All right, today we're finishing a short little
series called Jesus the, Jesus the. We started
with Jesus the good shepherd, and then Pastor
Jen last week preached a sermon, Jesus the sharp
-tongued and soft -hearted. It reminded me of
something that Dr. King wrote. He said, the greatness
of our God lies in the fact that he is both tough
-minded and tender -hearted. God expresses his
tough -mindedness in his justice and his tender
-heartedness in his love and grace. Moments marked
with difficult words are important, but they
have lasting effect when they are motivated by
a tender heart. This week, I was thinking about
how there's a lot of words in Christianity or
in religion in general that maybe we're not all
familiar. And so I thought I would just do a
little pop quiz, not really a quiz, but you tell
me if you know what this word means. Feel free
to shout it out. Eschatology. Yeah, yeah. End
times, it's the study of last things. So the
creed actually covers, there's a whole clause
in the creed that we just said that talks about
the return of Christ and what happens in last
things. This one's a little harder. What about
the hypostatic union? The hypostatic union. All
right, so maybe you've heard of incarnational.
Jesus was incarnational. That is describing the
event of God and man coming together, that God
was born into Jesus. Jesus is incarnationally
God present with human. Hypostatic union is the
fancy word for describing the how of the what.
The what is incarnational. The how is the hypostatic
union. How about the septuagint? The Septuagint.
It is the first part of the Bible. The first
part of the Bible is usually called the Torah
or the Pentateuch. But the Greek translation
from 70 Jewish scholars 250 years before the
birth of Christ was called the Septuagint. Septuagint
meaning 70. LXX. So you might hear it called
the 70. You might hear it called the Septuagint.
And it's named that because of the number of
scholars that were part of translating the Old
Testament into a Greek Old Testament. Okay, so
here's a more common one, a little easier one.
We call Jesus, Jesus Christ, but what does Christ
mean? According to the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary,
the word Christ entered the English from the
Latin through the Greek Christos. So it's not
far off. Greek is Christos, okay? The other day,
my dad was telling my kids a joke. Where's my
dad? He's telling my kids a joke. He goes, did
I ever tell you guys I know every language? He's
telling Wallace and Adley, I can speak every
language except for Greek, but I can speak every
language. Just trust me. And they go, they're
all French. Ah, that's Greek to me. Give me another
one. Hey, so if you're ever like, Greg, you need
better jokes. This is where I get it. It's not
my fault. It's in my genetic code. Now, outside
of the Bible and religious writings, Christos,
the Greek word for Christ, is an adjective that
means rubbed on or used as an ancient, as an
ointment or salve. So we could say Jesus the
rubbed on. That doesn't sound right. Or it could
be Jesus the salve. That's a bit closer because
maybe Jesus is a healer. So maybe Jesus the salve.
But this brings me back to the Septuagint. See,
the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the
Hebrew scriptures. And in the Septuagint, Christos
is only ever used another way. So outside the
scriptures, it's used one way. Inside the scriptures,
it's only ever used one way. to describe an anointed
person. So do you see rubbed on, salve? It's
just the closest word they had in Greek for what
was happening in the Hebrew. The original Hebrew
word meant anointed or anointed one. And that
Hebrew word was, anybody? Messiah. So today we're
talking about Jesus, the anointed one, Jesus,
the Messiah. So let's open up our scriptures,
okay? Grab a Bible. There's blue Bibles on the
table. There's Bibles out in the lobby. If you
don't have one, take one home. It is not stealing.
We gave you permission. If you don't have a Bible,
you can download one from any of the digital
app stores. We're going to be in Luke. Luke chapter
19. Luke is in what's called the New Testament
or the Second Testament. It goes Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, Acts. If you see any of those books,
you're in the right neighborhood. We're going
to be in Luke chapter 19. We have a tradition
around here of giving the scriptures our full
attention when they're read in the context of
a sermon. You can do that in whatever way makes
the most sense for you that you'll give the scriptures
your attention. But if you would also like, if
you would like to stand with me as you were able,
you're welcome to do that with me now. I'm going
to be Luke 19, starting in verse 28. It goes
like this. After Jesus had said this, he went
on ahead going up to Jerusalem. As he approached
Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount
of Olives, He sent two of his disciples saying
to them, go to the village ahead of you. And
as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there,
which no one has ever ridden on. Untie it and
bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you
untying it? Say, the Lord needs it. Verse 32,
those who were sent ahead went out and found
it just as he had told them. As they were untying
the colt, the owners asked them, why are you
untying the colt? They replied, the Lord needs
it. They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks
on the colt, and put Jesus on it. As he went
along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
When he came near the place where the road goes
down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of
disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud
voices for all the miracles they had seen, saying,
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of
the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue,
every color, every nation, every version of human
being, we thank you for the scriptures that they
have persisted throughout the millennia, that
we still have them to consider, to learn from.
I pray that today as we look at them, that whatever
you had to teach us would stick, that it would
make our faith stronger as we become more like
your son, Jesus. Amen. You can all have a seat.
