Introduction For centuries, Christians have prepared for Easter by observing Lent, a special period that begins with Ash Wednesday and concludes with Easter- a period of 40 days. Today we have come to the very last week of this special period and it’s called the Holy Week. This week begins on Palm Sunday with a procession & the blessing of palms, and it ends on Easter Day. This week is considered the most significant week in the church’s year – even more important than the Advent. This week is so important that the four Gospel writers have devoted nearly a third of the length of their work to this particular week in Jesus’ life. As we read the Scriptures, we are amazed at the detailed account given by the authors of all the events that had taken place in this week, albeit from differing angles. And it said that more books have been written about this one week than any other week in history. Why? What is so significant about this one week? It recalls the last week in the life of Jesus Christ, before His crucifixion and burial. Let’s turn to the particular passage that is given to us this morning - which the children had read so beautifully and dramatically for us. Luke 19:28-40.
This entry into the holy city of Jerusalem is known as the Triumphal Entry and it is recorded in all the 4 gospels [Mt 21:8-11; Mk 11:7-11; Lk 19:35-44; Jn 12:12-19]. And I would like to spend a few minutes to ponder on the significance of this entrance and this day. 1. Firstly, Jesus enters Jerusalem to complete His work as the Messiah: And what was that work? His work was to fulfill His Father’s will, knowing full well that fulfilling His Father’s will involved walking a path that is filled with pain and suffering which will ultimately end in His destruction. Jesus knew all that He had to endure to obtain salvation for human kind – the plotting and scheming of the Pharisees and the religious leaders, the betrayal of His friends, the fickle mindedness of the crowd who would one moment cry “crown Him, crown Him” and the next “crucify Him, crucify Him” the arrest, the scourging, the thorns, the cross, the mockery, the jeering, the hatred – the total rejection of Him in every way. He saw it all by His divine eye and yet, never once did He weep for Himself or His plight. He wept for Lazarus and for Jerusalem (when He foresaw her destruction), but never once for Himself. Never once did He waver from the will of the Father. In fact, Luke says in chap 9:51 “ Now when the days drew near for Him to be taken up, Jesus set out resolutely (decisively /purposefully) to go to Jerusalem.” [The KJV says it like this: “And it came to pass, when the time was come that He should be received up, He set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.”] There is such determination here. He knew what He had to face in the city of Jerusalem and His heart must have quaked inside of Him at the terror of it all but He was determined to complete what He had set out to do. It must have been one of the most difficult decisions that any human being would have ever had to make. Max Lucado in his book “AND THE ANGELS WERE SILENT” writes: “Forget any suggestion that Jesus was trapped. Erase any theory that Jesus made a miscalculation. Ignore any speculation that the cross was a last-ditch attempt to salvage a dying mission. For if these words tell us anything, they tell us that Jesus died…on purpose. No surprises. No hesitation. No faltering. No, the journey to Jerusalem did not begin in Jericho. It did not begin in Galilee. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem. The journey to the cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the Garden of Eden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.” How does one explain such love, such compassion, such sacrifice? I can’t. All I can do is wonder at it, marvel at it and feel humbled by it, and with a heart filled with gratitude accept what had been done for my sake and follow Him and serve Him all my life. 2. Secondly, this passage shows us that the Messiah came to bring peace. Throughout His ministry Jesus had continually suppressed and clamped down on public acclamation of Himself and avoided popularity. To those whom He healed, Jesus told specifically not to tell anyone about Him and what He had done for them. When after the feeding of the 5,000, there was an attempt to take Him by force and make Him King, Jesus resisted and “withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone” [Jn 6:15]. This was the His typical reaction. But on this occasion of His entry into Jerusalem, His response was different. He had sent 2 of His disciples to go and get a young donkey for Him. When they brought it to Him, they threw their garments on it and sat Jesus on it. And as He rode along, the people kept throwing their cloaks on the road. And as He was descending the Mount of Olives toward the gates of Jerusalem, the whole multitude of disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the powerful deeds they had seen and said ” Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” Did Jesus shush them? No He did not. In fact, He allowed the crowd to praise Him and treat Him like a king. WHY? What was it different this time? Because the time had come for the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning Him that is found in Zech 9:9. It reads:
So on this occasion here, Jesus was openly claiming to be the king who comes to save His people and rule over them for eternity. But what kind of a king was He? Isn’t it kind of strange for a king to come riding on a donkey? What’s so majestic or regal about that? Don’t kings usually come riding on horses? While we might not consider the donkey as respectable enough for a king, in that time and culture it was considered a noble animal. And kings often did come riding on a donkey. History scholars tell us that donkeys were associated with peaceful purposes whereas the horse was a beast of war which would be ridden by a conqueror. For example, when a Roman conquering general entered a city in those days, he would be sitting in a chariot of gold, white stallions pulling at the reigns. Behind him would be officers in polished armour, carrying colourful banners of the defeated enemies. At the rear comes the miserable procession of slaves and prisoners in chains – living proof of what happens when you get in Rome’s