Sermon Tone Analysis

Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians all believe that Jesus was special.

They disagree on just about everything else, but they acknowledge that Jesus is unique and should be honored.

Many atheists, agnostics, and buddhists acknowledge the influence of Jesus on the world.

Some of them even appreciate his ethics, his wisdom.

Others will claim to follow Jesus while rejecting Christianity.

Jews have a bit of a more complicated relationship with Jesus.

Some years ago, one writer made the claim that in the midst of so much diversity among Jewish people, the one thing they all had in common is that they reject the notion that Jesus is the Messiah.

They may disagree on everything else, but on this they are united: Jesus is not the promised deliverer, he is not the anointed king, he is not fulfillment of the Old Testament promises to Israel.

The reason why their relationship to Jesus is complicated, however, is that while this man may be right about modern Jews, he’s certainly not right about the Jews of Jesus day - the ones who actually saw him do miracles and heard him teach.

Many of those Jews did think that he was the Messiah.

In fact, after the resurrection, the first Christians were all Jews.

Thousands of Jews became convinced that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.

The historical record of the early church, starting with the book of Acts, shows that it was the Jews who were make the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, and masses of Jewish people embraced that belief.

So it may be true that modern Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah, but that is not true throughout history.

Thousands of the Jews who were chronologically closest to Jesus believed he was the Messiah.

Our text this morning is one of the reasons why they did.

It describes Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, which has been called throughout history, “The Triumphal Entry.”

The point of this text is to show us, again, who Jesus really is.

In a sense, that’s what this entire book has been about.

But it’s as if every paragraph, every story, every healing, every miracle, is like turning the diamond to another angle, and examining it’s beauty from a different side.

We’ve seen Jesus power.

Last week we saw Jesus’ mercy.

This morning we will see more of who Jesus is.

Mark 11:1-11.

Now when we read the gospels, we have to remember the principle of selectivity.

Here’s what I mean: John 20:25 says that if everything that Jesus did was written down, the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

In other words, each gospel writer had to be selective about what they included in their eye-witness accounts.

This is why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just Xerox machine copies of one another.

Now they tend to highlight the same things - the events and teachings that stood out as particularly important.

Our text is one of those.

All four gospels include this in their account of Jesus' life.

This is a highly significant event.

We read through it so quickly, but it carries some freight.

What’s happening here - even in the details - is far more weighty than we often realize.

By looking closely at the details, we get to examine Jesus from some new angles: and we’re going to consider 4 features of the identity of Jesus.

Now they’ve been on their journey to Jerusalem, and now they’re drawing near.

Bethphage and Bethany were little towns east of Jerusalem, right there on the Mount of Olives.

Don’t think of the Mount of Olives like a mountain, it would not even have been as big as the ones we can see from here, it’s more of a hill.

But to get from Bethany to Jerusalem, you would crest the Mount of Olives, you would see the glorious city of Jerusalem, and then you would cross through the Kidron Valley and enter the east gate.

I’ve mentioned the last couple weeks that Jesus would be traveling to Jerusalem with a crowd of pilgrim Jews, returning to Jerusalem to participate in the Passover.

And it was common for travelers to participate in the ceremonies and festivals during the day, while retreating to a nearby town for the night.

Jesus and his disciples would do just that in Bethany.

For some more context, Bethany is where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived.

Lazarus is the one Jesus raised from the dead.

In fact, the town Bethany is still occupied, although it’s called El-Azariya, which literally means “the place of Lazarus.”

Apparently the resurrection of Lazarus was so remarkable that people stopped referring to the town as Bethany but as the place of Lazarus.

Mark doesn’t record that event, but John does, and chronologically, it has already happened.

Jesus raised John from the dead in Bethany, and the place would have been buzzing with excitement.

In fact, John records that because of Lazarus, many of the Jews were beginning to believe in Jesus, and that the Pharisees and Scribes became even more resolute in their plans to put him to death.

What’s kind of funny to me is that they also began making plans to put Lazarus to death, again.

We have to remember that during this time, the Jews had what some have called “Messianic Fever.”

Israel is occupied by Rome, and there’s a growing longing for the Messiah to liberate them from oppressors, just like they were saved from Egypt.

And we have to remember that three years prior, John the Baptist swept the land like a tidal wave, all the country was coming to hear him preach, and he was a two trick pony in his preaching: 1) the kingdom of God is at hand, and 2) there is one greater than me that is about the come.

The land is feverishly excited about the coming Messiah.

And then Jesus came and he exceeded everyone’s expectations.

And now, there’s word that he’s raising dead people back to life.

Good luck, Rome, stopping a king whose army cannot die.

So as they head in, Jesus sends two disciples to go into the village to find a colt.

It’s going to be tied up, and it’s going to be unbroken - it’s never been ridden.

They are instructed what to do if someone questions what they’re doing.

Remember the principle of selectivity: why did Mark choose to include all these verses about this minute details? 7 verses devoted to their plans to get a colt.

What is Mark getting at?

This is actually highly significant.

To understand what’s going on we have to rewind to 1 Kings 1.

You may want to turn there.

The scene starts in verse 1 with David being old and about to die.

At this point, everyone knows the king will soon be gone, and there’s concern who will rule in his place.

In verse 5, “Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king.’”

Adonijah was the fourth son of David, through the woman Haggith.

The only problem was that he wasn’t the true heir to the throne.

David had already appointed Solomon to be the next king.

But Adonijah’s power play endangered Solomon’s reign.

So in verse 15, Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, now much older, goes to David and basically says, “Hey, even though you appointed Solomon as king, Adonijah is trying to take the throne.

Verse 20: “And now, my Lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.”

Who’s the true king?

Bathsheba is telling David on his deathbed that he needs to make it public, make it clear, that Solomon is the heir to the throne.

What does he do?

Verse 32: “King David said, ‘Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoida.’

So they came before the king.

And the king said to them, ‘Take with you the servants of your lord and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon” (Gihon was a spring in the east of Jerusalem, close to the Mount of Olives).

You see, the question was this: who is the heir to the throne?

Who’s the true king?

And Solomon was announced as the true king - why?

By getting a donkey, riding it through the Kidron Valley into the east gate of Jerusalem.

Additionally, hundreds of years later, Zechariah the prophet, prophesied to Israel, he made a very specific prophecy about the coming Messiah.

Zechariah 9:9 “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.”

Now you see why there’s so much focus on the colt.

Many of us have always thought that the reason Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey is because he was so humble.

What’s interesting is that all pilgrims coming to Jerusalem, even if they had ridden horses or mules or donkeys the whole way, it was custom to get off your animal and walk the final segment of the journey from Bethany, up to the Mount of Olives, and into Jerusalem.

Jesus intentionally went against the custom.

Why?

It was not a simple act of humility.

It was so that he would be the precise fulfillment of the ancient prophecies about the coming Messiah.

Just as David identified the true king was identified by his entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey, so now the greater Son of David enters Jerusalem on a donkey, in fulfillment of the prophetic promises.

Jesus is the promised Messiah.

The first feature of Jesus' identity: Jesus is the Long Awaited Jewish Messiah.

Many Christians have an impoverished view of God, of the gospel, and even of Jesus because they neglect the Old Testament.

But the entire Old Testament is the story of a coming one.

The whole Old Testament is filled with this Messianic hope.