4/1/07 Right King, Wrong Reasons

LUK 19:29-44 When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, saying, "Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' you shall say, 'The Lord has need of it.'" So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They said, "The Lord has need of it." They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it. As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!"

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

We are going to pull out of our study of John for just a few weeks

so that we can turn our attention this morning to Palm Sunday

and then next week to Easter.

Those of you who have listened to me teach for any length of time

know that I intentionally and joyfully avoid even the recognition of most so-called religious holidays

because, rather than helping us in our battles

to keep our lives focused on our Lord Jesus Christ on a daily basis,

they actually tend to create within us the belief

that there really are “religious” and “nonreligious” days.

And the truth is that for the Christian there are not.

For the Christian there is no such thing as a “holy day”,

or more correctly, there is no such thing as a non-holy day.

When we come to Christ

we literally enter into the presence of God Himself forever

which means that every single day of our lives is a holy day,

every hour is a holy hour,

every minute is a holy minute,

and every place is a holy place because wherever we are, we are in the presence of God.

The early Christians’ relationship to the Sabbath Day is a good illustration.

It was the clear understanding of that truth

that caused the Jewish Christians in the 1^st century

to turn their backs on several thousand years of Sabbath Day tradition

because they understood what the Sabbath Day really was.

It was a picture of what God’s people would one day experience in living reality through Christ.

When the Jews entered into the Sabbath Day each week

God required just one thing from them -

that they stop all of their work.

And when Christ finally came

the early Christians suddenly saw

what God had been seeking to illustrate for them through the Sabbath.

ROM 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

HEB 4:3,9-10 For we who have believed enter that rest, ... So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

Through Christ we enter into a relationship with God

in which we are required to do nothing in order to earn His acceptance,

and, in fact, a relationship in which

all He asks of us is that we simple rest in Him and His love.

And the early Christians understood

that the Sabbath Day was nothing more

and nothing less than a picture, a promise

of what God would one day give us in living reality through Christ.

But once the living reality came

the picture had fulfilled its purpose

and was no longer needed

because through Christ every single day of our lives

literally becomes a Sabbath Day in which we rest from our striving

in our efforts to earn God’s acceptance.

Do you go to church to meet God?

Well, if so then you have not yet understood what God has offered us through Christ.

If you are His child

then when you came in here this morning

your God came with you,

and when you leave

the two of you go together.

I love the way David said it.

PSA 139:2-10 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

Welcome to the Christian life.

But, having said all of that,

still there are a few historical events

that are simply to good, and too significant

for us not to celebrate on a regular basis

simply because the reminders help us remember the truth.

And at the top of that list

are the events surrounding the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Which brings us back to what we traditionally call Palm Sunday and Easter.

The passage I read for us when I began this morning

is Luke’s account of Jesus’ final entrance into Jerusalem just a few days prior to His crucifixion.

It is an event that culminated four years of public ministry,

four years of Jesus’ careful presentation of Himself to the Nation of Israel,

four years in which He presented His credentials as the Messiah promised by God.

LUK 7:20-22 When the men came to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, 'Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?'" At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind. And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

In the weeks just prior to this entrance into Jerusalem

Jesus and His disciples had just completed

one final intense tour throughout the Nation,

preaching, teaching, healing, and clearly offering Himself to the Nation.

And now, with the Passover feast just days away,

literally thousands of Jews from throughout the country

were pouring into Jerusalem.

And the great question among all of them

was whether or not this amazing prophet from Galilee would be there.

And what we have described for us in this passage from Luke

is the spontaneous response of those people at the appearance of Jesus in the crowd.

As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

Blessed is the King!

And every time I read this passage

I have to admit

that, when I picture that scene in my mind,

and I see Jesus surrounded by all of those cheering people,

there is a huge part of me

that responds the same way they did

and makes me wish I could have been there too.

You see, this event,

perhaps more than any other event in the Gospels,

pictures for us our God as our flesh wants Him to be.

From the very beginning of Jesus’ time on this earth

there was a clear, inalterable, precise direction He was headed.

