The King of Peace Draws Near

Introduction

Luke 19:28–44 ESV

28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 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. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” 41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

You likely don’t need me to convince you that humanity is still experiencing problems trying to live at peace. As much as people say that they want peace, we don’t seem to know how to obtain it or sustain it. A couple of summers ago I read Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. One particular story she tells stopped me in my tracks when I read it because it connected to a family experience.

Neither my wife nor I are swimmers. I can swim, but that doesn’t mean I’m a swimmer. But swimming was the primary sport we chose for our children as they were growing up. We were that swim team family. Always at the pool during the week. Swim meets at home and in various states on weekends. Swimming is not the most popular sport in the African American community. When our oldest child, who is now 29, was in high school he thought about quitting swimming to play football. All of those hours in the pool had carved for him a physique that made him look like a linebacker or tight end. And his friends were pressuring him to give up swimming to play football. During his sophomore year he took a research methods class that had the students choose a subject and do a qualitative and quantitative research project. He chose to research the history of African Americans and swimming from the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade to the current day. He discovered through the records of enslavers how well the Africans who lived close to the coast could swim. And how swimming was outlawed for enslaved Africans in the United States. Then, how this prohibition was reinforced by pseudo-science that black people were poorer swimmers than whites because they had thicker bone density. And that you had to keep pools segregated because hyper sexual black men would not be able to control themselves in the presence of white women and would actually ejaculate in the pool. And my son reported on the devastating contemporary impact of the attitude among African Americans that “black people don’t swim.” The rate of black children who drown is exponentially higher than their white counterparts. He interviewed elementary school students and found that the swimming discrepancy between black and white children was still evident and being expressed at that young age. He titled his research project, “Just Don’t Touch the Water: The History of Blacks in Swimming.”

Isabel Wilkerson tells the story of the 1951 Little League baseball team in Youngstown, Ohio who won the city championship. The coaches decided to take the team to the municipal pool to celebrate with a team picnic. Al Bright, the only black player on the team was met at the gate by the lifeguard who would not allow him to enter in spite of the pleading of his coaches and some of the parents. The pool officials allows them to set up a blanket in the grass outside of the fence while his other teammates played in the pool. People would bring him food as he sat alone outside. After an hour or so a team official was able to convince the lifeguard that they should at least allow the child into the pool for a few minutes. The lifeguard agreed, imposing the following conditions. Everyone had to get out of the pool and Al had to follow the rules set for him. After the pool was emptied, Al was led to the water and placed on a small rubber raft. A lifeguard got into the water and took Al for one turn around the pool as 100 or so onlookers watched from the sidelines. The lifeguard warned him over and over again of one important thing. “Just don’t touch the water,” the lifeguard said, as he pushed the rubber float. “Whatever you do, don’t touch the water.”

I stopped reading the book immediately and called my son. “Jelani, when you wrote your paper did you know about this 1951 story from Youngstown, OH?” It seemed too much of a coincidence that the the lifeguard’s words were the title of my son’s paper. Jelani said, “No, never heard of it. But I’m not surprised. The title of my paper just reflects the attitude that has existed from the period of enslavement onward.”

I think that we have been mostly disabused of the naïve notion that steady advancements in technology, medicine and other areas of human progress will inevitably lead to the experience of greater peace among humanity. Jesus, at the end of our passage laments, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” Would that we knew even now, 2000 years after Jesus uttered these words, the things that make for peace!

But God hasn’t left us without a witness. The gospel responds to this desire for peace and our skepticism about it actually being achieved by declaring that Jesus Christ is the King of Peace. And he confronts us with the reality that peace only comes through him; peace with God and peace among people are impossible apart from him. And in our text we find Jesus Christ, the King of Peace, drawing near in three ways. He is Drawing Near in Control (vv. 28-35). He is Drawing Near Receiving Praise & Rejection (vv. 36-40). And he is Drawing Near with Sorrow (vv. 41-44).

Drawing Near in Control

Last week, Pastor Joel preached from Luke 9:51-56 where we’re told that “when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Well, those days have drawn even nearer. Indeed, they are only days away. In v. 28 we find Jesus going ahead, leading the way up to Jerusalem. The events of our text take place during the Passover season. It was a period of time when the people of Israel from across the Roman world come into Jerusalem to remember and celebrate the Lord’s delivering them from slavery in Egypt. So this time was always full of anticipation and expectation that God will act again on their behalf. And it’s important to point out what Luke is referring to in v. 28 by the words, “these things.” “When he said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” The “these things” Luke is referring to is the parable of the ten minas Jesus had just finished telling in vv. 11-27. He told that parable, Luke says in v. 11 says, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because the people supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

The point of that parable is that the kingdom of God is not coming as they expected it to. Jesus is indeed the King of God’s kingdom, who comes in the name of the Lord, and he is on his way into Jerusalem. But he’s not coming to set up some earthly kingdom like they expect. The tension in the text is that they are looking for the one who will come and liberate them from the yoke of Rome, restore their former glory. The irony is that this period in history is known as the Pax Romana, Roman Peace. A 200 year period of “relative peace, tranquility, and prosperity” across the Roman empire. But this peace was obtained and maintained by force and dominance. So Jesus is speaking to people who are looking for liberty from Roman oppression and rule that they expected the "King who comes in the name of the Lord” to bring it. And so here is Jesus preparing to enter the City of God, preparing to enter Jerusalem, at a time of heightened expectation. Luke is building the anticipation for what’s going to happen when he gets there.

