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)
vii. all of history- Jesus’ timing and precision is perfect. He fulfils a prophecy made 550 years ago by Zechariah which says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey.” At least 300 OT prophecies. We sing in the song ‘Beautiful Saviour’, Lord of History, and He is
How is Jesus your King?
2. Jesus the Man of Sorrows (41-44)- Do you cry like Him?
When was the last time you cried? I cry at movies, even cried at Neighbours once, slushy music. Cry because someone has died? Cry because you feel frustrated or angry or deeply rejected or betrayed by what someone has said or done?
Stunning- Jesus weeps openly over the city. Last thing you expect. “On Coronation Day morning, Sylvia Peters, looking happy and elegantly though quietly gowned, opened the historic transmission. Three cameras at the Victoria Memorial then showed the procession leaving the Palace. Surprisingly quickly came the viewers’ first view of Queen Elizabeth on her Coronation Day. In close-up, the gold-encrusted window of her coach was held in a long pan of what seemed to mount to thrilling minutes, as she smiled beautifully and happily on her people. Wisely, commentators Berkeley Smith and Chester Wilmot let this exciting picture tell its own story. No words of theirs could have aided either the privileged intimacy or the beauty of that TV moment.” Total contrast!!
Do you cry like Jesus?
i. How He cried
a. Inwardly (for Lazarus)- grief of a loving friend- shortest verse- “see how He loved him”; edakrusen, “shed silent tears”; Christians have great joy before them in heaven, but great sorrow still in losing one loved so dearly, even though we who trust in Jesus shall all be reunited one day in just a short while
b. Outwardly (for his enemies)- grief of a loving Creator, about to be murdered by His special people, who would- as we heard in our intro- later slaughter each other and be crucified and crucified and crucified until the Romans ran out of space and wood for the crosses; eklausen, “weep out loud”
ii. How He didn’t cry
a. In self-pity or anger because of His unjust treatment- before Judas, the guards in Gethsemane, the Sanhedrin, Herod, Pilate, the soldiers and the crowd at Calvary, not once does Jesus weep for Himself and how disgracefully He has been treated by humanity, by us His treasured creatures. It says in Isaiah that He was a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (53:3,7).
Do you cry like Him?
3. Jesus the Teacher of the Listening (39, 45-48) - Do you listen and obey Him?
i. The Pharisees didn’t listen (39)- on the contrary, they wanted the silence the word of God as its prophecies were being fulfilled in their very hearing. It says in John’s account that they were even trying to kill Lazarus who had only just been raised from the dead, because they could not stand people leaving them and following Jesus. Their only answer to the life-giving power of Jesus’ words was to try to kill Him. This is true today- people all round the world are doing their very best to silence Christians from telling them the very words they need to hear to inherit eternal life. When Stephen preached a magnificent sermon that would have given life to its hearings had they listened, they “were cut to the heart, gnashed at him with their teeth, cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears and ran at him with one accord, and cast him out of the city and stoned him” (Acts 7:54,57,58). If people deny the evidence of their own Scriptures, their own consciences and the Gospel as it is proclaimed to them by a man with a shining face, then there is little hope for them. And yet, a young Pharisee by the name of Saul was sitting there, and soon the Risen Lord would show the world that there is hope for anyone, even stony-hearted persecutors like Saul.
What was the specific downfall of the Pharisees then? Why didn’t they listen? It was because they loved the praise of men. Jesus says, “How can you believe, who receive honour from one another, and do not seek the honour that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44).
ii. The temple sellers didn’t care- this is the one almost-violent act of the Lord Jesus Christ- the cleansing of His Father’s house. I say one, but easily overlooked- already cleansed at start of ministry in John 2. 3 years had passed by, and they hadn’t learnt their lesson. Woodlice underneath the stone in my garden: “Woodlice have a relatively high surface area to volume ratio and are therefore likely to lose water by diffusion more quickly than many other species. They also lack a waxy, waterproof cuticle and so water will readily diffuse through their exoskeleton more rapidly than in other arthropods… This results in them moving away from bright conditions towards darker regions. Brighter conditions tend to be drier and warmer than dark conditions so this behaviour will again result in decreased desiccation.” I used to scrape… just like these temple hawkers and peddlers- crawled back into the behaviour that had been chastised for. “Men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). He should have found them praying and praising God; instead He found them paying and raising funds for themselves. A den of thieves indeed.
