We've been discussing Jesus's mission and His ministry for the past few weeks. Through that ministry, Jesus expressed His love for everyone. His mission and His ministry would lead us to today, Palm Sunday, the first day of the last week of Jesus's life here on Earth in human form.
We know the story because we have heard it many times of Jesus's triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem that Sunday. Jesus had instructed two of His disciples to go into the city before him and retrieve a young colt for Him to ride. The colt was brought and Jesus sat upon it to begin His triumphal entry.
Luke 19:35-38 – “Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their clothes on the colt, they helped Jesus get on it. 36 As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road. 37 Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:
********38 Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”
What a day of celebration. No one knew at that time what the end of this week would bring. Everyone was excited and looking forward to Jesus being possibly their new king. Only Jesus knew what Friday would bring.
On Thursday of this week, Jesus would lead in the very first Lord's supper. Then He and His disciples would retreat to the Mount of Olives where He would pray and seek the will of His heavenly Father.
Jesus would be arrested that evening and be accused in a mock trial. On Friday morning, He would be handed back and forth, first from Pontius Pilate, then to Herod, then back to Pontius Pilate.
Even though Pontius Pilate did not find any wrong in Jesus, he gave in to the cries of the people to have Jesus whipped and led to Mount Calvary where He would be crucified. Now let's pick up that story in
Luke 23: 32-34 – “Two others—criminals—were also led away to be executed with him. 33 When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided his clothes and cast lots.”
Crucifixion was considered to be one of the most cruel, humiliating, and painful forms of execution. Even though Jesus was facing extreme hatred toward Him, He responded with extravagant love. While suffering on the cross, Jesus prayed for the Father to forgive the ones who put Him there. What is ironic about it all is that the ones who were killing Him could only be forgiven because Jesus willingly submitted to death.
What we need to realize is that the cross wasn't the end of Jesus's mission. Before He was arrested, Jesus told His disciples:
Luke 22:37 – “For I tell you, what is written must be fulfilled in me: And he was counted among the lawless. Yes, what is written about me is coming to its fulfillment.”
Jesus was quoting Isaiah 53:12, which described the Messiah as a suffering servant who laid down His life for His people. And as fulfillment of that prophecy, Jesus was crucified between two criminals, even though He was completely innocent.
Why did Jesus do this? I can answer that by going a little deeper and looking at a second layer to this prophecy, which we can better understand by looking at a few of the earlier verses in Isaiah 53. I'm going to read from the prophecy of Isaiah and I want to emphasize some of the pronouns used in that prophecy. I think this will answer why Jesus did what He did.
Isaiah 53:5-6 - " But he was pierced because of OUR rebellion, crushed because of OUR iniquities; punishment for OUR peace was on him, and WE are healed by his wounds. 6 WE all went astray like sheep; WE all have turned to OUR own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of US all."
Do you see it? OUR, WE, US.
Jesus was punished for OUR rebellion. He received the punishment WE deserve for rebelling against God. Every time we backslide, every time we lie or cheat, every time we sin and think we are hiding it from God, we are rebelling against God. It's that rebellion that sent Jesus to the cross. But even though we sin against God, God in His mercy:
2 Corinthians 5:21 - " He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
When Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing,” He was praying for His enemies, just like He had taught the disciples. And those enemies weren't just the Roman soldiers gambling over His clothes, or the ones who hammered the nails into his hands, or the religious leaders who orchestrated His arrest and crucifixion. Jesus was praying for His enemies whose sin and rebellion nailed Him to the cross, and those enemies are you and me.
Luke 23:35-39 – “The people stood watching, and even the leaders were scoffing: “He saved others; let him save himself if this is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him.
********They came offering him sour wine 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 An inscription was above him: This Is the King of the Jews.39 Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
These individuals mocked Jesus for what they thought was His inability to live up to His claims as Savior. But Jesus was actually completing His work as Savior. Jesus opened the way for salvation by choosing not to save Himself.
The religious leaders mocked Him. The Roman soldiers mocked Him. And even one of the criminals on the cross next to Him mocked Him. These mockers knew that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. But their hearts were hard with unbelief. They thought of Jesus as just another defeated political rebel or another false Messiah whose movement had failed.
They were looking at Jesus but didn't see the truth. They heard Jesus but they didn't understand. They thought Jesus's death was His defeat. They didn't understand that in death, Jesus was defeating sin. This should be a vivid reminder to us all that a hardened heart can keep us from seeing Jesus.
Luke 23:40-43 – “But the other answered, rebuking him: “Don’t you even fear God, since you are undergoing the same punishment? 41 We are punished justly, because we’re getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
********42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”43 And he said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It reminds us all that the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior, we can be assured that we will be with Him in paradise. Because of what He did and because of what He promised.
