We know this day best for their actions of cutting palm branches off the trees and throwing them before Him as He made His way into the city…that is why we call it Palm Sunday. To help us understand that action fully we just need to understand that Israel had a tradition that went back a couple hundred years at this point of using palm branches as an emblem of national pride. When one of their leaders successfully led the effort to overthrow Greek occupation and their desecration of the temple, palm branches were waved in celebration of his victory. Since then they had continued to convey that type of national pride with palm branches…much as we might understand a ticker-tape parade in NY.

Application

Now I want us to stop and think about this for a moment as to what we should learn from the actions of these people. We know that they misunderstood Jesus and His purpose. We know that within the week they will turn on Him and Jesus will be put to death on the cross. Still, I believe we would be amiss if we waved off this incredible scene of thousands of people praising Jesus because of the glory they had seen and heard about. After all, we have a much more complete picture of Jesus’ glory than they had at this time, don’t we? We know that He is the Son of God. We know that He died for our sins. We know that He rose from the dead and even now is seated at the right hand of God on high. We have access to a fuller picture of the glory of Jesus today…at this very moment…than any of these people had on that road side on that Sunday morning. So how does our joyful praise compare to theirs? Are we excited by the glory of the Lord this today? Do we seeing His glory in the Word of God? Have we considered His glory as we sang our songs of praise today? Folks, we…the ones who have had the glory of the Lord revealed to us so fully…we should respond with joyful praise to His glory. We should be nearly ecstatic that we can come and worship and praise Him today! We should be exuberant in our praise of our Savior!

Transition:

We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory. Our first joyful action should be that we should respond with joyful praise. Secondly,…

II. We should respond with joyful proclamation.

We see this second action exemplified by the people who had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. We don’t know how long it took Jesus to travel the 2 miles from Bethany to Jerusalem, but it most likely took some time. It is doubtful that He was traveling at a rapid speed.

Illustration

I have been to Tigers baseball games several times as well as other similar events with sizeable crowds. When the game is over, there is no fast way to leave the stadium. Even though I may have to go very far, there are a lot of people going the same way and things just don’t move very fast.

I am sure that things would have been similar on this Sunday morning as Jesus was making this trip to Jerusalem. There was a large crowd traveling with Him and His disciples at this point. They were all going to the same place, but I doubt that it would have been in a very organized fashion. After all, Jesus was the center of attention. People would have wanted to keep Him in sight. They would have wanted to be close enough to hear if He said anything significant. I suspect that the crowd must have surrounded Jesus and the entire group would have slowly moved as one large mass as Jesus slowly made His way forward.

Also, John only tells us in verse 14 that Jesus found a young donkey to ride on into the city; he doesn’t elaborate on how Jesus acquired this animal. The other Gospels tell us that Jesus sent a couple of His disciples into a nearby village to get the colt where He knew the animal would be tied. These disciples apparently went ahead and got the animal and returned to Jesus while He was still outside the city. Jesus rode the young donkey, of course, to ultimately fulfill the prophecy John refers to found in Zech 9:9. Granted, John admits that he and the other disciples didn’t understand the significance of this action until after Jesus rose from the dead, presumably after the Holy Spirit arrived to guide them into all truth. But still, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy, showing that He was the Messiah. Through this particular prophesy, He demonstrated that He was the Prince of Peace who was on a mission of peace rather than arriving as the conquering military leader that the people were looking for at the moment.

The main point that I want us to recognize at the moment, though, is that all of this would have taken some time. It essentially required that Jesus somehow traveled rather slowly so that the young donkey could be brought to Him before the two different crowds merged and He made His entry into the city. The journey necessarily took some time.

Now, what I want you to notice is what John says was happening during this time period of Jesus’ ministry. According to verse 17 John tells us that those who had witnessed Jesus in action—those who had been there when Lazarus walked out of the tomb—they continued to talk about it; they told others about Jesus and the amazing event. They were not quiet…they kept telling the story repeatedly. They joyfully proclaimed the glory of the Lord.

