The King Comes (Mark 10:46-11:11)

What do you miss when you're in a hurry?

Generally speaking, the busier you are, the less emotional

bandwidth you have for other people.

The more pressed and overwhelmed you feel, the more you're going

to resent interruptions, the more you're going to sort of

knuckle down on your own agenda because you don't have enough

time to do all the things you're supposed to do.

You're going to be more set on the things you feel you have to

do, sometimes at the expense of other people's needs, other

people's feelings, other people's agendas.

Busier you feel, the more you're likely to resent any imposition

on your agenda or change to your agenda.

Sometimes it seems like in the professional world, the more

important someone is, the more authority they have, the harder

it is to get at any of their time.

You might go through a quest to get access to some kind of

specialist doctor, going to your General practitioner, getting

some tests done, getting a referral, getting through their

office, getting on their calendar.

And then you go to the specialist appointment.

You get to see the doctor for all of 8 minutes because they're

important, they're busy, they're in demand.

You might think of ACEO, of a company who has meetings stacked

back-to-back to back-to-back to back-to-back all day in 15

minute increments because there's so many important

decisions to be made. President George W Bush once

said that the only decisions he had to make were hard decisions,

because if they weren't hard decisions, they wouldn't have

made it all the way to his desk. When someone in authority is

that busy that pressed, it could be hard to get to them.

It's easy to treat them either with a wrong kind of reverence

and awe. Oh wow, they are so important.

They are so influential, they are so powerful.

That is why they are so busy. Or you could treat them with the

wrong kind of resentment. Oh, they're, they're much too

important for a little person like me.

I shouldn't bother that person about this thing, because surely

they wouldn't care. When you're in that kind of

authority, when your time is that pressed or in demand,

there's all kinds of temptations you can fall into.

Jesus of Nazareth held no formal public office in his earthly

life, but he lived under intense demands.

His time was always severely pressed.

He was constantly pressed by people with overwhelming needs

and competing demands on him, clamoring for his time and

attention. But was Jesus in a hurry?

Did Jesus have low emotional bandwidth to meet people in

need? How did Jesus respond to people

who seemed not important enough to have a claim on his time?

Our passage for this morning is Mark 1046 through 1111.

If you don't have a Bible, you can feel free to put up a hand

and someone will bring you one. This morning we arrive at a

turning point in the whole Gospel of Mark.

Our passage recounts the last stage of Jesus's journey to

Jerusalem that he's been on for the last three chapters, and it

records his approach to the city and his entrance into the city.

Jerusalem is the political and religious capital of the Jewish

people. It's the place where pilgrims

would gather in huge numbers, 3 * a year.

It's the place where God dwelt personally with his people,

showing his presence in the temple.

And it's the place where, as Jesus knows, and as he has

predicted 3 times in the last three chapters, he will be

betrayed and beaten and killed. In this passage, a truth that's

been pulsing beneath the surface of Mark's gospel all along

breaks through more fully than it has yet.

It's that Jesus is the Messiah, He's the King.

He's the descendant of David who will fulfill God's promises and

bring God's Kingdom to earth. But what kind of king is he?

As the king, he would be at the very tippy top of that ladder of

importance, of authority, of being in demand of it, taking a

lot to get a claim on his time and attention.

What kind of king is Jesus? Please follow along as I read

Mark 1046 to 1111. And they came to Jericho.

And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great

crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was

sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was

Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of

David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling

him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Son of David,

have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, Call

him. And they called the blind man,

saying to him, Take heart, get up, he is calling you.

And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?

And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.

And Jesus said to him, Go your way, your faith has made you

well. And immediately he recovered his

sight, and followed him on the way.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Beth Phage and

Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples

and said to them, Go into the village in front of you, and

immediately as you enter it you will find a cult tide on which

no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.

If anyone says to you, why are you doing this, say the Lord has

need of it and will send it back here immediately.

And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in

the street, and they united it. And some of those standing there

said to them, What are you doing untying the Colts?

And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on

it. And he sat on it.

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread

leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

And those who went before and those who followed were

shouting, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the

name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming Kingdom of

our Father David Hosanna in the highest.

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when

he had looked around at everything, as it was already

late, he went out to Bethany with the 12.

Here's the point of our passage in one sentence.

Jesus is the humble King who brings the mercy, joy, and

judgment we all need. I'll say that again.

Jesus is the humble king who brings the mercy, joy, and

judgment we all need. Our passage has two big sections

and one little section. There's the healing of

Bartimaeus in chapter 10, verses 46 to 52.

