“Meeting Jesus On The Jerusalem Road” Luke 19:28-44 March 28, 2010
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
This week before Easter is
called Holy Week or
Passion Week in the church
calendar.
“Passion” is an old fashioned
word for “suffering.”
So is the Suffering Week of Jesus
Christ.
Today we’re going to look at
the event that started Passion Week,
Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, when he rode into
Jerusalem on a colt
to the cheers of the people. We’re going to meet Jesus on the Jerusalem
road.
Then, Wednesday evening,
we’re going to look at the Suffering of Christ
through Scripture and music. We’ve held this service for the past two
years
and it’s very moving. Please come.
It will get your heart ready for Easter.
And, of course, on Easter,
we’ll be looking and one of the great Resurrection
stories.
A story that continues to encourage and intrigue Christians—
when the disciples met the risen Lord Jesus
on the Emmaus Road.
So let’s begin our Passion
Week celebration with Luke’s account
of the Triumphal Entry. But before we read, let’s pray that the Holy
Spirit
would open our eyes in new ways to this old
story.
INTRO: A friend of mine was called right out of seminary to a
small church
with an elderly congregation. The church was in a small town, that also
had an older population.
This man and his wife became lonely for
people their age.
One day they met another
young couple and struck up a conversation.
They really seemed to have a lot in common.
This couple they had met
said: We’d like to get to know you
better.
Why don’t you come over to our house Friday
and we’ll cook burgers on grill.
My friend and his wife were
looking forward to this dinner.
As they were getting ready, were talking
about how great it was
that they had met this couple their age that
they seemed to have so much
in common with.
So they ate supper together,
and then sat down in the living room—
and this couple they had met said:
It was so good of you to come
over. We want to tell you about a great
money-making opportunity.
And they proceeded to give
them the pitch for a pyramid sales scheme.
We want you to get in on the ground floor of
this great opportunity.
You are just the kind of people we are
looking for, this is going to take off.
My friends left that night
very disappointed.
There were two very different
agendas at that Friday night meal.
One agenda was friendship, or a least a
pleasant social evening.
The other agenda was financial.
Two different agendas that
clashed with each other.
That’s a great summary of
this passage.
The triumphal entry, as it is
called,
is about two very different agendas clashing
on the road into
There was the crowd’s
agenda.
They had their own ideas of what the Messiah
was going to be,
what kind of king he would be and what they
expected him to do for them.
And there was Jesus’
agenda.
Who he knew the Messiah to be, what he
thought of his kingship,
and what he planned to do for his people.
Those two agendas clashed.
If you read any good
commentary or old sermon on this passage
you will see this theme of the two agendas.
Knowing the whole story of
Passion Week makes this theme even more clear.
Because we know, as we read this, that by the end of the week,
many of the people who shouted Hosanna to
the Son of David,
would be shouting, Crucify him and give us
Barabbas.
The differences between the
two agendas becomes very clear.
The crowd wanted one kind of salvation,
Jesus was bringing another kind of
salvation—and they didn’t want it.
This is the point at which
the story intersects with our lives.
Just like the crowds that cheered Jesus,
each one of us has an agenda
for what we want Jesus to do in our lives.
There are things we want him
to do for us, things we want him to bless us with.
It’s usually not extravagant stuff.
We just want to live a peaceful life, have
good kids, good marriage, good health.
We don’t have to be rich, just
comfortable—just the basic American dream.
That’s what we want Jesus to
do for us. That’s the salvation we want.
But that is not Jesus’
agenda. That’s not why he came.
That’s not why he suffered and died.
He has a very different idea of blessing us.
Big part of the Christian
life is to see more and more clearly,
not just our own agenda, our demands and
expectations of Christ,
but his agenda for our lives.
What it means for him to be
our Messiah and Savior.
And then to conform our agenda to his.
That’s hard.
That’s a life-long struggle.
But it’s a good thing.
So let’s look at this passage
under two headings.
1. Our agenda.
Will see that our agenda for Jesus is that he would bless us
with temporal blessings, blessings in this
world, this life.
