04-04-10 A Tale Of Two Groups

Welcome to our celebration

of the most significant event in the history of the human race,

the event that ultimately changed the world,

and perhaps even more important,

the event that changed the lives of many of you sitting here this morning.

Welcome to our celebration

of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

One of the many things that never ceases to thrill me

as I continue to study the Bible

is the way in which it is so obvious

that nothing that really matters has ever changed.

By that I mean simply

that even though the facade of our society today

is radically different from what we see in the Biblical records,

and even though we have made massive advancements in science,

and technology,

and medical care,

and transportation,

and so many other external areas of life,

when we look at the core issues of life

and the way people reacted and responded to those issues 2000 years ago,

it’s like looking into a mirror.

We don’t have to look long

before we see a reflection of ourselves.

And the fact that the core issues of life haven’t changed since the dawn of creation

shouldn’t really surprise us.

I have mentioned to you in the past

and want to repeat again now

that the greatest single fact of our existence,

the fact to which everything else in our life is linked

is the fact that we are created beings living each day of our lives in the presence of our Creator.

This is the central truth of life.

It is significant at the same level as the existence of the sun rising each morning

or the air we breath.

His existence

and the way we choose to relate to His existence

is what defines our lives.

And if you are new to my teaching

I must qualify that statement by assuring you

that I’m not talking here about our relationship with any organized religion,

or any doctrinal belief system of any kind.

I’m simply talking about the most basic fact of our existence -

the fact that we are each the created beings of a Creator God.

What we do about that

and how we relate to it

is the central issue of our lives.

And right now I wish very much

that we were not “in church”

with all of us involved in what we view as a clearly religious activity,

and I really wish you weren’t thinking of me

as a professional religious leader

who is fulfilling his designated obligation

of providing a religious talk for this portion of our time together.

Because our being here

and your viewing me in that light

can disarm the power, the significance, the importance of what I’ve just said.

Let me try it this way to see if it helps.

When you got out of bed this morning

and began your mental activity for the day

where did your mind go first?

What thoughts dominated your thinking?

Did you recall some joy from yesterday,

or some fear or disaster

and pick up where you left off when you went to sleep

churning over how it will impact your life and your future?

Did you look at the day before you,

mentally and emotionally preparing yourself for what’s coming,

either looking forward to it

or wondering how or if you’ll make it through?

Did you turn on the news

or check your favorite web site

to see what those in the news media believe are the truly important events in the world today?

Where did you invest your mind...your emotions...your decision-making processes

as you moved into this 16 hour slice of consciousness?

OK, now...

what if when you woke up this morning

and crawled out of bed,

as you made your way into the livingroom or the kitchen,

rather finding the room empty,

you were suddenly aware of the presence God Himself in the room,

and you knew He was there just for you, waiting for you to get up,

waiting so that He could once again continue His personal ongoing interaction with you.

Would that awareness have changed the way you viewed the day ahead,

the way you related to your life, your world, your future?

And here is the truly amazing thing -

the thing most of us so rarely or perhaps never allow our minds to focus on -

what I just described is not hypothetical,

it is the way things really are,

all except the part about our being consciously aware of His presence with us.

He doesn’t do that to us - reveal Himself in that way

because free will is not a game,

it is a reality

because He seeks a true love relationship with each of us

and true love can only exist where there is true free will.

And so He has carefully obscures our awareness of His presence with us,

never ever overwhelming us in a way that makes our submission to Him

anything other than a conscious, willing choice on our part.

But that doesn’t change the truth of the way things are -

He IS,

and the fact that He IS

is the most significant single fact of our existence.

Now, I bring all of this up on this Easter morning

because I want us to revisit a time in history

when, for just a brief period of time,

our God chose to pull back that veil just a bit,

revealing Himself to us in a way He’d never done before

and has never done since.

But even here He carefully crafted his revelation of Himself

in a way that never compromised our free will

or drove anyone into submission.

To kneel before our God

when it has become impossible to stand is not submission,

and that was not what He wanted or what He sought.

And yet He allowed those around Him

to see enough of who He was

so that they had the information they needed

to make very real choices about how they would relate to Him.

I want us to spend most of our time

with the final seven days of His physical presence on this earth,

but for this to make sense

I need to remind you of what had been taking place in the months leading up to those final seven days.

