Jesus, Son Of David | March 29 2026 (Jacob Debour)

Morning everybody. Hope you're doing well this

morning. It's fun to be here at the start

of Holy Week as we celebrate Palm Sunday today and look

forward to Easter next week with a Good Friday service in

between. Lots to to anticipate and be

excited about. Question for you today.

Do you feel the world's brokenness?

Do you have a heart that aches for things to be restored and

set right? I think all you have to do is

turn on the news to elicit this feeling in yourself.

If you aren't feeling it currently right, there's immense

poverty in the world. Billions of people living on the

equivalent of $2.50 a day or less, with the result that

10,000 children or more die every day due to poverty related

issues. There is immense hunger and

shortage of water. 1/4 of the world's population doesn't have

access to clean water. Over a billion people who don't

have enough food to eat. There's wars escalating, global

crises going on, corrupt governments, all sorts of things

that that scream to us that we are living in a world that needs

deliverance and is broken. And it's on a personal level

too. It's not just stuff out there

happening in the world, but we deal with broken relationships.

We deal with loneliness, mental health issues, addictions,

housing crisis, food insecurity. There's lots of signs pointing

to the fact that we need deliverance, we need salvation.

So if you're starting to feel a little bit of that ache for

things to be set right, if you're starting to feel that

that there's a brokenness in the world, then you can relate a

little bit to how the Jewish people were feeling at the time

that Jesus rides into the scene on Palm Sunday 2000 years ago.

Sure, we're mostly familiar with the story, but but the Jewish

people were at a different point in, in salvation history than we

are, right? We have the the great hope of

knowing that Jesus rose from the dead, that he conquered and

defeated the powers of sin and death on the cross and in the

resurrection. And so it's a little bit

different for us now knowing the story and where it's headed than

it was for for the Jewish people in the 1st century.

But their time, they, they were immersed in the story of

scripture. Their self understanding as a

people was based on the narrative of the Hebrew Bible of

the Old Testament. And they they saw that God had

made a good world, that everything in the beginning was

good, but that humanity had rebelled against God's reign,

against God's kingship, and that this had plummeted the world

into into chaos, into violence and injustice and evil.

And that things needed to be restored.

But that God, instead of abandoning his creation, instead

of wiping the slate clean, decided that he was going to and

love and mercy partner with humanity to bring about a

restoration of all things. And he chooses one family out of

all the nations of the earth, the family of Abraham, which

would become the nation of Israel, in order to be the

instrument that he's going to use to bless all the nations to

bring about this creation wide restoration.

And so we've currently been been in the midst of this 40 days in

the Word series. We've slowed down a little bit

in in the story of Samuel, first Samuel in particular, where

we've seen a little wrinkle that's happened in in God's

plan. So he comes alongside Israel as

this nation and he's going to use them somehow to bring about

a restoration to the world. He's going to set them apart as

a holy nation. That's going to live according

to his wisdom. That's gonna be a light to the

nations and show them a different way of living.

They're going to be a nation of priests, God calls them, that

will be a mediator of God's blessing to all nations.

And in Samuel, we've seen this, this hinge point where we've

switched from from Israel not having any kings, which in

Judges, which we did a sermon series on last year, we saw it

was a bit of a problem, right? Judges ends with this, this

statement that in those days Israel had no king and everyone

did what was right in their own eyes.

It seems like Israel, even though the idea would be for

them to see God as their king and live according to his

wisdom, they need some kind of mediator of God's rule on their

behalf. And so in Samuel, we've seen

that switch to Israel wanting a king, and they're wanting it for

all the wrong reasons, right? They wanna be just like the

other nations, even though they're supposed to be set apart

from the nations and an example of something different.

But God decides he's going to give them a king.

He's gonna work with their desire for a king, is going to

implement that into the story. And so God's covenantal and

missional purpose is to bring about the restoration of the

world. Now involve this Kingdom of

Israel, that Israel is going to have a king, they're going to be

a Kingdom set apart in their own land.

And that this is how God's going to drive the story forward

towards the restoration of all things.

We get to the 1st century and things aren't really on track at

this point in the story. When Jesus comes onto the scene,

Israel is about 600 years into exile.

They're back in the land, but they understand themselves is

still in exile. Because for the last 6

centuries, pretty much despite a little window in there where

they weren't, they've been under the power of foreign Pagan

oppressors. So they've been underpowered.

Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and now for the last 100

years it's been Rome. And so they're really feeling

this ache of, of the world being unjust and broken and in need of

deliverance just in their day-to-day lives, right?

Their existence is under the, the oppression of this Roman,

Roman regime that that isn't fair and just.