There's Jesus's triumphal approach to the city of

Jerusalem in Chapter 11, verses 1 to 10, and then you'll see the

ESV even sets it off as its own paragraph.

There's the the last verse of the passage, verse 11.

There's just this little brief note about what Jesus does when

he first gets into this city. He visits the temple and he

looks around. These three sections each reveal

something about the kind of king Jesus is.

In Jesus character and work, there is a paradoxical fullness.

He embodies and unites things you don't often find together in

a human being. He contains in himself and

imagination stretching abundance.

Some of us in the church history class this morning learned about

the early American theologian Jonathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards was fond of saying that Jesus unites in

himself diverse excellencies. These diverse excellencies meet

our diverse needs. Jesus is not too busy for

anyone. Jesus meets your most urgent

needs. Jesus meets your longest running

needs. Jesus meets needs you didn't

know you had. Jesus is all you need and more.

Our passage shows us that in three ways, corresponding to the

three sections. First in chapter 10, verses 46

to 52, the merciful healer. The merciful healer looking at

verse 46 and they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving

Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind

beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.

Jesus was journeying from Galilee in the north to

Jerusalem. And on that trip, the last major

settlement you'd hit would be Jericho.

It's very close to Jerusalem. And so Jesus is on the move with

a huge crowd with him. But someone who's not on the

move is Bartimaeus. Usually Mark doesn't name the

people that Jesus heals, but he names Bartimaeus, presumably

because, as we'll see, he became a follower of Jesus.

He was presumably a well known follower.

People would have known who he was throughout the early

Christian movement. When we meet Bartimaeus, he's

sitting by the roadside. He's not only blind, he's poor.

He's so poor he's reduced to sitting in place and begging for

whatever anyone's willing to give him.

So he has to sit where there's a lot of traffic, kind of on the

main road into and out of the city.

He has to stay put there in order to appeal to people's

compassion who are passing by. He has no job, no prospects for

a job. He can't meet his own needs.

He has no hope of how his life might get any better.

No hope except one verse 47. When he heard that it was Jesus

of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus son of David, have

mercy on me. By calling Jesus the son of

David, Bartimaeus is confessing him as the Messiah.

We'll talk about that a lot more.

The only other person to confess Jesus as the Messiah so far in

Mark's gospel was Peter back in chapter 8.

But we saw there that Peter was right to recognize Jesus as the

Messiah, but very wrong in the kind of Messiah he thought Jesus

was. So here Bartimaeus also

recognizes Jesus as Messiah, and he declares that knowledge of

Jesus openly. How did Bartimaeus come to know

the truth about Jesus? Ultimately, his faith is a gift

of God. But how did he hear about Jesus?

He must have heard other people's reports.

Word must have gotten around to him.

People must have told him about the things Jesus taught and the

things Jesus did. So without ever meeting Jesus,

without ever seeing Jesus, he can't.

He's blind. Without ever having any personal

interaction with Jesus, Bartimaeus comes to faith in

Jesus. When Jesus comes by, Bartimaeus

already believes in him. He cries out in faith in him as

the Messiah. He's confident Jesus can do what

he needs. Bartimaeus came to a true

spiritual sight of Jesus. We often think that only seeing

is believing, that you should only trust those things that you

can personally verify. But there are times when only

believing is seeing. Bartimaeus trusts in Jesus

without ever seeing him. That means that before he has

his personal encounter with Jesus, he's in precisely the

same place the modern believers are.

But Bartimaeus is not just confessing truth.

He's begging for help. Jesus, son of David, have mercy

on me. He's asking Jesus to show

concern for his miserable condition.

Bartimaeus has nothing to commend himself to Jesus.

No resume, no CV, no bank account.

All Bartimaeus brings is his need.

He's confident Jesus is able to help.

He's confident Jesus is willing to help.

Bartimaeus knows that he is all need and Jesus is all supply.

He trusts that Jesus can meet his most pressing need.

What would you say is your most pressing need?

And how confident are you that what seems to be your most

pressing need really is? If you're here last week, you'll

remember that two of Jesus disciples, James and John, also

made a request of Jesus. But there's a striking contrast

between Bartimaeus's request and their request.

They wanted primacy. Bartimaeus wants mercy.

They were driven by ambition. Bartimaeus is driven by

desperation. They wanted to be first.

Bartimaeus wants to be whole. Do you know that you need mercy

from Jesus? If you don't, this whole sermon

is just going to wash over you like water off a duck's back.

The only way to know that you need mercy from Jesus is to know

that there's something wrong with you that you can't fix, and

to know that Jesus can fix it. This is true of all of us.

