Luke 19. I am going to begin reading in verse 28.
And after he had said these things, he was going on ahead, ascending to Jerusalem. And
it came about that when he approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called
Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village opposite you, in which
as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and
bring it here. And if anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Thus shall you speak,
the Lord has need of it.
And those who were sent away and found it, just as he had told them, and as they were
untying the colt, its owners said to them, Why are you untying the colt? And they said,
The Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus, and they threw their garments
on the colt and put Jesus on it. And as he was going, they were spreading their garments
in the road. And as he was now approaching, near the descent of 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, saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name
of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in
the multitude said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. And he answered and said,
I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out.
And when he approached, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known in
this day even you the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from
your eyes, and the day shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank 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.
As you read through the four gospels in the New Testament, it's interesting to note that
approximately one half of all the material in the four gospels deals with the final week
of Jesus' life. In other words, 33 years or so of the rest of his life are found in
the other half. One half of the gospels is dedicated to the final week of Jesus' life.
It gives you the idea, doesn't it, that they intended to focus upon that part of his
earthly ministry. Each gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, contains this event. They
are not exactly identical in all of their details, nor would we expect them to be, because
each of the writers is writing from his own perspective. And yet the accounts of the four
writers are easily combined into a coherent and harmonious record of what happened on
that first Palm Sunday. There is obviously a contrast of emotion that we see in Luke's
account of what occurred. There is the ecstasy of the crowd and the agony of the Christ.
The first song that we began with this morning with the worship team may have best caught
the spirit of the crowd on that Palm Sunday in its ecstasy in the triumphal entry. You
will recall that previously Jesus had avoided being identified as the Messiah. Not that
he was denying that he was the Messiah, but he did not want it publicly identified early
in his ministry. But now it's different. Now Jesus goes out of his way to present himself
as the Messiah King of Israel. He chose this occasion to draw attention to that claim.
And what happened on that Palm Sunday was not in the slightest happenstance. It was
not merely coincidence. It was in fact the plan of God. The timing of this event was
determined. Earlier in the Gospel of Luke in the ninth chapter, the 51st verse, you
read that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. It says there the days were approaching for
his ascension, writes Luke. That is when he would return to his father. And therefore
he determined to go to Jerusalem knowing exactly what awaited him when he arrived in the city.
And so from the time that he made that statement, probably in Caesarea Philippi, which is the
very north of Galilee, Jesus pressed on with his disciples to the south, accomplishing
ministry, into the city of Jericho where there were a couple of blind men, you will recall,
who were healed. Zacchaeus was saved. And then up the 15 or 20 miles through the mountains
to the city of Jerusalem. He had to be in Jerusalem for this Passover in order for the
Old Testament to be fulfilled. This Sunday, as you probably know, occurred exactly seven
days before his resurrection. Before another week would come to pass, our Lord would have
offered himself on the cross and then be raised from the dead. He had to be in Jerusalem on
this Sunday, this first day of the week. This time was determined by God the Father even
before the world began. But it was spoken of several hundred years before its occurrence
by the prophet Daniel. You will recall in our study of Daniel a couple of years ago,
we looked at the ninth chapter where Daniel received the prophecy from God that there
were decreed for the people of Israel 70 weeks or 70 years of seven for the people of Israel.
A period of 490 years. Daniel was told that the clock would begin to tick on those 490
years when the decree went forth to rebuild Jerusalem. And if you go back and calculate
the lunar years as they figured it in those days, from the time that that decree went
forth you find that it comes to this very week in the city of Jerusalem that 469 of
those years were completed. Leaving one week yet to be fulfilled as a matter of fact for
the nation of Israel. The clock stopped at 469 years with this week that is inaugurated
with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He had to be there on this Sunday in order
to enter the city of Jerusalem and to begin the week of his passion as he would suffer
and die for the sins of mankind. You notice the mood of the crowd. On the horizon were
storm clouds brewing in that multitude. They had seen the miracles. They had heard what
had taken place. They had listened to the teachings of Jesus. And now many in the crowd
were wondering if this would not be the time for Jesus to declare himself to be king and
to throw off the yoke of Rome and its oppression. That was their desire. They saw on the horizon
storm clouds of warfare against Rome with Jesus leading them as the Jewish king. There
were also in that crowd those who were closer to Jesus. The twelve disciples and those who
had followed him through much of his teaching. They had more advantage perhaps than the rest
of the multitude. They understood some other teachings of Jesus that were somehow to be
fitted into all of this. Jesus had began to tell them how he must suffer at the hands
of the Jewish leaders and die and be raised again from the dead. They heard him say those
words but they could not put those words into context with the thinking in their minds that
he was the Jewish Messiah and king. They were confused by them. Some of them even despaired
as Thomas reveals his own heart in John chapter 11. For he says to the disciples, well let's
go up to Jerusalem with him that we may die there too. They did not know how to understand
Jesus' words on that Palm Sunday. Jesus of course knew exactly what was ahead. We can
only try to imagine the thoughts of his heart as he mounted that colt and rode across the
crest of the Mount of Olives and began the descent down into the Kidron Valley, the city
of Jerusalem being laid out before him to the west, the temple there on the Temple Mount.
