Happy Palm Sunday.
Happy Palm Sunday. All right, there we go.
I think I feel you guys because I woke up today exceptionally tired and I was like, Lord, what is going on?
You know, and so I prayed and so God energized me.
Today's a great day and we are here to celebrate a wonderful day in the calendar of our redemption.
And so, but first, we always like to start our services by saying welcome to anybody that is joining us here in the sanctuary for the first time, or if you're joining us online.
Welcome. We're so glad you're here to worship with us here at Hosanna.
I am Pastor Nathan and yes, we are gathered here today to celebrate Palm Sunday, which is the beginning of what we call Holy Week,
which is the final week of the life of Jesus here on earth.
You know, one third of everything we have in Scripture about the life of Christ deals with the last week of his life.
In all four Gospels, there are only four chapters devoted to the first 30 years of his life.
Eighty-five chapters across the four Gospels deal with the last three and a half years of his life.
Twenty-nine of those eighty-five are devoted to the final week of his life.
And thirteen of those twenty-nine are devoted to the final day, the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior.
That crucifixion, those thirteen chapters cover about 529 verses across all four Gospels that deal with our day of atonement.
So this whole last week and obviously the crucifixion and the resurrection, it's an important part of our faith.
It's a central part of our faith.
And this week, this Holy Week that leads up to his death and resurrection, it's so incredible.
It's just an incredible moment. It's of incredible importance to every single one of us.
You know, in Revelation chapter 13, Jesus is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
What that means is all pre-New Testament history, it all pointed to Jesus because he was the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world.
But what it also means is all post-New Testament history points back to Jesus because it is all about Jesus.
It is all about who he is and what he did.
The Lamb is a critical, critical part of redemptive history and a major detail of Palm Sunday and we'll be talking about that today.
You see, up until this point in Jesus' life as we learn through the Gospels, when Jesus would perform miracles and healings and do signs and wonders for people,
he would often tell people, don't tell anybody. You're healed, but don't tell anybody.
And he wanted to keep his identity under wraps because it wasn't his time to go fulfill his mission.
He wouldn't allow himself to be publicly accepted or presented as the coming Messiah that the nation had been waiting for.
But Palm Sunday, everything changed. On Palm Sunday, on this day, he would call attention to his identity publicly for the first and only time on purpose.
As he rides into Jerusalem on this day, we know as the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem.
Now, that title, the triumphal entry, that's not something you'll find in the Scriptures itself.
That's a theological title that is given to this moment as we see recorded in Scripture.
And it's a day where Jesus declared very publicly that he was indeed God coming close.
The sacrificial lamb, the King of Kings coming in peace to reconcile all mankind to himself.
This is the moment we'll be looking at today, but first we're going to spend some time in worship.
I can't think of a better thing to do than to worship God as we open Palm Sunday.
To worship him, not because, and we're going to see he's the conquering king, which we know that time is going to come,
but that he first came as the suffering servant, the humble King, the Savior of our souls to die on the cross for our sins.
That is why he came and it's changed every single one of our lives and everybody who will ever put their faith in Jesus Christ.
It'll change their life. It'll change their eternity.
And so we just want to worship him for that and praise his name for what he's done in our life.
So let's pray. Father, we love you. We thank you so much, God.
Lord, we are here gathered as your body, your people, your church to celebrate this day, Lord.
And God, as we'll see that this day was not happenstance. It was predicted.
And God, you fulfilled prophecy so specifically.
God, that we would always be able to look back, even though the disciples didn't understand it at the time, they eventually did.
That you were God in the flesh, that you were the one who fulfilled prophecy of the Savior to come, the Messiah to come.
That God, you were the Lamb of God presented to the world.
And although mankind rejected you, Lord, the people rejected you, your Father accepted you as the perfect sacrifice.
And so, Lord, we are so grateful that you died for us.
We're so grateful that you fulfilled all the prophecies. We're so grateful that on this day you entered into Jerusalem.
To start this week where you still taught so many things, Lord.
But you ultimately ended this week by dying on the cross for our sins, paying a price we can never pay.