When we're not Christians, there's something most

profoundly wrong with us that only Jesus can fix.

It also remains true. As Christians who need Jesus's

mercy, we need his mercy to help us amid the trials of our lives.

We also need His mercy to forgive our sins and to

transform us from within. If you know that you need

Jesus's mercy, how does that change you?

It makes you humble. It brings about a gradual

process of making you less self reliant and more dependent on

God. It makes you more desperate in

prayer. Your prayers become more

pointed, more earnest, to the point you are trying to get

God's attention because you are trying to get God's help.

You pray because you need to, not because anybody told you to.

It also makes you quick to show mercy, whether towards someone

else's suffering or towards someone else's sin.

So in verse 47 Bartimaeus cries out for mercy but the people

around him are not happy about it.

Verse 48 and many rebuked him telling him to be silent, but he

cried out all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me.

Notice Bartimaeus's response to their rebukes or rather his non

response to their rebukes. They rebuke him and he keeps

calling out for Jesus attention. He's not deterred, he's not

hindered. He does not let their opposition

get in the way of him exercising his face.

Real faith perseveres through every headwind of opposition.

Real faith is born from desperation, so it doesn't let

anything get in between it and Jesus.

If you're desperate for Jesus, you won't let anyone stand in

your way. Not family or friends, not

neighbors or colleagues, Not people who are important or have

things you want to get and who you're afraid will think less of

you if you're some kind of weird Jesus person.

Presumably the people who try to silence him think that

Bartimaeus is not important enough to claim Jesus's time and

attention. Kind of like how back in verse

13 of chapter 10, the disciples revuke people who are trying to

bring children to Jesus. Same basic impulse.

I think you know Jesus on the move.

He's marching to Jerusalem. He's got an agenda.

There's this whole huge crowd with him.

What are you going to do, Bartimaeus?

Who are who are you to get in Jesus's way?

Who are you to interrupt Jesus? Who are you to try to change

Jesus agenda? That's how all the crowd sees

Bartimaeus. But that is not how Jesus sees

Bartimaeus. No one else had time for him but

Jesus did. Other people would hinder him

from coming to Jesus, but Jesus welcomed him.

So one question for you and me is, is there anyone you're

tempted to think is not worth Jesus's time and attention?

Is there anyone who, in however subtle a way, you might be

tempted to hinder from coming to Jesus?

Verse 49 Jesus stopped and said call him and they called the

blind man saying to him, take heart, get up, he is calling

you. No one else had time for

Bartimaeus, but Jesus did. No one else had compassion on

Bartimaeus, but Jesus did. No one else thought Bartimaeus

was worth Jesus time, but Jesus did and so Jesus stopped.

He halted his progress toward Jerusalem.

He interrupted his own supremely important agenda.

He turned aside from the whole crowd to single out Bartimaeus.

Jesus's priorities are not other people's priorities.

Jesus leaves the 99 for the sake of the One.

This is a precious window into Christ's perfect compassion.

As Christians, there are two things we always need to do with

Christ's compassion. The Gospels bring this to us

again and again. What do you need to do with

Christ's compassion? Receive it because you know you

need it, and extend it to others because they need it.

This week, what can you do to receive?

Jesus's compassion this week What can you do to extend

Jesus's compassion to others? In verse 49, Jesus extends his

compassion to Bartimaeus. So what does Bartimaeus do?

Verse 50? And throwing off his cloak, he

sprang up and came to Jesus. Bartimaeus responds immediately

and eagerly. He comes with his whole heart as

fast as he can. Is there any significance to his

throwing off his cloak? It could simply be that he

didn't want a longer, bulkier garment getting in the way of

tripping him up as he's trying to run to Jesus.

I think there also might be a deeper significance here.

It's likely that he used his cloak more for begging than for

warmth. Jericho was a hot climate.

It was below sea level, next to the desert, next to the Dead Sea

in the deserts. So Bartimaeus would have spread

out his cloak and that would have been how he would gather

alms from people. In leaving his cloak behind,

it's as if Bartimaeus is declaring from now on I'm going

to get all that I need to live from Jesus.

He is declaring his devotion to Jesus and dependence on Jesus by

leaving his means of begging behind.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, what is keeping you from

doing what Bartimaeus did? What's keeping you from getting

rid of everything in your old life and rising and running and

coming to Jesus? What's keeping you from

dedicating yourself completely to Jesus?

Verses 51 and 52 show us how Jesus responded.

And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?

The blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.