We can only imagine the thoughts in his mind as he realized that he was entering into the
city of Jerusalem as the king being offered to them whom they would in the end reject.
Then we have in the crowd as is recorded in Luke some of his enemies. The Pharisees who
had already prior to this issued an arrest warrant for Jesus. But they wanted to wait
to execute the warrant until after the Passover because Jerusalem swelled in population at
the Passover. There are some accounts that say that Jerusalem on this occasion and the
normal Passover would have swelled to perhaps two or two and a half million people the size
of the twin cities in population. People were camped out everywhere along the hillsides
around Jerusalem. Every inn was filled. It was required that Jewish males come to the
Passover at least once in their lives and those who lived within 20 miles were to come
every year. So often they would bring their families and this would be the highlight of
their lives as they would come from all over the world of that day to the city of Jerusalem.
The Pharisees were clever men and knew that they would not dare try to arrest Jesus while
the multitude was there. So they desired to wait until after the Passover. From a human
perspective that was a good reason for Jesus to take the action that he did because what
he did provoked them into acting sooner than they had planned. Because you see they were
in the crowd and heard the cries, here is the king of Israel, Hosanna to God in the
highest. And they tried to quiet the crowd down and told Jesus to even quiet them down.
And Jesus said if they do not cry out the stones, the inanimate creation itself will
have to speak to the truth. And so you can see the kind of a crowd that this was. The
mixture in this crowd. A crowd that was thronging and brewing with many different feelings and
understandings about Jesus. Expectations were high but they were confused. What took place
on this Palm Sunday fulfilled prophecy. Matthew reminds us that Zechariah had announced that
the king would come exactly as was fulfilled in the text. There are those who believe that
Jesus riding upon a colt was a very humble thing to do. That he was presenting himself
as the humble king of Israel. But in fact that is not the case. We should not look at
this through our eyes of understanding but go back to understand how the people of that
day would have understood it. It was common for kings to preserve a colt to ride upon.
In fact that he used a colt to ride into the city was an overt claim on his part to be
a king. To be the Messiah. Because that was the way that royalty would be expected to
ride into the city. And then the palm branches were broken off the palm trees. And waved
in the air. Psalm 118 was cried out, was spoken as Jesus rode through the crowds and down
the path. Psalm 118, one of the Hallel Psalms, the praise Psalms that were spoken as people
would ascend to Jerusalem. They would quote these Psalms. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord and Jesus is there now coming and the crowd is excited. There is ecstasy
in the crowd but there is agony in the heart of Christ. And Luke seems to indicate that
somewhere along this journey as they broke over the top of the Mount of Olives and the
city was laid before him, Jesus burst into tears. It's a very strong word. It doesn't
simply mean that tears forced their way into his eyes and came down his cheeks. The word
actually refers to a loud lament as one would weep at a funeral. It involved the heaving
of the chest and the crying out literally of groans in agony. Jesus burst into this
kind of a display of emotion over the city of Jerusalem. What was it that created the
agony in his heart as the crowd experienced ecstasy? The answer is that he understood
that although the crowds were shouting acceptance of him as king, the nation as a whole was
rejecting him as king. And so he announces judgment upon them. He gives them the cause
of the judgment. He says, if you had known, you notice, if you had known in this day even
you the things which make for peace, he is speaking to the city of Jerusalem. The name
Jerusalem means what? City of what? Peace. Jerusalem, shalom, the Jewish word for peace.
The very name of the city was peace, the city of peace. And Jesus said, if you had only
known the things that make for true peace, could they not have known? Oh, they could
have, but they chose not to know. It was a willful ignorance and rejection of him on
the part of the controlling powers in that city. Because of the rejection of their hearts
toward him, he speaks of the inevitability of judgment. He says, now these things that
make for peace have been hidden from your eyes. The hardness of their hearts had caused
God to judicially harden their heart. Until now, the things that were to make for peace,
the truth about him was hidden from their eyes judicially by God because of the hardness
of their own hearts. And then he describes the judgment that would come upon them. The
words in verses 43 and 44 were literally fulfilled. Every word was fulfilled within a generation.