Thanks, everyone. All right, so this is happening
in the first century in Jerusalem, around the
year probably 30 to 35. And by this point in
history, to be the quote -unquote anointed one,
it did not require a literal touching of oil
to someone's head, okay? The anointed one, the
Messiah. the Christ. By this point, it was a
title. It was a position. It was something that
people were hoping that someone would come along
and fill in the name of God, sent by God to be
this person. It wasn't like in the Old Testament
where the king had to be anointed by the prophet.
This was a moment in time where the actions that
you did became the signs to the people around
you that you might be the Messiah. And so the
anointing didn't have to be literal, but they
were actions and events that could signal that
you were the anointed one. Things that would
make people think, hey, that guy might be the
Messiah that we've been waiting for. And entering
into Jerusalem in this way is one of those things.
Now, we are in 2026. Almost none of us grew up
in Jewish households. None of us grew up in the
first century. So when we read this, there's
things that are lost on us without looking deeper
into it. When we read this, we don't see some
of the meaning that was meant to be seen by the
people that were reading it the first time. But
500 years before this thing happened, a prophet
by the name of Zechariah said this. that there
will be a day when the Lord would appear at the
Mount of Olives. Later you can look it up in
Zechariah 14 .4. And they had come to believe
that this was one of the signs that a Messiah
would have, a sign that salvation was coming
for them from their oppressors. Jesus knew this.
He knew. That all the healings and miracles and
teaching that he had done, all of these things
had people looking to him as though he might
be a Messiah. And now what is happening, knowing
the prophecies that have been told, he is intentionally
fulfilling these words about their freedom. He's
doing things to reinforce the idea that he is
the anointed one. Then he sends his disciples
to go get a donkey. A colt is the foal of a donkey
that has never been ridden before. And this is
one of my favorite verses in all of scripture.
This and in the book of Acts where Philip baptizes
the Ethiopian eunuch because it says he's just
teletransported. And I think it's awesome that
there's teletransportation in the Bible. But
this is like a close second because Jesus says,
hey, I need you to go steal a donkey for me.
And okay, I get it. Yes, he says, all right,
if someone finds you taking that donkey, will
you please say it's for the Lord? But what would
have happened if no one was there to see the
donkey being taken? Then they come home and their
donkey's just gone, right? So it's one of my
favorite Bible jokes that Jesus will ride your
stolen donkey. And for the sticklers, okay, I
did write a more biblically accurate version
of this joke because you are correct. This is
more of a borrowing a donkey situation. So If
you borrow a burrow, Jesus will ride that borrowed
burrow. Again, you can blame the guy in the back
corner. All right, but why a donkey? And why
was it important that this donkey entered the
city in this way? Again, let's go back to Zechariah.
Zechariah 9, verse 9 says this. Rejoice greatly,
daughter of 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. Again, Jesus knows exactly what
they're expecting. He knows these scriptures.
He knows them by heart. He knows that they're
looking at him as though he is a Messiah, and
he knows the things they will expect a Messiah
to do. They want. A Messiah figure, an anointed
one to appear and enter the city of Jerusalem
from the Mount of Olives riding on a donkey.
A king that's bringing victory to their people.
And then it says that they're spreading their
cloaks on the road, that they're rolling out
the red carpet is essentially what's happening
there. Think about it like this. When your favorite
team wins their championship, When your hockey
team wins the Stanley Cup, when your football
team wins the Super Bowl, when the Cubs and only
the Cubs win the World Series, what happens?
What happens that next week? Yeah, there's a
parade. There's a celebration. Where? In their
city. And what do people do? They line the streets.
They make signs. They wave their flags. If they
could, they would take their jerseys off and
say, no, your feet shouldn't even touch the ground.
The mayor gives them this key to the city. The
people are celebrating saying our city is your
city because you have brought great prides to
us. You have won. This is what they're doing.
They're saying, you are our king. You are bringing
victory. Let us roll out the red carpet for you.
Your feet should not touch the ground. Even the
feet of your donkey should not touch the ground.
That is how highly we think of you. It's a hero's
homecoming. It's what's come to be called the
triumphal entry. Verse 8, they say, blessed is
the king. who comes in the name of the Lord,
peace in heaven, glory in the highest. Jesus
is checking off all the boxes. Mount of Olives,
check. Riding a donkey, check. Triumphal entry,
check. Condition after condition for a Messiah,
the anointed one for a new king. What could possibly
go wrong? Well, Jesus knows exactly what's going
to go wrong because he knew exactly where this
was going. He knew that only days later that
some of these same people would cry for him to
be crucified, that he would be handed over and
betrayed, not by a Pharisee, not by a random
follower, but by one of his own 12 disciples.