But more than that, they feel this ache because they're

supposed to be the instrument in the vehicle by which God's going

to bring about the restoration of all things.

And so there's this immense longing for deliverance because

it's like what's going on, God? Like, where are we in the story

right now that things are so off track?

Like we're supposed to be a blessing to the nations, but

we're a curse to ourselves. We we can't even get ourselves

right. How are we supposed to be the

conduit through all the other nations are blessed and LED into

into wisdom. So that's the that's the story

that Jesus is is riding into today.

And that is why you have these these prophecies in the Old

Testament say Zechariah 9/9 through 10, which will read now

Zechariah the prophet is anticipating this time when

things are gonna be set right and there is going to be a king

in the line of David who's gonna come and set things right in

established God's Kingdom. He says rejoice greatly daughter

Zion, shout daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you,

righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a

colt, the foal of a donkey. And then verse 10, I will take

away the Chariots of Aframe and the war horses from Jerusalem,

and the battle bow will be broken.

He will proclaim peace to the nations.

His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the

ends of the earth. And so the Jewish people,

there's many prophecies and promises like this in the Old

Testament. They have this anticipation that

even though we're in this bleak period of time where there's no

one on the throne of Jerusalem, no, no real king from the line

of David, and we don't know how this is going to happen.

They're clinging on to these promises that God is going to

send this son of David, this king from the line of David,

this Messiah, an anointed one, who's going to not only rule

over, over Israel, but rule over all of the earth and, and

restore God's reign of justice and peace.

So that's the context today for, for our passage, which is

Matthew chapter 21. And we're going to be looking at

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

the 1st 22 verses. So I'll invite you to turn

there. Matthew 21 versus 1 through 22,

we're gonna be looking at this kind of three-part story.

So initially I was just gonna look at the 1st 11 verses

because that's the triumphal entry, that's Palm Sunday.

But in reading through this, I realized these three stories,

Matthew sets them up side by side intentionally and they're

all kind of one story in three parts.

So what we're going to do today is look through this three-part

story kind of breakdown, a little bit of what's going on

behind the scenes and then drive some, some implications for us

today. So Part 1 this is Jesus entry

into Jerusalem from verses one through 11.

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of

Olives, Jesus sent 2 disciples saying to them, go to the

village ahead of you and at once you will find a donkey tide

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 daughters, Ion, see your

king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey and on a colt

the foal 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 the trees and spread them on the road.

The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed

shouted Hosanna to the Son of David.

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

and Galilee. So what is going on here?

I think we kind of, this is such a familiar story, we sort of

take it for granted. Like, yeah, Jesus is riding into

Jerusalem. Of course the people are waving

the prom branches and shouting hosanna.

But what's actually going on here?

Why? Why is this happening?

Why is Jesus doing this? What does it all mean?

A little bit of context. First of all, note when this is

happening, this is the week leading up to Passover, like the

main festival in the Jewish calendar, where they're

celebrating their liberation from bondage in Egypt.

So right now they're in bondage to, to the Pagan empire of Rome

and they're celebrating this thing that happened thousands of

years ago where they were under the slavery and oppression of

this foreign empire in Egypt. And so they, they're having this

festival right in the midst of, of this current situation of

being enslaved, essentially being under the, the thumb of

Rome. They're celebrating this time

that God set them free from and rescued them from, from this

situation that they were in with Egypt.

So that's one thing to note. This festival was a huge draw to

Jerusalem. So archaeologists tell us that

in the 1st century, the population of Jerusalem was

around 40,000 people. During the time of Passover, it

would swell to about 200,000 people.

So if you're feeling like it's a little bit crowded in here this

morning, there's maybe 200 of us.

Imagine if there were like 1000 of us in here.

It'd be a little more packed out.

So that's what Jerusalem felt like at this time of celebrating

Passover. Another important thing to note

is that the route that Jesus takes into the city is a very

intentional 1. And so he starts on the Mount of

Olives and he goes down through the Kidron Valley, which you can

see pictured there. So the first picture up in the

top left there is a is the view from the Mount of Olives looking

to Jerusalem today. Second one gives you a little

bit of a sense of kind of the depth of the valley that he's

going down into. But he starts in the Mount of

Olives. He descends down into the Kidron

Valley, and then he heads back up into Jerusalem.

Why does Jesus take this route? It's kind of like, does it

really matter? Like it's just he's trying to

get to Jerusalem. Of course he took this away.

I think it actually does matter. He's steeped in Scripture.