And then, God, you rose from the grave three days later.
And Lord, we cannot wait for Easter, Resurrection Sunday, God, to celebrate you coming back to life.
But Lord, we want to start this Holy Week by reflecting on your triumphal entry.
So, Lord, speak to us, encourage us. Lord, we celebrate with you. God, we love you. We thank you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
We're going to be in John chapter 12, but I do want to just encourage you guys the worship night we have coming up.
Our worship leader, Will, he's a part of a project, and it's a bunch of different worship leaders from different churches.
And they're doing this project just to glorify God and to praise him.
And so we have a neat opportunity to have them here with us.
And it's not just going to be a night of worship. It's also going to be a night of, we call it body ministry.
So we will be worshiping. We will be praying together. We might have a little word.
And then here at Hosanna, we believe in the gifts of the Spirit.
So if you're here and God gives you a prophecy or you want to share something with the Lord that the Spirit's putting on you,
that's kind of what we're going to be allowing this space and this time for.
So I'm really excited about that and excited to share that time with you guys.
But yes, we are in John chapter 12. We're going to be looking at verses 12 through 22 today as we're talking about this particular day,
the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ, Palm Sunday.
Now this is an event written about in all four gospels, and that makes this event very, very special.
Because, you know, when we study through the gospels, you know, so many of the events of the life of Jesus are written about in one gospel,
maybe two gospels. But there's not a whole lot of events that are written in all four gospels, and this particular event is one of them.
You know, there are times when you're studying through scripture where, you know, something is said or mentioned twice in the Bible,
and we always like to say, you know, that's because it's something God wants you to really pay attention to, right?
Occasionally, sometimes God will show something in his word three times, and it's like, oh, wow, okay, if he's mentioning it three times,
that's something that's of extreme importance. You know, one of those times is in Isaiah.
You remember the prophet Isaiah got this vision of this, the throne room of God, and he saw these angels in this vision,
and they were proclaiming God's holiness, and you remember they said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, right?
And that repetition, it means it's just something to pay attention to, right?
There's something really special and important for us to understand about the holiness of God.
But then we get to this event, the triumphal entry mentioned four times across all four gospels, so it's a key event.
It's a key event, something really, really to pay attention to.
And one of the elements that makes this day so important in our faith is the timing of this event,
particularly the date that this event fell on.
Now, on the Jewish calendar, which was something that was kind of based upon the Babylonian calendar in that sense,
it was a calendar based upon the lunar cycle, the moon cycle.
This particular day that we're looking at today, Palm Sunday, fell on the 10th of the month of Nisan on their calendar.
Now, on our Julian calendar or our modern calendar, which is based on the solar cycle, it was April 6th, 32 A.D.
Now, you might say, cool, what's the big deal about that, right?
Well, this is the importance, and this is why I believe this day is so critical for us to understand.
The 10th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar was the day that the sacrificial lambs were selected
that would be sacrificed on Passover to cover the sins of the people.
Now, they weren't sacrificed on the 10th of Nisan. They were selected.
They were brought, they were presented to the people, and then the people would then take this lamb home,
and they would, you know, take care of it for a few days.
And during those few days of taking this lamb home, they would inspect the lamb, they would make sure that it was healthy,
make sure it had no flaws, no blemishes of any kind, because the sacrifice had to be pure,
had to be spotless, it had to be, in that sense, perfect, if you will.
And so they would take this lamb home that they selected on the 10th of Nisan,
and then on the 14th of Nisan, the lamb would be then inspected by the priests, and then sacrificed to cover their sins.
So obviously, I imagine you can see the connection there.
On the 10th of Nisan, Jesus, the Lamb of God, came and presented himself to the people,
presented himself to the world, publicly presenting himself to the nation as the perfect lamb,
the spotless, unblemished Lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world.
And that's who Jesus was. He was the unblemished Lamb.
He was the spotless Lamb. He was the perfect sacrifice, the one without sin of any kind.
That was the only perfect, atoning sacrifice to cover the sins of the entire world.
And that's why we call him the Savior of the entire world.
