Luke 19:28-48 - The Paradoxical King

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Um today is indeed Palm Sunday, and I've done 24 Palm Sunday messages.

And I'm I'm the goofy pastor that it doesn't, when that that sort of thing keeps coming back around.

I'm not quite the guy going, oh no, what am I gonna say?

Because I know what I am gonna talk about in general, and so do you, don't you?

I'm you know that this isn't gonna be, you know, sort of a teaching on infrarsarianism or something like that.

We're not we're not going to some weird kind of tiny little doctrinal issue.

We're gonna talk about Jesus coming in on Palm Sunday a couple thousand years ago, roughly, and and we're gonna talk about why he did that, why that is important and significant, and uh it's really important for us to do that, I think.

I'm gonna call it the paradoxical king uh this year as we study.

We're gonna look at Luke's uh count.

There are four gospel records, as most of you know.

They can be divided into and have been in English Bibles to uh 89 chapters total between the four of them.

Of those eighty-nine chapters, um uh four of them, that's all.

Four cover the first 30 years of the earthly life of Jesus.

85 chapters focus on the last three and a half years of the earthly life of Jesus, i.e., his public ministry, including his teaching uh and his miracles, uh, which there just is so much there.

Uh we can spend a lot of time there.

Twenty-nine of those eight five chapters, though, zoom in on the Passion Week, which we're entering, uh, what we call the Passion Week here today, Palm Sunday.

It includes the uh cleansing of the temple, the arrival of Jesus, of course, triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple, the teachings and miracles, the Last Supper, betrayal and arrest, interrogation trials, uh the torture, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

I'm so glad we sang that song, that new song this morning, because we are actually, that was your rehearsal for us to sing it next week, uh, because it's all about the resurrection.

But what we have uh, we have the blessing of living here 2,000 years later from these events that happened in space-time history.

We have the blessing of being able to remember what happened, including the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem and all that is there, all the meaning, all the symbolism that's there, as well as the reality of what happened that day.

And then we also have the benefit of studying this dark week in so many ways for Jesus Himself, for the torture that he went through, for the scourging, for the way that some of the self-righteous religious leaders set themselves, had been searching for a way to take him down.

And so all of that, we we don't want to forget that.

It's really important that we don't forget that and that we don't skip over it.

But we have the benefit, don't we, of being able to sing a song like that one this week, knowing what's on the other side of Good Friday.

That is Sunday of next week, the Easter celebration.

But we need to take the time to remember and recall the significance of what happened that whole week.

So, triumphal entry, you'll find if you would like, uh, you can you can uh with your home group if you run through the sermon notes.

Sometimes I know we have some home groups that do that, or if you and your family would like to hear the um the four gospels all record this event of the triumphal entry of Jesus as it's called.

Um, we'll be looking at the Lucan account today.

And uh first, though, I would ask you to join me in prayer for illumination.

Our Father in heaven, as we've gathered to worship you today, we are aware that someone in our fellowship today needs to hear you call their name.

They need to also respond.

And they need to receive your grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

Please overcome their fears that they somehow are too unlovely for you.

Please help them overcome their fears that you might not want to love them.

Please override their pride.

Their pride inflicted resistance to you.

Override that, Lord.

Overpower all the dark forces that might seek to bind them and blind them.

Come now, Lord Jesus, light of the world, set all of our hearts and voices free to worship you and to join with the chorus of Palm Sunday.

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.

Amen and amen.

Turn with me then to Luke chapter 19, and let's uh just take a look at these verses 28 through uh 48.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

It goes, let me just put that back up on the screen for you so you have that to look at.

Uh and after he had said these things, what things?

Well, remember, Jesus has, we've been studying this a little bit, but he's been coming through on his way to Jerusalem.

And we I've I especially with our Timeless Truth podcast and some of these books that we've all the four Gospels that we've studied before, most of you will know that he's gone through Jericho, the lowest point on the earth that isn't underwater, and uh Jericho, a thousand feet below sea level, almost.

And now he has a lot happened there.

Blind Bartimaeus was healed of his blindness.

Jesus met a man named Zacchaeus there, who was probably the most hated man in Israel.

