Untitled Sermon (5)

I love a good story. Especially when they are first hand accounts of some funny moment that happens to a person. Life is funny, and if the story teller is good, I can spend a whole day listening to someone just tell funny stories. Jeff Whitingham is an excellent story teller. I haven’t heard them all yet, but he is the teller laureate of Christ Church if that is a position.

I also love telling stories and I’m sure that for some of my friends I have run some of them into the ground. They know that if we are around someone new and we’re telling stories, they’re likely going to hear at least one of them for the hundredth time. That’s the sad part of good stories, once you know what happens, hearing it again tempts us to boredom. It’s why I can’t watch most movies more than once. Once I know the surprise is coming, it doesn’t seem as big.

There are some passages in the Bible that, if you’ve grown up in the Church or you’ve been a Christian for very long at all, that may be this way as well. We just know how they’re going go. We know about the ark finding land. We know about Lazarus coming out of the tomb. And in this passage, we are probably not surprised at all about Jesus finding a donkey and riding into to town. We’ve heard the story before. It’s possibility been one of the first stories about Christ we’ve ever heard. But if we come to the Text with this mindset, we’re in danger of being like the crowd, seeing Jesus but missing the point. So what better day than Palm Sunday to come back to this passage and give it another look at Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem on the last week of His earthly ministry.

See first how Jesus comes. . If we skim just a little ways up, we see Jesus on His way to Jerusalem and is being followed by a large crowd. Two blind men are there by the road and shout out calling Him “Son of David”. Now Matthew records this happening a previous time in Chapter 9. And Jesus heals them both. But in Chapter 9, he warns them not to tell anyone. Here, He accepts their title publicly, heals them, and they follow Him. Throughout the Gospels when anyone declares Him to be the Messiah, he stops them. He tells them not to say anything, because doing so would put Him at risk to be put to death earlier than His time. But now that it is time, He’s coming and declaring Himself to be the King and Messiah of His people. He sends two of the disciples into Bethphage and instructs them to bring Him the donkey and her colt.

Matthew notes for us here that this was to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah, that the Messiah would come riding on a donkey. People would’ve known this prophecy. So at Passover, with all of the Jewish world coming into this city by the thousands, to ride in on a donkey in this way and accept worship as He did isn’t just something people do.

Now some commentators take a view of getting the donkey and declare this a miracle, the foreknowledge and providence of God in knowing about the donkey. Others will say that He may have prearranged this like He did the upper room and we’re just not given that detail. The funny thing is that that detail doesn’t change the impact of what is being done, and it could be both. Because either He has providentially guided there to be a donkey and colt, at the exact place where He would come, and in His providence by just a mere word of His authority, the owner is fine with this- and He is Divine. Or He has pre-arranged this with the owner, who knows what’s going on, and He’s publicly making a very bold claim. Either way, He is pushing the issue now. He’s saying very clearly, “It’s me. I’m the Messiah. I’m the King that you’ve been waiting for.”

At the end of the passage we read Christ removing the money changers and the animals. He’s angry and running them off but notice what He says, “My house is a house of prayer” My house. Tim Keller is right in his sermon on the passage when he says, “Nobody get’s to come in and rearrange the furniture unless He’s the owner.” He’s making these claims, not only because they’re true, but also because He is intentionally raising the issue. To the crowd, to the disciples, to the religious leaders, He’s pressing them , to decide what to do with Him. Here before them is a common worker’s son from some backwoods hick-town, one-light village, claiming to be the Christ who will deliver them. Here is the gracious Jesus who welcomes tax collectors and touches the leprous, purifying the Temple. Here is this poor itinerant preacher riding in, and being thronged by the people, eventually stirring up the whole city. They cannot ignore Him now. They cannot pretend He doesn’t exist. You must either hail Him as King and Messiah or kill him.

But the claim He makes is to us as well. So many in our day like Jesus. They have good things to say about Him. They are struck by His compassion and humility, how He speaks to women and children, how he heals the sick and yes are truly impressed by Him. Many see His death as a tragedy, a brutal execution of a religious figure by the Romans. But you do not get to like Jesus as humble but ignore His claims to authority.We must accept Him as He is, not as we would make Him to be.

