Into the Wilderness – Matthew 21

We are finishing a series on wilderness

during this Lent time. You've seen the

rocks stacked around here. They are like

Karens or guideposts in the wilderness

guiding us um toward

God's goodness and righteousness even in

the midst of turmoil and pain.

On this Palm Sunday, we are looking at

that wilderness and the wilderness that

shapes the scene in which Jesus arrives

in.

We're concluding this Lenton series um

knowing that

wilderness thematically is sprinkled

throughout all of the Bible. We've

looked at a people who were recently

enslaved who were then emancipated and

they walk into the wilderness and God

reshapes this people over 40 years and

they enter the promised land a new and

changed people. We've seen Jesus as he

goes into the wilderness in 40 days

mirroring that of the children of Israel

in the wilderness and temp uh tempted by

Satan. Jesus spends that time preparing

himself under the testing of Satan for

his ministry to come. We've seen the

wilderness throughout scripture. It is a

theme that recurs over and over and it

is a tool that uh the biblical narrative

uses

as testing and transformation.

We've compared this wilderness

to our own experience as well of dry and

desolate spiritual and emotional places.

Places in which we feel remote from God.

Places in which we believe little can

grow.

The theme of wilderness we have seen

serves of transformation, but not one

that comes easily,

not one that comes with

light-heartedness,

but one that comes through confronting

impossibly dry bones,

one that comes with hardfound hope as we

walk through those desolate places.

The wilderness is a tough place and one

that we all experience.

But the biblical narrative deems

wilderness as essential as essential for

recreating and reshaping and reentering

its characters for the work that is

before them.

And here's our focus today. Our focus is

that the wilderness

prepares us to show up for how we show

up in the world. The wilderness prepares

us for how we show up in the world.

For better or worse, the wilderness

experiences that we go through, whether

it's the solitude that we willingly

enter into or those desolate desert

experiences that are thrust upon us,

they are experiences that shape us into

people who are prepared to engage in

God's work in the world.

Prepared to show up engaged for God's

work in the world. Let's read our text

today from Matthew 21:es 1-11.

Hear the word of the Lord.

It says, 'As they approached Jerusalem,

that's Jesus and his followers. As they

approached Jerusalem and came to Beth

Page on the Mount of Olives,

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to

them, "Go to the village ahead of you,

and at once you will find a donkey tied

there with her colt by her. Untie them

and bring them to me. If anyone says

anything to you, say that the Lord needs

them, and he will send them right away."

This took place to fulfill what was

spoken through the prophet. Say to your

daughter Zion, "See, your king comes to

you gentle and riding on a donkey and a

cult, the fowl of a donkey."

The disciples went and did as Jesus had

instructed them. They brought the donkey

and the colt and placed their cloaks on

them for Jesus to sit on. A very large

crowd spread their cloaks on the road

while others cut branches from trees and

spread them on the road. The crowds that

went ahead of him and those who followed

shouted, "Hosana to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of

the Lord. Hosana in the highest heaven."

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole

city was stirred and asked, "Who is

this?"

The crowds answered, "This is Jesus the

prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.

This is the word of our Lord. Thanks be

to God.

God, may the words of my mouth and the

meditations of all of our hearts be

pleasing and acceptable in your sight,

our rock and our redeemer." Amen.

Amen. This morning we of course observe

Palm Sunday which is also referred to as

the triumphal entry.

On this Sunday we read the story of

Jesus's arrival into Jerusalem.

And at that prediction

multiple times Jesus said that it would

lead eventually to his death.

His arrival into Jerusalem marks the

beginning of what we call today Holy

Week. It is a week of vast importance to

the life of the Christ follower. So, not

only does Jesus parade into Jerusalem

this day on a donkey, but during the

course of this week, he he flips over

tables and he eats a final meal with his

disciples

and he gives them a new command to serve

each other with acts of love and

servitude such as washing each other's

very gross feet.

Jesus

prepares or excuse me, Jesus prespires

blood in agony in the garden of

Gethsemane and is betrayed by one of his

very own.