So it was on this day, Palm Sunday, that we're celebrating,
where all the families in Jerusalem were selecting the lamb that was to be slain to cover their sins.
Jesus enters into the city.
And we know that the Bible calls him the Lamb of God,
and it was just a few days later that they would then kill him,
as he would be subjected to a really sham, mock trial,
and then he would be sacrificed as the Lamb of God for the world.
And we've got to understand Passover, this whole celebration time,
was a season that drew Jews from all over the place to Jerusalem.
It was a huge celebration. It was a very important day on their calendar.
Passover was very significant.
It was a very critical holiday celebration in their culture.
And so all these people had come from all over the place to this one city, Jerusalem,
to sacrifice a little lamb in remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt.
That's what this Passover was all about.
The very term Passover is what reminded them, and it reminds us of what happened in Egypt.
In Egypt, they were there as God was bringing the plagues upon Pharaoh and the land there
to get the people to set the people free.
We read that then the Passover came where the angel of death was going to slay all the firstborn
that were there in the land.
And God had told the people that the only way to protect your firstborn
was to sacrifice a lamb and put the blood on the doorpost and the lentil.
And it's interesting, it was in the form of a cross.
And so the homes that were covered by the blood, the angel of death passed over those homes.
But the homes that weren't covered by the blood, the firstborn was taken.
And so they were gathering to celebrate this, to celebrate their deliverance from Egypt,
to celebrate God setting them free.
And it was estimated that between two and two and a half million people would converge on Jerusalem
during this season of the Passover.
And really people would gather everywhere.
I mean, they would camp on the streets.
They would sleep wherever they could because there wasn't really, you know,
Hilton's on every corner and stuff like that.
And so it was just a really, really busy, busy time.
And so the timing of the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem on this particular day, as I said,
was Jesus presenting himself as the lamb, selected by God, accepted by God,
to take away everybody's sin.
And it was all in fulfillment of prophecy, very specific prophecy,
so that no one could deny it, so that the people wouldn't miss it,
but miss it they did, as we will see.
And we see that it was even his disciples who had been walking with him for three and a half years
at this point still didn't get it until later on.
And so before verse 12 in John 12, we find that Jesus had been in Bethany,
just outside of Jerusalem, at a feast at the house of a man named Simon the leper.
And at this feast, Mary was there, Martha was there, and Lazarus was there with all the disciples.
And that was a very critical element of what we're about to read,
because Lazarus was the one who was dead, and Jesus had risen him from the dead, right?
And we know that Jesus had risen him from the being dead-dead,
because the scripture tells us that he had begun to stink, right?
He was dead-dead, all right?
He was stinky dead.
And Jesus rose him as he walked out of that tomb.
And the people were amazed.
Everybody was just like, oh my goodness.
And so we read in John chapter 12, verse 12.
It says, the next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival
heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him.
They kept shouting, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
do not be afraid, daughter Zion, look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.
His disciples did not understand these things at first.
However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him
and that they had done these things to him.
Now at this point in Jesus' public ministry, pretty much everywhere he went, he drew a crowd, right?
The reputation was preceding him because he had done many, many miracles at this point.
Healed people, gave sight to the blind.
He had done so many amazing things, but with that popularity came controversy.
He was a very controversial figure because the powers that be in Jerusalem,
the religious elite, the religious leaders, they didn't like him.
They didn't like him because he was taken attention away from them.
He was taken the adoration of the people away from them and they were losing their control.
And so he was very controversial but incredibly popular because he had just done something
that marked him very different than anyone else that had ever been around.
He had displayed a power that no one else had.
And we just spoke of that, right?
He had raised Lazarus from being unmistakably dead.
And that was an amazing miracle.
And so everybody wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus.
They were all gathered there for the Passover and then they heard that, well, this Jesus,
this guy, this carpenter from Nazareth, this man from Galilee, he's here, the one who rose the dead.
I've heard stories.
He's given sight to the blind and he's healing the lame and he's here, right?
It would be like, I mean, you know, whatever celebrity people get all crazy about today,
but ten times more, right?
