Matthew 21:1-11 | "Who Is This?"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Two thousand years ago, dusty Palestine existed under the oppressive rule of Pax Romana, the Roman peace, enforced by Roman military might.

The Roman armies were powerful and merciless.

The Roman Senate had transformed from a governing body to a pawn of the emperor.

As if that wasn't enough, the emperor began to claim divine sonship, that he was a son of the gods.

And Roman culture promoted that worship and that belief of the Roman ruler.

Those world rulers considered the Jews among the most despicable of peoples, primarily because of their religion.

You see, the Romans were polytheistic.

They worshipped many gods of all kinds.

Even the son of the gods, their human emperor.

But the Jews were monotheistic, meaning they believed that God is one, not many.

And that theology was unimaginable blasphemy to the Romans.

And so the Jews refused to worship the Roman gods, and they would never grant divine sonship to a sinful emperor.

That put the Jewish people squarely in the crosshairs of Roman hate.

But rather than wipe out an entire race of people, the emperor generally made a special allowance for the Jewish people and their religion and never let them forget that wonderful grace.

The Romans closely watched the Jews during Herod the Great's rule from 37 BC onward.

Because not only were they a blasphemous people believing in only one God, but their sacred writings also contained unique prophecies about a conquering Messiah king.

And so the Roman authorities quickly squelched any disturbance involving potential messiahs.

That helps us understand why Herod the Great so promptly initiated the murder of infant boys with the birth of one child in Bethlehem who would be the king of the Jews.

But then everything was quiet around Palestine for about 30 years or so until the strange man began to gain some popularity.

This strange man lived out in the desert.

He consumed locusts.

He wore clothes made of itchy camel's hair.

But even with those oddities, he commanded attention as a preacher.

And one day, this man named John made an astounding statement.

He said, Amongst all the crowds of people that gathered to hear him preach one day was one who was the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world.

John said that he, as great of a preacher as he was, was not even worthy to stoop down and get down on his hands and knees and tie this man's sandals.

Soon people began to follow this Jesus instead of John.

And Jesus was different.

John always spoke of the future of one who would come after him.

But Jesus spoke as if he were the one who was to come.

As if he was not just the one of whom John spoke, but the one of whom every prophet before him spoke.

The one promised by God in ages and ages in the past.

In fact, the gospel of John tells us that this Jesus was someone beyond our capacity to imagine.

He tells us that Jesus was with God in the beginning.

In fact, he was not only with God, he is God.

He created everything, he sustains everything.

And John says that he left behind the glories of the Godhead and he wrapped himself with flesh and lived among human beings.

You see, the Roman Emperor asserted a claim of divine sonship.

But the apostle John tells us that Jesus is God's son.

The emperor claimed to be God's son, but Jesus is God's only begotten unique son.

So how would Rome react to that news?

How would Jerusalem react?

And this morning, how will you respond?

The Jewish people were a little different than the Romans.

The Romans believed that an emperor could be God, but the Jewish people did not believe that God could be a man.

It was blasphemy for anyone to claim equality with God, but they did believe that God would send a prophet like Moses.

And there was this continual hope of an anointed one, of a Messiah, a descendant of the ancient king David, who would come to be king in David's place and would ultimately rescue his people from the terror of Paxramana.

The Jews wondered if Jesus might be that expected prophet.

As he taught and he displayed power and authority over all aspects of nature and the physical and spiritual realms, some begin to question in their hearts, is he the one?

And while his ministry centered in a relatively small area of Palestine called Galilee, news of his teaching and his work spread until his fame was spread far and wide, so much that even two blind men in the southern desert city of Jericho had heard of Jesus, the son of David.

The Jews were different.

They believed in one God.

Rome viewed the Jewish messianic hope as outlandish.

Only a crazy fanatic with delusional musings would oppose Caesar, the son of the gods.

Nevertheless, the Jewish people persisted in their hope and their trust of God's faithfulness, believing that God always does what is right.

Jesus inspired hope and excitement and faith.

And at the same time, the rest of the people who had heard rumors of Jesus would be filled with a mixture of skeptical hope and fear.

Is God finally fulfilling his promises?

And and what would what would Rome do when they heard of another hopeful Messiah?

If Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah, how many would die this time when Rome yet again crushed their hopes?

That's the political background to Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 through 11.

Matthew 21:1–11

Now, very little of that was likely in the minds of excited pilgrims traveling on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover, along with Jesus and the disciples and at least one formerly blind man.

If you have your Bible, would you open it to Matthew 21 and look with me at the first eleven verses, a familiar passage of scripture to you that we often consider at a different time of year.

Matthew chapter 21, beginning in verse 1, it says, Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent his two disciples, saying to them, Go on into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

Untie them and bring them to me.

If anyone says anything to you, you will say to them, The Lord needs them, and he will send them to you with you at once.

Now this took place, Matthew says, to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

So the disciples went and they did as Jesus had directed them.

They brought the donkey and the colt, and they put on them their cloaks, and Jesus sat on them.

Most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?

And the crowds said, This is the prophet.

This is Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

Amen.

Who is this?

Who is this?

That is Matthew's focus in this account.

He wants us to wrestle with that question.

Who is this?

Every single person without question must answer that question.

One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

The answer to that question.

Who is this?

On the one hand, it is an apologetic question.

It requires a defense, an answer for what you believe to be true.

On the other hand, it's a biblical question requiring an ability to read your Bible, to know your Bible.

And providentially, our next two Faith Equip seminars focus on those very topics.

Beginning next Sunday on how to read your Bible, and then a few weeks later on apologetics.

We want to help you answer the question: how do you answer about the person of Jesus Christ?

Who is this man?

Now you have no excuse for not signing up, right?

A Roman citizen?

Or a political Jew?

Or a Bible-believing Jew would answer that question differently.

How do you answer that question?

Matthew answers it as a Bible-believing Jew turned Christian.

How will you answer it?

You see, Matthew proclaims and in some sense defends Jesus' identity as Israel's king, the son of David, precisely as the blind men in Jericho had declared.

The crowds believe that Jesus is the promised prophet, but that's what the crowds believe.

Is it what Matthew wants us to believe?

We can only genuinely observe what Matthew sees if we read our Bibles in the light of Christ.

You see, Jesus is at this point outside the eastern wall of Jerusalem, where there is a valley called the Kidron Valley.

And as you move away from Jerusalem, on the other side of that valley is a hill that rises almost 3,000 feet called the Mount of Olives.

And on the other side of that hill, there are two small villages.

The furthest away from Jerusalem is called Bethany, where Lazarus lived.

But in between Bethany and Jerusalem is a small village called Bethphage.

And as this large crowd of people ascends the desert hills outside of Jericho, arriving on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Jesus suddenly stops and sends two disciples into Bethphage to bring back a donkey and a colt.

Jesus will not walk the rest of the way into Jerusalem.

He will ride on a donkey.

And that should be our first clue to something unusual occurring.

Because never before has Matthew written of Jesus riding on an animal.

And this is the first time in his biography that Matthew has physically placed Jesus in Jerusalem.

Why now?

And why, when he is about a mile from Jerusalem, does Jesus then decide to ride?

I would rather ride for the 14 miles getting from Jericho and walk the last.

Why now?

And what does all of this have to do with the question, who is this?

I would suggest to you that we need to read our Bibles to understand that question.

Because Matthew reads the pages of Scripture with Jesus in mind.

So let's read.

And see if we can align our hearts and minds with Matthew's.

You're in luck this morning.

I'm not going to preach to you.

I just want you to read.

One of the questions of apologetics is how do we make sense of the pages of Scripture?

Does everything work together?

How does it work together?

How do we talk about that?

How do we read our Bibles?

Well, let's start in Genesis chapter 49.

Genesis 49 · chapter mention

If you know anything about Genesis, you'll recognize this is near the end of the book of Genesis.

The end of the book of Genesis, Jacob is about to die, and he gathers his 12 sons together, who will become the 12 tribes of Israel, and he blesses them.

And in the book of Genesis, these blessings carry a prophetic kind of tone.

They're a looking forward to anticipate by God's grace and God's power what will happen.

And in Genesis chapter 49, beginning in verse 8, we read about his son Judah.