And Jesus said to him, Go your way, your faith has made you

well. And immediately he recovered his

sight and followed him on the way.

So in response, Jesus heals Bartimaeus immediately.

He heals him with a word. He puts forth divine power to

make Bartimaeus whole. Only God can do that.

Only the God who created by a word can heal by a word.

Only the God who gave sight can restore sight instantly,

effortlessly. Here there's a deliberate

contrast with a healing miracle back in chapter 8, verses 22 to

26. You can just turn one page back

and glance there if you want. Back there in chapter 8, verse

22 to 26, Jesus also healed a blind man, but he did so in

stages. At first the man only had

partial sight restored. And he said, I see men like

trees walking. But here Jesus heals Bartimaeus

completely and instantly. So why the contrast?

These two healings, these two restorations of sight, are

literary frames or brackets around the central section of

Mark's gospel that runs from chapter 8, verse 27, to chapter

10, verse 45. As we've seen, the main theme of

that whole section, that whole middle section of Mark's gospel

is the cross. It's that Jesus cross becomes

our cross. That being Jesus disciple means

dying to yourself because he died for you.

That point is made throughout that whole section.

But again and again and again, the disciples don't get it.

They show that they're spiritually blind.

Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah.

It's as if he saw him halfway true.

It's as if he saw Jesus blurry a man like a tree walking.

So what's Mark teaching by highlighting these healings of

sight? He's saying that we're all

spiritually blind to who Jesus is by nature.

He's saying that faith is a gift you have to receive from God.

He's saying that sometimes that faith might come gradually.

He's saying that truly seeing who Jesus is means understanding

the cross and understanding that his cross has to become your

cross. If you see that, you see Jesus.

If you get that, you get what it means to be his disciple.

If you don't, you miss Jesus completely, and you miss

discipleship completely. It takes spiritual sight to

perceive it, and Jesus himself can give that spiritual sight.

So Jesus grants Bartimaeus his sight and he tells them your

faith has saved you. I think Jesus is speaking on 2

levels at once. He's saying because you have

faith, that's that's why you came to appeal to me.

That's how you came to receive my mercy and I healed you.

But I think he's speaking on a deeper level about the salvation

of Bartimaeus soul. He's healed spiritually, he's

been saved. And it's not that Bartimaeus

faith is a power that earned or achieved or accomplished his

salvation. Bartimaeus faith is just an

instrument. It's just an empty channel by

which he receives the salvation that comes entirely from Jesus

and his divine power and compassion.

Verse 52, Jesus tells Bartimaeus, go your way.

I don't think that means Jesus is telling Bartimaeus to leave

his presence. Instead, I think Jesus is

telling him that he no longer has to sit by the roadside

begging. He's got a whole new life.

He's free to go. But Bartimaeus has already

decided to do better than that. The end of verse 52.

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the

way. We've seen in a number of

passages that the literal act of following Jesus on the way to

Jerusalem is also a picture. It's also a pointer to what it

means to follow him as a disciple.

So what does Bartimaeus do? He gets up and starts walking

with Jesus behind Jesus, following Jesus.

He's about to see with his physical eyes.

He is seeing now with his physical eyes for the first

time. And who knows how many years,

decades maybe, who's blind from birth?

We don't know. The very first thing he's going

to see is not going to be his house.

It's not going to be his neighborhood.

It's not going to be his friends or family.

The very first scenes that will come to his newly healed eyes,

it's Jesus and the disciples walking up the steep incline to

get to the city where Jesus will be crucified.

That's where Jesus is going. That's what Bartimaeus now sees.

And so that's where he's going to.

That's what it means to become a Christian.

What now fills your vision is the sight of Jesus going to the

cross and you with him. If Jesus gave you what you most

desired, if you had one ask, one question, one request, what's it

going to be for Jesus and he gave you that, would you turn

around and follow him? Would you give up everything and

become his disciple friends? It should be obvious by now, but

just to make it explicit, Bartimaeus is a picture of all

of us before we come to faith. His sitting by the roadside is a

picture of our spiritual inability.

There's nothing we can do to save ourselves.

His blindness and poverty picture our spiritual condition

apart from Christ. We lack true knowledge of God,

and however rich we think we may be spiritually, we are beggars

like Bartimaeus. All you can bring to Jesus is

your need. And Bartimaeus is also a

glorious picture of every believer's conversion, no matter

if you grew up in a Christian household and can't remember a

time you didn't believe in Jesus, or if you just became a

Christian two weeks ago in a radical, transformative U-turn.

Praise God, I'd love to talk to you about it.