He knows the story of Scripture very well, and he's actually

pointing back to a few key symbolic actions that took place

in the story of Scripture. One of them is David's flight

from Jerusalem. So this is a bit of a spoiler

for what's to come ahead in Second Samuel if after a 40 days

in the word, you want to keep, keep going.

But David, son Absalom, leads a coup against him and tries to

take over the throne. And David hears that the people

are with Absalom. He's got to flee for his life

from his own done and so we'll read it in in second Samuel 15 a

few verses here that that tell us David's route.

So he says to all his officials who are with him in Jerusalem,

come we must flee. The king crossed the Kidron

Valley and all the people moved on toward the wilderness.

David continued up the Mount of Olives weeping as he went.

So just highlight there are three locations got Jerusalem is

where he's starting. It's going down through the

Kidron Valley and then up the Mount of Olives.

Jesus does that in reverse. He's like David coming back,

right? The wrongful ruler Absalom is in

charge, is in charge in Jerusalem, forces David to flee.

But now Jesus is the son of David is coming back, taking

that exact same route to displace the the wrongful rule

of Jerusalem. So that's one thing that one

little note that he's kind of tapping on to, to get us into

the sense of what he's doing. Another key king from the line

of David who who comes and takes this route is Solomon.

So Solomon, when David is about to die in First Kings chapter

one, another one of David's sons, Adonijah, he decides that

he's gonna set himself up as king even though David wants

Solomon to be king. And so and 1st Kings one verse

5, this is his plan. He says Adonijah put himself

forward and said I will be king. So we got Chariots and horses

ready with 50 men to run ahead of him.

So he's gonna go down into the Kidron Valley and he's gonna

bring his Chariots, he's gonna bring his horses, he's gonna

bring 50 men, the showing of military might and power and

he's gonna take this route back into the city as this procession

of becoming King David few verses later in versus 33 to 35

has Solomon go take on this procession instead.

So he says, have Solomon, my son, mount my own mule and take

him down to Gehan there anoint him king over Israel, blow the

trumpet and shout Long live King Solomon.

Then you are to go up with him and he is to come sit on my

throne and reign in my place. So this isn't necessarily sound

like the route that we just saw, but Gihan is is a place in the

Kidron Valley. So get what David is having is

having Solomon do is he's having him ride on a mule.

Yeah, he's having him go down into the Kidron Valley, he's

anointing him king and then having him go back up into the

city. So Jesus, what he's doing here

is he's saying I'm like David, I'm like Solomon, I'm from this

line, I'm the rightful king and I'm going on this procession

back into the city by this route to be anointed king over Israel.

The people obviously get this. Matthew obviously gets this

because he quotes from Zechariah 99, which we read earlier that

this was to fulfill this prophecy from Zechariah.

Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion shout daughter Jerusalem.

See your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly

and riding on a donkey on a colt, the full of the donkey.

So unlike a Donna Jaho had this military might, his Chariots,

his war horses, his fifty men. Jesus is coming with this ragtag

crew, this crowd of peasants and fishermen and farmers, and he's

coming lowly and humble, bringing peace, not war, riding

on a donkey. Another really interesting

tidbit is that in Ezekiel, Ezekiel has this vision of the

glory of God departing from the temple.

So the wickedness, the corruption in Israel has just

gotten so bad that the glory of God can no longer stay in the

temple. And so it's going up to leave.

And at the end of this vision and Ezekiel 11/23, where Ezekiel

sees the glory of God go as it goes up from the city and it

stops on the mountain east of it, which is the Mount of

Olives. So another wrinkle to what Jesus

is doing is he's like, I am the glory of God coming back from

the Mount of Olives back into Jerusalem, back into the temple

people, the people who are around Jesus and they're picking

up on all of this because they know the Bible way better than

we do. They're seeing what Jesus is

doing. They're seeing all this

intentional stuff that he's doing.

They know what's going on. The claims that he's making.

They start quoting from Psalm 118 versus 25 through 26, which

we read as our are called worship this morning, say Lord

save us, which is Hosanna, save us.

Lord grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the

name of the Lord from the house. The Lord we bless you.

So the people, they see Jesus coming in here like David, like

Solomon, like the glory of God coming back, and they're

thinking of Zachariah, they're thinking of Psalm 118.

They're going, OK, maybe this is the moment our King, our Messiah

is coming back. He's going to deliver us.

He's going to save us. What does that mean though?

They have very different expectations than what Jesus is

about to deliver on a different part, and in Psalm 118 might

give us a little insight into what they had in mind versus 7

and 10. We'll read from the Lord is with

me. He is my helper.

I look in triumph on my enemies. All the nations surround me, but

in the name of the Lord I cut them down.