And there was, too, a clear, inalterable, precise direction

that His disciples wanted Him to head as well.

Perhaps I could best communicate the direction He had chosen

by once again borrowing a few words from my imagined Peter in the Fisherman.

There was one point in that account when I had Peter say,

I have heard the throbbing cadence of the taskmaster’s drum pounding out the rhythm for those chained to the oars on the Roman galleys as they glide past on the Great Sea. There was such a cadence to our final months with the Master. Though in truth it had always been there, it was far beyond my range of hearing until the morning I called Him ‟Messiah”. And even then I could not yet hear it with my mind. But I believe my spirit sensed it - a distant, steady, relentless rhythm being drummed by an Almighty hand upon the foundation of the world with two massive rough-hewn timbers formed in the shape of a cross. The rhythm marked our pace and our destination - a hill just outside Jerusalem, a hill called Golgotha. Each step the Master took coincided perfectly with the cadence. With each step the volume increased a decibel or two. And each step brought Him closer to the fulfillment of the purpose for which He came. I can hear it now, looking back with the mind of the Spirit. At the time I refused to accept the reality of its existence until I stood before that cross and felt the earth shake under my feet, and saw the sun driven from the sky, and heard the hammered blows upon the nails being driven through the flesh of the Son of God.

And when Jesus sat upon that little donkey that morning,

with the sun streaming down on Him,

and the thousands upon thousands surrounding Him,

all crying out “Here comes the King!”,

He knew that what He was riding to

was not a crown, but a cross.

But no one there that day understood that except Jesus Himself.

In fact,

everyone else believed that exactly the opposite was happening.

They all believed that now, at last,

God had heard, and understood, and given them what they wanted most.

And do you know what Palm Sunday is most of all?

It is the ultimate collision

of the two things in our lives

that forever cause the greatest tension -

what we think we want our God to give us

and what our God, in His love, knows we really need.

Let me show you what I mean

by taking us back to that glorious march into Jerusalem.

As soon as Jesus sat on that donkey

something happened that had never happened before in the history of the nation of Israel.

The entire road from Bethany

all they way into Jerusalem

was already packed with people.

But as soon as Jesus climbed onto that donkey

and people could see Him coming

the report of His arrival flew through the crowd.

‟He’s coming!”

‟Jesus is coming!”

‟Here comes that rabbi everyone has been talking about.”

‟He’s coming!”

‟Here comes the King!”

For the first time since King David himself

the nation finally had the hope

of a leader who came from their world,

a man who understood them and their lives,

a man who rode

not high and lofty in his royal carriage,

surrounded by his guards,

but a man who rode on a little donkey.

Here He was, right next to them,

in the same dirt,

and dust,

and odors,

and heat in which they lived.

Here at last was a man they could trust,

a man they could follow.

Here at last was a man worthy of their adoration.

In a matter of a few minutes

everyone was pulling off their coats

and flinging them down on the ground in front of the donkey.

And people were pulling branches off the trees

and using them to pave the way

before the coming King.

And just as the Red Sea parted before Moses

so this mass of humanity parted before Jesus.

What began as a caravan

suddenly turned into a parade

with everyone cheering,

and screaming,

and waving palm branches in the air.

Hands reached out from everywhere to touch Him,

and the shouts, and cheers, and affirmations of praise thundered around Him.

‟Hosanna to the Son of David!”

‟Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

‟Hosanna in the Highest!”

‟Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

‟Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

And then, all of the sudden,

several furious Pharisees

took their stand directly in the Master’s path

and brought the procession to a stop.

The crowd could see the rage in the eyes of those blocking the way.

The could see their clenched fists,

and pointing fingers.

The leader of the attack band

spoke only four words,

but they were words spoken with a venom

and a demand for unconditional submission

that brought a hush to all those watching.

‟Teacher! REBUKE YOUR DISCIPLES!”

The very thought that Jesus

would allow the crowd to proclaim Him

the rightful heir to the throne of David

was unthinkable to those Jewish leaders.