Here's a picture of every believer's conversion.

Faith begins in desperation. Faith begins in recognizing you

need mercy. When you realize that, you'll

call out to Jesus like Bartimaeus did.

You'll beg Jesus for mercy, and you will not let anyone get in

your way. When he answers, you'll spring

up. Bartimaeus did.

You'll leave your old life behind, and you'll follow him.

In our salvation. We do nothing.

Jesus does everything. We receive his perfect work by

faith. Jesus perfectly meets your

deepest need, with no help from you and no thanks to you.

And just as Jesus is healing raised up Bartimaeus from

begging, so his saving work raises us up from spiritual

death. What makes Jesus mercy available

and effective like this? How does he need each of our

deepest need? It's through his death and

resurrection. That's what Mark's gospel is

pointing to. This whole section of the gospel

is like a big arrow pointing straight to the cross.

And as we get closer, the cross gets bigger.

How can you receive this kind of mercy?

Only by knowing and trusting that Jesus died to pay the full

price for your sins. Only by knowing and trusting

that He rose from the dead and defeated death so that no

sickness, no suffering, and no sin can never get the last word

on anyone who trusts in Him. The only way you can receive

this mercy and compassion is by abandoning any pretense or

trying to work your way to God and calling out like a beggar

because He's done everything in his death and resurrection.

What Jesus was marching up those hills on His way to do is how

you can receive the same mercy Bartimaeus did 2000 years ago.

If you don't know that mercy, turn from sin and trust in Jesus

today. Jesus is the King who is

infinitely compassionate. He is the merciful healer.

He is also point to the joy bringing King, the joy bringing

King. We see this in Chapter 11,

verses 1 to 10. In verses 1 to 6, Jesus prepares

for his entry into Jerusalem. He does so by giving his

disciples an odd set of instructions that they

faithfully carry out. Now when they drew near to

Jerusalem, to Beth Phage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,

Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the

village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you

will find a colt tide on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are

you doing this, say the Lord has need of it, and we'll send it

back here immediately. And they went away and found a

colt, Tide, at a door outside in the street, and they united it.

And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing

untying the colt? And they told them what Jesus

had said, and they let them go. What is going on here?

Did Jesus make some kind of secret advance plan with people

he knew in Jerusalem before coming to the city?

That's possible. Some commentators think so.

I think a far better explanation is that Jesus is doing something

we've seen him do several times in the Gospel.

Just that he's demonstrating divine foreknowledge, just like

his detailed predictions of his death and resurrection, saying

exactly what's going to happen ahead of time.

Well, so here he's demonstrating a knowledge only God can have.

Here Jesus knows what no human being could know.

There'll be a cult locked outside.

Here's just what to say to get them to give it to you.

This also explains the strange saying in verse 3.

The Lord has need of it. Who is Jesus talking about?

I think he's talking about himself.

He's claiming a divine right to requisition these people's

property. It's as if a military is on the

March authorized by their government.

Well, hey, I'm so sorry. We need your barn to house all

these soldiers while we set up camp.

Well, you don't have a choice. Military's in charge.

You're in that territory. OK, I guess you get to use my

barn to house these fifty soldiers, right?

There's a higher authority that comes in and claims that

property. Here.

Jesus says, well, he's the creator of the cult.

He's the owner of the cult. He's just going to loan it and

give it back. But why is Jesus doing this?

The key to the whole passage is a promise about the Messiah in

the prophetic Old Testament book of Zechariah, Chapter 9, verse

Zechariah 9:9

9. You could turn there if you

want, but don't feel the need to.

Here's the verse. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of

Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, your King is

coming to you righteous and having salvation.

Is he humble and mounted on a donkey?

On a colt? The foal of a donkey.

Jesus knows he's the Messiah. Jesus is about to fulfill this

prophecy. He's about to put God's words

into action by requisitioning this cult.

He's announcing by his actions that he is the promised Messiah.

All throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has charged both

people and demons to keep quiet about him.

A person or demon says he's the Son of God, and he says don't

tell anybody. There's the Transfiguration

where they get this vision of his glory and the disciples are

there. Jesus says don't tell anyone

until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.

He has not wanted word of his Messiahship to get around, but

now he's lifting the gag order. He's pulling back the veil of

secrecy. Bartimaeus shouts out that Jesus

is the son of David, and Jesus doesn't rebuke him or quiet him.

And now here he's making a very public announcement by getting a

donkey to ride into Jerusalem. This is a striking act.