The chief tax collector, not just not just one of the many tax collectors, he's the chief tax collector.

And a Jewish man who was literally extorting money from his own people and giving it to the Roman government.

And whatever he could skim off the top, he would take for himself.

So in every way, this guy is hated by his own people.

He's there, and um uh he's been uh remarkably transformed by his encounter with Jesus.

Um then that Jericho road, uh 17 miles to Jerusalem, 3,000 feet of elevation.

I mean, those of us who have been there and ridden the bus know how you think the bus is not gonna make it.

You know, and then the and then the tour guide on the bus starts, you know, starts playing chariots of fire on the on the sound system in the bus, and you're starting to feel real good.

And then they play some song, you know, Jerusalem as we crush the hill.

And it's so amazing, and even hardcore cynics like me find their eyes filled with water and tears.

Uh because you know this is the path, this is the general direction that we're about to read about.

Because he came from Jericho and he went to Jerusalem and that similar route.

Uh and so it's pretty remarkable.

After he had said these things, all of this stuff had happened in Jericho, and he did some teaching about money usage as recorded in Luke here.

And he was going on ahead, ascending to Jerusalem.

By the way, this is the last time he'll ascend to Jerusalem.

In Jewish uh thinking, you always ascend to Jerusalem, even if you're you know coming from the north, you're you're going up to Jerusalem because it's the holy city.

There will come a day when Jesus will descend.

Um, and he will come to set the world to rights.

Now he's coming, and we'll see.

You guys know the story.

I'm not spoiling it.

But now he rides on a donkey.

He will one day come on a uh a fiery steed and wrap up human history.

But for now, he was going on ahead, ascending to Jerusalem.

It came about that when he approached Bethphej and Bethany, these are two uh smaller villages on the mount that is called Olivet, it says right there in verse 29.

And he sent two of the disciples saying, Go into the village opposite you, in which, as you enter, you'll find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks you why you're untying it, thus shall you speak.

The Lord has need of it.

Had Jesus arranged this in advance, I don't know.

Is Jesus predicting something and making it happen in this sort of spirit realm, making sort of making it happen?

Is this a supernatural thing that's I I don't I don't know.

Could he do that?

Yes, he could do that supernaturally.

Why?

Well, because he created everything out of nothing.

And it would be nothing for him to do that.

And if he created everything out of nothing, all of the miracles, all of what we read about in the Bible would be nothing for him compared to creating everything out of nothing.

So whether that's the case, we just know it happens just like he said.

They were sent, verse 23 says, they went away and found it just as he had told them.

How many of you find it to be true just as Jesus had said it to be, whatever it may be?

You don't have to raise your hand, but I think most of you would.

He's right about everything.

He knows about everything.

And that's why it's so great to know him as King and Savior and Lord because of who he is.

I rest in what he knows, I rest in what he controls, I rest in his sovereignty because of who he is.

Verse 33.

And as they were untying the cult, it's funny how many times the word untie, the verb untie appears here.

It's just interesting.

There are so many things that Jesus comes to untie.

What part of your life needs untying?

What relationship in your life needs some untying?

What part of you needs some untying?

The only one I know that can make that happen is Jesus Himself.

Here are these guys, they untie the colt.

Its owners did say to him, Why are you taking, why are you untying the colt?

And they said, the Lord has need of it, and evidently that's all they needed to say, just like Jesus predicted it would be.

They brought it to Jesus, this colt.

They threw their garments on the colt and they put Jesus on.

It's interesting that Luke's the only one that says it quite that clearly, that they put Jesus on it.

The other gospel records will say, and Jesus sat upon it, or they let him on it way on, or whatever.

But this is interesting.

Luke has, in the first chapter of Luke, he tells us he's really investigated everything quite meticulously.

He wants all the details.

He's a doctor.

He's a historian, doctor, theologian.

He's got a mind for precision and for detail.

And he's the one that tells us a little bit of a light shining.

They put I wonder if when they set Jesus on that donkey, I wonder if these Jewish men raised with the Old Testament thought to themselves, Zechariah 9.9 is about to come true.

And I'll show you that in a little bit if you're not familiar with Zechariah 9.9.

