If you had only known

Earlier in the service, we read Luke’s account of Jesus coming to Jerusalem at the time of Passover. As we prepare to study that passage, let’s first read the account in the Gospel according to John.

John 12:12–19 NIV

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” 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. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

Hosanna! Peace!

Reading the accounts in both John and Luke help us to have a fuller picture of what was taking place that day as Jesus road into Jerusalem.

John let’s us know that the resurrection of Lazarus played an important part in this triumphant entry. Those who had been there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead were going and telling others about Jesus.

Of course, many had likely heard of Jesus and his miracles from the last few years. But the raising of Lazarus after he had been dead for at least 3 days really stirred up the people.

As they gathered in Jerusalem to remember Passover, God’s deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt, they were excited to think that God had raised up a prophet, a king who had the power to lead them out from under Rome’s rule and authority.

They could finally be at peace!

So, they came out to greet Jesus, waving the Palm branches, and laying their cloaks on the ground before him. They were shouting,

John 12:13 NIV

They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Luke 19:38 NIV

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Jesus the King of Peace

They were exalting Jesus, and calling him the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

They truly wanted Jesus to reign, to be the king who would bring them peace.

John records that the disciples did not get it all at the time, however, I do not think the whole riding on a donkey was not lost on all the crowd.

Jesus had sent two of his disciples to get the donkey for him to ride into Jerusalem. The way he told them where to find the donkey, and what to say, knowing someone would ask, showed once again that he is the Lord, the God who knows everything.

The riding of the donkey into Jerusalem was a fulfillment of what was written in Zechariah 9.

Let’s look at that passage.

Zechariah 9:9 NIV

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.

This passage foretold what took place with Jesus. He was the king that was coming to Jerusalem. The people got that right.

And if we read on in the passage we see this:

Zechariah 9:10 NIV

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah foretold how this king would bring Peace to Jerusalem! The people wanted peace desperately. They wanted this king of Peace.

They wanted Jesus, the king of Peace.

Unfortunately, they did not understand how he was going to bring peace.

That is why we read Jesus’ reaction to all of this in Luke:19:41.

Luke 19:41–44 NIV

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 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. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

If you only knew what would bring peace

Jesus was coming to bring peace, however the people did not understand what would bring them peace.

Revolution

Political King

Prophetic Provider

They did not know what would bring them peace, I think, because they forgot why they had no peace.

Why did they not have peace?

Let’s keep reading what happened in Luke.

Luke 19:45–46 NIV

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Jerusalem - city of peace?

Jerusalem literally means, “city of peace.” However, they did not have peace. They wanted peace, but the didn’t have it.

Why?

They did not have peace because of how they treated the Lord their God.

What Jesus found going on in the temple was nothing new.

He found them turning the worship of the Lord into a profit making scam.

They turned the court of the gentiles into a market place. It wasn’t about worship. It was about profit.

This was nothing new.

Jesus quoted Jeremiah when he called this a den of robbers. Let’s look back at what Jeremiah had prophesied for the Lord.

Jeremiah 7:1–11 NIV

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message: “ ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. “ ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.

Why didn’t they have peace?

They abandoned the Lord.

They kept other from coming to the Lord.

Jesus also quoted from Isaiah 56, when he called the temple a house of prayer.

Isaiah 56:7 NIV

these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

Solomon when dedicating the temple had said,

1 Kings 8:42–43 NIV

for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

Jesus brings Peace

Jesus cleared the temple.

Jesus then began teaching

Luke 19:47–48 NIV

Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

Jesus began healing

Matthew 21:14 NIV

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.

Jesus was sought by the gentiles.

John 12:20–21 NIV

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”

How will he bring peace?

John 12:23–24 NIV

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

John 12:27–28 NIV

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

John 12:30–32 NIV

Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Jesus, our Peace

Ephesians 2:11–18 NIV

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Do we have peace? Are we a house of prayer for the nations?

John 4:23–24 NIV

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”