Triumphal Entry: An Eccentric Ride or the Way of the Cross? (Matthew 21:1-11)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, 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.

If any one says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them at once.

This took place 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.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

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

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the 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 crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Let's pray.

Almighty God, whose most dear son went not up to joy, but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified.

Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So I find it's uh always the case that every town has its legends.

Every town has someone that everyone seems to talk about.

When Rachel and I were first getting to know Port Perry, one of the first things that was shared with us was about a fellow who's walks around with a bearded dragon on his shoulder and has trained them.

We've probably met this guy if we've spent some time downtown, and it's it's an incredible sight to see.

Every town has its legends, and in Ottawa was no exception where we were coming from before, my hometown.

In Ottawa, there's this uh fella who drives around in this unbelievable car, uh, just does laps around downtown, like on a Friday or Saturday night, and gets everyone talking.

And like I didn't know how to describe this car, so I had to show you a picture.

There's just so much going on here, I don't know where to begin.

You can see it's underlit with purple.

We've got uh we've got a light show going on, we've got uh uh trophies and awards kind of like glued onto the hood and and all around, we've got skis and snowboards and and various kinds of balls and sports equipment and and horses, toy horses on the top there.

You know, it's a bit like an I spy kind of exercise here.

And uh and and here it is again in the daylight, maybe it gives you a clearer picture here.

So, like I say, I don't know how to describe this, but it gets everyone talking.

Everyone's got a story of having seen the trophy car somewhere in Ottawa.

And uh, and and you know, the first time I saw this, I was just like completely taken with it.

And uh, and and it's just incredible, and and and you know, anyway, what a champion.

And then uh at a certain point I started drop dropping Rachel off at work.

I forget exactly the timeline here, but at a certain point I started dropping off at your office in Alta Vista, which is kind of in the east end of Ottawa.

And when I dropped Rachel off at, let's say, like 8.30 in the morning, I would usually kind of loop around the Tim Hortons around the block from your work and pick up a coffee on my way downtown to my office.

And the first time I did it, I saw a very familiar car in the parking lot.

And it was the guy's trophy car sitting in Tim Hortons parking lot at 8.30 on a Tuesday.

And I thought, not only does this guy, this isn't just the car this guy drives around downtown to get people talking, like this is his A to B car.

Like this is how he goes and gets his double-double at 8.30 on a Tuesday morning.

And I thought, this is incredible.

It's an eccentric ride that can't help but get us all talking.

Now, why do I share that?

I I wonder if we can read Matthew 21 and in a way be so taken with the donkey and the colt that we sort of think this is a weird story about Jesus' eccentric ride.

That kind of gets us talking a little bit like the trophy car gets people in Ottawa talking.

I think there's more going on in Matthew 21 than just an eccentric ride.

In fact, I think Jesus selects this mode of transportation very purposefully.

And I think this is a very purposeful story meant to suggest to us an answer to the question in verse 10.

And the question in verse 10 of Matthew 21 is perhaps the most important question we could ever ask, and that's this Who is this?

Who are we talking about when we're talking about Jesus?

See, I think the triumphal entry, this whole story is meant to tell us something about who Jesus is and what he's come to do for us, and not just that, but how he's going to do it.

In other words, the triumphal entry tells us that Jesus fulfills the deepest hope of his people by defying their expectations.

Jesus fulfills the deepest hopes of his people by defying our expectations.

Pull out your order of service, pull out your Bible.

We'll spend a little bit of time in Matthew chapter 21 here, the triumphal entry.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

The first thing we should notice about this narrative is nothing is out of Jesus' control.

That's what the first three verses are all about.

Jesus hasn't scouted ahead and knows that there's a donkey there.

Jesus isn't giving his best guess to the disciples.

He's the sovereign Lord, who's got a very purposeful mission for his disciples.

So he sends them to go and untie this donkey.

And if anyone, if anyone asks any questions, tell them the Lord needs them.

This is who Jesus understands himself to be, the Lord.

And it's understood that the Lord refers to his divine identity.

The Lord needs them.

Jesus is the sovereign Lord, so nothing that's going to happen in this narrative or in the narrative to come is accidental.

In a way that things have a way of happening to us that are outside of our control.

Nothing happens to Jesus by accident.

He's willing these things to happen.

He is actively willing them to happen.

Jesus wants to make his identity known.

He's the sovereign, he's the Lord, but he's a different kind of sovereign than we might expect.

He's a humble king.

Can I share with you my favorite um plot twist in Star Wars?