As the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Rome, besieged and overthrown.
And in that overthrow, 600,000 Jews were killed. A tenth as many as Hitler killed in World
War II and those years preceding. Were killed by Titus and the armies of Rome. And thousands
of others were carried away as slaves and dispersed throughout the land, the empire
of Rome. And then the city itself was pulled down. Ropes were put on the stones of the
city wall and pulled out of place. The temple was burned and torn down. Although yet today
you can travel to Jerusalem and in areas of excavation see some of the foundation stones
of that temple still piled one upon the other. The very base of the current walls. The city
was destroyed. And why? Because of the rejection of Jesus. And Jesus, in the midst of the ecstasy
of the multitude, was broken hearted and filled with agony because of the rejection of those
who should have known. Jesus Christ is still presenting himself to people today. And yet
there are many who like those people of ancient Jerusalem who reject him and turn. Jesus still
weeps today for those who turn from faith in him for salvation to trust in themselves
or in some religious work or affiliation. Or to trust in their ancestry, their parentage,
or their culture. To trust in something else besides him. You say, why does he weep? Because
he knows the inevitability of the judgment that will come upon those who reject him.
You may be on this Palm Sunday as you've come to celebrate the meaning of this event
in the history of Christianity. That in your heart, although you are a religious person,
you have never openly received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Make no mistake about
it, he claims to be the only Savior of the world. Within a few days of this event, he
himself would say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me. The words of an arrogant prophet? Not at all. The words of one who said, I am
the truth. He claims today to be the one and only Savior for you, my friend. Oh, that today
you would open your heart to receive him and to understand that the reason he went to Jerusalem
was to go to the cross to die for your sins. To suffer in your place. To rise again from
the dead. That he might live for you and enter your heart. To cleanse you of your sin and
to give you his own eternal life and one day to take you to heaven so that you might share
his glory. What a wonderful king we worship and bless and serve. There are many of us
today who have entered into this worship time and we have some blessed. Be the name of the
Lord. But oh, that all of us, that you perhaps, here without the Savior, would today receive
him as an act of faith in your life. And then that you could come to this table of the Lord
with us and not merely go through the motions of it as some kind of a ritual, but go through
the motions understanding the meaning of this broken bread and this cup representing his
body, his sacrifice on your behalf too. Let's pray together. Before I go any further, I
want to give an opportunity to some friend who may be here to receive Jesus Christ right
now. You say, what do I have to do? It's actually quite simple. All you need to do is to place
your faith in him. You say, well I've always believed in Jesus. The question is, my friend,
has there been a time when you've turned your life to him, when you have trusted him in
that way, in yielding yourself to him, recognizing your sinfulness and receiving him to forgive
you of your sins, recognizing your death in sins, and receiving him to give you life?
If not, would you do that right now, where you're seated and in the quietness of your
own heart, ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and receive him and believe on him?
Father, this morning I pray that the Lord Jesus will be truly honored in our lives.
That as we partake of these elements and we reflect on his entrance into Jerusalem, that
we as his disciples today may cry out as did those who believed on him and received him
in that day, blessed be the name of the Lord, Hosanna to God in the highest. May our hearts
lift up to you in worship and praise for all that you have done on our behalf.
Thank you for meeting with us this morning. Lord, we prepare our hearts. We ask you to
cleanse our hearts. We ask that in these moments as we partake, there may be humility in receiving
these elements. Let's just quietly wait upon the Lord for a moment, and you speak with
him yourself.
Someone has written these words, why I come to the Lord's table. I come not because I
am worthy, but because I have sinned and fallen short of what by God's help I might have
been. I come not that there is any magic in partaking of the symbols of Christ's body
of blood, but because of the Lord's command, do this in remembrance of me. I come because
Christ bids me come. It is his table, and he invites me. I come because here is portrayed
the sacrifice of my Lord who gave himself for me. I come because I find myself drawn
closer to God, the Christ of Calvary, and to those who kneel with me in communion. Yes,
I am made to feel my kinship to all those everywhere who proclaim Christ as Savior and
Lord. I come because I rise from the Lord's table with new strength, courage, and power
to live for him who died for me.
Let's give thanks for the bread representing our Lord's body. Lord Jesus, as we partake
of the bread today, we remind our hearts that this bread represents the brokenness of your
body as you hung upon the cross for us. And in our mind's eye, as we behold you there,
and as we understand the depth of your suffering, we partake of this bread with deepest gratitude.
Amen.