2. Jesus’ agenda. Will see that his agenda for us is to bless
us with eternal
blessings, that we start to enjoy now, and
in fullness in the life to come.
Our agenda, Jesus’
agenda—how, by grace, we conform ours to his.
MP#1 Our agenda
Why did this crowd get so
excited about Jesus coming into
There was a lot going on here, a lot of
expectations, a lot of history.
About 200 years before
Christ, during the time between Old and New Testaments,
the land of Israel was conquered by a Syrian
ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes.
When he took Jerusalem he
killed 40,000 Jews, sold another 40,000 into slavery.
He hated the Jews and he hated their
religion.
So he outlawed it. He made Sabbath keeping and circumcision
illegal.
If he found circumcised baby
boys he would kill them and their mothers,
and put their bodies on display.
He hated the Jewish faith so
much, that he carried out the ultimate insult.
He had pigs brought into the Temple, and
sacrificed them on the great altar.
He turned the Temple of the Lord in
Jerusalem into a temple of Zeus.
Well, there was an old Jewish
priest named Mattathias Maccabee, had five sons.
One of his sons, Judas Maccabee led his
brothers and other Jews in a revolt.
Judas Maccabee such a
fighter, became known as “The Hammer.”
He defeated Antiochus Epiphanes and established
a free Jewish nation.
And as he and the priests went
to the
the
people cut palm branches and waved them in celebration.
The feast of Hanukah which
Jews celebrate today is a remembrance
of the events of the Maccabean victory and
purification of the
The Maccabean government only
lasted about 70 years before it fell to the Romans.
But that taste of freedom and national pride
was still on people’s minds.
What that they expected the
Messiah to be was a bigger, badder version
of Judas Maccabee. The expected him to be “The Hammer” on
steroids.
A warrior king who would not
only throw out Romans and restore independence,
but bring back the glory days of Israel,
like the time of King David.
That’s why there was such a
buzz about Jesus.
They wanted a heroic leader who would come
in and bring back the glory.
And there were already these stories of his
miraculous power, great following.
Do you remember a few years
ago when Alabama hired Nick Sabin?
There was a buzz, there was talk. He’s got what it takes.
He’s going to bring back the pride and the
glory.
Because that’s what the Crimson Tide
deserves.
That’s the way things ought to be.
It was like that with the
Jews, only much deeper, much more passionate.
These were nationalistic, and religious
convictions all wrapped up in one.
So whenever a man spoke of
the Kingdom of God and had a following,
people would start talking—is this the
Messiah?
Do you remember what Jesus
would do when anybody called him Messiah?
He told them to be quiet. When people would try to make him king,
escape.
That frustrated the disciples. But suddenly, Jesus reversed himself.
As they approached Jerusalem
for the Passover, when these religious and
and nationalistic hopes were at their peak,
Jesus began to encourage it.
Just before the Triumphal
Entry, Jesus healed the blind man Bartimaeus.
He began to shout, “Son of David, have mercy on me.”
“Son of David” was a title
for the Messiah. Very loaded term.
For the first time, Jesus didn’t say, I’ve
healed you, now be quiet.
But Bartimaeus joined the crowd, no doubt
continuing to shout “Son of David.”
Then Jesus sent his disciples
ahead for a colt to ride on.
Where was this colt? In
Lazarus, who Jesus had raised from the
dead.
Probably no village in
You can see what happened. The disciples went to get the colt.
People stopped them. Why are you taking this colt? The Lord needs it.
And instantly, word spread
through the villages of Bethany and Bethphage.
The crowd came pouring out to meet Jesus,
waving palm branches.
This is the new and improved Judas Maccabee
coming to throw out Romans.
Spreading clothes on ground—what people did
for King Jehu, anointed by Elijah.
Start to shout: Hosanna, which means “Save us!”
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father
David!”
Like shouting, God bless
Very religious. Very patriotic at the same time.
God’s on our side and we’re on God’s
side.
We’re the right ones. God’s agenda and ours agenda are one and the
same.
The disciples were just
soaking this up.