It's been five minutes and he's already talking about Star Wars.

Bear with me.

My favorite plot twist is not the whole uh I am your father thing between Darth Vader and Luke.

That's a great plot twist.

Sorry if that's a spoiler.

It's been out for a while.

Um my favorite plot twist actually happens earlier in that same movie when Yoda's identity is first revealed to Luke Skywalker.

Luke wants to train to be a powerful Jedi knight, and he gets sent to go train with a Jedi master named Yoda.

And when he arrives at Yoda's planet, he the first person he meets is this little green, frail, elf-like creature who just seems to be disruptive to all of Luke's plans, and he gets more and more frustrated that you know this creature is not leading him to Yoda like he promised.

You know, and so at a certain point, this little creature asks Luke, who are you seeking?

And he goes, I'm looking for a great Jedi warrior.

No one told Luke to look for a warrior.

They told him to look for a great Jedi master.

But power and mastery in Luke's imagination means warfare.

This is going to be a warrior.

And of course, the great plot twist of the movie is, in fact, he's been in the presence of this great Jedi master the whole time.

He's completely underestimated this little guy.

It's defied all of his expectations.

And here's Jesus coming into Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday, this first Palm Sunday, and this crowd that hails him has all kinds of expectations of what this humble king is all about.

Jesus fulfills this prophecy that we see in Zechariah chapter 9, say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, the king is coming to you, humble, mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal, the beast of a burden.

Zechariah 9 · chapter mention

But this crowd that meets Jesus has expectations about what the kind of king we're talking about is.

We see in verses 6 to 9 here the kind of expectations that they might have.

They expect a warrior, Messiah, to meet them as he enters Jerusalem.

Jesus gets on the donkey and walks into Jerusalem.

Verse 8, most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

This is something we've seen twice.

A careful reader would remember 2 Kings chapter 9, where King Jehu is anointed king of Israel.

2 Kings 9 · chapter mention

And to kind of signify the significance here as an act of submission, the people of Israel laid out their cloaks in front of Jehu.

And then another reference might be a little bit more obscure.

It's in inter-testamental literature in 2 Maccabees.

Judas Maccabees, who's not to be confused with Judas Jesus' betrayer, but Judas Maccabeas was a revolutionary.

He led an insurgency and liberated Jerusalem from its oppressors, you know, well before the New Testament was written.

And when he liberated Jerusalem, he was hailed as a conqueror with palm branches being waved.

The crowd is acting out scenes from their history that suggest the kind of leader they're expecting.

Jehu and Judas were both military conquerors.

And the crowd is meeting Jesus, expecting a great warrior to meet them.

A great warrior is going to overthrow the oppression of the Romans who occupied Jerusalem at the time and re-establish the sovereignty of God's people.

They want a political warrior.

They want someone who's going to bring national liberation.

And Jesus is working liberation.

He is a king.

He is going to establish sovereignty, but not the sort of way that they might expect.

Zechariah chapter 9 promises a king to fulfill all kinds of saving messianic expectations, but tells us that the king arrives on a humble riding on a donkey, not on a horse like you'd expect a military leader to show up on, but instead the symbol of peace.

Zechariah 9 · chapter mention

This little barnyard animal.

See, this is consistent with Jesus' character throughout this gospel.

He's lowly and gentle in heart.

Gentle and lowly in heart.

And this further fulfills Jesus' model of leadership and his purpose.

Just earlier in chapter 20, he's told his disciples that whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

Even as the Son of Man came not to be served to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The crowd expect a warrior king, but Jesus comes to be the humble king.

The crowd wants a warrior king to liberate them from their political oppression.

Jesus comes as the humble king to liberate them from a deeper oppression still.

An oppression of sin, an oppression of death, an oppression of alienation from the God who created them and loves them and desires fellowship with them.

See, Jesus comes, yes, to fulfill the expectations of the people to be the king, but he's going to defy the way they expect him to be the king.

Jesus defies expectations to fulfill the people's deepest hopes.

Sometimes I wonder if there's a deeper yes to God's no.

Do you ever find that?

Do you find prayers left unanswered or like that sometimes?

We pray for, we pray for a problem that it might be solved, or we pray for success, or we pray that we'd get that promotion, or we pray that someone we care about would be healed.

And we say, Jesus, I need you to do this for me.

I need you to show up in this way, and this way seems like a good thing to me, and yet the prayer doesn't seem answered.

Or if it is, it's not answered in the way that we expect.

Is Jesus just shrugging us off?

Does he not care?