In fact, this group of people were so successful in proclaiming the wonders of Jesus to others that John tells us in verse 19 that the Pharisees grumbled to each other that “look, the world has gone after Him.” Despite their best efforts to the contrary, they had been completely unable to stop the promotion of Jesus. Their efforts to undercut His fame had failed miserably. In spite of their arrest warrant, in spite of their requirement that people inform on Jesus’ whereabouts so that He could be arrested…which frankly should have caused people to fear being seen with Jesus…in spite of everything they had done; the massive crowd from the city and the large crowd accompanying Him were publicly proclaiming His arrival. They were waving the palm branches. They were throwing them before the donkey on the road. They were chanting “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” About the only thing that was not happening, from the leaders’ perspective, is that the excitement and attraction of Jesus was not diminishing in any way.

So…what was driving this excitement? It was the joyful proclamation of those who had seen the glory of the Lord themselves. It was their public testimony to all the gathered pilgrims. None of this would have happened if the group who had seen Jesus in action as Lazarus was called from the tomb had kept silent about it. But silent was the one thing they were not. .

Application

So let me ask us this tonight…do you share a similar excitement about proclaiming the glory of the Lord? Think about it for a moment…if you are a believer…if you have accepted Jesus as your own personal Savior, you know a whole lot more about the glory of the Lord than the people in these verses. Sure, none of us have watch a person raised from physical death and brought back to physical life; we haven’t watched anyone walk out of a tomb. No, we have something better. Each one of us has personally experienced being raised from spiritual death ourselves. We have personally been given spiritual life. We didn’t simply observe it in someone else…although we ought to desire to have that privilege as well; we have experienced it. It is as if we were Lazarus rather than the people who were watching. We have experienced new life! We have experienced of the Lord in action! We are walking displays of His glory and power!

So…are you excited about what the Lord has done? Are you excited enough to be telling others about it? We should respond with great joy for what the Lord has done in our lives.

I know I have mentioned this several times before, but I am going to keep repeating it because I am convinced it is a real problem in my life and I expect the same is true for too many of you as well. One of the strengths and weaknesses of being human is that anything can become “normal” to us over time…even being stuck in our homes because of the current pandemic is something that we would eventually adjust to if it went on long enough. As humans we can adapt to almost any situation. That is a strength because it can help us cope with extremely difficult situations at times. But that is also a weakness in that even something as momentous as our new eternal life can seem to become commonplace to us over time. Over time, we can lose the excitement that we should have over our personal experience of the Lord. Even worse, we can so lose the gratitude that we ought to have for such a stupendous, undeserved, unearned, and unwanted gift to the point that we find ourselves asking God, “What have You done for me lately?” We begin to grumble as we go through the hardships of life that God is not doing enough for us…when the reality is that we have already seen Him in action through the miracle of new life! We have experienced the Lord’s glory raising us from spiritual death to eternal life. Nothing else matters after that!

Folks, today let me challenge you dwell on the Lord’s glory that you have experienced in your lives. If, when examining your life, you do not find that you have experienced what I am describing tonight, please look up my email on our website and send me a note. If, however, you have experienced the new life I am talking about, let me challenge you to find the great joy in your Savior that should be there because of your salvation. And then let me challenge you to take that joy and allow it to naturally propel you to joyfully proclaim Jesus Christ. People who had seen the Lord’s glory at Lazarus’ tomb testified to it to such an extent that thousands of people thronged that dusty road to proclaim Hosanna to the King. Shouldn’t those of us who have personally experienced His glory be able to do at least as much if not more? We should respond with joyful profession to the glory of the Lord.

Transition from body to conclusion:.

We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory.

CONCLUSION

Remember the Patriot Guard Riders that my mother-in-law encountered at the airport in Flint. They were giving well-deserved praise to our military personnel. Are we giving similar and even more well-deserved praise to our Lord today?

We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory. He displayed His glory by dying on the cross for our sins, raising again from the dead, and giving all of us who believe in Him new spiritual life. We have experienced so much more of His glory than the crowd greeting Jesus that Sunday morning as He entered Jerusalem riding on a young donkey.

From our passage tonight, we have observed that our great joy should generate two joy-filled actions. We should respond with joyful praise and we should respond with joyful proclamation. Is your life filled with both those actions? Are you joyfully praising Jesus today? Are you joyfully proclaiming Him throughout your week?

We should respond with great joy to the Lord’s glory.