It is a little hard for us who now live in a world of mass media

and instant communication

and sound-bites and slick reporters and live broadcasts

to relate to life in 1^st century Israel.

Though many in Israel did their best to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem once or twice a year

in celebration of one or more of the Jewish holy celebrations,

apart from that

most people spent their whole lives

within a few miles of their home.

And during the first few months of His appearance on the scene

Jesus was unknown to all but a very few in the nation.

And apart from two brief appearances in Jerusalem prior to His final visit to the city

He spent His entire public ministry in the smaller towns and communities

scattered throughout the nation.

He was a self-proclaimed Rabi - a teacher,

but His teaching was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before.

He didn’t yell,

He didn’t plead or whine,

He didn’t judge or condemn,

He just talked, the way you would talk with a good friend in your own home.

It was impossible for His listeners to listen to him without feeling as if he was reading their minds.

He knew what they feared,

He knew what they lusted after,

He knew all the things they were clinging to for security.

He didn’t excuse,

He didn’t condemn,

He simply, powerfully pointed them back to the only source of true freedom, forgiveness, and security—to God himself.

And the way He talked about God was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before.

This was not the wrath-filled moral Judge of the universe

that His listeners had come to expect and fear.

He talked about God

as if He was talking about the best friend anyone could ever have.

It was a God who knew where we hurt and why,

a God filled with compassion,

a God who treasured us and called us back to Himself.

In fact sometimes Jesus didn’t even call Him “God”,

He called Him “your heavenly Father”.

"Look at the birds of the air, that they don’t sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they?

Mat 6:26

And even if it would have been only the teaching,

He would have developed a massive following very quickly.

But of course it wasn’t just the teaching,

it also had a lot to do with those miracles.

The healings were a huge part of it -

the blind, the lepers, the deaf, people crippled and afflicted with all sorts of deformities -

and all He had to do was to touch them, or just speak a word and they were healed.

And it wasn’t just healing...as if that wouldn’t have been enough.

There were several instances where He transformed tiny bits of food into banquets for thousands,

and when He changed plain old water into gallons and gallons of the best wine you’ve ever tasted.

And for more than three years prior to His final entrance into Jerusalem

He traveled throughout this tiny nation,

teaching, healing, loving, drawing people to Himself

until the entire nation was ready to explode with anticipation and expectation.

Which brings us to that glorious entrance into Jerusalem

on that sunny Sunday morning

just 4 days before His execution.

At that point no one could ever have guessed how that week would end,

no one except Jesus Himself, that is.

But I want us to begin our recollections of that week

with His entrance into the city

because it was at that point that we can most easily see the two distinctly different groups surrounding the Master.

First of all there were those in the inner circle - His close friends, His people.

He knew them all by name,

He knew them all by heart.

To them He was not just the great Rabbi/Teacher/Prophet/Miracle Worker,

He was their friend,

and they were His friends.

Certainly they were elated at what they saw happening that morning,

all of them filled with hope for His future and for their own.

But with them it was far more personal -

it was because they loved this Man and He so obviously loved them.

And then there was that second group - the masses -

thousands and thousands of people

who had gained a glimpse of God

and who were drawn to Him for what the believed He could do for them.

He was a means to an end.

Many of them had been healed by Him,

many more had stuffed themselves with His free food,

and still others viewed Him as their answer to a terrible, oppressive, corrupt governmental structure

that held their little nation in it’s grip.

He was a ruler they could trust,

a ruler who could deliver what they wanted,

when they wanted it,

at little or no cost to themselves.

THE MESSIAH had come at last.

OK, that much you probably know already,

but for us to make sense of the events that follow

I need to remind us again

that there was something else going on here as well,

something that brings it far closer to home for us today.

You see, all of these people knew at some level

that this Jesus was not just a man.

I’m not saying they had a clear concept of Him as being God -

of course not.

But at the same time,

this was a unique time in history in which,

for just a relatively short few months

God pulled back the veil between us and Himself just enough

so that those who were there

saw enough of God in Christ

so that their response to this Man

perfectly mirrored their true heart response to their Creator.

In the end people responded to Jesus

in exactly the same way as they responded to God the Father,

just as we do in our world today.