He of course at the end of this week is

crucified and dies and is placed in a

tomb.

But I won't I won't go any further. I

won't give away the end. That's for next

week.

Yet, how did how did we get to this

place? How did we arrive to this

particular scene in which the crowds are

throwing down their cloaks and shouting

these praises of hosana to Jesus?

Did the Christ just wake up yesterday

and here we are? He's riding in on a

farm animal to be cheered on by crowds

who deeply believe in his mission in the

world. No.

See the path that led Jesus to this

place today was marked by a wilderness

and wilderness experiences.

Jesus went through multiple wilderness

experiences that prepared him and others

for this particular day. So Jesus

experienced

the wilderness in two different ways I

believe. The first of which was the

wilderness experience that he was

unvoluntarily put into.

Over the span of Jesus's ministry, Jesus

undergoes an array of wilderness

experiences similar to the experiences

that we've talked about on Sunday

mornings of experiences that we find

ourselves in in desol desolate places

and places of sorrow.

Jesus finds himself multiple times in

desolate places of rejection.

At the onset of Jesus's ministry,

he went into his hometown into the

synagogue of his hometown, and he there

unrolled the scroll of Isaiah, and he

made this messianic claim about himself

that he was the longawwaited Messiah.

But his hometown, those who knew him and

his family, rejected this news.

And at the culmination of this event,

they attempted to throw him off of a

cliff. Jesus experienced wilderness

rejection.

He too, when he was approaching a town,

he saw two people who were experiencing

the desolate places of demonic

oppression.

And Jesus, having healed those two

people, was told by the town, the

village nearby, that they didn't want

him. They wanted him to leave because of

the miracle that he performed affected

their livelihood and their livestock.

They asked him to leave. Jesus

experienced rejection.

Jesus knows the sorrow that comes in the

wilderness places. when he stood sobbing

at the grave of his close friend Lazarus

who had died just days earlier.

Jesus knows the wilderness experience of

his life life's work being misunderstood

and misconstrued

as the disciples who spent years

following him bickered amongst themsel

about who would be greatest in the

kingdom.

It's these and other examples similar to

it that we get the idea that Jesus

throughout his ministry experienced

wilderness places.

And it wasn't just the wilderness uh

experiences and places that were

involuntarily put on him. But Jesus also

entered into these wilderness places

during the course of his ministry.

when those who were drawn to Jesus's

attractive work of healing and miracles

and uh rescuing people from various

ailments.

They wanted to know and to have Jesus's

miraculous power. But Jesus reminds them

that foxes have holes and birds of the

air have nests, but the Son of Man has

nowhere to lay his head.

And likewise, Jesus

repeatedly engages

in this challenging work of

understanding what God's kingdom would

be like and who he would minister to.

And he would reenter himself again and

again by seeking out wilderness places,

desolate places, places of solitude. The

gospel accounts

have Jesus no less than nine times

retreating into these places to be

alone, to experience communion with the

father, to be recharged, rejuvenated,

reentered.

It's in the places that Jesus was forced

to be in the wilderness and the

wilderness he chose that would shape him

for how he would ride in on this day.

Jesus understood that the wilderness

experiences transform us.

Though they're uneasy and difficult at

times, they shape us for how we should

show up in the world.

And how did Jesus show up in the world

on this particular day?

The gospel account gives us two

contrasting images of Jesus

on this day in Jerusalem.

First, we see Jesus heralded as the

Messiah or the anointed one in the line

of King David who represented the

pinnacle of Israel's monarchy. The

crowds laid down their garments as was

customary for kingly processions and

they called to Jesus hosana which means

save now

or bring salvation to your people who

are undergoing Roman occupation. Save us

Jesus.

And the story even sets Jesus's

triumphal entry

as descending from the Mount of Olives.

The biblical scholar uh Dale Bruner

points out that the messianic the Jewish

messianic faith connected the Mount of

Olives with the coming of the Messiah.

And thus even Matthew's geographical

reference is saying here he is. This is

him. This is the long expected one, the

anointed one.