I think Jesus' triumphal entry here should suggest to us that he cares very deeply for his people.

He cares about their hopes, he cares about their expectations.

He has come to fulfill this God's promise to be the Savior King, but not in the way they expect him to be.

Sometimes a deeper yes means that God fulfills our prayers in a way we don't expect him to.

I mean, isn't every prayer a prayer for success, a prayer for blessing, a prayer for healing?

Ultimately, what we're praying is, would you liberate me from the condition of sin and death and deterioration that threatens me in one way or another?

Would you be my savior in one way or another?

And God's answer to that prayer is always yes.

But not necessarily your way, but my way.

Jesus' answer to this crowd is not, no, I'm not here to be your king.

His answer is yes, but I'm not gonna be the king you expect me to be.

See, over this coming week, Jesus, this humble and unexpected king, is gonna do weird things like cleanse the temple.

He's gonna do weird things like legitimize paying taxes to Caesar.

They want a political revolutionary to come and lead the uprising against Rome, and he's saying, render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar?

Who the heck is this guy?

And then, of course, Jesus pronounces God's judgment.

He warns of God's judgment, not against the Roman oppressors, but against God's own unrepentant people.

And so the people start talking.

This is not the kind of Messiah that we thought he was on Sunday.

So by the time Friday rolls around, they have two other words for him.

Do you remember what those are?

Crucify him.

Crucify him.

I wonder if somewhere deep down in my heart, when Jesus defies my expectations and he doesn't answer the prayers that I want in my way, there's something inside that can incline away, click off, and say, you know what, Jesus, I'm better off without you.

I'm better off making this happen for myself.

I wonder if that somewhere deep down echoes what this crowd is saying on that first Good Friday.

Crucify him.

I have no need for you.

I'm gonna be the Lord of my own life who makes it happen for myself.

See, Jesus is not indifferent to our hopes and expectations.

He has come to give us a deeper yes to our hopes and our desires, our hope for liberation, our hope for new life.

But his yes takes us to the cross, not around the cross.

His yes requires his own cross to take our condition of sin and death upon himself to put it to death so that by his resurrection we can have a hope of new life in him.

But when he calls us to follow him, what does he say?

Give me your problems, you'll have nothing but success.

He doesn't promise us that, does he?

He says, deny yourself.

Take up your cross and follow me.

We walk the way of the cross because for us it is the hope of everlasting life.

Because through the cross there is a greater glory to come.

There is a deeper yes hidden in this no.

And so we take up our cross and we follow him.

Here we have, friends, an answer to the question in verse 10: Who is this Jesus?

The crowd answers, he's a prophet, Jesus from Nazareth.

It's almost like an anticlimactic statement.

It's like, yeah, he's a prophet, but he's so much more than a prophet.

Don't miss the significance of who Jesus is.

He has come to be the Savior King, the Messiah, the saving one.

He has come to liberate us from our deepest condition of sin and death, but in doing so, he may defy all of our expectations.

Are we willing to submit ourselves to him as Lord?

Are we willing to trust him in the ups and downs of life?

Trust that he is sovereign still, that nothing happens by accident, even the cross.

Are we willing to take up our cross and follow him?

Friends, I think this is the question we need to keep on our minds as we enter into Holy Week.

Who is this?

Who is this Jesus?

Who is he towards me?

And the unanswered prayers that I have and the plans that I have for myself.

You know, because we all have plans to prosper ourselves and to give ourselves hope in a future.

What are your plans, Jesus?

Who is this?

And as we take our journey through this Holy Week, and I always think of Holy Week as a journey, it's like a microcosm of the Christian life.

Hailing Jesus as King.

Boy, that's easy to do at first.

And then we come to the cross and it gets harder and harder.

But friends, there's hope for greater, greater glory to come.

We take this pilgrimage through Holy Week with this question on our lips, Jesus, who are you?

Would you show me who you are?

And friends, I think the more we invest ourselves in this Holy Week, the more we will reap out of it.

Would we ask each and every day, Jesus, who are you?

Come on May Thursday and ask Jesus, who are you?

Who is this, Jesus?

Come on Good Friday and ask, who are you, Jesus?

Who is this?

And come on Easter Sunday and ask, who are you?

Who is this?

Jesus comes to fulfill our deepest hopes and our needs.

He defies all expectations.

Lord, did you open up our eyes to see what you're up to among us?

Would you open up our eyes to see the salvation you want to work in each and every one of our lives?

Would you give us grace to trust you, to journey through this holy week with open hands and open hearts to receive you, our Savior King.

Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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