Home Coming

Intro

Valentines Day

Larry and Cindy Sime.

HomeComing

Introduction

Home Coming

If you went to High School, you know about Home Coming.

Homecoming has a week of festivities culminating in a football game where you goal was to stomp the other team.

Eggings.

Eagle cars,

Black eyed girl

Homecoming is amazing! Here’s why

It took a bunch of different kids, who were interested in different things, had different skills and talents, kids who would be out fighting with objects that came out of a chickens rear end and then walk the same halls the next day, laughing and planning for the next night.

We would have Pep Rallies where the quarterback would throw a pass to some person and celebrate what we were going to do to the other team.

We had literally the coolest drumline in the state. They were the perfect mix of faith, the wild thing, and pot heads.

IT TOOK THOSE KIDS AND GAVE THEM A CENTRAL FOCUS. We may not like those jocks, we may not like those nerds or musicians but this is our home. We protect our home, we fight for our home, we belong to our home.

For one week everyone was an eagle, a cavalier, a knight, a wolf, a Saint, a Lion.

Home represents who we are but also whose we are.

As we move into Mark 11 we are seeing Jesus move towards his homecoming.

The week is going to be full of craziness and different events and as Easter Approaches on April 4th, we are going to be looking at Homecoming week for Jesus as he prepares for the big day when he would go to war with the enemies of his home.

Jesus will leave a city called Jericho and move towards the house of God in Jerusalem. And on his way out he will hear a blind man calling out and stop to heal him.

This creates an even larger crowd as they continue their journey to Jerusalem. They arrive to a throng of people waving palm branches and laying down cloaks as Jesus rides in on a donkey.

As Jesus comes to the place he called home. Jesus loved the House of God.

Home Provides Stability

Psalm 27:4 ESV

4 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Jesus loved His Fathers House. When he was 12 his parents were leaving Jerusalem after celebrating the Passover, and Jesus stayed behind in the temple because he loved it. “Why were you looking for me? did you not know that I must be in my Fathers house.”

The Home is where you learn , its where you gain the practical knowledge that will carry you throughout the rest of your life.

It’s where you learn to whine and not to whine, cause dad smacked you upside the head.

It’s where you learn to wash a dish

It’s where you learn to clean yourself

It’s where you learn to fight and not to fight.

It’s where you learn to not wear muddy shoes throughout the house.

Home starts in a child from a young age and will carry them throughout the rest of their life.

Shout out to moms

This was Jesus’ home

Jesus loved the temple, he loved what it represented, he loved sitting inside the 30 ft walls, he loved teaching whoever would listen at the gates. He loved the unrolling of the scrolls and when the rabbi would read and teach.

From a young age.

Luke 2:49 ESV

49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Jesus loved the temple because from it flowed teaching that would carry him through the rest of his life.

Every chance the gospel writers get, especially the gospel of John, Jesus detours to the temple.

Home Gives Security

Psalm 27:9–11 ESV

9 Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation! 10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. 11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

Check out what the Psalmist says

“For my Father and Mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.”

The house of God is a place where God takes people who have no direction and gives them direction.

Parents give identity

You give your kids their identity.

You train them up in the way they should go, but you also provide the stability that their identity gets built on.

You habits become their habits, your traits become there’s.

Your name is there name, your space is their space.

Your story is continued in their story.

THEY ARE BECAUSE OF YOU!

YOU ARE BECAUSE OF THEM!

Some of you are saying, “That’s why I’m so messed up!”

Nighttime prayers

I pray with my girls and I pray the normal parent things but I’ve recently started praying and thanking God for making them a Westby.

“Thank you God forgiving me this little girl, thank you that she is mine. Thank you that no matter what happens in her life, she always has a place to call home.”

Here’s why that simple prayer matters.

When you know whose you are, it will better help you understand who you are.

God’s House is for the Outsider

The temple had a large court specifically for the Gentiles. Judaism was a very exclusive religion.

It was based on birth and what tribe you belonged too.

It wasn’t just a religious system you signed up for. You would literally have to sacrifice part of your body, if you were a man to get in.

He has identity because he dwells in the house of the Lord.

God has a home for the homeless.

God takes the outsider and makes them an insider.

Mark 11:15–19 ESV

15 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. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city.

The Temple was busy.

There were people everywhere. hundred’s of thousands of people were beginning to gather the week of the passover.

The Temple was booming. The high priest Caiaphas instated a new rule in the year 30 AD. there were four markets that would sell sacrificial animals to the pilgrims coming in. Caiaphas may a decision to allow the sale of animals to enter into the Temple.

The Temple was corrupt.

“Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

House of prayer for all nations

The tables would most likely of been set up in what was later called, the court of the Gentiles.

This is where the different people prayed. This would’ve been the only spot the non-Jews would’ve prayed. Yet it would’ve been full of stuff. It was almost like it was too busy for them.

Jesus was the defender of the outsider.

We Protect and Fight for the home

Jesus didn’t quietly scold those who were trading and selling.

Jesus wasn’t like a stern mother yelling at her kids.

“Jimmy, pick up your stinking clothes”

No, Jesus fought. Jesus was violent. This is the only story in the gospels where Jesus is Physically violent with people!

Den of Robbers

Jesus goes after the people selling the pigeons and pushes them out. Pigeons were the sacrifice of the poor.

These people were profiteering off the backs of the poor. They were taking advantage of the ones who needed the most help.

Jesus sees the injustice and does something about it.

Jesus was the defender of the outsider.

Jesus fought for them. He fought on their behalf. He didn’t just scold, he waged war with his body against a broken people who were taking advantage of the outsider and the poor.

Instead of loving them and helping them and providing security and stability, the House of God was being used to manipulated, rob, and consume.

As we see Jesus continue in his Homecoming, the violence will only increase.

The parades will turn to mobs, the celebration will turn to mourning, and justice will turn to injustice.

This episode gets eclipsed by the barbarism we will see in the next few weeks leading up to Easter.

But here is what I want you to know today.

When Jesus flipped the first table. He wasn’t just making a statement, HE WAS DECLARING WAR.

His homecoming would start with a parade, end in a mob and on the night of the big game, when the battle would take place between good and evil.

The powers of Satan and the Perfect Son of God would go head to head.

And on one side, there’s an entire army and the other one man. No one around him. No one linking arms to walk to midfield. No one in the cheering section. One man alone.

He would be taken by enemy and have all his clothes and possessions robbed from him.

He would be hung on a cross outside the city

And his life would be stolen and would die as a theif.

But Watch what Jesus did

Jesus gave up stability to the hands of an unstable mob

Jesus gave up security to people who wanted him dead.

Jesus died the death of a thief so the thief could become a son.

Jesus became an outsider so you could be an insider.

Jesus wanted you, Jesus wanted you and gave his life for you. Jesus wants to provide you with stability and security.

Here is the kicker.

Mark 15:37–38 ESV

37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

The Reality of the cross

Jesus is the way but there’s more.

Do you know why a curtain tearing in a building matters so much?

Because it represents God’s home moving from a building made with hands, into a people made with purpose.

You were made to be God’s home.

You are meant to be someone who experiences stability and security.

You have an identity where you belong to him.

YOU ARE BECAUSE OF HIM.

Pray

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