Jesus Is King Of The World

Luke 19:28-48, Palm Sunday, DRBC am, 04/04/04

Introduction

• Is a whip-round a good or bad thing?

• It’s a wonderful life- whole community saved, and one man in particular

• A whip-round that went in quite the opposite direction… a whole community destroyed…

Context

• 66 AD Nero needed money

• Governor Judaea, Florus- nick from Temple treasury in Jerusalem.

• Some jokers starting having a whip-round a hat round for ‘that poor Florus’

• Florus, enraged, crucified passers-by

• Revolt- Florus killed

• Next four years- Romans seek to recapture Jerusalem

• 70 AD General Titus- make terms? Refusal

• Bloodbath- Jewish zealots wantonly killing people in the streets and plundering their own people

• Starvation- noblewoman woman killed, cooked and ate her baby

• Scavengers outside city walls- 500 men a day crucified as an example to encourage Jews to quit

• Verse 43- 3 days, all trees 15 km radius, a 8 km embankment with 13 towers on it

• Finally, even though Titus tried to save the Temple and negotiate, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, not only throwing down building but digging up the foundations, so that even a Jew returning to his homeland would scarcely have known it had ever been inhabited by human beings. Only sign was Roman camp on top of ruins

• Only 5 months before, 2 million people!

• Over a million killed in siege.

• 40 years to the month before this war began, the Jews had welcomed their Messiah into Jerusalem, only to be baying for his blood four days later.

1. Jesus the King of the World (28-40)- How is He your king?

It says in “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10,11) and that we shall “give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:5). He is KING of the World and shall come again to prove this beyond all doubt and silence every protester…but…

Previously, Jesus had shushed people about his true identity, and on the whole they had disobeyed him- leper, Mark 1:44,45- “And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and spread the matter so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in the deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction.”

But NOW- “this your day” (NKJV, Luke 19:42)… time for Him to be revealed, so that no-one could ever reasonably deny the central facts of our faith, the Cross and the Resurrection. As Paul says in Acts 26:26, “this thing was not done in a corner.”

Jesus is LORD over…

i. his disciples (30)- he gives them instructions, they carry them out to the letter

ii. strangers (33)- he takes their donkey, and gives no reason except that he needs it

iii. animals (30, 35)- the colt has never been ridden, “The animal who has never been ridden will buck and pitch and make every effort to throw a person from its back,” and yet Jesus sits on it. Fitting- untouched by man- divine purpose- to bear the king

iv. the crowd (37)- “the whole crowd” – “a very large crowd…whole city was stirred” (21:8); they sing from Psalm 118:26- “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” This is a Messianic Psalm, at the climax of the Hallel group (Ps.113-118) sung at the major Jewish Festivals of such as Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. They call him king, and they are right, but as will become apparent, they do not understand the kind of king he intended to be for them: a Suffering Servant King as predicted by Isaiah, who would bear His people’s sins upon the Cross of shame

v. inanimate things become animated (40)- krazo- cry out in outrage- for shame, Pharisees in rejecting your own Messiah! “For the stone will cry out from the wall…and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab.2:11,14). “My heart, while the whole world shares Jesus’ suffering, the sun in mourning, the veil rent, the rocks split, the earth quaking, the graves opening, because they see the creator himself grow cold in death, what will you do for your part?” (Bach, St Matthew Passion)

vi. dead (37)- cf. John 12, Lazarus has just been raised- “for this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign” (John 12:18)