The Triumphal Disappointment?

Disappointment & Resentment

I have a confession this morning. On a day that we would usually think is a celebration we are going to start with the heavy. Now i know ugh who wants to start with a downer. That isn’t what life should be about it should be about joy and the wonderful things of life. One of the challenges that i think we face more than ever these days are the ideas of Disappointment and Resentment. If we are really honest with ourselves we face challenges with these two things every day.

To help us better understand them lets look at the definitions.

Disappointment--the feeling of sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one's hopes or expectations.

Resentment--bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly

It seems like more than every we are living in a state where everyone is feeling some level of these two feelings each and every day. You turn on the news it is about some new disappointment in our lives. Or some new reason that we resent someone for something they have done to us.

Now i should be clear this isn’t to say that we don’t have real issues or real challenges in our world these days it is just the reality that we have seen in recent times that we have this strong sense of disappointment and resentment.

This has grown with the church as well. More and more the pain the church has caused has sparked these moments of pain and anguish. No matter if it is centered around the teachings of the church, the worship music of the church, the message of the church, the failures of the church we have this growing sense of disappointment and resentment.

Wow this feels like a really depressing morning. This feels like a depressing sermon. Why are we talking about this on the day of the triumphal entry. Well let’s look at that moment in time and see How God can speak to us this morning

John 12:12–19 NIV

12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 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!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: 15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” 16 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. 17 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. 18 Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

The Plan was in Motion

The first thing that we need to know about this passage is that the plant to kill Jesus was already in motion. The plans of men had been brewing and we know this because one chapter before this in the book of john we see a section titled, “The Plot to Kill Jesus”

John 11:47–53 NIV

47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” 49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

These men were planning to take him out. They resented Jesus for who he was and what he was doing in the world. This resentment was plaguing their hearts. They had “Bitter indignation in their hearts. It grew so bad that even Jesus was no longer able to move about among the Jews. He had to withdraw to a region near the desert. He was in hiding. A short time passed and Passover was coming and then we have the beautiful story of Jesus being anointed and then his Triumphal entry. This sets the stage for this grand entrance of a man who was being heralded by the people as the coming of a new and great king.

The Grand Entrance

Here comes Jesus this great king to come and save his people and to even save the people of the world. He was going to deliver them from so much. He entered into Jerusalem in similar fashion as Judas Maccabeus. People were grabbing palm branches and shouting praises. Hosanna! Hosanna! “Blessed is the King of Israel. Than Jesus does something strange. He starts to ride a donkey. Think about this for a moment. This is a small detail that we so often overlook or only see it in one fashion. Yes, Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy about himself. This is obviously a reverence back to Zechariah. He also choose a donkey because he was saying he isn’t the conquering king coming in on a grand horse. This are the always obvious things that we look at when we read this passage but a curious question popped of for me when i was reading this passage this week.

Why did Jesus need to ride the Donkey at all?

Again i know the prophecy but think about this for a minute. He was making a very clear statement when he decided to ride the donkey. We know that Jesus is accustomed to walking long distances he and his disciples have been doing it for years at this point. In the John Reading we see that the riding of the donkey was not immediate. It was in this moment that i thought if Jesus was hearing everyone's shouts of him as King. As him as this coming knight to save them he choose to get on this donkey and in a way he was putting the people in check on their expectations. It really brought that emphasis that Jesus didn’t come to be the savior that we expecting but came to be the savior that we needed. It made me ask another question?

Was Jesus a Disappointment?

Wow now i a venturing into heretical territory. Think about it though for a moment. Here are these great crowds of people praising Jesus. Looking at this man and seeing their salvation and then a few days later he is being strung up on a cross to die. What changed? What Happened in those few days that turned so many against him? Now we know that the Pharisees and the Sadducee were out to kill him. IT makes you think about what the crowd expected. What did they think was going to happen in those days and what did they think Jesus was going to do?

It certainly seems like it didn’t take long for Resentment and Disappointment to creep in their hearts.

Hindsight

The reality is that we have the gift of Hindsight and we can see the errors and the mistakes that were made in these days. They saw Jesus one way and then when it didn’t go the way the expected it turned quickly. Even the disciples had the benefit of hindsight because they didn’t fully understand what was happening in those days as John admits to us in

John 12:16 NIV

16 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.

I think about Hindsight, disappointment, and resentment and I have come to a truth that i think we need to hear this morning.

The triumphal entry is about the fact that God’s Plans are God’s plans not our plans.

God’s Plan

I shared earlier that the church is faced with many challenges of resentment and disappointment. One of the great problems that stems from this is the fact that disappointments and resentments extend from our expectations. We have expectations that the church should be this perfect place to connect to God. The reality is though is it is not that. It is far from it. It is woefully short of the expectations that we so often place on it. Now this is not the fault of the people who have expectations but instead i see it as a challenge to both sides. First the church needs to be better. We can be better. We can do more to reach out to the world around us. Yet, we also need to be honest and recognize that the only way we can do this is through submission to God. It is only through him that we can recognize where we fall short both as individuals and as a church. WE can be honest with others that we are trying to be better. We aren’t perfect just like everyone else in this world isn’t perfect. The challenge though is that we recognize that the path to a life of Holiness. A path of being a people set apart. A Path to being a people that is in pursuit of God is through pursuing God and that is done in unison with fellow believers in his church.

This only works though when we recognize that it is in our acceptance that we are also putting our expectations and views upon God. This is the danger that so many people slip into. We expect God to do or be certain things when he isn’t those things. We Look to God to supply us with everything we want not everything we need. When things don’t go our way we resent him or we are disappointed because it seems like God is working against us.

Why God did you let this happen?

Why God did you do this to me?

Why God do you allow these things to happen?

We Must struggle with these things and realize that we may not always realize that God has a bigger plan that we may not realize yet. I shared last week that the moment that Jesus was hung on the cross was the most evil moment in the history of humanity. It was in this darkest moment that as humans we took and we put to death the perfect lamb. The person who least deserved to be killed and we hung him on a cross.

Yet, God moved and worked and his plan was more than we could imagine. WE know this in hindsight because we know the end of the story. We know that God worked through this horrible act to actually defeat Sin and death and to give us access to him to help remove the pain of Sin. It is why we look at the moment of the Triumphal entry as truly a moment of celebration. Not because we thought Jesus was some great king coming to free us from the enslavement of a government but because we know that he came in that moment to fulfill something we did not expect. He came to free us from the bonds of Sin. He was the great King Just not in the way we expected. WE have to remember to put our faith in him and to trust that even in the darkest of hours his plans are greater than ours and he will find a way to make it into a triumphal entry moment.