Our Heavenly King

This week we see Jesus approaching the city and he has made it to the mount of Olives. We see now people singing praises to God, excited about the entrance of the king. What is their motivation? What is behind their praise?

Read Luke 19:28-40

The people are rejoicing over Jesus coming to Jerusalem. We are going to start off by looking at how they worship Jesus, the meaning behind it, and what that means for us.

Fulfillment of Prophecy

The first is this being a fulfillment of prophecy.

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus coming on a donkey that has never been ridden.

Why a donkey?

These were usually the mounts of prophets. The bringers of the word of God.

The King is not coming on a war horse or in a chariot to conquer the city. But humbly, to win victory in another way.

Worship The Messiah

v.37-38

The multitude came becasue of the works that they had seen.

This is to say that the works were proof that God was with Him.

The works attested to the message that Jesus had given, that He was from God.

They were saying blessed is the King, recognizing Him as the one who would rule. In Matthew 21:9 it states:

Matthew 21:9 ESV

9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

The statement of the people is recognizing Jesus as the Son of David which we looked at a couple weeks ago being a name given to the Messiah.

They were recognizing that He was sent from God, the messiah, and King.

This brings us to the third point. This was largely a political celebration.

Political

Lets set the stage. Jerusalem in the 1st century was a city of around 50,000. However it is six days before Passover. The largest celebration of the Jews. The population of Jerusalem would swell somewhere between 100,000 and 120,000. With more people comes more chances of friction or an uprising.

Let’s also remember that Passover is like the Hebrew independence day. They remembered when God delivered them from Egypt. Jerusalem is under Roman occupation at the time. The Hebrew people were also very volatile and prone to rise up against those occupying their land.

You can almost sense the tension that would be occuring between the Jews and the Romans. The Romans probably would be bringing in extra garrisons with the population growth and would be on guard waiting for the Jews to attack.

With that in mind.

(Luke is writing to Greeks, so he omits some details that other writers include becasue they are details that wouldn’t mean anything to the Greeks.)

Here comes Jesus.

The readers would have been familiar with Triumphal entries at the time. This procession that was taking place was something that was common for a conquering hero or a king who was returning from battle.

That was how they were approaching Jesus, as a victorious King.

In v.36 we are told that they spread their cloaks on the road. This was to show respect and to make a triumphal carpet for the King to ride on.

That’s not all that they were throwing.

John 12:13 ESV

13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

Two things of significance are happening here.

The first:

Palm Branches

After the Maccabean revolt, when the Jews drove out Antiochus IV Epiphanes and defeated the Seleucid empire, palms were waved in celebration.

During the major wars with Rome, palms were stamped on the coins minted by the rebels.

Palms had become the symbol of Jewish nationalism.

Waving palms symbolized all the hopes for the nation of Israel, the hope of overthrowing Rome, that hope is being focused now on Jesus as He rides to the overflowing city on Hebrew independence day.

Hosanna

These words aren’t recorded in Luke because it would mean nothing to the Greek readers. So we look to John

John 12:13 ESV

13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

The original Greek means, “save us now.”

The Hebrew word that it comes from means: deliver or defend us with the underlining idea that it is deliverance from tribulation, from certain death, rescuing from one’s enemies, or victory in time of war.

The cry that we hear the Jewish people making is very much for deliverance to come from God and the expectation that Jesus will remove their enemies (the Romans) from their land.

The Jews were looking for a political overthrow, but that wasn’t God’s plan.

Today, some Christians are looking for the same thing.

Christian Nationalism

There is a rise in what some are calling Christian Nationalism.

Some people believe that being a Christian is synonomous with being an American or vise versa.

Where being a Christian means getting the right person into office who can change this country around.

During the time of the election there were many “prophets” that were claiming trump was going to win, and that Trump was going to go into hiding and have a bunch of people arrested.

These were false prophets. We know because what they prophesied didn’t happen. According to biblical law they should have been executed for this crime.

It is okay, and good to be politically active, God has blessed us with living in a nation where we can do that.

However it can be hard to discern between political activity and political idolatry.

Donald Trump, or any other president is not the savior, Jesus is.

Jesus doesn’t save through reforming the country, but through His work on the cross.

Christians should stand for and vote values that God upholds. Many times that is conservative values. Because of that the outside world sees conservatives and Christianity as synonymous. So at the Conservative Political Action Conference when they bring in a golden statue in the image of Donald Trump. I wonder do we as Christians want to be tied to the idea of a little idol?

The mission of the church is not to “make america great,” but to make Christ known!

Jesus didn’t come to change the political structure. He came to make the dead LIVE!

When all of our efforts are political, we are falling into the same problem that the Jews were where we are looking for a change in our country instead of focusing on our true citizenship.

Philippians 3:20–21 ESV

20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

The kingship of Jesus is so much greater than the here and now, we await and look foreward to our citizenship in heaven.

The Goal of Jesus

God does care about what happens in our world.

We see in all the prophetic books that God is behind the rise and fall of all nations.

Sometimes God uses a nation for His glory, sometimes God uses the fall of a nation to prepare us for heaven.

The focus of Jesus wasn’t to change the powers that be to make this a better world to live in, but to prepare us for heaven.

Through the cross He:

Removed our sin

Gave us new life

Gave us His righteousness

Established peace between us and God

Thus making a way for to get to heaven.

That is what Jesus came for.

Now He is continuing to use the struggles in our lives, yes even the political turmoil that we go through to prepare us for heaven.

Keep your hope in Him, not in politicians.

Keep your focus on heaven, not in the state of our country.

Benediction:

To the God who saved us from our sins by giving His life. Hope in Him alone