All the pilgrims who traveled into Jerusalem would have done

so on foot. Jesus went on foot the whole

time up till now. It was a striking statement of

his kingship to say from here into Jerusalem, I'm going to

ride. That was a royal privilege, a

royal prerogative, and that's why it was a donkey.

Nobody D ever sat on before. That kind of animal was reserved

for kingly use. That brings us to verses 7 and

8. They get the donkey,

specifically a young donkey, and they brought the colt to Jesus

and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread

leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

The cloaks on the colt are a makeshift throne.

The cloaks and the branches on the road are a makeshift red

carpet. Both honor Jesus as the king.

Both are improvised in the moment.

These pilgrims journeying with Jesus into Jerusalem for the

Passover are rightly recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.

They're honoring him. They're crowning him.

But they weren't prepared for this.

They had to just use whatever is on hand.

Royal celebrations like a coronation or a 50 year

anniversary of a long reign are usually the biggest exercise in

pomp and circumstance any country can manage.

Pull out all the stops, show all the wealth, all the cultural

vitality, all the strength, all the power.

This one's a little wonky. Just some clothes spread on a

donkey and some clothes and branches on the ground.

So there's two truths here sitting in a kind of paradoxical

tension. On the one hand, Jesus openly

proclaiming his kingship and these fellow pilgrims are openly

acclaiming him as king. But on the other hand, he is

showing that he is a very different kind of king.

He is the humble king, as Zechariah 9 says.

He's coming not to domineer, but to redeem.

He's coming not to be served, but to serve.

He's coming to give his life for you and me.

He's the king. He can do it.

He's the humble king. He's willing to do it.

The people who laid their cloaks on the colt for Jesus to sit on.

We're performing a symbolic act of submission.

The clothes represent the person.

Where did the clothes go? Underneath Jesus.

They're putting themselves under Jesus in reverend submission.

They're offering themselves to Jesus for him to do whatever he

wanted with them. To be a Christian is to say,

Lord, take me and make me a throne for you to sit on.

Lord, take my life, body and soul and make me a throne for

you to reign from. We see another aspect of the

people's right response to Jesus's kingship in verses 9 and

10. They they break out and shouting

doesn't take too much imagination to think they're

probably some songs mixed in because they're quoting from the

Psalms, which were meant to be sung.

Verses 9 and 10. Those who went before and those

who followed were shouting. Hosanna.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our Father David.

Hosanna. In the highest hear, the people

cry out words from the Psalm we read earlier, Psalm 118,

specifically verses 25 and 26. That Hebrew phrase hosanna is a

prayer. It means Lord save us or Lord

save now. So the people bless Jesus as the

one who comes in the name of the Lord.

They recognize him as the one who's going to regather all of

God's people and bring us all together into God's presence.

That's why they rejoice in the Kingdom of David that is soon to

come. They recognize he's the Son of

David. He's going to fulfill all the

promises God made to David. They might not know exactly how

it's all going to play out, but what they're saying here is on

the right track. There is nothing wrong and

everything right with them quoting these scriptures and

seeing them fulfilled in Jesus. So Jesus comes in God's

authority with God's blessing to do God's will, to fulfill God's

work and to bring in God's Kingdom.

Ultimately, he comes in the name of the Lord, because he

eternally bears that name of the Lord.

In the people's response to Jesus, there's an undeniable

note of celebration, of joy, of festivity.

Why? Why does Jesus bring joy?

Because he came to make everything right.

Because his coming Kingdom will perfectly banish sin.

When the Kingdom comes in its fullness, it will perfectly

banish sin from the hearts of all of his people, and it will

perfectly banish sin from the whole realm of the new creation.

Jesus coming Kingdom will remove and reverse suffering.

There will not be one trace of it left.

Jesus coming Kingdom will undo every cause of sadness and bring

infinite reasons to rejoice. Jesus is the joy bringing King.

He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

Joy is only as good as the ground underneath it.

Joy is only as good as what the joy is in.

Joy in Jesus is better than joy in anything in this world

because only Jesus will never disappoint.

Only Jesus will never fail. Only Jesus will never be taken

by death because he defeated death and delivers from death.

Only Jesus is willing and able to completely renew you and

completely renew this world. Only Jesus can make everything

sad come untrue. So the people rightly cry out,

Hosanna, Lord, save. If you're not a believer in

Jesus, is there anything you say you would need saving from?

And where do you turn for that salvation?

Just as the crowd rejoices in the coming Kingdom, so Jesus

teaches us all to pray your Kingdom come.

Jesus inaugurated this Kingdom by his death and resurrection.