And isn’t it fascinating to see how their responses play out in the week that follows.

Now, on that morning when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey

it would have been impossible to tell the difference

between those two groups - those who were His,

and those who viewed Him as a means to an end.

All of them were unified -

cheering, smiling, laughing - joined together by the hope of what they believed was to come.

They were all united

because they all believed that their success,

their ability to get what they wanted in life,

was directly tied to Jesus’ success.

If Jesus succeeded - if He was elevated to supreme ruler of the land

then they were certain it would mean that they, too, would get what they wanted.

For some it was a position by His side,

ruling with Him,

sharing His glory.

For others it was simply having a ruler who would at last give them what they wanted-

an endless supply of free food

and instant healing from any illness, any disease.

But what I especially want us to focus on in our final few minutes this morning

is what happened in these two groups

in the four days following that grand public entrance into Jerusalem.

I want us to see what happened in their lives

when this God-Man failed to do it right,

when He failed to do what everyone knew He should do,

when He lost the election and let go of the power that was so easily within His grasp.

And you do understand, don’t you,

that this cheering mob surrounding Him that day

was both willing and able to crown Him King - the new King of Israel.

That is what they wanted,

it is what they were prepared to do.

And all Jesus had to do

was to accept the coronation.

But rather than doing what He so obviously should do,

He simply walked away.

That grand procession took them right up to the very steps of the Temple,

the perfect setting for the public proclamation of the new King,

but when they arrived

Jesus simply dismounted and walked away without a word.

And what took place in the days that followed

turned what was at first simply a missed opportunity

into an absolute, hideous, horrible disaster.

The following day He did return to the Temple,

but rather than calling the multitudes to Himself

and using their endorsement to proclaim Himself King of Israel,

He did a repeat of that thing he’d done three years earlier.

He once again physically attacked the money-changers and those selling animals for sacrifice in the Temple,

driving them from the grounds,

turning over their tables and releasing their animals,

calling them robbers and thieves.

Of course His actions ignited a rage within His enemies that just kept escalating throughout the week

as verbal attacks on the power structure in Jerusalem

exceeded even His physical attack.

At one point he told the Temple rulers

that “...the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.” (Mat 21:31),

telling them that, "... the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.” (Mat 21:43)

And that was just the beginning.

In the next two days He called them hypocrites over and over again,

describing them as those who devour widows,

sons of hell...fools and blind men,

whitewashed tombs that were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness,

serpents, a brood of vipers who would never escape the sentence of hell.

At the time His faithful followers couldn’t believe what a disastrous mess He was making of everything.

Rather than winning over those in positions of power

He drove them into a rage so intense, so blind, so irrational

that they would do anything, risk anything to wipe Him off the face of the earth.

Which, of course, was exactly what He intended

because He knew His time had come,

His time to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the human race - all the sin, forever.

But I walked us through these events this morning

because I mentioned earlier that these people

provide a perfect mirror in which we can see reflected

the whole spectrum of responses of the human race in our relationship with God.

And let me start first with the masses -

those thousands of people trotting along beside Jesus on that donkey as He entered Jerusalem

crying out their praises,

flinging their coats on the ground before Him,

calling out for His coronation as King.

Have you ever wondered how, just 4 days later,

those same people could be standing outside Pilate’s palace crying out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

when Pilate asked them what they wanted him to do with Jesus?

You see, that’s what so often happens within us

when we look to God as our means to an end

and He fails to deliver what we want.

They’d crowned Him their King,

they’d shouted out their praises,

they’d given Him honor and glory,

believing He would fix what they though was broken in their lives.

And when He failed to deliver the goods,

they wanted nothing to do with Him.

And there are some of you here this morning

who have gone through that same process.

You came to your God with your list of things you wanted Him to do,

things you knew you simply had to have in order for your life to be truly happy.

Maybe it was a relationship you simply knew you could not live without.

Maybe it was some form of success

that you knew would fill your life.

And you paid your dues to your God -

you went to church,

and gave your money,

and sang the songs,

and read His book,

and spoke your words of praise and adoration.

And He failed you.

He did not give you what you knew you must have for happiness.

And in response you too crucified Him to yourself.

You’ve decided that no God at all is better than this God who will not give you what you know you need.