In contrast to all of the hardened hearts of the mockers, we see here a convicted criminal with a soft heart. We don't know what crime these men committed. That doesn't really matter. What matters is that they were convicted and crucified. This one criminal admitted that they deserved their punishment.
We don't have any indication that this man trusted Jesus before that moment when he hung there beside Him. But he recognized Jesus's innocence and power. This man trusted that Jesus’s kingdom was coming with Jesus as King. So, he asked Jesus to remember him.
We don't know exactly what this man was expecting from Jesus, but he turned to Jesus in faith. Jesus hadn't responded to any of the people mocking Him. But He did speak words of comfort to this repentant criminal. Jesus assured this man that on this day he would be with Him in paradise.
Did you ever wonder why this criminal was saved? Was he a better person than the other criminal? Was his crime less awful? No. This criminal was saved because he trusted Jesus to save him. That was all it took to join Jesus in Paradise that same day.
You have probably heard or read this in the past 6 months or so, but every time I read it, the Lord opens my eyes to even more.
John 6:28-29 - “What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked. Jesus replied, “This is the work of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.”
Now let's think about that for a minute. Do we have our own individual theologies? Yes, we do. Some believe that you can't get to God unless you're baptized. Others believe that you have to participate in communion or the Lord's Supper to get to heaven. Some denominations believe that you must go through confirmation. Others believe you must be able to speak in tongues. Some believe that you must recite the sinner's prayer in order to accept Jesus. Some even believe that if you're not dressed in "church clothes" that you shouldn't even come into the church.
So yes, in all of these things, we each have our own theology. Whether we realize it or not.
But I want to remind all of you of how simple the Gospel is. You always hear me say that people may say "it can't be that easy to accept Jesus." But it is. The gospel is simple. “How does this thief on the cross fit into your theology? Think about it. No baptism, no communion, no confirmation, no speaking in tongues, no mission trip, no volunteerism, and no church clothes. He couldn’t even bend his knees to pray. He didn’t say the sinner's prayer and among other things, he was a thief.
Jesus didn’t take away his pain, heal his body, or smite the scoffers. Yet it was a thief who walked into heaven the same day, the same hour as Jesus did; simply by believing. He had nothing more to offer other than his belief that Jesus was who He said He was. No fancy seminary language from brilliant theologians. No ego or arrogance. No Shiny lights, skinny jeans, or crafty words. No haze machine, donuts, or coffee in the entrance.
Just a naked dying man, a thief, on a cross unable to even fold his hands to pray.” And then we are reminded:
“For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
I read this story and was reminded of the simplicity of the Gospel. It's us. It's man and his man made doctrines that confuse things by adding so many Pharisaical rules and regulations. So......Let's set aside all of our theologies and do what Jesus tells us to do in order to come to Him, in order to get to heaven, in order to get to God. Simply believe.
Whoever BELIEVES in Him, that's it, just believes in Him, will not perish but have everlasting life.
Luke 23:44-45 – “ It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three, 45 because the sun’s light failed. The curtain of the sanctuary was split down the middle.”
Luke recorded two supernatural occurrences. Darkness came over the whole land. The darkness probably represented God's displeasure with humanity for crucifying His Son. Even though this was part of God's plan to save the people, Jesus’s crucifixion was still a horrible event resulting from humanity's sin.
The curtain of the sanctuary was split down the middle. Matthew wrote of this account that the curtain was torn from the top to the bottom. That tells me that it wasn't someone grabbing the curtain from the ground and ripping it upwards. It tells me that God tore the curtain from above. This curtain was the curtain that separated the Holy place in the temple from the Most Holy Place.
This curtain was 60 ft high and 30 ft wide. No one was allowed to go past this curtain and enter the most Holy place except the high priest and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement, the priest would enter the most Holy place to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. The splitting of this curtain says that Jesus’s death removed the separation between God and man that is caused by sin. Jesus died to pay the debt of our sin and provided access to God for ALL people.
Luke 23:46-49 – “And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” Saying this, he breathed his last. 47 When the centurion saw what happened, he began to glorify God, saying, “This man really was righteous!”
******** 48 All the crowds that had gathered for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, went home, striking their chests. 49 But all who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
The portion of the crowd that knew Jesus stood at a distance and were witnesses to all of these things. What did they witness?
Jesus forgiving his enemies and not returning any insults.
Jesus comforting the criminal and promising to be with him in paradise.
Supernatural darkness for 3 hours when the sun failed to shine.
Jesus entrusting His Spirit to His Father.
Jesus giving up His life as He breathed His last breath.
So Jesus’s earthly ministry had been leading to this point. Fully trusting God, Jesus submitted to God's plan for reconciling the world to Himself. Jesus was totally innocent but died a criminal's death, completely paying the debt for the sins of those who simply believe and trust in Him.
So this week began with a triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. And this week ended with Jesus's triumph of paying for our sins and conquering death. Triumphant entry, triumphant exit.
