March 28 2021
Luke 19:29-44, 22:7-20
Well, our Lenten journey to Jerusalem finishes up today on this Sunday what we normally call Palm Sunday. This is the day we recall the entry of Jesus into the city amongst shouts of praise and loud Hosannas. It’s kind of funny, that this is the only Sunday most of us sing Hosanna and probably never realize that we are singing a Hebrew word and that this word comes from the only place that it is found in the Old Testament which is the One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm. What we are saying when we shout Hosanna is very simply, “God save us”. This is what the king who is sung about in the One Hundredth and Eighteenth Psalm is saying as he is in the heat of the battle, God secure the victory for us. So, when we understand all of this it becomes clear that shouts of Hosanna are very appropriate today as we celebrate the coming of Jesus, the King, into Jerusalem.
Now, another interesting thing found in todays scripture is that even though we say that today is Palm Sunday, in fact our story records no palms at all. In fact, there is only one gospel account, the gospel of John which records that there were palms being waved along the processional route where Jesus rode. No, instead of palms what Luke does record is that the people threw their cloaks upon the ground so that the colt or donkey upon which Jesus rode would not step upon the ground. There is only one other recorded time that such a thing was done and this is found in the ninth chapter of Second Kings where Jehu was anointed king and we are told that every man through down their cloak for the new king to ride upon. What we have to keep in mind as we read of such a gesture is that most of the people in the days of Jesus only had two articles of clothing, their tunic which was like an undershirt and their cloak which was heavier and was necessary to keep them warm. A person’s cloak could also serve as a tent if needed. So, this gesture of throwing down their cloaks would not have been done lightly. This was their way of stating their loyalty to Jesus, the one they knew was the long awaited king given to them by God. Throwing their cloaks down was an act of submission and humility and you have to imagine how much road dirt and donkey dirt their cloaks would have had on them when all was said and done.
The importance of all this pomp and circumstances of this entry of Jesus into Jerusalem then was to make certain that most everyone was in agreement that this Jesus was supposed to be the king. After months of telling his disciples to not say anything to anybody about what his true identity, here is Jesus at last going public with what people everywhere had long suspected. Luke records that the triumphant arrival of Jesus and his entourage into Jerusalem but the story actually begins with Jesus telling two of his disciples to go into the village, either Bethany or Bethphage, we are not told which one, and upon entering they would find a colt tied up. You can only imagine the look on those disciples at such obscure instructions.Then after they find this colt they are basically supposed to just take it and if anyone asks them what in the world they are doing, they are just supposed to say rather nonchalantly, “The Lord has need of it.” Its pretty clear that these disciples had to have some measure of faith that this way of acquiring of a steed for Jesus was going to all work out alright. And it did work out as Luke records, they went found the colt, took it, the owners of course wondered why and when they were told that the Lord had need of it they just let their colt walk away with two unknown strangers which all seems a little strange.We have to wonder just why is it so important for us to know so much about the animal Jesus is going to ride into Jerusalem on? The answer is found in the book of Zechariah, the ninth chapter where were are told of a prophecy, which states, “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 riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” You see, Luke wants his readers to make no mistake that it is Jesus that this prophecy of Zechariah is referring to. Jesus is this king, the one who is riding on this young donkey, a donkey not a warhorse because this king is coming in peace, not in haughty arrogance but in true humility. There is another reason that Luke wants to point to this prophecy found in the book of Zechariah and that is not only is Jesus the king spoken of there but also once people would make that connection they would go on to read about what God was going to do through that king. God told Zechariah that He was going to cut off the chariot from Euphrates and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off and this king shall speak peace to the nations.” Yes, Jesus is the king prophesied about so long ago but in keeping with that same prophesy he was also going to be a king who was not going to be about warhorses and battle bows but instead he was a king who was going to be messenger of peace to all the world. This would have been good news if this had been the kind of king you were expecting but for most of the people of Jerusalem this was not the king they were looking for. This helps explain what the Pharisees cried out for Jesus to rebuke his followers for making such a ruckus. To them Jesus was nothing but an imposter, a wanna be who most assuredly was no king, at least not the king they were looking for. The Pharisees represented the rich ruling class who longed for a king who would clear their land of Roman occupation making it once again holy ground. They were not alone because as we follow Jesus in the time that follows his triumphant entrance we find that most of Jerusalem would reject Jesus as being their king once they found out