For a few seconds Jesus didn’t speak a word,

and in that silence

the crown could feel the incredible tension

created by two great hostile forces

waiting for the signal

that would begin the war of the ages.

When Jesus finally spoke,

His tone was direct and matter-of-fact,

but His words carried with them

the ring of absolute authority.

‟I tell you, if these become silent,

the stones will cry out!”

His words were a thinly veiled reference

to Habakkuk’s prophetic promise

of what would happen

if truth and righteousness are not affirmed within the nation of Israel.

And from the crowed’s perspective

Jesus was obviously accepting their coronation of Him as King.

At one point Jesus stopped,

dismounted from His donkey,

and stood for a time,

looking over Jerusalem spread out before Him.

To those watching Him the expression on His face

seemed all wrong somehow.

Rather than radiating the obvious reality of this great victory march,

His eyes were filled with pain,

and tears streamed down His cheeks.

And the words He spoke

made no sense to the crowd at all.

Luke 19:42-44 "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. "

How could He say that?

How could He offer such a gruesome prophecy

in the face of this obvious overwhelming support of the new King of Israel?

Here was the man they’d all been waiting for their whole lives.

Here was the man who could heal with the touch of His hand.

Here was the man who could feed ten thousand people

with a few small fish

and some little rolls.

Here was a man who could stand before the tomb

in which His good friend laid buried

and command Him to come forth alive.

This was the one they wanted as their King.

This was the one they chose for their ruler.

This was the one who could and who would

bring everyone all they could ever want or need.

Did He not understand?

This crowd was His.

This city was His.

This nation was His.

And soon the Roman Empire would be His as well.

Interesting, isn’t it,

how easy it is for us to join that crowd in our minds.

Interesting how comfortable we feel

marching along beside this Man

who could so easily do for us

everything we believe needs to be done.

If we would have pulled any individual out of that crowd that day

and told him that

in just four days this King

would be nailed to a Roman cross,

despised and rejected by these same people

who now paved His path with their clothing,

he could never have believed it.

And if we would have gone on to say

that that cross would become

the symbol of God’s ultimate triumph over evil,

it would have sounded like the babbling of an idiot.

To their credit,

those people marching beside the Master that day

did have one thing correct -

the Man for whom they cheered

really was the rightful King,

not only of Israel,

but of every human being who has ever lived.

But virtually everything else they misunderstood.

They wanted Him as their King

so that they could have

a nation free from corruption,

so that they could have a King

who could feed them without labor,

who could heal them without pain,

who could crush all their enemies,

and who could bring them back to life when they died.

And, you know something?

I think every one of us

has our own personal Palm Sunday

in our relationship with the King.

I think there are times in every Christian’s life

when our allegiance to the Master

is based upon our belief

that He will give us what we want.

The crowds in Jerusalem deserted Jesus

when He did not deliver the goods.

But the good news is this -

our King loves us enough

to give us not what we want,

but what He knows we really need.

That week in Jerusalem

what we needed most of all

was not a great King sitting upon a throne,

but rather our eternal God hanging upon a cross.

The cross is not the end of the story, of course,

but it is an essential part of it.

And there are times in our lives

when the ultimate expression of God’s love

comes in the form of death -

the death of some dream,

or some relationship,

or some success,

or some achievement,

or some thing we just knew we could not live without.

This is a terrible place to stop our narrative for the day,

just as it is a terrible thing

to find ourselves in life

half way between death and resurrection.

But let me conclude this morning

by offering you this one assurance -

if your Palm Sunday relationship with the Master

has suddenly,

horribly ended in death,

know this with absolute certainty -

the same God who brought Jesus to the cross

is the One who ultimately rolled away the stone.

If what you longed for,

what you hoped for,

what you believed you could not live without

is not what God has chosen to give you,

then it is not what you really needed,

and certainly not what would have brought you true joy in the end.

Our God can do only good in our lives,

and sometimes that means

that between the crowd

and the crown

there must be a cross.