He was going, they were spreading, as he was going, they were spreading their garments in the row, as they would have for approaching royalty in ancient days.

It helps to know some of these things, it really does.

We call this Sunday Palm Sunday, but you know, maybe some of you know, the palms are not mentioned in any of the three synoptic gospels.

It's John that tells us there are palms involved.

Um, there are some leafy branches, but not palms specifically mentioned until we get to John's gospel.

Here, Luke does tell us, though, that these folks were throwing their garments down in the road.

Why were they doing it?

Well, they wanted to make straight the paths of the one who's approaching in the name of the Lord.

They want to fill in the potholes.

They want to cover over every rock that might make his entry bumpy.

They want him to be welcomed.

What do you want?

As far as welcoming Jesus and his approach to your heart and your life and to all of the different categories of your life.

Verse 37, he was now approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives.

And those of you that have been there, we've been up on the Mount of Olives.

You know, don't you?

Some of you will recall, the bus often leaves us uh six times I've been, I think five, four or five of them, they leave us at the top, and when we walk down this road, down the Mount of Olives, I'm not kidding you.

I'm a fairly agile kind of a, you know, climber kind of a guy, almost Spider-Man-like.

But I gotta hold on.

This road is narrow.

And and the the people, the the tour, the Board of Tourism, or somebody's really smart, they've they have stuck some rails into all of the walls as you go down this road on the Mount of Olives, because they know some of us are clumsy and have slippery shoes.

And we have, you know, we we didn't think to wear our enclouds.

We wore our hard shoes.

Some people do that here at church.

I want to put a sign up that says, wear your quiet shoes.

Because if you have to go to the bathroom here at the village chapel during a service, we're all gonna know it.

With our hardwood floors.

And there you go.

And Kim is trying to pray.

And somebody's not gonna hear her prayer because, no, anyway, I've gotten so far afield.

They're coming down this very steep hill on the Mount of Olives.

Jesus on this junk.

You, any of you have ridden a horse, if you've gone down, you know, you know, as you're going down a steep uh decline, you know what it's like.

You've got to lean way back on the saddle and hold on for dear life.

And so this is happening as they descend the Mount of Olives.

The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.

So they were not Methodists, okay?

They were not Presbyterian, probably not Baptists.

They may, this may be a Pentecostal bunch, I gotta be honest.

Some of you amen, you Pentecostal ameners, I'm seeing you, you're getting excited about this already, you know.

Um, they began to praise God joyfully.

Now, when you come in here, do you praise God joyfully?

I mean, some of you need to notify your face about what's going on here, okay?

Because I'm up here all the time, you know, timing the band, everybody's up here.

We're looking, you know, every now and then we're looking, and by the way, there is a camera that does catch your face sometimes.

So our sweet people that are watching online, they know that you need to notify your face about the resurrection, the joy of the resurrection and the promises of God and all that.

That doesn't mean we want to put on some kind of false thing, not at all.

It doesn't mean we want to be hypocrites playing a part, acting, if you will, just pretending that we can, oh no, we're shiny, happy people here at the village chapel because we've not lost our religion.

Nobody ever listened to R.

E.

M, I guess.

Um, we don't want to do that.

But I'm I'm like, I I agree fully with C.S.

Lewis, who said, if you don't feel love for somebody, act as if you love them.

Pretty soon you'll come to love them.

And I think that sometimes is my case when I come in this place.

I gotta come into this place and every now and then stop thinking about how everything out there is going down the toilet and be in this moment with God's people and with God.

And let God be the object of my worship and not me in my misery.

See, some of us find our identity in our misery.

We gotta stop doing that.

Your identity, if you belong to Jesus, your identity is in Jesus.

Doesn't mean you don't go through moments that aren't tough.

You do.

Jesus did, he did it for you, and he did it for me.

But here he is going down, the whole crowd is joyfully praising God with loud voices.

What have they got to praise?

What is it they're praising about?

The Roman Empire, the oppressive Roman Empire, is now under, is occupying their country.

They got heavy taxation.

People like Zacchaeus, who worked for the Roman Empire, have been really ruthless in trying to get and manipulative in getting the money, extracting all the money.