way. What a contradiction to how Jesus appeared! Jesus came riding into the city of Jerusalem upon the colt of a donkey using a borrowed coat as a saddle. There was no red carpet on the ground. People laid palm branches instead. There was no grand procession. He was followed by an adoring crowd that made up a rag-tag procession and this included the lame, the blind, the poor and the children from Galilee and Bethany. Not a very impressive procession in our eyes or in the Roman eyes. Yet, this was a deliberate attempt on Jesus’ part to create an impression and understanding in the minds of the people who witnessed His entry into Jerusalem. They knew about the prophecy in Zech. They knew what to look out for. And He was showing the people that indeed He was the Messiah that the prophets of old had prophesied about. He was the One they had been waiting for all these centuries. He was the Christ, the Saviour. And at the same time, He is indicating that His Kingdom was not of this world. Though He was a national hero, He was not a worldly conqueror, and He did not come to use worldly weapons. His coming upon a foal of a donkey signified a rule of peace. This Messiah is a humble and peaceable ruler who would bring about the fulfillment of God’s kingdom by His life-giving death on the cross. 3. Thirdly, this day shows us that the Messiah came to change the human heart not human institutions and policies. There was a huge crowd who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival. About 2-3 million pilgrims had gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover. They had heard about Jesus and many of them in the crowd had had an encounter with Him – for He had walked among them preaching and teaching, performing wonders and miracles, healing the sick and diseased, casting out demons, and even raising the dead. They had often marveled at His words and said that He taught them with an authority that they had not known before. Perhaps if we had been there that day and looked carefully over the crowd, we might have sighted Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus; perhaps we might have sighted the 10 lepers Jesus had healed, or Jairus’ daughter. I am sure there must have been Mary Magdalene in the crowd, and Mary and Martha and Lazarus whom Jesus had recently raised from the dead. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the name of Jesus was on the lips of everyone that day. As I mentioned earlier, the Jews had been expecting a Messiah for a long time. And so when Jesus acted out the prophecy in Zech 9:9 by riding a colt into Jerusalem, it fueled the fires of spiritual and messianic fervor and expectations in the people. John’s gospel records: “…the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees (a sign of victory) and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, ‘Hosanna! (Save) Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” But the crowd’s expectation was different from Jesus’ intentions. They thought that Jesus was going to save them from their political oppressors. They had a vision of the Messiah’s work as purely nationalistic, that He would throw the Romans out and reestablish Israel. They were expecting someone like Judas Maccabees – who two or three hundred years earlier, had led a revolt and freed Israel from Syrian oppression. But Jesus had not come to establish a political kingdom on earth. At the beginning of His ministry He spells out clearly what He and His ministry was about. After fasting in the wilderness for 40 days, He was filled with the Spirit and coming to the synagogue, He reads from book of the prophet Isaiah chapter 61 and this is what it says:
Then He closes the book and says in the presence of the people: “Today, this prophecy has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That is what Jesus had come to do and it was what he had done. So He had come not to change human institutions and policies or societies and systems. Not yet. Not at that first coming. Those changes will take place at His second coming, “when the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and He shall reign forever and ever.” Jesus had come to change the human heart, to convict the individual of his sin and the need for salvation. Jesus knew that the human heart is the most wicked thing in the world and the hardest to change. But if that amazing change does take place, other changes will follow in due course. A good example of the power of the change of heart is the person of Zaccheus. He was a notorious character. A greedy extortionist. A merciless tax collector. People hated him. But when he had an encounter with Jesus, he changed completely. Out of his own free will, he told Jesus, “Behold Lord, half my possession I will give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give four times as much.” What a powerful testimony! A change of heart is a miracle. Only God can do it. When a man/woman changes, he/she influences his/her surrounding and eventually, it will affect a whole society and slowly the world changes. And that is a genuine change, not a change that is brought about by force and hate. But even the disciples who were with Jesus did not recognize what He was about until much later, when Jesus was glorified. Then they recalled all that Jesus had said and done and they then believed that indeed He was the Messiah. Conclusion Jesus entered Jerusalem at a special time, when the Jews were preparing for the Feast of Passover when they remembered the exodus and celebrated their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The lamb that was slain in Egypt pointed to the Lamb of God who would one day be slain for the whole world to set it free from the bondage of sin. That gift of freedom from sin, death, satan, hell and the law is ours and a new life awaits us if only we would believe in what was accomplished on Calvary’s cross. That gift is offered freely, no strings attached. All we have to do is to welcome Jesus into our hearts and lives. The whole of the gospel, God’s good news, is about God coming to us, loving us, and pursuing us to win our love. And it was in order to secure that love, that Jesus got on that young donkey that Sunday morning, set His face resolutely towards Jerusalem and journeyed towards the cross… Let us pray. [Top] |
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