And now you live in a great fog of anger, and resentment, and disgust against Him,

a fog that shrouds your spirit from His.

And if that’s happened to you,

on this special morning when we celebrate the great hope for the human race

let me tell you that there is great hope for you -

hope that you can and will find your way out of that fog

and into the discovery of the love of your God.

And the beginning of that hope will come

when you will reach out to your God

not as a means to a predetermined end,

but rather as your Savior, your Redeemer

who loves you with an everlasting love

and who can and will work within you to rebuild your life,

no matter what has come before.

I don’t know why He didn’t give you what you wanted Him to give you,

but I have some ideas.

The most common reason why He said “No”

is because He loves you far too much

to give you that which would have destroyed your life.

Nearly everything I have at one time wanted most in my life

I now look back on and thank my God for His refusing to give it to me.

We are quite simply terrible judges of what things bring deep fulfillment and happiness into our lives.

And, of course, it is also possible

that whatever loss you suffered

was not the result of what your God has done,

but rather simply an inescapable consequence of living in a sin-soaked world, filled with corruption.

But this one thing I know for certain -

He loves you,

and right now you desperately need to know that love

and to know the healing His love alone can bring to your soul.

But there it is - that first glimpse into the mirror

in the form of those masses that crowned Him King on Sunday

and crucified Him four days later

because He would not give them what they wanted.

And then, very quickly,

let me conclude by saying just a little about the other group -

those who were truly His,

those who loved Him.

And if I were to attempt to state the difference between the masses

and those who were truly His people

I would say that with the masses Jesus was a means to an end - a resource to be used,

but with His true disciples Jesus Himself was the end.

What they wanted most

was not what He could give them or do for them,

what they wanted most was HIM.

And of course Jesus’ apparent failure during those 4 days following His entrance into Jerusalem

was even a greater loss and tragedy to them

than it was to the masses,

a tragedy that brought about the greatest loss any of them had ever experienced in their lives.

But their response to that loss

was radically different from the masses.

Whereas the masses turned bitter against this God/Man who failed to deliver what they wanted,

His true followers were simply crushed in spirit,

immersed in pain, and sorrow, and emptiness, and loss.

With the loss of the Master

came the loss of hope,

and even worse - the loss of love.

The One who formed the center of their lives,

the One who loved them absolutely and unconditionally was gone.

You see the difference, don’t you, between these two groups?

For those who knew Him and loved Him

Jesus’ “failure” didn’t make them feel angry,

it just made them feel empty, broken.

But right here is where, for His people,

the final outcome is utterly different than it was for the masses,

because for His people the story did not end with the cross.

Certainly there was a time of intense pain,

a time when it felt as if all hope was gone.

And that, by the way, is also a pattern that most of those who come to Him will experience.

With most of us

our allegiance to our Lord

or our entrance into His family

will involve some form of death in our life -

the death, the loss of something or someone we were clinging to for our hope and happiness,

just as the disciples had to suffer the loss of their earthly Jesus.

But, as I said, for His people that is never where the story ends

because three days later

when their Lord, their Master, their Friend, their Redeemer stepped out of that tomb,

what they gained in the process

so far exceeded what they’d lost

that there simply was no comparison.

And what did the gain?

Well, they gained the same thing that everyone of His people have gained ever since.

First of all, they gained an endless friendship with a living God

who would never ever again leave them or forsake them.

They gained an insight into His love

that transformed their lives forever -

a love that compelled Him to pay their debt for their sins through His own death

so that those sins could never again stand between them and Himself.

They gained a great High Priest whose name is Love,

a High Priest who would forevermore plead their case and offer His blood as payment for their sin in the presence of God Himself.

They gained a King who has written their names on His hands

and etched it into His heart,

a King who openly condemns all those who would ever attempt to bring a charge against His people in His presence,

a King who declared them forever righteous, His holy ones in whom He is well pleased.

And through Him they have also gained a vivid image of who they themselves would become -

victorious over death,

never to die again, and “...because I live, you will live also.”Joh 14:19

And the offer of this God/Man hasn’t changed ever since.

For all who come to Him

and claim Him as their King

I can guarantee there will be times when He will not do it the way we think He should,

but I can also promise you

that the story never ever ends at the tomb

because...well, because in His own words, He came that we might have life, and that abundantly, and forever.