What do these people have to praise God about?

Well, it's partly the answer, I think, is it's what they've been looking for is actually happening, at least some aspect of it is happening now, and they fully believe that, and it actually mattered to them that day.

Okay.

And so here's what they sang, verse 38.

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

This is remarkable.

It's from Psalm 118.

Uh overflows with messianic tones and phrases.

And so here they are, as they see Jesus riding on a donkey, not looking like Zorro, not looking like the Lone Ranger, not looking like King Arthur, but just coming down the hill on a donkey.

It'd be like, I mean, it's it's just like a little tricycle with a little bell on the front.

And you hope it's got some, you know.

I mean, there's nothing.

And they're rejoicing.

How is that?

What connection are they making?

And the answer is in the aforementioned Zechariah 9.9, which I'll put up on the screen in a minute.

Some of the Pharisees, though, were there as well.

And they were in the multitude.

And they had these self-righteous religious leaders, had the habit of sort of uh hiding themselves in the crowd as they stalk Jesus all through his earthly ministry.

And so there they are in the crowd.

The crowd knows who most of them are.

I mean, because they're religious leaders.

And this is a religious context, even though it's got a political context that's Roman and a cultural context that's Greek, it's very much a Jewish context on a religious level.

And those Pharisees get upset here in verse 39.

They say to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

And I love Jesus' answer.

He answered and said, I tell you, if these, meaning his disciples, he probably pointed to them, if they become silent, the stones will cry out.

In other words, you want me to squash their hosannas.

But if I do that, we're gonna have a bunch of singing rocks.

And they're all gonna be singing Hosanna, and your your mind is gonna be blown by just because the the very purpose of Christ.

The telos of creation is what?

The glory of God.

The heavens declare the glory of God, we're told in Psalm 19, but all of creation is his.

He's the one that designed it all.

Have you ever marveled at a rock, just a stone?

We were in uh many years ago, we we uh took a trip uh up to Oxford, England.

We were able to walk on Addison's way, this uh this pathway that C.S.

Lewis used to walk with J.R.R.

Tolkien and all.

And they used to talk about God.

Matter of fact, um, late into the night, sometimes their conversations would be.

And Kim and I went there once and and we were able to walk, it was just thrilling.

We were able to see the room that he used to teach in, his tutoring with his students, all that.

But we're out there on ISIN's walk, and uh, this is a little confession.

I I I I took a stone, I put it in my suitcase, and I brought it home.

Sits on my computer and uh sits right there on the desk.

I see it all the time.

And uh and it's just it keeps reminding me over and over of that place, but also reminds me of this.

I don't want that rock taking my place.

You don't want a rock taking your place.

And here these Pharisees are saying basically, we what we despise and hate is that you, Jesus, are being praised and worshipped and God is being glorified.

We don't want that.

And it's so ironic that religious people wouldn't, you would think, good religious people, you would think they would be interested in Jesus being praised and glorified, but they want to shut it down.

And uh, then this is really interesting that verse 41 is a real change, a real shift.

When he approached, he saw the city, Jesus, and he wept over it.

Two times we're told Jesus wept.

Um, the other time Jesus wept was outside the tomb of right, Jesus wept, shortest verse in the Bible.

And here Jesus weeps.

Uh the word is is is pretty strong.

It's a it's sort of a gut-wrenching.

He convulsed.

I mean, this was like this wasn't just one little tear in his eye.

This was that kind of thing that you just, oh no.

You know.

And uh so his there's quite a change in verse 41.

Why?

Why was he feeling like that at that moment?

And this chapter is so rich in the emotions, of feelings of the human slash divine God man, Jesus.

He's every bit as much human as you and I are.

And part of that is that your gut gets wrenched by some things once in a while.

I hope your gut still can tremble, you can still be moved to tears over some things in this world.

If you had known Jesus says this out loud, some of the disciples clearly heard it.

Luke finds out about it as he does all his research and reports here that this is what made, as he was crying, this, as Jesus was gut-wrenched crying, he said this.

If you had known, Jerusalem, if you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you.

Not it's not a bank like, you know, First Tennessee Bank.