He opened it up and broke into this world, but he didn't

complete it. He will only consummate it when

he returns. And so as Christians, we

regularly pray as part of the Lord's Prayer.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in

heaven. The people cried out.

Hosanna, Lord, save We believers all throughout this age cry out.

Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, If you are a believer in Jesus,

what in your life is most wrong? What's most painful?

What is most seemingly unfixable?

Make sure that trial makes you long for heaven and for the

coming of God's Kingdom. Make sure that trial leads you

to meditate on heaven and on the coming of God's Kingdom.

If you want some help with that, you could read Richard Baxter's

book. It's been recently shrunk down

to a manageable size called The Saints Everlasting Rest.

Our pastor Michael reviewed it online for the Gospel Coalition.

Helpful, rich, challenging stuff on how to meditate on heaven.

Whatever that trial is that seems most unfixable, make sure

it makes you long for Christ's return.

God has 1000 good purposes in ordaining that suffering.

Many of those good purposes converge on teaching you

inwardly to long for heaven more.

This scene on the way to Jerusalem is something like, to

borrow a phrase from Chris Biggers, a Holy Spirit inspired

flash mob that was too good. Had to give credit.

Thanks, Chris. This is a redemptive,

historically unique pop up worship service.

They're getting Jesus right? And so they're worshipping him

then and there. What does that have to teach us

about our own corporate worship? It teaches us that our corporate

worship is about continually acclaiming Christ as King.

Corporate worship is about renewing our allegiance to

Christ as King, learning to say yet again, Lord, may my life be

your throne. Corporate worship is a fresh

weekly declaration of our joy in the coming Kingdom.

In corporate worship, we joyfully submit to Christ's

present rule, and we declare and renew our longing for his future

rule. In corporate worship, we appeal

to Christ to come and consummate his Kingdom.

How do we do this? By praying God's promises back

to him in prayer. By pouring out our hearts and

prayers of praise and pounding on heaven's door in prayers of

petition. By singing songs about heaven

and the second coming, Songs that proclaim truths like Hark

those bursts of acclamation. Hark those loud triumphant

chords. Jesus takes the highest station.

Oh, what joy the sight of Fords. Jesus is the humble King who

brings the joy we all need. He is himself all the joy we

need. And as I said, quoting Edwards a

while ago, Jesus unites in himself diverse excellencies.

Jesus meets needs you know you have and needs you might not

know you have. Needs like judgments .3 The

patient judge. The patient judge.

This point will be brief since it's from just one verse, verse

11, very end of the passage. And he entered Jerusalem and

went into the temple. And when he had looked around at

everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany

with the 12. Jesus approach to Jerusalem is

so grand, so festive. This is an anticlimax.

What? What happened?

He's openly declaring his kingship.

People are responding. And then what happens next?

Well, nothing. Jesus goes into Jerusalem, He

goes into the temple, he looks around, he leaves.

He's going to spend the night in the little village right outside

the city. OK.

We're not told of any big time religious leaders greeting him

in either a warm welcome or a sort of warning of their

opposition. We're not told of any people

looking for the coming of the Messiah and going, wait a

minute, Jesus, huh? Putting it together, confessing

faith in him. Nothing.

He goes, looks around, leaves. What on earth is going on here?

There are two keys, I think, in the wording of the verse that

help us get it. There's also a major key in an

Old Testament passage that this echoes.

So key number one, in the verse, Jesus looked around.

That might not sound like much, but every other time this Greek

verb is used in Mark's gospel, Jesus is looking around is an

authoritative act of divine assessment.

He's not looking around like waiting for a bus, wondering if

it's going to come on time. He's looking around like taking

stock of everything that is happening, measuring and

assessing everything that everyone is doing and saying and

at times even thinking. One example, Mark 35 religious

leaders care more about trying to trap Jesus than about Jesus

healing a man with a deformity, it says.

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their

hardness of heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand.

So his looking around is something special.

Second key in the verse, Jesus looked around at everything.

This is comprehensive. It is an all embracing survey.

Nothing escapes his attention. Nothing escapes his notice.

There's no dark corners where anybody can hide anything that

he's not going to see. This is not a curious tourist

glancing around at a historic cathedral and just kind of, oh,

pretty windows, nice ceiling that was taking a long time to

build. I don't know.

This is the divine judge coming to assess whether his people in

his place are worshipping him faithfully.

Now. Another big key, this time from

the Old Testament. Just like Jesus active sitting

on a donkey echoed an Old Testament prophecy, so his

active coming to the temple echoes an Old Testament

prophecy. It's Malachi 3 verse one.