So the people again 600 years living under the rule of foreign

oppressors. They're like the solution is

that the Kingdom of Israel needs to be reestablished.

We need a king sitting on a throne and step one is obvious

defeat the Romans, right. This was is a popular philosophy

at the time of how Israel's problems were going to be

solved. There were numerous revolts

before and after this violent revolts against the the powers

of Rome and Greece in previous times as well.

That was this, this military strategy, much like maybe King

David himself would have done, right?

A, a military solution to this problem that the way that Jesus

is going to become king and establish God's Kingdom is by

defeating the Romans by, you know, giving them the justice

that that they deserve by taking them out.

And so when they're when they're saying, saying to Jesus, deliver

us blessed to see who comes in the name of the Lord, they're

thinking, yes, God has sent his Messiah to bring judgment on the

Romans. Like this is the moment where

things are gonna be set right in, in this this violent

uprising. Not quite what Jesus has in

mind. He comes in on a donkey, the

symbol of peace. And what we're about to see in

the next two stories is that the the clash of two kingdoms that's

about to occur isn't the clash of two kingdoms that that the

people have in mind. It's not the two kingdoms that

that they're thinking are going to clash.

It's not Jerusalem versus Rome. It's Jesus in the Kingdom of God

against this kind of false leadership that's happening in

Jerusalem right now. So the end of this end of this

passage in verse tennis is that the whole city was stirred.

And I don't know if anyone has a different translation, but I

think stirred is a pretty bad translation of what's going on

here. Like when I think of being

stirred, I'm like, oh, I stirred in my sleep.

It's kind of this gentle neutral movement where my mom was saying

like, oh, like I'm stirred emotionally by a beautiful piece

of music or a movie or something.

That's not really what's going on here.

Stirred is more like thrown into an uproar or like, like this

kind of crazy buzz in the city, right?

You can imagine it. Five times as many people as

usual packed into the city. All of the expectations that

we're celebrating Passover, we've got on the mind liberation

from foreign oppressors. This guy comes in making these

claims that he's the son of David and the Messiah.

And so you can imagine that the city is like buzzing.

People are like, who is this guy?

Like something's gonna happen. This isn't just like, oh, the

city was curious. Like the city is stirred.

The city is in upheaval. It's in turmoil.

We move on to our next story, verses 12 through 17.

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were

buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the

money changers and the benches of those selling doves.

It is written, he said to them, My house will be called a House

of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed

them. But when the chief priests and

the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did, and the

children shouting in the temple courts hosanna to the son of

David, they were indignant. Do you hear what these children

are saying? They asked him.

Yes, replied Jesus, have you never read from the lips of

children and infants? You, Lord, have called forth

your praise. And he left them and went out of

the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

So what's going on here? Why is this Jesus's next move?

Right? Think if you put yourself in the

shoes of these Jewish people, OK, Jesus is just written in as

as the king, as the exalted king and the Messiah.

What would your first move be like?

Maybe, you know, head over to to the Romans and start a fight or,

you know, get an army rounded up together.

No, he goes to the temple, and the confrontation that he has

isn't with Rome, it's with the leaders of Jerusalem.

So what's going on here? Well, the temple is the place

where the sacrifices of Israel happen, right?

God sets up in Leviticus chiefly this sacrificial system by which

Israel can come near to God. So I won't go too in depth, but

there's basically two different kinds of sacrifices in

Leviticus. There are sacrifices that people

share a meal with God. Essentially, they enjoy a meal

with God. It's a way of communing with

God. It's a way of coming close to

him. And then there are sacrifices

that deal with the pollution that makes it so that people

can't commune with God right there.

These sacrifices that are offered that cleanse the

sanctuary so that it can still be a place where where God's

people can come and and share a meal with him.

Because through sin, but also just through ritual impurity,

they're constantly bringing this impurity into the sanctuary.

But the main point is that this temple and the sacrificial

system is supposed to be a place where all of God's people can

come near to him, where this can be a place where the blessing of

being with God can be mediated to all the people.

It's this holy place to meet with God and have blessing

mediated. And it's not meant to be

restricted. It's not meant to be something

that that is exclusive. But as, as Jesus quotes in

Isaiah, eventually the, the goal is that this would be a House of

prayer for all the nations, right?

There are certain levels within that only certain priests can

go. And if you're in a state of

ritual impurity, you can't, you can't be there.