This is an embankment.

This is a military term.

This is a term describing how some there's going to be a siege against Jerusalem before you and surround you and hem you in on every side and will level you to the ground, and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

What Jesus is basically saying there is that in about, and he doesn't give us a number here, but those of us live on this side of all of these events, we know what happened in 70 AD.

We know that some 40 years after Jesus says this, it literally comes true.

Uh, when Titus and the Romans come in and literally destroy Jerusalem and literally drive every stone in the Temple Mount from each other and push them over into the Tyropean Valley below.

You can still today see some of those stones.

Why'd they do that?

Well, they had started a fire in the temple that was so hot, all the gold in the temple, and there was a lot of gold in the temple, had melted and it ran down between the stones.

And what the Romans wanted was the gold.

It wasn't just about being mean-spirited toward the Jews, although they were that.

But it also was about getting that gold.

And it's interesting that Jesus would predict that that would happen, and that it would literally happen 40 years later, and that we now sitting here today can look back on that and say, look, what Jesus said actually came true.

Maybe we should listen to some of the other stuff he said.

Finish chapter 19 with me.

He entered the temple, uh, and this is likely, you know, right at the beginning.

He goes in and out of Jerusalem throughout Passion Week.

But he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them, It is written, my house shall be a house of prayer.

You've made it a robber's den.

So instead of praying P-R-A-Y, they were praying P-R-E-Y on the poor.

And if you want to know what makes Jesus of the Bible really angry, you take advantage of the poor.

You take advantage of the weak.

You take advantage of those who can't defend themselves.

And you will find yourself on the other side, the bad side of the wrath of the God of the Bible.

And so Jesus is calling them out.

And he literally, what's called cleanses the temple.

It's the second time he's done it.

We read in John's Gospel about the first time he did it, early on in John's Gospel.

This is the second time he does that kind of thing.

And he literally wants to take and drive them out of there.

And that's there are a couple of uh Old Testament prophecies that are uh referred to here, Isaiah 56, 7 being 1.

He was teaching daily through the Passion Week in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him.

Here's an unholy alliance.

Chief priests and scribes, and the sort of prominent leading businessmen, if you will.

Um, this Jesus had there there has been an unholy alliance, the Herodians, for instance, the Pharisees, the Sadducees.

They're all an unholy alliance against Jesus, trying to find a way to do away with him.

But they could not find anything that they might do for, and the reason is right here, for all the people were hanging upon his every word.

I hope that describes me.

I hope that describes us as a church.

Are we hanging on his every word or are we ho-humming our way through life as Christian believers?

Uh are we just really happy when he behaves like we want him to behave?

When all of what he says aligns with all of what we want and what we think.

And I remind you that if you do that, if that's the route you take with God, that you're just creating a God in your image.

And I know for myself, I can't come up with any kind of a God that is actually loving and just and kind if it's left up to my imagination.

And the reason is because I'm not loving and just and kind.

And neither are you.

None of us can bear the burden or carry the weight of defining who God is.

All of us can receive the revelation offered to us by the God who is really there.

And if he really is a God and he's really there and he's given us the ability to communicate, we ought to think that he could communicate too.

And if he did communicate, what would he do?

How would he do that?

And so the New Testament gives us that answer and talks about the prophets who have come and spoken on behalf of God.

Talks all about the scriptures, talks all about Jesus being the exact representation of God.

And so we look to Jesus.

All right, a couple things I want to highlight for us here.

Um four things we always look for.

How's God reveal himself in this passage?

Um, what are the lessons of humanity's weakness and our need for redemption?

Three, uh, where is the glorious song of the gospel on display here?

Four, um, what does this passage, what is it looking for in terms of a response from us?

And I think I think all four of them are here.

Um you think about Palm Sunday, what has this observance that we kind of bring up every year for the last 2,000 years or whatever?

Uh, what does that make us think about?

Just why did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the donkey?

Why did the crowds shout Hosanna?

Um, what made them dance and sing, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord?

Why that particular psalm?

There's 150 Psalms.

Why that psalm and not one of the others on this day, in that moment?

