"Riding Toward Death"
Matthew 21:1-11
Three times between Matthew Chapter 16 and Matthew Chapter 20, Jesus tells His disciples that He is going to Jerusalem where He will suffer, die and rise from the dead.
And now in Chapter 21 Jesus finally enters Jerusalem, but He is not immediately arrested and nailed to a Cross.
Instead, there is "fanfare," "adoring crowds," "mass hysteria."
And the disciples, no doubt, got caught up in it as well!!!
Do you think they were experiencing a "sigh of relief"?
Had they so misunderstood Jesus, even after having been with Him for so long, that--even after He had warned them of what was to occur--they still "did not understand what He was talking about"?
We don't know.
We aren't told.
But certainly, just a chapter earlier, in Matthew 20, the disciples did not seem to have a clue.
They were on their way to Jerusalem.
Jesus, we are told, took the 12 disciples aside and said to them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.
On the third day he will be raised to life!"
Immediately after this conversation the disciples had an argument as to which one of them would be able to sit at Jesus' right and left in His kingdom.
They were still thinking of an earthly kingdom, and they were thinking of Jesus as an earthly King.
Jesus asked them if they could drink from the cup of suffering that He was going to drink from.
"We can," they answered.
Then Jesus went on, "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Then Jesus comes into the Holy City "humble and riding on a donkey."
And we are told that "a large crowd spread their clothes on the road.
Others cut palm branches off the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds in front of him and behind him shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!"
Who were these people who were singing the praises of Jesus, who were proclaiming Him King, who were begging Him to save them?
Who were these crowds of folks running in front of Him and behind Him?
Certainly, they weren't the residents of Jerusalem.
According to Matthew, this was Jesus' first trip to the city.
Some in the crowd had been following Jesus from the beginning.
Remember, that by the end of the Sermon on the Mount "the crowds" were listening to His teaching.
The crowds continued to swell as they watched as Jesus healed the sick.
They began to follow Him wherever He went.
They watched, in amazement, as Jesus cast out demons.
And we are told back in Matthew Chapter 12 that they began to wonder whether Jesus might be the Son of David...
...in other words, whether Jesus was going to be the new King David...
...the Messiah who was gonna slaughter the occupying forces of Rome and give Israel their home back.
Jesus fed 5,000 of them on a hillside with just two fish and five barely loaves.
We are told over and over again that "a large crowd followed [Jesus]."
They were fishermen, tax collectors, Samaritans, prostitutes, blind people, demoniacs, lepers and cripples.
They were a motley crew, a ragtag bunch.
There were women who now leaped for joy, lepers with hearts full of gratitude, oppressed women who had been treated like human beings for the first time.
And they "spread their clothes on the road" in front of Jesus--kind of like the red carpet treatment.
And yet the cloths that were thrown on that road that day were not glamorous, they were tattered and dusty, sweat-stained rags.
And this is because Jesus was and is the King of the oppressed and suffering.
He shared their hardships, relieved their suffering, accepted them even though nobody else accepted them.
He gave them hope, and embodied God's love for them.
And now they came to march with Jesus into Jerusalem.
Only a few days later, on their way home, they would say to one another, "But we had hoped He was the One to redeem Israel."
All this activity causes a huge stir in Jerusalem.
At the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, when the Magi from the East were trying to find "the one born king of the Jews," we read that Herod was troubled and the whole city of Jerusalem was troubled with him.
Now the whole city is shaken again as Jesus enters with shouts that He is royalty.
The word used to describe the state of the whole city is the same word used for the shaking of the earth when Jesus breathes His last in Chapter 27:51, and for the quaking of the guards at the tomb when they see the angel of the Lord.
It's the same word used to describe an earthquake!!!
So the reaction to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey is of seismic proportions.
There were literally thousands of people coming into the city with Him.
This wasn't some small-time parade.
It caught the attention of everyone.
And, in verse 10, we are told that the reaction of the residents of the city wasn't to step into the parade and join the adoring procession.
Rather, their response was to stare and ask, basically: "What in the world is going on here?"
We are told, "The whole city was stirred up."
"Who is this?' they asked."
And the crowds answered "It's the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
And then, with this huge multitude of people following Him, Jesus went immediately "into the temple and threw out all those who were selling and buying there.
He pushed over the tables used for currency exchange and the chairs of those who sold doves."
And we are told that "when the chief priests and legal experts saw the amazing things he was doing and the children shouting in the temple, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' they were angry."
For certainly, Jesus rode into Jerusalem not to be enthroned as an earthly king, but to die at the hands of the religious and political authorities.
He came to die for you and for me.
Entrance processions were fairly normal in the 1st Century.
Lots of anointed kings and conquering generals had entered Jerusalem over the years, but never had the city seen a king like this one.
It's been said that "The triumphal entry, staged on a donkey, is a prophetic sign, an acted-out parable.
In the Gospels, something is always out of place--the rich fool dies; the good neighbor is a Samaritan; the tax collector leaves the Temple justified--and now the King enters the city riding on a borrowed donkey."
Jesus was a king, but no ordinary king!!!
He entered into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, with crowds praising His name.
But He would soon be arrested.
He didn't much look like a king when He was in Pilate's courtyard.
They had stripped Him, and beaten Him, and the only crown He wore was a crown of thorns, crushed down into His skin and skull.
Pilate was a practical politician who saw that there was no advantage for him to treat Jesus like a visiting head of state.
And so, Pilate gave the mob that cruel choice: Jesus or Barabbas.
They chose Barabbas.
King Jesus went to the Cross.
But, it had all looked so different a few days before, on Palm Sunday.
Quiet often there was a ransom paid for an important person who was arrested, but in Jesus' case, the ransom wasn't paid by the crowds, and not by some generous rich guy.
The ransom was paid by the King Himself!!!
When Jesus goes to the Cross, He Himself is paying the ransom: our ransom--the ransom for our souls!!!
I pray you all will take part in our Holy Week worship services on Thursday and Friday.
And I especially look forward to seeing you next Sunday, Easter morning, at Sunrise and at 10:45.
Tomorrow, some of us are going to go out into the neighborhood to put up fliers inviting the folks in our neighborhood to come join us in worshiping the True King of kings and Lord of lords.
If you can make it, we are meeting here at 10 a.m.
Wednesday we will have our Free Spaghetti Dinner for the community--followed by an Easter Egg Hunt.
I pray you will come, and bring friends.
On that first Palm Sunday, centuries ago, those who proclaimed Jesus' entry moved from flinging down their coats and waiving palm branches to fleeing when the confusion of the onlookers turned to fear and anger.
We face a time, as well, when many people in our city look at the church of Jesus Christ with something like fear and anger.
Faith history provides us with two options:
1. We can leave the palms behind and join those cheering for Jesus' demise...
2. Or we can run away and hide.
But surely there's a third option.
The third option is to give our lives completely over to Christ and turn, in love--outward to the befuddled, lost, sad and even angry world--saying in every word and deed: "This parade is not about us; it's about the One we have come to know.
And this One we have come to know has changed our lives.
He is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the King.
He created you.
He loves you.
He came to save you, not to judge you.
Won't you come join in worshiping Him?"