Genesis 49 · chapter mention

Judah is not the firstborn, but Judah will become the bearer of the firstborn rites, because the first children lost their place because of their sin.

So in chapter 49 of Genesis, verse 8, we read, Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons shall bow down before you.

Judah is a lion's cub.

From the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He stooped down, he he crouched as a lion and as a lioness, so who dares to rouse him?

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and in his vesture in the blood of grapes.

It goes on for another verse there, but we'll stop at that point.

Here is a promise of a praiseworthy king.

Do you see those words in verse 10 of a scepter and of a ruler's staff?

Judah is being given the right and the role of the firstborn in the family, but not just that.

Jacob is prophetically giving a blessing that says, Judah will rule over Israel.

The right to rule, the position of authority will come from the tribe of Judah.

And there's this association of this praiseworthy king with a foal and a donkey's colt.

Just like Mark focused on only one of the two blind men, so too Mark only focuses on one animal.

But Matthew focuses on two.

Why?

Why does Jacob give a blessing of authority and rule to his son Judah?

And mention the tying of an animal to a vine, and not just one animal, but two.

Now make your way to 1 Kings.

You have to go back towards the end of your Bible past several Old Testament books, and you get to 1 and 2 Samuel and then 1 Kings.

And so we go to 1 Kings chapter 1 and verse 32.

1 Kings 1 · chapter mention

This is a time in Israel's history when David is king over Israel.

David and Bathsheba are now past their adulterous time, and they have conceived a son named Solomon, whose name means peace.

And beginning in 1 Kings chapter 1 and verse 32, we read these words.

1 Kings 1 · chapter mention

And the king said to them, Take with you the servants of your Lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule and bring him down to Gehon.

And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet there anoint him king over Israel.

Then blow the trumpet and say, Long live King Solomon.

You shall then come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, for he shall be king in my place.

And I have appointed him to be the ruler over Judah.

And Beniah, the son of Jehoiada, answered the king, Amen.

So be it.

May Yahweh, the God of my Lord, be with.

Say so.

As Yahweh has been with my lord the king, even so may he be with Solomon and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.

And so Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Beniah the son of Jehoiada, and the Karahites and the Pelathites went down and had Solomon ride on King David's mule and brought him to Gehon.

And there Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon.

And they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, Long live King Solomon, and all the people went up after him, playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise.

Solomon He's anointed king.

Not just king, but the king who is the son of David, who is the king of peace, riding into the city of Jerusalem on an animal.

Now flip to 2 Kings, chapter 9.

2 Kings 9 · chapter mention

Second Kings chapter nine.

It's flipping the pages.

Second Kings chapter 9.

2 Kings 9 · chapter mention

This is later in Israel's history.

Elisha the prophet calls one of the sons of the prophets and says to him, tie up your garments and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth Gilead.

And when you arrive, look there for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshe, and go in and have him rise from among his fellows and lead him to an inner chamber.

Then take this flask of oil and pour it on his head, and say, Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you as king over Israel.

Then open the door and flee.

Do not linger.

So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead.

And when he came, behold, the commanders of the army were in council.

And he says to them, I have a word for you, O commander.

And Jehu said to which of us all?

And he said, To you, O commander.

And so he arose, and he went into the house, and the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel.

And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may have vengeance on Jezebel, the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh, for the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel, and I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, and like the house of Baashah the son of Ahijah.

And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her.

And then he opened the door and fled.

When Jehu came out to the servants of his master, they said to him, Is everything well?

Why did this mad fellow come to you?

And he said, Ah, you know the guy, you know his talk.

And they said, That's not true.

Tell us now.

And he said, Thus and so he spoke to me, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you king over Israel.

Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, Jehu is king.

The name Jehu means Yahweh.

Yahweh is God, and now Yahweh is God is king.

And when Yahweh becomes God, when Yahweh, who is God, becomes king, coats begin to cover the ground under his feet.

Now make your way to Psalm.

Psalm one hundred and eighteen.

Psalm one hundred and eighteen.

This is the last of the songs of Halel, the praise songs.

And typically it is the last song sung as the pilgrims made their way up in ascent to the city of Jerusalem for the Passover.

And as they're making their way through the valley, down the Mount of Olives, and into the city of Jerusalem, they would be singing this song.