We must ask ourselves if we live in submission to Christ? I cannot tell you how often I know Christ has called me do something and I try to pretend that He isn’t King. He calls me to give grace to others in my job, but there are days I pretend like He doesn’t reign there. He calls me to trust Him with my money, yet I so often make decision based on seeking my own comfort, hope and security in my thrift, my effort, my tightness, as if He isn’t gracious and good. And that’s the rub isn’t it? That at the end of the day, we do not trust Him as King. We are so hesitant to let go of the one little plot of the kingdom of our lives because if I hang on then at least I have a little control. But He does not share His throne. Which means I must step off mine.

It means that I do not get to justify my sin as nothing, when it is treason against my King. I do not get to seek my glory and my praise and my security. It means that I seek my neighbors blessing above mine, in the name of this King Jesus, for the declaration of the Good News of His Kingdom. It means that the surface level anxiety and fear that I wrap myself up in in hard times don’t speak a threatening word to me because Christ defends us. Being subdued by Christ as the Shorter Catechism says is submitting my will to His across the board and trusting Him to rule in reign. This is the King that has come. Not some pretender of a kingdom far away that faces threats of rebellion or outside force. This King has come with this humble authority, ruling over all things and above all kings.

Second, we must see why He comes. The great crowd of people greet him by laying down their coats and these palm branches on the road in front of him while singing hymns and shouting Hosanna! Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus enters with much of the pomp and fanfare that would’ve been seen in a Roman triumph. The palm branches actually have this history in the life of God’s People at the time. They were carved into walls in the temple. They would use them during the feast of booths and make their tents from palm. In fact, a couple of centuries before this, Simon Maccabee delivered Jerusalem from the Seleucids. It was this time of liberty and a great day for Kingdom. What we read is that he and his soldiers rode into the city waving palms and singing hymns playing harps. The people would’ve been taught this, and so respond here as their anscestors did a few hundred years prior.

He is coming, and they are shouting the right praises, singing the right songs, responding what would appear to be quite well. When they cry out “save us” what they mean is “save us from Rome” Deliver us from these Gentiles! Restore our Nation to Greatness. They were fine with Jesus being king, only as long as that meant He fit their idea of what king looked like. And this is a warning to us. To flee the temptation of exchanging Christ’s Kingdom for ours. For looking to Jesus not to bring in His kingdom, but ours. This can look like any number of things. For the Jewish people in Christ day certainly politically. Certainly there are those who in our day who invoke the name of Christ in order to gain supporters. There are certainly those who take the life of Jesus and say “Look Jesus aligns with me” it could be conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, anarchist, or anywhere in between, and use Christ for their standing and their place. How often have we done that? Or we can turn the other direction. How often have we had a conversation with another believer, found out that they and we are on opposite sides of the imaginary line we’ve made up, and asked ourselves “How can anyone who votes that way be Christian” Or even worse, we believe that if we can just get the right people in the right place we can get rid of everything that is wrong.

This was the error of the crowd. When the Messiah comes He will run off the Romans and then finally we will be free. But freedom from Rome is too small a desire for Jesus. There is a far greater freedom they need.The Kingdom he brings is one that is less physical but far more real. He is saying, “the Romans aren’t what’s killing you, sin is. And this is why Jesus comes on a donkey. It’s not a typical triumph of chariots and soldiers. It’s the former blind and a young donkey bringing in the humble man from Nazareth. While He is declaring His humble Authority, He is also declaring that the long awaited day, when the seed of the woman crushes the seed of the serpent is near. The Kingdom is close. He is bringing it. But he will not secure it with force of arms. It does not need spears or bows or swords or guns or ballots. It does not need planes. The Kingdom is brought in, not by running of the Romans, but by Him dying.

This is updside down, it is not the way things are expected to be. But this Kingdom isn’t like other Kingdoms. Our King isn’t coming from His palace, but from Galilee. He doesn’t conquer through armies, but through peace. He doesn’t win by slaying and siege, but by dying. This weak man is the Great King.