Jesus has told his parable and is now moving forward with his eyes fixed upon Jerusalem. He knows that he is going there for one purpose, to complete his work as the Suffering Servant. We know he’s going to die. We know the story already. But don’t forget that he knows he’s going to die too. And he doesn’t draw near to Jerusalem in fear as the last week of his life begins. He draws near in complete control. The King exerts his control over the events that are about to take place. He tells the disciples where to go. “Go to the village in front of you.” He tells them what they’ll find. “When you get there you’ll find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.” He tells them what to do. “Untie it and bring it here. If anybody asks you why you’re untying it, tell them, ‘the Lord needs it.’”And lo and behold, it’s exactly as he said! He is the one who orchestrates the manner in which he will enter Jerusalem. He knows the significance of his riding in on a donkey. He knows what Zechariah 9:9 says…

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.

His preparation for his suffering, his preparation for the way in which he’s going to bring about peace is not accidental. He is in complete control. The people in the text are responding to the events as they occur, but Jesus is proactively orchestrating the events. Here’s the deal. If the Lord is in control, it means that we’re not, even though we want to be. You and I think that if we were running the show, if we had the kind of control that could orchestrate the events in our lives we could actually bring about peace. If I could get everybody in my house to do exactly as I wanted them to do all the time with no exception, then I could guarantee a strife free household... If we were in control, we would never have devised a plan that made the way to peace come through suffering and death. Yes I want peace in my life, I might even want peace in my community, but I want to be able to bring it about in my own way. Not only that, but I want to define what peace means.

I want to believe that I’m the captain, I’m the master. The gospel says, “No. Jesus is the Master.” You want peace? Look to him. He’s the one who controlled the events that made peace possible.

So here is Jesus unquestionably affirming that he is the Messiah. He is the king in the royal line of David. And he prepares to enter Jerusalem as the King, riding on a donkey, the animal of peace. The disciples bring the colt to Jesus in v. 35, throw their cloaks on it to make a saddle, then they sit Jesus on the colt. Notice the two responses to Jesus as he proceeds along the road, drawing near on the way down the Mount of Olives.

Drawing Near Receiving Praise & Rejection

First the disciples give him praise. V. 36 tells us that as he rode along his disciples spread their cloaks on the road. They were giving him the red carpet treatment. They were in the presence of a dignitary, one deserving honor and exaltation. But they didn’t stop there. V. 37 tells us that as he was drawing near to Jerusalem, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen. The other gospel writers mention the crowds while Luke only speaks of disciples. While there were crowds of people who joined in with the multitude of disciples I think that Luke is explicit about mentioning disciples only because it is the disciples who authentically respond in praise to the great and mighty works they’ve witnessed in Jesus Christ. He leaves out the crowd because the crowd is fickle. The same crowd who is shouting, “Hosanna,” will just a few days from now be shouting, “Crucify him!” Luke wants to contrast the authentic rejoicing of the disciples with the rejection by the Pharisees and Jerusalem itself. The reason the disciples begin joyfully praising God with a loud voice as Jesus comes down the Mount of Olives is because of all the mighty works they had seen. “Jesus’ whole ministry has been one continuous demonstration of God’s power.” When John the Baptist was put in prison and he sent his disciples to Jesus ask whether Jesus was the one who is to come, or whether they should be looking for someone else, Jesus sent word back to John,

Luke 7:22–23 ESV

22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

That’s been the testimony of Jesus’ ministry and his disciples are praising God for it. Luke is saying to his community and he is saying to us that the proper response to the work of God in Jesus Christ is praise. Those who have seen the power of God at work in their lives and in the lives of those around them can’t hold it in. They can’t go day in and day out as if they’ve experienced nothing. Those who have been transformed by the truth and reality of who Jesus Christ is ought at least sometimes be able to respond in praise and adoration. Those who know that they know that they know they’ve been delivered from the burden and the bondage and the guilt of sin ought to sometimes be able to say, “Hallelujah! Glory to God in the highest!” If you find yourself as one who has experienced the presence and the power of Jesus Christ there ought to sometimes be a shout of praise that comes from way down deep in the depths of your soul because that’s what people who know Jesus do. They rejoice! They don’t rejoice because life is now problem free and I’ll no longer experience pain or sorrow, but because God is at work. He’s at work transforming lives. He’s at work transforming communities. Because God has transformed me from a child of wrath to a child of peace. Luke says, the proper response of those who know Jesus Christ is praise and rejoicing.