Beginning in chapter 118, verse 14, we read these words: Yahweh is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous.

The right hand of Yahweh does valiantly, the right hand of Yahweh exalts, the right hand of Yahweh does valiantly.

Such praise of God as they enter the city of Jerusalem.

And then you sing, I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of Yahweh.

For Yahweh has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to Yahweh, for this is the gate of Yahweh, the righteous shall enter through it.

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

The stone that the builder is rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is Yahweh's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.

For this is the day that Yahweh has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Save us, we pray, O Yahweh.

For blessed is the one who can't comes in the name of Yahweh.

We bless you from the house of Yahweh.

For Yahweh is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us.

Bind the festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar.

For you, O Yahweh, are my God, and I will give thanks to you.

You are my God, I will extol you.

From Jehu becoming king, we now put ourselves in the shoes of the pilgrims, shouting and singing and chanting that King Yahweh will save us.

It is our prayer, it is our song, the last song as we walk down the Mount of Olives into the gate of Jerusalem.

And by the time of Jesus, this is a messianic proclamation.

The Messiah will come and save us because he comes in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Why is that the case by the time of Jesus?

It's because of what we read.

And an Old Testament prophet by the name of Zechariah.

So if you can't find Zechariah, find your way to Matthew and just turn back a few pages towards the front of your Bible.

Zechariah.

And chapter eight.

Zechariah chapter eight.

Zechariah chapter eight, beginning in verse one.

We'll skip over a few verses here, but Zechariah chapter one, chapter eight, verse one says, And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, Thus says Yahweh of hosts, I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.

For thus says Yahweh, I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of Yahweh of hosts, the holy mountain.

Jump down to verse 7.

Thus says Yahweh of hosts, behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.

Jump down to verse eleven.

But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in former days, declares Yahweh of hosts.

For there shall be a sowing of peace.

The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their due.

And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.

And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing.

Fear not, but let your hands be strong.

Yahweh of hosts will come, he will return to Zion, and in the midst of his return, he will save his people.

Does it make sense now why they would sing Psalm 118?

Save us, we pray.

Yahweh, our God, be our king and save us.

Now look at Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9.

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem, why?

Behold, your king is coming to you.

How?

Righteous and having salvation because he comes to save.

Well, how does a king coming to save enter the royal city?

He comes humble, mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

And so a few pages later, you come to that page in your Bible that has blanks on it, probably.

It says New Testament.

And when we flip that page and we get to Matthew chapter 1, verse 1, we read these words.

Matthew 1:1

This is the book of the Genesis, the beginnings, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Jesus Messiah.

Who is this Jesus Messiah?

He is son of David.

Okay, what David are we talking about?

Well, in verse 6, we see that it is David the King.

This Jesus is the one who is called Messiah, who is the son of David the king.

And if we flip over another page, we get to chapter 2 and verse 6, and we read about his birth in Bethlehem in the land of Judah.

The prophet says, Of Bethlehem, you are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.

Well, where does that come from?

It comes from Jacob's prophecy, right?

Judah, he will be ruler.

And out of Bethlehem will come one who is not the least, but the one who will rule and who will shepherd my people, Israel.

How interesting is it that the angel of Yahweh said to Joseph in chapter 1, verse 23 that he would call the name of his son Jesus Yeshua, because he will save Hoshia, his people from their sins.

This Jesus, this Messiah, this one who would come to save his people from their sins, the very cry Israel has been crying for millennia.

This Jesus, Matthew says, is the ruler of Judah, whom God promised.

This ruler, this Jesus, Messiah, thirty years later will proclaim in chapter four, verse seventeen, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

How else can the kingdom of heaven be at hand unless the king is present?

The kingdom of heaven is at hand because the king of the kingdom is here.

He's here.

The magi came to Jerusalem because of what?

Look over at chapter 5 of Matthew.

Beginning in verse 34, Jesus says, I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is a throne of God, or by earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.

The Magi come to Jerusalem first, because it is the city of the great king, the son of David, who would come, Hoshia, to save us from our sin.

Now that we've read our Bibles, make your way back to chapter 21.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, the city of the great king, and they came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus said to his disciples, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her.