And why? Why? The answer to that is because they
wanted him to be the Messiah that they wanted
him to be. Let me explain that. Their idea of
a Messiah was not a peaceful person. Yes, he
would bring peace, but he would bring that peace
at the end of a sword. They believed that that
Messiah would overthrow the oppressors that had
overthrown them. He was betrayed into the hands
of the empire to force his hand into defeating
the enemies that they had. See, he is a good
shepherd, and he has sharp words, but they didn't
want him to have a tender heart. They wanted
him to be a good shepherd with sharp words and
a sharper sword. The biblical scholar William
Barclay and a number of others say that Judas
betrayed Jesus to force the Messiah's hand, because
if he's really a king, if he's really the anointed
one, then he's supposed to fight, not fall. He's
supposed to be aggressive, not passive. He's
supposed to hold a sword, not turn the other
cheek. And so Judas betrays Jesus to force him
to rise up, to fight, to defeat the empire. Because
what? kind of Messiah, when handed over to his
enemies, would allow himself to be killed. Especially
when so many would fight for him. Crowds laying
down their coats. In all the other Gospels, Matthew
and Mark and John, it describes them waving branches,
and John specifically, palm branches. They're
celebrating this guy as a new king. Why wouldn't
they rise up and fight with him? Let's force
his hand. Why would they not fight for their
new king? But Jesus had more in mind than saving
his own life. Jesus could have been an earthly
power. He could have been a kind of king. Colossians
2 .15 tells us, instead, Jesus disarmed the powers
and authorities with his death on the cross.
See, we believe that Jesus defeats empire by
rejecting earthly war and violence. One of, if
not our biggest problem, is that that is just
not what we want. As humans, what we often really
want is war. We want our enemies to be defeated.
We're at war in Iran right now. They're in my
car. I thought about bringing them in. I was
in junior high school when we went to the Gulf
War. Desert Storm, anyone remember that? We love
war so much that they created two lines of trading
cards that were all of the machinery of war,
the tanks and the missiles, the scud, the bunker
busters, the most valuable, Storm and Norman
Schwarzkopf. They're worthless now because they
printed so many of them. But I have the whole
set in my car because I thought, I just want
to rip these things up. Because this is how much
we love war and how much we want to teach our
children to love war. That we create trading
cards of generals. We trade trading cards of
tanks and bombs and guns. of marksmen, of ammunition.
And then we tell kids that it's fun to buy them
and owe them. We completely dehumanize anyone
that dies because of them by trivializing it
into a piece of paper that you trade with a friend.
When Jesus is trading his life so that we can
let... go of the violence, that we can let go
of our need and incessant desire to be at war.
Closer to home, we're regularly at war with each
other. We war with our neighbors. We war with
our political opponents. There are Christian
pastors right now, it's been in the news this
last week and a half, That are literally saying,
I'm not taking what they've said out of context.
They are literally saying that it is okay to
pray for the death of a political opponent that
you believe is, for the sake of conversation,
liberal, but believes these evil things. Fill
in the blank for what those evil things are.
There are Christians, people... that say they
follow Jesus, that are hoping in their heart
of hearts for our president to die. They wake
up in the morning and they ask their friends,
is he dead? These things are anti -Christ. They
are anti -the anointing. These things. are against
the Messiah. They are the opposite of Jesus.
Because when Jesus could have risen up and fought
the empire, he let his life be taken. When he
could have told his friends, grab more swords.
He says, if you live by the sword, you will die
by the sword. We find ourselves here over and
over and over again because just like the ones
that are laying down their cloaks, often we see
what we're looking for. We see the Jesus that
we want to see. If we want to see a Jesus that
hits people with their staff, we can find a passage
that looks like that. If we want to find a Jesus
that never says anything about negative outcomes,
we can find a Jesus. We can pick and choose.
If we want to find a Jesus that condemns you,
you can find that Jesus. They found the Jesus
they were looking for. They found the Messiah.
They saw the things and they said, Okay, he did
all the things, so he has to be the version of
this Messiah that we want him to be. But Jesus
would rather die than be that kind of Messiah.
If Jesus is to be the Messiah, not only of the
first century Jews, but to the whole world, to
us today, to everyone that you know. We have
to ask ourselves, are we only looking for the
Jesus that confirms what we already believe about
him? Do we try and force his hand to be the kind
of Messiah that we want him to be? Do we need
him to ride a donkey? Do we need him to ride
an elephant? Do we need him to wear red or blue?
Because if that's what we need, then we are rejecting
the Jesus that carries a cross. And instead,
he's calling us to do what he has already done.
To lay down our palms. To lay all of our weapons
down. To lay down cloaks. To lay down hate. And
to take up our cross. Lay down our expectations
of what kind of Messiah that we think Jesus has
to be. And let him be the kind of Messiah that
he actually is. Amen? Let's pray. Jesus, thank
you for all of your teachings. Help us to continually
find out who you are. Thank you for this week,
Holy Week, where we remember that people praised
you as a king. But then when they turned, that
you gave your life instead of waging war. Because
you gave your life, you defeated sin. And you
rose to new life, giving us life everlasting.
Show us how to live that. Amen.