Yet to all the kingly pronouncements

that would accompany Jesus on this day,

he doesn't reject. He doesn't deny. He

doesn't say, "Oh, no, that's not me. I'm

not the person."

He accepts them and acknowledges them.

But he acknowledges them in a way that

was vastly different, I think, than the

crowd expected on that particular day.

It was vastly different because perhaps

they would have preferred a conquering

king to be there that day riding into

Jerusalem. Maybe they had in their mind

Alexander the Great who years before

had rode in as a hero who knew no enemy

and could not be defeated in military

conquest. who rides into Jerusalem on a

waror,

signaling to the masses both power and

terror.

Or perhaps

they would like to have a messiah like

Judas Mcabeas, the Jewish priest turned

military leader who years early earlier

had driven out the Seucid Empire and

recaptured Jerusalem from enemy control.

It was characters like these that the

crowds may have imagined

that Jesus would embody on his approach

to Jerusalem that day. Yet, it was not

with conquering power or a show of

ferocity that Jesus would ride into the

holy city.

Jesus arrives that day with expectant

cheers from the crowd, having decided

that in his procession, he would arrive

humble

and riding on a donkey.

When Jesus descends from the Mount of

Olives into Jerusalem with prophetic

authority, he processes into Jerusalem

with the crowds chanting his kingly

designation

on the back of an animal used to carry

the burdens of the people.

symbolizing both peace

not of war and a in a fashion that

understands the plight of the people

whom he served.

To quote Bruner again,

we have a Jesus who wants to be seen as

Emmanuel, the true God with us in a

truly human way. At our level, we have

God on a donkey.

This image of Jesus is often not the one

that we want.

This image of Jesus riding in lowly and

humble on a donkey into Jerusalem

against the powers of the Roman Empire

to an oppressed group of people is not

the one they wanted and likely not the

one that we want today either.

We want the God that descends from the

clouds, not the God who descends from

the Mount of Olives.

We want often the God who has guns

blazing, ready to make things right and

do justice to our enemies,

not the one who heals the sick and the

blind.

We want often

the God who makes our enemy run at the

sound of his voice, not the one who will

gather unto him all who are tired and

heavy laden.

We don't always want the king who rides

in that day on the back of an animal

used to plow a field.

Yet, that is the idea of kingship that

Jesus has in mind. That is the idea of

authority that Jesus is willing to

embody. That is the type of hero that

Jesus wants to be. Not one that forces

anybody's hand or dominates or causes

another group to be oppressed on behalf

of theirs, but a God who is lowly, who

understands the needs of the people.

Jesus as we have today the prince of

peace.

Jesus had been prepared for this moment

long before its arrival.

See Jesus in the wilderness on the onset

of his ministry encountered Satan

foreshadowing potentially this

particular instance.

And Satan asks,

the text reads that again the devil took

him away on a very high mountain and

showed him all the kingdoms of the world

and their splendor.

All this I will give to you, Satan says,

if you bow down and worship me.

In the wilderness,

Jesus had been prepared for how he would

show up in the world.

He would not repeat the endless cycles

of violence that preceded him. Jesus

would not come in conquering on a waror.

Jesus would come in humble

as God with us.

So as for you and and me today,

how is the wilderness shaping us for how

we show up in the world?

How are those desolate experiences,

those remote places that we go through

where we are sure that nothing good can

grow out of? How is it those difficult

times that God is with us through? How

are those shaping us for how we show up

in the world?

Whether it is the wilderness that is

thrust upon us or the wilderness that we

willingly enter that solitude,

how is that helping us to choose this

day how we are to move forward in peace

and in restoration or in ending

generations of trauma or in ushering

this idea of the kingdom in which Jesus

believes that love rules and has the

final bird.

How are those wilderness places shaping

us to show it up in the world similar to

Jesus,

lowly and riding on a donkey?

It's this Palm Sunday that we reflect on

a king who is celebrated like that.

It is this Palm Sunday that we celebrate

a king who decides

to humble himself

and show love to his enemy, not a

conquering spirit.

How does the wilderness shape us to show

up like that?

Amen.