Mark actually opens his whole gospel by quoting the words of

Isaiah from chapter 40 and some of the words from Malachi 3

verse one, the very beginning of the gospel.

He mentions it and now Jesus is here to do it.

Here's Malachi 31. Behold, I send my messenger, and

he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek

will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the

covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the

Lord of hosts. And then the next person,

Malachi, which shows the purpose of this coming.

Verse 2. But who can endure the day of

his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiners fire. And like fuller's soap.

When the Lord comes to his temple, he will carry out a

purifying judgement. Who has now come to the temple?

The Lord himself. Jesus is the Master of the

house, and he's come to inspect what's rightfully His.

This silent visit is preparation for that judgement Jesus is

quietly serving. Notice at the time for the

temple's inspection has come. In the very next passage we'll

see Jesus performing an act of cleansing judgement on the

temple. That judgement in one day was a

preview of much more severe judgement that Jesus himself

promised. That would come in 70 AD when

the whole temple would be destroyed.

And in Jesus own teaching in Mark 13, the destruction of the

temple is itself a preview and a guarantee of the judgement God's

going to carry out on the whole world.

Jesus's visit to the temple is preparation for judgement.

He is symbolically showing that He sees all and knows all, and

so he has every right to judge all He will judge.

And unlike our judgement when we fly off the chain and want

revenge on somebody, when we try to get even when we think

they've wronged me, I'm going to do this to them.

Unlike our sinful anger when we would like to carry out our own

judgement, Jesus's judgement is perfectly informed, perfectly

accurate, perfectly righteous, perfectly just, perfectly self

controlled because as God, He is in no way threatened by human

sin and rebellion. How is it that judgement is

something we need? That sounds backward?

And in one sense, it is. If you're not a believer in

Jesus, what you most need is to escape God's judgement for all

of us. We continue to sin.

We need to be spared God's judgement.

We need to be safe and sound in light of God's judgement.

And that's what Jesus accomplished through his death

and resurrection. That's the promise he holds out

to everyone who believes in him. But we also need God's judgement

in the sense of repaying evil as it deserves.

You might think of historic evil on a grand scale, some of the

greatest atrocities perpetuated in human history.

You might think of the ways that other people have sinned against

you personally most severely, done the most damage to you.

When you are aware of injustice, whether on a grand scale or a

very personal scale, particularly when you've

suffered grave harm from other people's sins, you start to

resonate and know instinctively part of what it means for God to

make this world right is to repay sin as it deserves.

Human authorities can only do so much.

Human governments will only ever give out partial justice and do

it imperfectly. Hope in the face of atrocity,

hope in the face of oppression, Hope in the face of abuse, hope

in the face of being personally mistreated includes the element

of trusting God to repay evil as it deserves.

God's judgement, including his retribution of sin in hell, is

part of what it means for him to set the world right.

Whatever those outstanding atrocities you're most aware of,

if the perpetrators only ever got a cosmic get out of jail

free card, then God is not just, and He's not really making

everything right. Just as Jesus served notice

before his act of judgement in the temple, so today he remains

a patient judge. Every sermon you hear is notice

of coming judgements. He remains patient.

He's given you almost 2000 years.

He's let history play out so that people would have a chance

to hear the good news and repent and be saved and wind up on the

right side of judgment, which is a much bigger deal than winding

up on the so-called right side of history.

The right side you want to wind up on his, on God's judgment.

His verdict matters far more than fallen human history.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, the fact that you're

alive and breathing today is a sign of His patience toward you.

What He wants you to do is turn from sin and trust in Him and be

saved. Jesus is the patient judge.

Jesus is the humble King who brings the mercy, joy and

judgement we all need. As Jesus's disciples and the

crowds were soon to discover, Jesus doesn't bring all these

things all at once. First, He came to die for our

sins and rise from the grave. When He comes again, He will

deliver His people from death and usher in the new creation.

You will only receive the full measure of Jesus's blessings at

His return. Until then, He will answer

prayers. Until then, He will be with you.

Until then, He will help you. He will sustain you on your

journey, your pilgrimage to heaven.

But everything He gives you now is like food for the trip.

It's like trail mix and beef jerky compared to the feast

that's coming. If you trust in Jesus, then

every day of your life until you die or He comes back, He will

sustain you. And when His Kingdom comes in

its fullness, He will satisfy you.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you

for your mercy, Your grace, and Your justice in bringing your

Kingdom. Father, we pray that we would

trust in Jesus. We pray that we would receive

His mercy. We pray that we would extend

that mercy to others in Jesus name, Amen.