Jesus' Unexpected Arrival

Easter 2021  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  42:19
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The unexpected events surrounding Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem cause us to wrestle with the question, "Am I willing to follow a God who works in unexpected ways?"

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How many of you like when unexpected things happen?
An unexpected call from an old friend, or an unexpected good grade on an assignment can be nice, but there are also lots of unexpected things that happen that we would rather not have.
We have unexpected news from the doctor, or an unexpected bill. Perhaps it is a problem in a relationship that you never saw coming.
Depending on the situation, unexpected events can throw us into a tailspin.
We have our days planned and our money budgeted; there isn’t room for something unexpected to happen.
Open your Bibles to Luke 19 this morning.
We are taking a break from studying the other book written by this same author, a believer by the name of Luke.
He wrote this book, the Gospel of Luke, as well as Acts, the book we have been looking at recently.
Today is Palm Sunday, the day remember when Jesus entered Jerusalem in a special way.
As we pick up the account in Luke 19:28-48, we find this truth woven throughout the entire account: God works in unexpected ways.
Don’t move on too quickly past this idea. Most of us acknowledge at some level that God is bigger than us and does things we don’t expect.
Just like we mentioned earlier, we are okay if the unexpected thing God does is something that works out in our favor.
However, let’s be honest enough with ourselves and with God as we answer this question: Am I willing to acknowledge that God is big enough to do things that I don’t like or understand? Have I put God in a box, where I think I have figured out his every move, so I can’t conceive of him working in a different way than I think?
Now, if you are here this morning and you aren’t sure what you believe about God, I am so glad you are here. I hope that as you listen to this message, you will hear about how much bigger and better God is than you could ever dream up on your own.
If you are here and you know him, I want you to look again at a familiar story and recapture some of the wonder you first had when you understood how God works.
To do that, let’s look at three different unexpected characteristics of Jesus’ arrival to Jerusalem.
Let them surprise you, and let them show you again just how good God is.
First, let’s look at the main part of the account that we often study on Palm Sunday, verses 28-40.
As Jesus came in to Jerusalem that day, we find that...

1) Jesus arrived in an unexpected way.

Read verses 28-40 with me. There is a lot going on in this, so let’s take some time to unpack it as we read through.
As an aside, Matthew is the gospel writer who mentions that in addition to spreading their clothes on the ground, others were cutting palm branches and spreading them out before Jesus. That’s where we get the name Palm Sunday.
Let’s think about what is going on here. After the very first sin, all the way back in Genesis 3, we have a promise that God is going to send a person to defeat Satan, who was the one who first tempted people to sin.
As the Old Testament went on, God fleshes out that promise as he describes a person called “the Messiah” in Hebrew and “the Christ” in Greek. Literally, that means “anointed one”.
The prophecies said this person would be a powerful leader who would rule the nations, and he was going to set up his kingdom in Jerusalem.
He was going to work miracles and demonstrate God’s power over the earth, ushering in a time unlike any the world has ever seen.
There were a few prophecies, like those found in the latter chapters of the book of Isaiah, that indicated that God’s Messiah would suffer in some way for the people, but most of that got explained away as the Jewish leaders looked for a Messiah who would rule and reign.
Fast forward a few hundred years, and you now have Jesus on the scene.
For many, he is checking all the boxes. He has worked miracles, including raising the dead in spectacular ways.
He has been teaching and preaching, and now, he is fulfilling even one more prophecy.
God had told them, through the prophet Zechariah, that the Messiah would come into Jerusalem riding on a young foal of a donkey:
Zechariah 9:9 CSB
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! Look, your King is coming to you; he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
When they realize that Jesus, the one they are thinking might be the Christ, is coming in and riding on a donkey, they rejoice and pay homage to the one who is going to be their king!
They weren’t wrong to do this, but they didn’t understand yet what Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to do.
We will talk more about that in a minute, but before we move on, let’s think about this whole scene for a minute.
Yes, this is what God prophesied would happen, so the Jews were expecting this kind of entry.
What about you, though? I mean, when you picture the King of Kings and Lord of Lords making his grand entrance, what would you expect?
How many of you have seen the live-action version of Disney’s Aladdin?
As Aladdin is making his way to the sultan’s palace, there is this tremendous fanfare with dancers and huge elephants and the like.
Think about what you know of Roman generals and emperors. Wouldn’t you expect him riding atop a noble white horse or riding in a gilded chariot pulled by the finest horses money could buy?
Yet, what does Jesus come riding in on? A young, unbroken donkey.
Zechariah had said that he would be humble, riding on the foal of a donkey.
What an understatement! Keep in mind who this is we are talking about.
You see, the Bible makes it clear that Jesus isn’t just the Messiah, the fulfillment of all those prophecies, although he certainly is that.
In fact, for him to do everything the Messiah could do, he would have to be more than a man.
The Bible teaches us that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Think about this for a moment: As he is riding into the city that has been looking for him for thousands of years, the city where his temple was built as the only place on earth for people to come and worship him, he comes in, riding on a young donkey.
Is that what you expect? That the one true God, the one who created the stars and the planets and holds all things together, the one who calms the storms and heals the lame and opens the eyes of the blind—that that God would humble himself to ride on a donkey.
Are you willing to serve a God who would go to such great lengths to humble himself?
If this is what our king did, then we have to expect that we will be called to do the same, to humble ourselves to honor him.
Although his entrance to Jerusalem had been foretold, it still catches us off guard because of the unexpected way in which he arrived.
If that wasn’t unexpected enough, his reaction is incredibly shocking.
The crowds that day were ready to welcome their king. They were singing his praises and laying their coats in the road to show how willing they were to serve him.
How would you expect Jesus to react to that? After all, he is the king, right?
This is the second unexpected part of Jesus’ arrival that day...