It was just amazing if we could just see him, if I could just get a glimpse.
Maybe I could get like the Jesus is number one big foam finger, you know, and celebrate.
It was just an exciting moment for everybody.
The celebrity attention was reaching great heights.
And it really was because the common people, they were tired of the scribes and the Pharisees.
They were tired of the legalism.
They were tired of the religious elite and their empty religion.
They were tired of the hypocrisy that they would see.
And they loved, they loved this common man, the simple man who was just like them.
He didn't wear fancy robes and he didn't go into the temple and make a big show of his offerings.
He was just a common, simple man just like them.
But he was bringing real hope, real hope.
And many believed that he would and could deliver real change.
And so verse 13 we read, they took palm branches and went out to meet him.
And that's where we get the idea of Palm Sunday.
That's why we call this Palm Sunday.
Now this whole wave the branches as a would-be deliverer came into the city.
This actually came from a couple hundred years back in the history of the Jewish people.
A couple hundred years earlier, excuse me, there was a struggle among the Jewish people for independence called the Maccabean Revolt.
And this happened during the, they call it the silent years, right?
There's about a 400 year period of silence where God really didn't speak.
There was no prophets.
It's between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And during this time there was Jews in the land that were being ruled over by Greek leaders, a Syrian king named Antiochus the fourth.
And so around 250 BC or anything, or around that time this king was there and he was just a really bad dude.
Right? He named himself Antiochus Epiphanes, which means I am God made manifest.
Well you can imagine how difficult that was for the Jewish people, right?
And so he greatly oppressed the Jews because he hated the Jews.
He hated them.
He hated their God.
He hated everything they stood for.
And so he oppressed them.
He murdered many of them.
And he was such a bad guy that the Jews actually nicknamed him Antiochus Epiphanes, which means madman.
You know, I am God made manifest.
No, you're a crazy dude.
And so that's what they called him.
And of course that didn't make him very happy.
And so one day he entered the temple, the Jewish temple, and slaughtered a pig and put its blood on God's altar.
We understand this as the abomination of desolation.
Now you might think, well, what's the big deal about a pig?
Well, a pig was considered an unclean animal in the Jewish culture.
And so to sacrifice a pig on the altar was an abomination.
It was a desecration of God's altar.
Not only did he do that, but then there were Jews that were present.
He commanded them to eat the meat of the pig.
And they refused to do so because pigs are ceremonially unclean.
And so as the histories go, he then cut out their tongues, cut off their hands and feet, bound them like a pig, and burned them on God's altar.
Imagine what an affront this was to the Jewish people.
Well, eventually he was defeated.
They defeated this man and there was a great celebration.
It was called the Feast of Independence or the Feast of Deliverance.
We know it today as Hanukkah.
That's where Hanukkah came from.
And so they began this celebration to celebrate that they were, they gained their independence from this oppressive ruler.
Well, the guy who was kind of leading the revolt was a man named Judas Maccabee.
And he had his brothers.
And when they came to Jerusalem after defeating this political ruler, this evil, wicked ruler over them, the people waved palm branches to welcome them into the city as the victorious deliverers.
And so that's where this idea came from.
And the palm branches were a symbol of peace has been delivered.
Right.
So now we're here at the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ as Jesus is coming into the town after all these miracles he's done, after raising Lazarus from the dead, after all the the the attention, all the Jesus is here.
He's finally riding into the city and everybody is so excited.
We read that people were laying down their cloaks and their their garments and other gospels and this whole idea was that they were saying this is royalty coming.
This is the king.
This is the promised king.
And so as they were waving these palm branches, what they were saying is we hope that this deliverance that this Jesus is going to bring for us, the real hope, the real change we're expecting will be just like the Maccabean one.
That he is here to give us political freedom as our political Messiah to overturn our new enemy, the evil, the wicked, the oppressive Romans.
And that's what the people wanted.
That's what they were very excited about.
And that's why there's waving these palm branches.
It's happening again.
People, we're going to get our political independence.
And so verse 12, it says they kept shouting Hosanna.
And that's how we know our church is the right.