Enough of this talk about betrayal and
crucifixion—
finally, Jesus was doing what he should have
done all along.
He was getting political
power, and that would lead to victory,
And their lives would be good
and prosperous as they had hoped.
And they would sit at this right and left in
positions of honor.
Most of the people who
cheered Jesus that day did so for the wrong reasons.
They knew their Bibles, praised God for the
Messiah’s coming.
But they had one agenda, Jesus had
another.
They were happy with him only
as long as they thought he was getting
them what they wanted. We know that when they realized later in the
week
that he was not doing what they
wanted—called for his crucifixion.
Even the disciples were
certain that he had failed.
Let me ask you a question:
Why are you sometimes
disappointed with the Lord or angry with him?
Why do you doubt his goodness?
Because he is not on board
with your agenda.
Because he has not given you the blessings
you expect here and now.
Jesus has made his agenda
clear.
We’re going to look at it in more detail in
a moment.
But you know what Jesus came
to do:
He came to give you peace with God,
forgiveness of sins, eternal life.
His agenda for you is to make
you, by his Word and Spirit, more like himself,
to prepare you for life in his eternal
kingdom, to make you a conduit of his grace.
But we rarely worry about
those things. Rarely in awe of them.
One minister put it this way:
“We think we can handle the salvation part
by ourselves,
it’s the good marriage, the better job, the
bigger house, the healthy body,
the pleasures of this world—that is what we
want Jesus to provide.”
A pastor was once taking to a
woman who was disappointed never gotten married.
Reminded of great blessings in Christ—“I
don’t want Jesus, I want a husband!”I
If God loved me, he would give me a husband
and make me happy.
She was right about one
thing, crowds right about the same thing—
Jesus could do all the things we want and
expect him to do.
He could have kicked the
Romans out and become emperor himself.
He could fulfill every item on our
agenda—and they are usually good things.
Often the very kinds of things he will do
when he comes again.
But for now he has a
different agenda—we see that clearly in this story.
MP#2 Jesus’
agenda
The most interesting detail
in the triumphal entry is Jesus’ choice of steed.
Not a warhorse or chariot—but a colt. The other Gospels tell us a donkey’s colt.
A little donkey that had never been ridden.
What was the significance of
this?
Have you ever seen a grown
man riding a little donkey?
Have you ever seen a donkey basketball
game?
Why do people go to see donkey basketball.
Because it’s funny to see
grown people with their legs hanging down
the sides of the donkey, almost touching the
ground.
It wasn’t any different for
Jesus.
He did not look dignified on this little
donkey.
And that was the point of Zechariah’s
prophecy.
The Messiah, riding on a
donkey, would proclaim that this is a different
kind of king. He would have an agenda different from all
the other kings of men.
He would come gently and humbly to his
people.
Because his purpose was not
to save his people from the Romans,
but to save them from themselves.
He did enter
but as a meek and lowly king without an
army.
What happens to a king when
he goes to face his enemy without an army?
He is killed. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for
their sins,
not lead them in victory over the Romans in
the field of battle.
So the triumphal entry was a
declaration by Jesus that the Messiah
would be a lowly, suffering king.
Luke tells us that as Jesus
rode along, with the people cheering,
he began to weep over their unbelief and
hardness of heart.
He knew what they would do to him, and the
consequences of their sin.
So his heart was broken at
the very moment when even his disciples
thought his greatest day was dawning.
If Jesus had tongue-lashed
this crowd, they would have taken it.
If he had told them that they were cowards
and should have thrown off
the Romans long ago. They would eaten it up.
That’s what the kings of the
world do.
But he wept over them, and
made public his conviction that they
had far greater problems than Roman
occupation.
They were sinners who had
offended God and who desperately needed salvation.
So Jesus comes to us, not on
a great war horse, but on a donkey.
He comes, not to impress us with his power,
but to love us at great cost to himself.
He comes, not proudly, but humbly.
He
comes to us as a suffering Savior, a God with wounds.
And he comes as one who weeps over sin.
His agenda for our lives, is
to save us from our sins,
and to reproduce himself in us.