2) Jesus arrived with an unexpected emotion.

Pick back up in verse 41-44.
Wait, what? The crowds are celebrating, and what do we find Jesus doing? Weeping.
Bible commentator Warren Wiersbe gives several reasons why Jesus would weep that day.
Looking back, he saw that the nation as a whole had missed their opportunity to follow him while he was fulfilling his earthly ministry.
Looking within their hearts, he saw that this crowd was spiritually blind. They wanted to follow the Messiah they thought he would be, not the one he truly was.
Looking around, he saw religious activity that never got below the surface. As we will see, the temple had become something it should never have been, and the religious leaders wanted Jesus dead.
Looking ahead to the future, Jesus knew that ultimately, their rejection of him would lead to the horrific seige and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.[1]
Why? Because Jesus had come to save his people, the nation of Israel, and they refused to fully surrender to him.
People were attracted to the good stuff—the miracles, the healing, and even some of the teaching.
Yet, when the rubber met the road, they were unwilling to follow the hard things he said.
It was teaching like this that they stumbled on:
Luke 9:23–24 CSB
Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.
Jesus was weeping over Jerusalem because he knew that those crying out in the streets were trying to make Jesus do what they wanted, and they were missing what he was calling them to.
They wanted deliverance from Rome and to be a part of the kingdom that was ruling the world.
Jesus was offering them deliverance from their sins and failures and from a wasted life here and spending an eternity separated from God.
Not only was this impacting the individuals that day, but as he rode into Jerusalem, he was riding into a city that was going to be decimated in about 40 more years.
Here’s the challenge for you, this morning: as you look at who Jesus is, are you making the same mistake they made that day?
You want to follow Jesus for the perks, as if coming to church 10 times in a row gets you a get-out-of-hell free card, or at least a free good day on your birthday?
We might not put it that dismissively, but when we try to come to a God of our imagination, and we try to come on our own terms, we miss him, just like they did that day.
Instead, we must surrender, allowing God to draw us to himself his way in his timing for his purpose, acknowledging that he is in control.
Still on the fence about following Jesus, by the way?
Look again at what he is doing here: weeping over those who chose to reject him.
Does that surprise you? Do you think that God isn’t really interested in you, or that he is always angry and waiting for an excuse to punish you for something?
Look at the tear-stained face of Jesus, weeping over those who, in their pride, refused to surrender to the one who loves more deeply than we could ever imagine.
He is weeping over the very people who would, in a matter of days, have him handed over to be executed.
That leads into the final unexpected action Luke records in this section...

