Palm Sunday

There is hardly a clearer place in the Scriptures where we get an understanding of who Jesus truly is.

We see Jesus getting on a donkey and riding into Jerusalem.

People begin to celebrate. while short lived they understand a bit about what is happening.

Christ Communicates what is happening. He gives us a picture of what victory looks like in the way that He brings it.

His arrival communicates the reality of what is happening.

Arrivals mean something. How you enter a room matters. And we all think about it more than we talk about.

At weddings, half the ceremony is just people entering a room

at the reception everyone waits while the bride and groom enter the room

Being fashionably late is really just about how you enter the room

There are multitudes of articles about how movies introduce different main characters. Which ones were the best and so on?

Entering into a space is on our minds because it communicates how we want to be perceived.

We are looking for the peace and victory in our own lives that Christ offers

Christ is the victorious King

Luke 19:30–35 ESV

saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.

What is happening here isn’t strange. Strange to our understanding, yes. But this would have been a known situation. The way in which Christ enters Jerusalem would have a familiarity to it.

This is how a victorious king enters a city. After a king had gone to war with his army, to celebrate their victory, they would enter through the cities main gates, on a horse, in front of a crowd celebrating and shouting and laying down their cloaks and palm branches.

This image is of a king celebrating victory won.

The response comes from the crowd,

Luke 19:38 ESV

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

Christ is communicating victory and the people are declaring victory.

This picture is an image of a spiritual reality

We need images to help us to see what is really happening

Because as the story progresses the world gets darker and darker. We see Jesus go to the cross and die.

But before we do we get this image. This picture of reality that helps us to seal in our minds and hearts what is really going on.

This image comes from the Roman idea of the Vir Triumphalis or the man of triumph.

For eons when the Roman empire, that had oppressed the Jewish people during Jesus time, established a practice called the Roman Triumph. This was a celebration of the victory of a king or the representation of the victory of a king.

These were people, generals or representations of deities. Who would parade through the streets to celebrate the victory of a hard fought battle.

And to represent that victory, there would a man of triumph who would hold the center of everyone’s attention

- As Mary Beard writes in The Roman Triumph, “the triumph, in other words, re-presented and re-enacted victory. It brought the margins of the empire to its center

All eyes and all attention was drawn to the man of triumph.

He would parade through the city to show the reality of the victory.

So when we see Christ enter Jerusalem He does so as the man of triumph. Often that person would represent a deity, the most powerful, Jupiter. And then sacrifices would follow after to take to the city to sacrifice to the god in thanks. .

Christ enters Jerusalem as the hero, as the victor, as the king.

We will look at the kind of King Christ was. But we need to see at this point He is the victorious King. He is the king who won before he won. He is the king who won before it looked like He lost.

This proclamation is not about boasting it is about fulfillment.

When the crowd proclaims how Jesus is entering the city (victorious) and what HE is bringing (peace in heaven) they are not doing so through what they are looking forward to. They are coming at it from a place of fulfillment.

They are communicating

Psalm 118:26 ESV

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.

They see this as God entering into the world and bringing victory through peace and glory.

But they are linking it to who God has been, the difference being that His victory is while pre-determined, is no longer indefinite. He is there, present and on the move. And He is bringing peace

Christ is the King of Peace

When a King proclaimed victory, he proclaimed it through strength.

The man of triumph would either be on a horse or in a chariot to demonstrate strength and power. Higher than than crowd, looking down, necks in the crowd craning to see.

So while Jesus comes into Jersualem proclaiming victory, He does so at eye level. He does so not as one who accumulates power and glory but rather one who will give it all away at the cross.

While horses were used for war, donkeys were used for peace. They were used to enact treaties between parties.

So we have a King who is victorious proclaiming peace,

It is not only a matter of symbolism but a matter of prophecy

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

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.

The donkey here is set against a backdrop of humility and salvation.

Christ comes as a king bringing peace.

He does so to communicate a binding of a new covenant, a new treaty, instead of the tearing apart of war.

The war that will happen is with sin and death, not with our lives.

This is the picture of Christ we have to see if we are going to understand the cross.

Christ came to go to war with sin and death but did so at eye level with us. Christ came to enact a treaty with us, to restore what the battle of sin had broken down

We are given many offers in our lives

We are invited to receive from many things and people and events offering us things to create peace.

There are people and things entering into the city gates of our lives hawking goods to concoct peace

But there is no one offering peace themselves

It’s the difference between dropping off a freshly baked pie at your house and bringing you a bag full of groceries that can make pie but you have never made a pie in your life.

We are given all sorts of options for peace

But only Christ offers peace itself.

And Christ offers peace though Himself.

As He passes through Jerusalem and moves toward the cross, He gives of Himself entirely as the peace treaty, as the sacrifice to make broken things whole.