that he was a king that was going to bring about peace not war. War is what they longed for and they were just certain, that because God’s temple stood at the heart of their city and their life then he would be obliged to come to their aid and secure their victory against the Romans. This gives those cries of Hosanna a different ring doesn’t it? When they cried out for God to save them, to give them the victory as Jesus rode into town, they weren’t thinking of the enemy within they were of course, thinking of the enemy that opposed them and their plans; to them this was the Romans, to us it could be any number of people.This is why Jesus had to make sure that everyone knew that he was king right from the beginning so in the end they would remember just who they had forsaken in their frenzy for destruction instead of seeking peace. This is why when Jesus drew near to the city that he wept aloud, with wails of anguish, and he cried out, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes! The people of Jerusalem, God’s own people, the people who had the holy scriptures, the people who marked out holy time with their Sabbaths and their feasts, the people who knew of holy worship at the Temple, these people of all people did not know the things which made for peace. These people so saturated in the very things of God had hearts full of hatred, bitterness and anger which proved that they were ruled not by the God they professed to know and love but rather they were ruled by the one who ruled the world, Satan himself. But praise be to God for Jesus knew that he had come to Jerusalem to cast out the ruler of this world so that the true king might once again reign.
This coming reign of the king was the importance of the second entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. You see, even though Jesus had come with much fanfare into Jerusalem the reality was that it was not safe for him to stay there. So, even though every day he came to teach at the Temple at night he would withdraw to the Mount of Olives to rest there until it was the right time for God’s salvation to be revealed. That time was the Festival of Passover, the time when the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed. This is when Jesus entered into Jerusalem a second time under much less spectacle. Once again, strange orders are given, this time to Peter and John, to go and prepare the Passover. But where pray tell, Jesus, should this Passover take place they wondered. So, Jesus tells them that when they enter into Jerusalem you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house that he enters. Nothing weird here so far! Then they were to tell the Master of the house, “The Teacher says to you, ‘Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? The Master of the house will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” As in the obtaining of the colt to ride on, here also strange directions that required faith in order to succeed. And, as we are told it all worked out. The rom was found just as Jesus said it would be and Peter and John prepared the Passover. So, the time came for Jesus and his disciples to share in the Passover meal. Now, as we can read in the book of Deuteronomy, Passover is a feast in the Jewish calendar which remembered the freeing of the people of Israel from slavery down in Egypt. As God had commanded them, on that night, a lamb was killed, one for every family unit, and the blood of this lamb was smeared upon the doorposts as a sign of that families allegiance to God. On that night, those who opposed God, the Egyptians who refused to let God’s people go, they were visited by one last plague, the death of all their firstborn, the death of all their future leaders and thus their future.So, this was a night for the people of Israel every year to stop and remember the faithfulness of God who had heard the cries of his people enslaved in Egypt and, as he had promised, set them free from their bondage. With these themes of enslavement, freedom and God’s faithfulness swirling in the air it isn’t hard to understand why it was this festival that Jesus wanted to share with his disciples before he had to suffer. How confusing it must have been to their ears for him to tell them that he would not eat of this meal again until this meal found its full realization in the kingdom of God. Then Jesus took a cup of wine, one of the four that would have been normally served during the Passover meal, and after he had given thanks for it, we are told that Jesus spoke something new to his disciples. He told them “Take this cup and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom comes.” How very mysterious these words of Jesus must have been. They knew, of course that he was king but just when was it that he would at last set up his kingdom? The answer was not really given but was rather something they would have to seek. Then once again Jesus did something very out of the ordinary. He took the customary unleavened bread, the matzah, and after he had given thanks for it he took it in his hands and broke it into pieces and he gave it to his disciples, telling them, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” No, longer merely remembering the deliverance from slavery down in Egypt now the meal was to be a way to remember Jesus. Obviously, they had to wonder just where it was that he was going. Then, after they had drunk the cup after they had eaten, Jesus told them, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which on your behalf is going to be poured out.” At this point perhaps it became clearer that Jesus was speaking to them of his death yet how his death, how the pouring of his blood, not the blood of an animal could be what sealed a new covenant that God was going to make with them.