But just like we know from our own experience that not everyone who is confronted by Jesus responds with praise and joy, so it was on that first Palm Sunday. The disciples in their praise quote from Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” As we read in our call to worship this morning, Psalm 118:26 actually says

Psalm 118:26 ESV

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

but the disciples recognize Jesus to be the king so they have no problems saying, Blessed is the King who comes...

Psalms 113-118 were particularly associated with the celebration of Passover. The imagery of Ps 118:26 is that of the king leading pilgrims to the temple and receiving a greeting of welcome from the priests at the temple, likely after some major victory. With that imagery in the background of his making his way into Jerusalem, King Jesus is leading the pilgrims into the temple to be greeted and welcomed by the priests. How much more telling is the fact that far from welcoming him, the Pharisees reject him. (v. 39) They reject him because they are concerned about two things. First, they don’t want Jesus to disturb the peace. Here is the irony of ironies. Jesus is the King of Peace, and they’re afraid that he’s going to mess up the good thing they’ve got going with Rome. If the people get too excited about this so-called Messiah, Rome will send the troops in to crush us. Secondly, they just didn’t believe the testimony. They had also witnessed Jesus’ mighty acts, but they refused to believe. They say to him in v. 39, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples for calling you a king.” Jesus says to them, “I tell you, if these folk were silent, the very rocks would be praising me.” In other words, they are right to praise me. I am the King who deserves the honor, praise, and adoration. The inanimate objects, the rocks, know more than you do Pharisees. If the people were silent at this moment, the rocks would get their shout on. Jesus doesn’t let us ride the fence. He says, “I’m going to be praised. If it’s not by you, don’t worry, I won’t be lacking in praise. The creation itself will praise me.” Whether or not any of us turn to him in praise and worship, Jesus isn’t going to be short of praise.

However, What this rejection by the Pharisees does is change the mood of our text and prepares us for the change from rejoicing to sorrow and lamentation. Lastly here, we see Jesus drawing near with sorrow.

Drawing Near with Sorrow

Luke 19:41–42 ESV

41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

The disciples are rejoicing, and the Pharisees are rejecting. But here it’s as if all of those other voices have faded into the background. It’s as if everything around Jesus has gone silent. And as he is getting closer to Jerusalem he looks and he sees the city and it breaks his heart. This is an expression of profound grief. I’m reminded of the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 8:18–9:1 ESV

18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me. 19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with their foreign idols?” 20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” 21 For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? 1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Jeremiah prophesied and saw the destruction of Jerusalem because they rejected the Lord. And the thought of it was too much him to bear. These are not crocodile tears that Jesus is shedding over the city. His heart is broken because he knows what’s coming. He knows that they don’t understand the time of their visitation. Here is the Savior in their midst, sent to them. Yet their testimony is, “we don’t need a savior like you.” And Jesus knows that to reject him is not free. To reject Jesus is costly. It means nothing short of judgment, remaining a child of wrath and not being transformed into a child of peace. But notice this. Jesus doesn’t rejoice over the destruction of Jerusalem. He mourns over it. It breaks his heart.

If Jesus is the King of peace, what are the things that make for peace in this broken world? It is not a stretch, nor is it hubris to say that the world doesn’t know peace because the world doesn’t know Jesus. The way to peace in a broken world can only come through repentance and faith. What are the words we hear in our liturgy every week after we confess our sins in repentance before God?… We strive to embody the kind of formative practice that helps us to understand the things that make for peace. And we pass the peace with one another because we’re not just interested in individual vertical peace between me and God. We want to see this peace spread from this body into this community and this city.

Here’s the deal. Far far too often, Jesus’s church doesn’t follow in his footsteps. Far too often as the church we look at our world, our nation, our community and our hearts are not broken. Jesus saw Jerusalem and it broke his heart. He cried real tears. Would that you, even you, knew the things that made for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. Are we weeping? Are we grieved by the fact that our community desires peace, but is spiritually blinded to the fact that peace is unattainable apart from Jesus Christ? Or do I get so caught up in my own striving after comforts and pleasures and preferences that I’ve got a hardness in my own hearts concerning the place God has me?

Why does Grace Mosaic say, “Our hope is to create an accessible, worshipping community that people from any and every culture, socioeconomic distinction, and spiritual outlook can call home?” Why can we aspire to that kind of hope? Because Jesus is the King of Peace. And because he continues to draw near to us and draw us near to him. And it’s our desire that the Spirit of God would continue to break our hearts over both the sin that’s in us and the sin that’s around us and not let us be satisfied with anything less than being used by him as agents of transformation in the places where he puts us.

On this Palm Sunday when we are reminded of Jesus’ declaration by his actions and words that, “I am the King of Peace,” may God work in our hearts that we may believe anew or believe for the first time that he has brought peace between himself and humanity in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And may our hearts never be satisfied with keeping this peace only to ourselves.