He isn’t just saying learn from me how to make peace. He is saying I am peace, follow me.

Christ is the King you were not expecting but the one you need.

For all the celebration, it is amazing how quickly Christ’s followers turn away.

They had hoped for a king who would turn over Roman rule

But Christ intended to overturn the human heart

This wasn’t a bait and switch. Jesus did come into Jerusalem as a victorious King but one offering peace.

And while it turned out that the crowd who celebrated Him into Jerusalem would also call for His death, He was honest with what He would be doing.

The crowd just didn’t see it.

We expect a king on a horse conquering the Roman empire but Christ is a reigning King on a donkey bringing peace.

The disciples say all the right things and we hear all the right words, but they miss the intentions of Christ to bring a treaty not a war.

He is victorious in battling sin and death and only in doing so brings peace.

We battle all the time but often battle things in order to find peace that doesn’t last.

We have a Oculus VR gaming device. And one of the games we own is a boxing game. You put on the device and hold the two controllers in your hands and through the lenses you see another person and your job is to punch them repeatedly. Well it is actually an incredible workout and pretty fun but you have to remember that you are punching things in your mind while really punching the air in real life.

That is kind of what happens when we battle the wrong things for peace. We have this image in our minds about what we are fighting and fighting for and we punch the air in order to battle whatever it is we think will grant us peace but in the end we just end up sweaty and tired and no closer to peace. We never fought or won, we just got tired.

And I fear that is what is happening in our lives. We are fighting because we want a modicum of peace all the while Christ is offering it.

And we will punch at anything to arrive at it.

Philip Rieff the sociologist talks about the cultural fracturing of what he terms the meta-narrative. This is something that groups of people generally agree on.

“do not kill” is part of the meta-narrative. We generally agree on that as a culture.

However because these meta-narratives (Christianity among them) is being pushed aside another way of being is taking place. He calls it “the primacy of possibility.” He says that we are now living in a culture where the most important thing we can live under is the concept of possibility.

We live in a world where the most important ethic we can imagine is possibility.

So not what is best but what is most accessible.

I agree with his concept and I think one of the largest issues we are facing as a culture is simply one of sustainability.

Imagine the primacy of possibility like aisle 9 at Stop and Shop. The cereal aisle. I love the cereal aisle because it helps to explain who we are as a people.

The cereal aisle fits the ethic of the primacy of possbility. Absolutely. Many cereals and many brands.

Now if that is the start and the end of things then we win at aisle 9 at the grocery store.

But eventually we have to make a choice on what kind of cereal. And we like the sugary smacks or whatever so we buy that. And we take it home and eat it. A box of it over a week. Delicious. And then we go and buy another box of something else and something else, all motivated by the primacy of possibility.

while possibility works on a short term basis, it’s long term sustainability is tenuous.

Because when we pay attention to possibility we are paying attention to desire and not need. Not what is best.

Desire is momentary, what is best is long term

We aren’t, in possibility, paying attention to our bodies and what they need long term. We are just thinking about the honey smacks or lucky charms.

Eventually something will give in our bodies in the pursuit of possibility.

possibility only works when there are no actual choices to be made. Then it dissolves entirely.

pour lives are filled with choices. Not only of what is right but also what is best

these choices form our lives and create an identity for us.

when we understand the image the reality that Christ gives us we see Him as the best choice conquering everything we haven’t yet so we can find peace.

He enters Jerusalem as a conquering King, the man of victory, because that is what He offers.

But it isn’t in the way we expected.

He came on a donkey and went to the cross.

We had hoped for a king to bring vengeance

but He brought peace.

We live in a world with infinite options. Options that arrive into our lives offering meaning. We want to build an identity and we use things that arrive into our lives all the time.

Christ does so in a way that isn’t part of a possibility, it isn’t a fad or a movement.

The ability to conquer an empire is a fad. It fades after a time.

But Christ conquering of sin and death does not fade.

His arrival bringing peace does not fade.

He may not be the king the crowd was expecting but He was the king they needed.

They needed someone to do more than conquer an empire

And He did.

And that is where our hope remains. Firmly fixed on the God who does more than conquer empires.

He brings lasting peace.

We don’t think about the man of triumph entering into our lives to conquer an empire any more. But we do think about that which enters our lives to bring meaning. What arrives into our lives to bring meaning? To give us identity? To show us who we are and how to live? To help us to find a way toward peace in our lives?

Christ does that. We see it in the Triumphal entry. A picture of victory in the way that He brings peace.

He is the king we need

And we will see that on the way to Good Friday and Easter Sunday

Communion

Is a way to recognize the man of victory in Christ. We invite you to take with us if you have trusted Him for salvation

If not we love people who are seeking and asking big questions about their lives. We would invite you to reach out and ask as many questions as you want.