No, just kidding.
They kept shouting Hosanna.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel.
And what they were quoting there is Psalms chapter 118, where it's a Psalm.
It's a song about the expected Messiah to come.
It's a Psalm where they were looking forward to their savior, their deliverer.
And that was a great expectation of the Jewish people, that as they were just under oppression and under oppression and oppression, they were waiting for one day, this great deliverer who was going to come and set them free.
And so this word Hosanna, which is the namesake of our church, means save now.
It means save now or save us.
Or in another way, you could say deliver us.
That's what the word Hosanna means.
And that's why Pastor Gary, you know, named our church that because we're about Jesus saving souls.
That's what our church is about.
Right.
And so they were crying out, save us, deliver us.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
But they weren't saying save us.
Deliver us.
Come into my life.
Be my Lord and Savior.
Save my soul.
That's not what they were saying.
They weren't saying fix the real problem that's inside all of us.
What they instead were saying in their declaration was come save us from the external stuff that we don't like.
Come save us from the external stuff that is irritating or inconvenient.
Come change the world outside of me that interferes with what I want to do and how I want to live.
And it's really sad because he was and is their king.
He was and is their Messiah.
He will indeed one day rule and reign and save Israel from all their enemies.
We just got done studying that in the book of Revelation.
But not at his first coming.
That's going to happen at his second coming.
His second coming is where he will redeem Israel and save them all from their enemies.
But the first time he came, he came to deal with something far more important than the external issues.
We look around the world today and there's a lot of external issues and things that are like, man, that's terrible.
And that's terrible.
Gosh, I wish that would change.
Lord, how can you allow that to happen?
And there's so much terrible stuff going on around us.
But when he came the first time, he came to deal with something that was the real root of the problems in the world, that which is inside of man, not that which is outside of us, but that which is inside of us.
The real root of the problem is our heart, is the wickedness of mankind, is our selfish and sinful natures.
You know, sometimes people can get all excited about the concept of a Jesus who comes to fix everything outside of us without any expectation of any change from within us.
Right?
We're all excited about a Jesus who's going to go fix the government.
We're all excited about a Jesus who's going to come and fix that group of people or those people.
But as soon as we hear about sacrifice in yielding our life, as soon as we hear about dying to ourselves and following Jesus the way he really, really demands of us, it's whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus.
I wanted you to fix them, not me.
I wanted you to change their heart.
Mine's fine.
I wanted you to deal with all that stuff, but leave me alone.
Don't tell me how to live my life.
I prayed for you to fix all the bad stuff out there in the world.
And really, Jesus says, I am fixing all the bad stuff in the world, and I'm doing it by changing one heart at a time.
And it starts with yours.
And that's really what this whole thing is about.
Why is there wickedness and evil in the world?
Because there's sin in the world.
Where does the sin come from?
It comes from our hearts.
You and me.
Like, I don't know if you know this, and if I'm telling you something you don't already know and you get offended, I'm sorry, but we're not righteous people outside of Jesus Christ.
We're kind of selfish.
We're kind of mean.
We're kind of a whole lot of bad things.
And Jesus is like, yep, I knew that, and I'm coming for you to save you, to change your heart, to deal with the sin and the wickedness so that then through you I could bring goodness and change into the world.
And that's why he comes to us.
Now, in verse 14, it says, Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, Do not be afraid, daughters of Zion, look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.
Now, this was Jesus deliberately fulfilling prophecy.
This is prophecy from Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9.
Here in John it's paraphrased a bit, but in Zechariah 9, 9, this is what it says, Rejoice greatly, daughters of Zion, shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you.
He is righteous and victorious.
And that's where most of the people stopped.
But the rest of the verse says, humble and riding on a donkey on a colt, the full of a donkey.
You see, the detail here is a very significant detail, not just for prophecy's sake.
I mean, obviously, for prophecy's sake and him fulfilling prophecy, it's huge.
But for history's sake, for a historical sake as well, you see, historically, the traditional way a king would approach a city.
If the king was coming in peace, to bring peace and to reconcile, he would come riding an animal of peace, which a donkey was considered an animal of peace.