How might some have understood and some maybe misunderstood what Jesus was doing that day?

We have the blessing, the 2020 vision or at least 2030 vision of being so many years later.

We can look back, we've got the whole New Testament, we can interpret what he did in light of all that's in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

What timeless truths about God's love for sinners is on full display right here?

I think it's really important for us to ask those questions.

The paradoxical king is who Jesus is.

Um, he comes and he's deliberate in this move that he makes.

It was Jesus' instructions for his disciples to go get the never-before-ridden colt, the foal of a donkey.

How did they know that that donkey right there had never been ridden?

I mean, I don't know anything about horses or donkeys.

I know, you know, I got to talk to Pastor Matt a little bit about this because he's got a couple donkeys out there at his uh farm.

But how did they know, you know, that it was never before, maybe it didn't have a saddle, maybe it didn't, and so they used their coats and they put them on there for Jesus to sit on those.

Um while most of us in the West might miss this, the Jewish people on the ground that day, I don't think they would have missed Zechariah 9:9.

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you.

He is just, he's endowed with salvation, but he's humble and he is mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey, a young donkey, a donkey that's never been ridden, you might even say.

And this is Zechariah.

Hundreds of years before the time of Jesus.

Here's the first print um uh, you know, this connection, if you will, that I want to pull out.

There are several, though, that I think are worth pulling out.

Some of the more well-known Old Testament prophecies about Messiah include prediction of a ruler in the line of Judah, all the way back in Genesis.

The prophecy of a prophet like Moses, Deuteronomy 18, the promise of the virgin birth, Isaiah 7.

Prophecy of a suffering servant who would bear the sins of many, Isaiah 53.

Prediction of a humble king, as we just saw here, riding on the colt of a dog, who would come in righteousness, who would be bringing salvation and peace.

But it wouldn't look like some people thought it would look like.

Some people, and even today, some people still want Jesus to fit into their political scheme.

And if your idea of who Jesus is fits into your political scheme, you got the wrong idea of Jesus.

I'm just telling you, he transcends all political schemes.

Um that's he didn't come to be a political messiah.

Uh, he came to save sinners.

I'm grateful.

I hope you're grateful as well.

Um, I think that's what we all need.

And I'm so glad he has done that for us.

All four Gospels include the triumphal entry.

Any casual reader uh can connect the dots, if you've read your Old Testament and you now read this, between these passages and how Jesus really does seem to be fulfilling so many of these things.

He controlled the timing Jesus did.

He was deliberate.

He controlled the method, he controlled the outcome of even these events.

Some would say, no, he didn't.

He went to the cross.

That's because he came to lay down his life on the cross.

He was in charge of that too.

And I don't know if you noticed, but this is the very first time, and those of you who have studied the four gospels with us before, you understand.

There was this thing all through the four gospels, up until this point, called the messianic secret, where Jesus is basically doing all kinds of amazing things.

And he tells people, let me heal your blind eyes, don't tell anyone.

And so there's this pacing of his ministry, and he doesn't want everybody to be sort of rushing before him, throwing him up on their shoulders and crowning him a political messiah.

He doesn't want to be a political messiah.

So he's he gives himself plenty of time, three and a half years, to go through the entire region preaching, healing, raising a few people from the dead, controlling nature itself.

I mean, his miracles are mind-blowing.

But again, anyone that can create everything out of nothing can walk on some of the nothing called water that he created and defy some of the gravity that he created as well.

It's nothing for him to do those things.

And it's really something that he came for sinners, such as we are.

Some of you are fascinated by prophecy, Old Testament prophecy, messianic prophecy, eschatological prophecy, all that stuff.

Some of you are fascinated by the 70 weeks of Daniel, all that stuff.

And, you know, there's lots of material on that.

I'm not an expert in it.

I'm not drawn to it.

I find a lot of people sort of get real, real ginned up in a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for what ends up being them just being in awe of who Jesus is.

And I just wanted to kind of rush past all the speculation and get to awe in Jesus, okay?

I'm just, I don't see anybody really having figured this out.

Too many books have been sold, you know, X number of reasons why he's coming in, you know, 2025.

And then in 2026, they sell the sequel to that book as well.