He wants us to be like him,
agents of redemption
in humility, in sorrow over sin, and in
suffering.
I think that most of the
time, maybe 90% of the time we see what Jesus
wants of us and we are happy to do it, we
know it’s a good thing.
His agenda for our lives is something we
gladly follow.
I think we’re mostly happy with the things
he tells us to do.
When he tells us give our
offerings cheerfully and generously—good thing, do it.
Or tells to love one another, husbands love
your wives—good thing, do it.
Or calls us to enter gates with
thanksgiving, courts with praise—
we
know it a good thing to come to church on Sunday morning, we are happy.
Even when he tells us not to
commit particular sins, and warns us
against them, even if those are the sins we
struggle with, we’re almost
always willing and even glad to say, Lord,
you’re right.
But there are other times,
maybe the other 10% when it is very hard.
Because we see that his plan for our lives
is suffering.
He’s teaching us that the
things of this world are not our confidence—
and so he takes them away.
He shows us the ugliness of
sin by convicting us,
or letting us suffer wrongs done against us.
We push against this—No, Lord
this is not what we want.
We have another agenda—it
doesn’t involve this humility, this sorrow—
but he says—Yes, this is where I have
you. Now, follow your humble king.
Follow the one wounded for
you. And I will reproduce myself in you.
One of my most memorable
preaching experiences was two years ago when I
visited India and preached in a little
Presbyterian church. I’ve told you
before.
I preached on Mark 4, story
about Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee.
I asked:
Why were the disciples in the storm that night?
Why weren’t they home in bed sleeping
peacefully?
Because Jesus said, let us go
to the other side.
Jesus took them into the storm, because he
had things to do on the other side.
It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t bad luck.
This was Jesus’ plan for his
disciples.
It was part of his plan to lead them into a
place of discomfort and fear,
so that he could accomplish his purposes in
their lives.
And this is the way Jesus
works in our lives. He sometimes takes
us into storms.
As I was preaching, I started
worrying—This isn’t making any sense.
That’s not a good thing to do, to be
preaching and thinking about something else.
But I started worrying that I wasn’t
communicating.
For one thing, there was a
language barrier. I would say a sentence
and
the pastor would translate into their language.
He had translated for me
earlier and told me how several of the metaphors
I used would not make any sense if he
translated them word for word.
So I started worrying about
that, worrying about the language barrier.
Then I started worrying about
the cultural barrier. The people were so
different.
Their music was different. Their mannerisms were different.
They took their shoes off when the came in,
sat on the floor.
The women had gold rings in their
noses.
I thought, this makes sense
to Christians in Cullman, but not here.
They’re just being polite to the visiting
preacher.
But after the service a man
came up to me, started telling me something earnestly—
pastor translated—about how he had been in a
conflict over property that was
hurting his business, really bothered him
that God letting this happen.
But what a comfort it was to
know that Jesus was taking him through this storm,
that it was not an accident.
Then, others came up to tell
me about hard things Lord taking them through—
heard stories about alcoholic, unbelieving
husbands,
and couples unable to have children, and
cruelties, and persecution.
things that none of them wanted—not part of
their agenda.
And yet, as believers, wanted
to tell me, wanted me to know—
that they had understood—we serve a Savior
who suffered,
sometimes he takes us through suffering too,
to make us trust him more,
and so that we can become more like him, a
conduit of his grace.
We serve a Savior who was
humbled. Who came into Jerusalem on a
donkey.
Who wept over sin. And sometimes he leads us down that same
path.
How do you do this? You’re about to come to the Table and eat
with Jesus.
He’s invited you—and he has an agenda.
He wants to know you and be known by you.
That’s why the Bible calls
this meal “Communion.”
It’s fellowship with Jesus Christ.
And that might mean the fellowship of
sharing in his sufferings.
We all have our lists—the
lists we so often bring in prayer.
Not that those are wrong, but sometime we
need to fold up those lists, put away—
and simply spend time in fellowship with the
Lord.
As we do, as we, in a sense
put our agendas away, and focus on him—
we start to see how wonderful he is and how
good his plan is for our lives.