Untie them and bring them to me.

And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them, and he will send them at once.

Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, a full of a beast of burden.

The disciples went and did as Jesus directed them, and somehow it was all just as he said.

And others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before him down the Mount of Olives and into the gates of the city, and everyone that followed him were shouting, Psalm 118, Hosanna, Hoshiana, save us, O son of David.

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

And when he entered the city, the whole city was stirred up.

And they were saying, Who is this?

And the crowd just said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

Now that we've read our Bible, can you answer the question, who is this?

Can you answer it in the way that Matthew intends you to answer it?

This Jesus riding on a donkey along with a young donkey is the one Jacob saw in his blessing to Judah.

This Jesus is the King of peace, anticipated in Solomon riding on a donkey in his coronation.

This Jesus is Yahweh the king, imaged in Jehu, before whom people laid down their coats.

He is the one anticipated by the psalmist in Psalm 118 who would save his people.

And he's the one Zechariah saw in his prophecies.

He is the son of David the king entering the city of the great king to shouts of royalty and divine sonship.

Whether or not the crowds recognized what they were doing, they are so enthralled by Jesus that their singing of Psalm 118 proclaims that Jesus is David's heir, having the right to rule.

He is the promised king who would come to save his people from their sins.

He is the Messiah of God.

But that's a perilous situation for Israel.

Because very near the city's entrance was the Temple Mount.

And on the Temple Mount was the fortress Antonia, where a Roman garrison was stationed to squelch any Jewish rebellion instantly.

And Luke tells us that as the Pharisees heard the jubilant shouting of Psalm 118 with terms like, save us now, and son of David, within sight and hearing of the Roman garrison, those Jewish leaders rush out of the city of the king, saying to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

You can imagine their fear.

This famous teacher comes to town with such fervor that the Roman army will descend to kill the people because of their perceived rebellion against Rome.

It's so tumultuous that Matthew says the city of the king responds with shaking.

But Jesus, Luke tells us, says, listen, if these if these people were silent, the very stones would cry out.

What a statement.

And what a picture.

The rocks on the hillside, the temple stones would cry out if people hadn't shouted his Messiahship and his kingship.

The stones on the Mount of Olives knew that the creator of the world was there that day, deserving the chorus of praise.

And yet Matthew still tells us in verse 10 that when he enters Jerusalem, people are wondering, who is this?

Who is this?

The words stirred up are a little too benign.

The word Matthew uses here is one from which we get our English words seismic and seismology, a splitting of the earth.

If you remember, we read that same word.

With the entrance of another king into Israel, into Jerusalem.

The people of Jerusalem are so stirred up by Jesus coming to town that they were quaking and the earth would quake, and that quaking would turn into a full-scale rumble as those folks would cry out in a few days, crucify him, crucify him.

The lesson of the triumphal entry from reading our Bibles is that Jesus, Jesus is the one we should be looking for.

Jesus is Emmanuel.

He is God in the flesh, come to rule over his own with the peace of God by first dying as their ransom under the pox romana.

And over the course of the next few days of Matthew's account, there would be more stirring, more quaking, as people sought to answer that question.

Who is he?

You've now read your Bible.

And you've seen how God has laid everything out step by step.

And as we continue in Matthew, you will see that in the end the people say, no, we don't we don't want that Jesus.

Instead, we want Barabbas, whose name means Son of the Father?

How will you respond?

Will you respond with the Galilean crowds in worshipful celebration?

Or will you respond with the citizens of Jerusalem who will execute him with their own hands, execute their humble king?

Will you tremble in fear of what the culture and the world will think?

Or will you proclaim in humble worship, crying out with the stones, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, make your word real to us.

Not just in the pages and the words in our Bible, but the word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us.

The word of God who created all that is, taking on flesh so that he might ransom us.

We stand before you as ones who reject you by our very nature while we were still sinners.

You died for us, Lord Jesus.

Open our hearts and our minds to see you as your word proclaims it.

To know you as the one who does all things right, perfectly displayed and orchestrating the events of history to point to you.

The Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the King, who had come to save us from our sins.

May our hearts be drawn to worship you in spirit and in truth this morning.

To praise you, to proclaim you because of who you are.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.