So if it just doesn't make sense to me, but I know this.

It was very deliberate that he came.

He came speci on purpose, he came.

And he arranged it all, and he's in charge of it all as we go along.

Secondly, it was dramatic.

You gotta say it was dramatic.

Book ends of donkeys.

Jesus came into the world, and we read about him, and Mary and Joseph, he's in utero, and he's literally riding on a donkey.

And now here he is on a donkey again.

And at the beginning of Matthew, right as the baby Jesus is born, we read that all Jerusalem was stirred.

Was again, it was, people were nervous because Herod, the king, was really upset to hear about a baby king being born.

He was paranoid that somebody was going to take away his political power.

Um, and and so the bookends of donkeys, the bookends of Jerusalem being stirred, a baby celebrated, and now a messianic king being celebrated, dancing and singing, children rejoicing, waving palms, laying down their coats, a crying baby and a weeping king.

Wow.

Pretty amazing story, isn't it, that we have here.

Dorothy Sayers, the Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man.

And the dogma is the drama.

See, a lot of people in our day and time, don't be a dog.

I don't want to hear about any dogma.

I want Jesus on my own terms.

I want God on my own terms.

You know what?

Yeah, yeah.

That's kind of what's wrong in the world.

Everybody wants to be their own little g God.

And that's why we can't get along.

At the heart of what's wrong with us is that we will, each of us, want to be the ultimate, final say and last word.

And until we start recognizing something higher than ourselves, it's going to be a problem for us, societally, nationally, internationally, all of that.

But the Christian faith, yes, Sayers was right.

It's the most exciting drama.

And the drama, it's the dogma that is the drama.

The fact that we can say God became a human being, a baby born to a peasant couple in a pass-through nation that really didn't matter in the grand scope of things, except for now, as we look back on it, it mattered because he was there and he came there.

And now all nations are being blessed by the work of Christ, which was predicted, by the way, all the way back in the book of Genesis.

Really powerful.

The paradoxical king was deliberate, he was dramatic, and he demanded a response.

And we see that here, don't we, as we look at this.

What were the responses to the approach of Jesus that first poem Sunday?

They were quite varied.

Um I love this little, I have a little post-it note in here.

I gotta read this, I gotta just read this to you because I make this is so old.

You know how you write sometimes with a pencil, and it just over time it just oxidizes and fades out.

I have to keep going back and re-rewriting this one.

But I look at the multitude.

There's five.

Look at the multitude.

Some were tourists and some some were pilgrims.

Tourists are just there for the show.

Oh, cool, oh, great! Oh, yeah, let's wave some flags, you know.

Some like just the parade, you know?

And parades are only good when they keep moving.

I don't know if you've ever seen that.

Feels to me like parades need to keep moving, you know.

And they're they're better when when they keep moving.

But pilgrim is a little different.

Pilgrims are people who travel a long way to get somewhere and see something and experience something.

And far too many of us in this life are tourists.

I myself included sometimes.

We need to think like pilgrims.

That's why I like old books like Pilgrim's Progress.

I I dare you to go back and read it.

Somebody read it when you were kids.

It's it's there's a reason why it's one of the best-selling books of all time, still.

Pilgrim's Progress, yeah.

So the multitudes.

I think when I think about who's in that crowd, and I'll spend just a little time here.

When I think that blind Bartimaeus is in that crowd, possibly, when I think that the most hated man in Israel, Zacchaeus, the chief tax collect, he might be in that crowd that day.

When I think that the formerly dead Lazarus is in that crowd, when I think that the formerly demon-possessed Mary Magdalene, seven demons Jesus cast out of her, when I think that the formerly blind Bartimaeus, the formerly dead Lazarus, the formerly hated Zacchaeus, the formerly demon-possessed Mary, that they're all in this crowd.

Not to mention hundreds, if not thousands, of others that Jesus healed from their illnesses, from their demonic oppression, possession, whatever it is.

That's the crowd that comes into Jerusalem that day.

And if there's hope for them because of him, I want you to know, I don't care who you are today, there's hope for you.

There's hope for me.

In whatever category you might be broken or battered or bruised.