What was the downfall of the temple sellers? Why didn’t they care? Because they loved money, not God. The love of money is the root of all evil. Jesus says it is not difficult but impossible to “serve God and money”- you “will hate the one and love the other.” These men, because of their love of money, hated the very God in whose temple they dwelt, and so were dealt with most severely by His Son.
iii. The people listened, but didn’t obey (37, 48). The people shouted with a loud voice as Jesus came into Jerusalem. It says that the people “hung on his words” in the Temple. This is perhaps the most tragic category. Why so? Because it’s the easiest thing in the world to be stimulated and amused by a sermon, to pass pleasant remarks about, even to sing songs lustily and then go away and do absolutely nothing about it (and this includes the preacher). Wedding- 1 John 3- very nice, very clear. When Paul preaches his amazing sermon in Athens, the people say, “We will hear you again on this matter,” and what is Paul’s reaction? “So Paul departed from among them” (Acts 27:33). Perhaps he sensed that their desire to hear him again was entirely unaccompanied by any desire to actually respond to what he said. Pilgrim’s Progress- Talkative. Christian says to Faithful, “Deceived! you may be sure of it. Remember the proverb, "They say, and do not;" but the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Matt. 23:3; 1 Cor. 4:20. He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and I know what I say of him is the truth. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour. There is there neither prayer, nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute, in his kind, serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him.”
It is most likely that some of the very people who hung upon Jesus’ words four days later shouted for Him to be hung upon a cross. Because in “hearing they did not hear” (Matt. 13:13), and because the words did not sink down deeply into their hearts and wills, causing them to obey, they were as changeable as the wind, and could so easily be turned from crying Hosanna! Hosanna! to Crucify! Crucify! What a terrible indictment against us human beings. How fickle we are. Without the grace of God, we are all like men who hear but do not do, those who build a house, but build it without foundation, and so great will be our ruin on the last day when Jesus Christ comes again, unless we repent of this. We must listen, and then we must obey. Faith without works is dead. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). “Let us not love in word of in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).
Do you listen to Jesus? And if you do, do you obey Him?
Application
The Triumphal Entry could have been a wonderful occasion. It could have been the day that the Jews accepted their King, Jesus, and were saved, not from the Romans but from threats far greater than that: from sin, death, the wrath of God and hell. Mercifully, around 6 weeks later, on the Day of Pentecost God chose to save 3000 of them, but even today Jews in their millions are rejecting the very Messiah that their own books foretold, though God is still saving some by His grace, as He is with the Gentiles.
Leave you with the questions raised-
• Is Jesus your King? Are you biddable like a young foal, ready to be directed wherever your Master leads you? Are you like the disciples who went and did exactly what Jesus asked them? Are you like Lazarus, who though dead, was called back to life by the mighty word of Jesus’ command? Or are you like the crowd, whose lips were praising Jesus, but whose hearts were far, far from Him? Is Jesus truly your King?
• Do we cry like Jesus? Are we grieving like Him for the souls and lives of those about us, or are we grieving only for ourselves and the thwarting of our own desires and hopes? Do we truly cry like Jesus?
• Finally, do I listen to Jesus? Am I a hearer and a doer? Or am I like the Pharisees, who listened only so they could trip Him up or find a loophole to avoid what He was saying? Or am I like the temple sellers who just didn’t care, and as soon as the sermon was finished, went back to their ways of darkness? Or am I like the people who listened avidly, but whose hearts were entirely unchanged, so that the murdered the very one whose words they had appeared to treasure? Do we truly listen to Jesus, and do we act on what we have heard?
“Blessed in the King who comes in the name of the LORD! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” May Jesus be the King of our hearts, the praise of our lips and in the pattern of our lives, this day and always. Amen.
Benediction: “I will praise You, for You have answered me, and have become my salvation…This is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Amen.”