All theses strange teachings of Jesus that he taught to his disciples on that Passover night would not have become clear until they saw Jesus upon the cross. The unthinkable for them had happened. Jesus who very clearly had wanted them to know that he was indeed the king was now dying the death of a criminal. Was this all some kind of cruel joke they must have wondered? Yet what they could not forget in this most very human tragedy was the mystery that this Jesus in some way was not merely human but in fact was God himself with us. What this God would do when faced with his enemies had already been revealed in this life of Jesus because as he had taught his disciples their God was a God who had love for even his enemies. He was a God who made the sun rise on the evil and the good; he was the God who made the rain pour out on the just and the unjust. If Jesus told us this is who God is then what could God do when those same evil and unjust people rejected his Son, whipped him, beat him and nailed him to a tree? The answer is that this God would continue to love them, as seen when Jesus, with his last breath, asking for these enemies to be forgiven for what they had done. We have to wonder if when the soldiers offered Jesus some sour wine, was this his drinking of the fruit of the vine, there upon the cross, was this when his kingdom had come? For there was the king and his victory was at hand. And what of the new covenant Jesus had spoken of the one sealed by his blood? A covenant speaks of a bond of trust between two parties, a bond built upon promise. This is the faithfulness of the love of God which never wavered even as the Father watched the very life flow out of his own dear Son. This unyielding faithfulness of God to love even in the face of the worst that this world could do, this is what Paul calls the righteousness of God. This faithfulness of God cries out to us to meet him there at the mercy seat of the cross and there yield ourselves in faith to one so unbelievably faithful. In this way the righteousness of God becomes our righteousness, a righteousness by faith. As Paul writes in the fifth chapter of Romans, “Therefore since we have been made right by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here then is our king who has won the victory through his death so that now we have peace with God. Yet this is not all because as we learn in the tenth chapter of Hebrews that by this single offering upon the cross Jesus has perfected for all time those who are being made holy.How can this be, we might ask, that we who God is making holy could be perfected right there on the cross of Calvary? The answer is that the perfect love of Jesus shown forth in his unwavering faithfulness unto death comes into our hearts and removes every bit of fear. It is this perfect love which empowers us to love with a perfect love, the perfect love of God that loves ones enemies faithfully even in the face of the worst that this world can do. This is the way we are consecrated, set apart for the holy work of God fulfilling the promise of the new covenant. This holy work that God has for us as Jesus explains is that we would peacemakers just as Jesus brought us to peace with God upon the cross.It is when we are people who seek to make peace through the perfect love of Christ shown to us at the cross, this is when we too are called sons and daughters of the most high God.
All of this is what we are called to remember any time we remember Jesus, the Lamb of God. It is because Jesus was faithful to who he was, the Son of God, that he allowed his body to be broken, broken by the whips, the thorns the nails, the sword.It was because Jesus, out of love, loved his enemies, the evil and unjust of which all of us must acknowledge we have been apart of. It is because of us that he tasted death to show us his unwavering faithfulness to us. It is his faithfulness that creates faith in us; it is his perfect love that is given so that we might love each other with the perfect love of God. This is why Jesus is the king who comes riding on an animal of peace fulfilling the prophecy as the one who speaks peace to all the world. The question only you can answer is this; Have you experienced peace with God through faith in the blood of Jesus which has set you right in the eyes of God? If you cannot say that you have peace with God then today is the day for you to come to the cross, to see the faithfulness of God in the figure of Jesus and allow him to create in you a heart of faith. Another question that only you can answer is have you experienced the holiness without which no one will see the Lord and is your heart filled with the perfect love of Jesus, a love which loves those you consider your enemies? If this is something that is not true about you then today, come to the cross and seek this second blessing. Let Christ pour his perfect love in your heart by faith. To God be the glory Amen!
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