There's hope for you because of him.

Secondly, the disciples themselves specifically.

I think they were emboldened.

Thirdly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, they were furious.

Look at the responses of the people.

All the broken people joyfully following along.

Praise the Lord.

Bless is you come.

Hosanna! Hosanna means save now.

I like Hosanna, it's a great word.

Say it.

Shout it.

It feels better to shout it, doesn't it?

Something about it, yeah.

It means save now, Lord.

And it's a great word.

We need to be like them.

The Romans, what do you mean the Romans?

They aren't even mentioned here.

Just my point.

They're indifferent.

They're indifferent to Jesus' approach.

Maybe you're like them today.

I don't know.

Maybe you're indifferent to and maybe your idea.

Yeah, I find this is true.

A lot of folk that I talk to about.

Christian faith, that they don't believe it, but they don't know why they don't believe it.

Or they don't believe it because they actually misunderstand it.

They think it's some religious nut job they met some time ago, or some really brutal, mean-spirited group of people who are religious, and so they think that's what the gospel is.

And it's our job, Village Chapel, those of you who are Christians and those of you who are online, it's our job to let the gospel flow freely from us, to be heard in our speech, to be seen in our relationships and in our deeds.

And that's why we're still here.

That's why he hasn't wrapped up human history.

We are here to be his ambassadors, his witnesses, if you will.

So we need to stir up the world.

And the fifth, the other response I like is I like the response of the donkey owner.

I know he's not mentioned, but his, you know what his response is to Jesus?

What's mine is yours.

I like that response.

I think that's a really great response.

All right, a couple quotes and I'll let you go.

Keller?

In Jesus, we find infinite majesty, yet complete humility.

Notice the juxtaposition of these categories.

In Jesus, we find perfect justice, yet boundless grace.

In Jesus, we find absolute sovereignty, yet utter submission.

He submitted himself to the Father's will.

He came and died in my place, in your place.

All sufficiency in himself, yet entire trust and dependence on God.

I want to be like Jesus.

Justin Brierly has a fairly new book called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God in the day and age where we kind of hear of a lot of people deconstructing their faith and all that sort of thing.

And I think what they're really deconstructing is their religious rule following.

I think maybe some people need to deconstruct what they thought the Christian faith is so they can get back to the gospel.

And yes, there are some people that have walked away, though, from the Lord altogether.

But I love what Justin Brierly, this book is so good.

He interviews a bunch of pretty hardcore atheists who have actually become believers in Jesus.

New evidence, recent scholarship, means the Bible needs to be taken seriously.

Not only as a work of literature that has had a dramatic impact on the world, which it has, but also as a work of history.

It means taking its central character, Jesus Christ, seriously too.

Yeah, I think that's so true.

Let me close with this poem by Malcolm Geit.

It's a prayer.

Make it our prayer today on Palm Sunday.

Perhaps it will reflect your response to Jesus and the approach of Jesus this day.

He's still doing this kind of work.

This was quite literal and about a specific act in space-time history.

He was coming to lay down his life on the cross that week.

And then to rise again from the grave, which we're going to celebrate.

So come to Good Friday, please.

We want to honor the finished work of Christ on the cross.

We want to look at that and take that very seriously.

We also want to come on Easter Sunday and rejoice in his glorious resurrection.

But this is from our friend, and he's been here before at the church, a poet from over in the UK named Malcolm Guite, and this is his Palm Sunday sonnet.

Make this a prayer.

Would you close your eyes and I'll read this to you?

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem, the seething holy city of my heart, the Savior, comes.

But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start.

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing, and think the battle won.

Too soon they'll find the challenge, the reversal.

He's bringing changes to their tune.

I know what lies behind the surface flourish that so quickly fades.

Self-interest, fearful guardedness, the hardness of heart, its barricades, and at the core, the dreadful emptiness of a perverted temple.

Jesus, come.

Break my resistance.

Make me your home.

Amen and amen.

Jesus is the only one that can do that.

He's the only one that can radically change a heart that's turned to stone into a heart of flesh again, a heart that beats and teems with the life of God in it.

Turn to Jesus.

He really is the one you need look no further.

Amen.