But overall, the the idea here's an exclusion, but like, let's

let's be a, a place where God's blessing goes out to all the

nations, to all people. What's going on here then that

Jesus is so upset about currently in in Jerusalem, the

kind of reigning class in in the in the temple, the priesthood

was this kind of illegitimate family of priests called the

House of Annas. And maybe from the the passion

narratives you're familiar with chiefess who is the son-in-law

of Anas. But this house was in power of,

of the temple at the time. They were the they were the

priesthood at the time and they were basically incredibly

corrupt, incredibly greedy. And what's called the bizarre of

an ask for these booths of Anas is what we're set up in this

place that Jesus is confronting. And so I don't know if you've

ever been to an airport and you've gone to a different

country and you've had to exchange currency.

But if you have, you know, it's not usually the best place to

exchange currency because they know they can kind of take

advantage of you and like force you to pay a really high

exchange rate where they can skim something off the top,

right? So you have to exchange your

currency. You probably don't wanna do it

at the airport, but they know you probably want to do it in

the airport. So they're gonna take advantage

of that. Maybe you've also been to like a

sports venue and you want a hot dog or whatever.

Probably not the place to buy it, but they won't let you take

your food in from the outside. So if you want the hot dog, you

gotta pay 30 bucks or whatever it is for a hot dog at the

sports venue. This is kind of what's going on

here. People, like we said, 200,000

people flooding into Jerusalem and they're coming to offer

sacrifices to be with God, to come near to God, to be in this

sacred place. And there's these booths set up

where, well, you have to have the right currency to be able to

buy an animal to sacrifice because you're probably not

going to lug an animal all the way from Galilee.

You want to buy one there for the sacrifice.

And so they're skimming off the top and extorting you for for

money so that you can exchange to the right currency to buy

stuff. And then they're selling these

animals for there's reports in history up to 10 times the price

that you'd usually pay. So something like a pigeon, like

1 gold shekel was the price that sometimes like 10 times what

they're actually worth. And the really sad thing is that

if we read Leviticus 5 verse 7, something like the the pigeons

Leviticus 5:7

or the doves, which Jesus overturns the benches there,

these were actually for poor people.

It was a provision for people who couldn't, couldn't afford to

buy a lamb. And so it anyone who can't

afford a lamb is to bring 2 doves or two pigeons to the

Lord. And so these these people in

power, the House of Annas, they've set up this system by

which the temple is not a place where people can come near to

God, where anyone is welcome, where the blessings are going

forth. But they've set it up as

essentially a temple to Mammon as as a way of them extorting

people to make money. It is a monument to their greed.

And Jesus is, as you can imagine, pretty furious with

this. He's like just ticked off at at

the rulers of Israel that they are taking advantage of their

position as the leaders of these people and taking advantage of

them and extorting them from money when they should be the

ones who are mediating blessing to them.

And so he contrasts this this fact that there supposed to be a

House of prayer with this quotation from Jeremiah Chapter

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

7, which I think kind of speaks for itself.

We'll just read it. This is what Jesus is drawing on

when he calls it a den of robbers, says, this is the word

of the Lord that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.

Stand at the gate of the Lord's house and there proclaim this

message. Hear the word of the Lord.

All you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship

the Lord, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel

says, reform your ways and your actions and I will let you live

in this place. Do not trust and deceptive words

and say this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the

Lord, the temple of the Lord. If you really change your ways

and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not

oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, do not

shed innocent blood in this place.

And if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I

will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your

ancestors forever and ever. But look, you are trusting and

deceptive words that are worthless.

Will you steal, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to

Baal, and follow other gods you have not known?

And then come and stand before me in this house which bears my

name, and say we are safe, safe to do all these detestable

things. Has this house which bears my

name become become a den of robbers to you?

But I have been watching, declares the Lord.

What does Jesus do next? The blind.

The lame came to him at the temple and he healed them.

So historically at this time, the blind and the lame were

excluded from the temple. They weren't allowed to enter

which and the Levitical law, there's actually no prohibition

against this. They were prohibited from

becoming priests, but there's nothing in the Levitical law

that suggests that they couldn't be here.

So what does Jesus do? He flips the script right.

Here's these people being excluded, extorted, left aside,

and Jesus does what the priesthood of God is supposed to

do. He comes and heals them, right?

He brings God's blessing to them.

And I think he's pulling on on Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 8

Jeremiah 31:8

here he says, see, I will bring them from the land of the north

and gather them from the ends of the earth.

Among them will be the blind and the lame.

There's this prophetic promise that God is gonna gather all

people to Jerusalem and that all things will be restored in Jesus

enacting just that, right? He is healing the blind and the

lame in the temple courts. The stark contrast with with the

House of Anash that is extorting them so what's happening here

Jesus has this unexpected turn in his entry into Jerusalem he's

the king coming home and the first thing he does is not defy

the.