3) Jesus arrived with an unexpected response.

We see a couple of different responses we wouldn’t expect here.
When Jesus first arrives into Jerusalem, he encounters a group of religious leaders who are not pleased with the crowd haling Jesus as king.
Look back at verse 39-40.
It is sad to see that those who should have been the most aware of who Jesus was and that he was the Messiah are the most upset at his coming.
Their response, like most things we do, came from a mixture of motives. They were afraid that if they caused too big a scene, the Romans would react by killing people to put an end to any potential threat.
Jesus’ teaching had contradicted much of what they taught, so their were both offended and jealous of his following.
Again, in looking at a God working in unexpected ways, don’t forget that the religious leaders, by and large, missed what God was doing.
Let that be a challenge to those of us who regularly sit in church and sing the songs and give our offering.
Remember: you do not get to heaven, or get into a right relationship with God, by doing good things.
You and I cannot do enough!
The only way we can be right with God now and enjoy eternity with him is by acknowledging that we aren’t good enough and trusting completely in him to save us.
The religious leaders weren’t willing to do that. Instead, they stood by with their ideas and their good deeds and thought they were good enough, when they couldn’t have been farther off.
Jesus certainly doesn’t let up on them in this last week of his earthly ministry.
In fact, look at one of the unexpected things Jesus does next. Jump down to verse 45-48.
For some of you, this is the most unexpected thing that happens in this entire passage.
You love to look at Jesus, humble and riding on a donkey.
You love to see him weeping over Jerusalem, because that tenderness is what you long for.
Those things are absolutely true, but you also have to understand that he is also a God of justice who will not tolerate people exploiting others in the name of worship.
That’s what he is addressing here. People had set up booths in the temple courts where they would sell the animals people needed for sacrifices.
They had various ways they exploited people, sorta like when you go to an amusement park or a movie theater and end up spending $7 on a Coke because there are no other options.
In doing so, they both took advantage of others and made worship all about money instead of honoring God.
Jesus goes into the temple and clears out those who are doing this.
Are you willing to follow Jesus now? Are you willing to recognize that he is a God who has standards that come from his nature, and he will not compromise on them?
Yes, he is more tender-hearted and compassionate than you will ever know. In fact, that is the very reason why he does not tolerate sin and why he reacted that way in the temple.
His compassion won’t let us get away with things that ultimately separate us from him.
His compassion won’t let the guilty go unpunished, because wrongs must be made right.
When he cleaned out the temple, it was yet another confrontation with the religious leaders. They had let it become what it was, so this was on them.
Look at their response in verses 47-48.
They were looking for a way to kill him.
Now, this is where we end our account this morning, but in case you haven’t heard the rest of the story, it gets even more unexpected than what we have seen today.
By Thursday night, the religious leaders found a way to have Jesus put to death.
In an unexpected turn of events, Jesus is hung on a cross to die. We commemorate that death on Friday, and we will have a service at 6:30pm to take time to remember it together.
He wasn’t dying because an angry mob of Jews convinced a Roman official to have Jesus crucified, although those were the events that led up to it.
Instead, he was crucified to die the death that you and I deserve to die for our sins.
Early Sunday morning, everything changed in the most unexpected moment in history. We will celebrate that together at 11:00 next Sunday, as we see that Jesus was raised from the dead to prove that the sacrifice had been made, the debt was paid, and that he was victorious over death itself.
Now, anyone who will put their trust in him can be saved.
Are you willing to follow a God who did such unexpected things?
Are you willing to allow him to continue to work in ways that confuse you and challenge you and leave you scratching your head?
Endnotes:
[1] Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996. On Luke 19:41-44.
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