If he was coming to conquer, if he was coming to kick butt and take over, he would come in on a horse, on a war horse, right?
So this one and only time where Jesus is allowing himself to be publicly seen and proclaimed as the king of Israel, righteous and victorious, he comes in humility.
He comes in peace, not to conquer or wage war, but to reconcile, not as the lion, but as the lamb.
On the 10th of Nisan, the day the entire nation is selecting the lambs that are going to die for them.
Now, when he comes a second time, yeah, he's going to be on a horse.
We read that in Revelation chapter 19.
He's going to come on a horse in judgment and to make war, but that's his second coming.
This was his first coming.
Now, verse 16, it says, his disciples did not understand these things at first.
However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
I love verses like this.
You should love verses like this too, because there are often times when Jesus does stuff and I don't understand why.
I'll be reading, Jesus will speak into my heart.
He'll tell me to do this, go here, whatever.
And I don't quite understand why.
I don't always get it when Jesus does what he does or allows what he allows to happen in my life.
And I am so glad that the people that walked with him physically, personally, talked with him, hung out with him every day for three and a half years, right?
That they were so close to him, they dealt with it too.
Huh?
Why are you doing that?
I don't quite understand.
Now, the Jews, as I said, they had been expecting a conquering Messiah for years.
Despite all the prophecies like Isaiah 53 that talks about the suffering servant to come,
despite so many prophecies throughout the Old Testament that said in his first coming the Messiah is going to suffer,
they were expecting this conquering Messiah.
Nationally, they wanted a Messiah that would come according to their wants,
that would do the deeds they wanted him to do according to their desires.
But God knows what we really need, always, always.
He knows what we really need.
And the truth is, much of what Jesus teaches us in his word,
much of what he does and then expects of us to do, it flies in the face of our wants, doesn't it?
He says, forgive when we want revenge.
He says, turn the other cheek when we want to hit him back.
He says, give them your cloak when they take your tunic when we want to say, you owe me.
He says, go the extra mile when we want to say, I've done enough.
And sometimes it takes us a while to understand why.
And that's okay.
Jesus is patient, God is patient with us.
But even in those times where we don't understand why, we're still called to obey and to follow his word.
And so verse 17, John 12, it says, meanwhile the crowd,
which had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify.
And what they were testifying about is he rose his dude from the dead and he stank.
So we know he was dead, right?
They were just all excited.
And throughout Jesus' ministry, he dealt with that, right?
I want a Jesus that'll perform magic tricks for me.
Jesus, make me rich.
Jesus, give me this.
Jesus, jump.
I said, I demand, I deserve.
And they were excited about it.
I mean, he did a miracle.
And he was displaying the power that he had over life and death.
And so they were testifying about all of it.
And it says, this is also why the crowd met him because they heard he had done this sign.
Then the Pharisees said to one another, you see, you've accomplished nothing talking to one another.
Look, the world has gone after him.
Can you hear the frustration in their voices?
Man, they had tried this and they had tried that.
They tried cornering him and they tried catching him in logic puzzles.
And they just, they couldn't stop it.
They were losing their control of the people.
They were becoming the unpopular ones.
They were losing their influence over the people.
And Jesus was eclipsing them.
He was becoming larger and larger in that sense, not by his own puffing himself up.
It's just his reputation was spreading and growing.
And they hated that.
They hated that because so much of what he was teaching was contrary to what they were trying to tell the people.
And then they say this statement that is, it's kind of sad because it's untrue.
Look, the world has gone after him.
Now, yeah, in that moment in that time, there was a significant amount of people excited about Jesus,
but the world hadn't gone after him.
And the world still hasn't gone after him.
In fact, even though he is the only hope of the world, even though he is the only hope for our lives,
we look around and we see that the world has just gone further and further and further from him.
Now, I want to jump to Luke chapter 19 because we see this detail in the story that John doesn't include in verse 41 of Luke 19.
If you want to turn there or swipe there,
it tells us as he approached and saw the city, he wept for it, saying, If you knew this day, what would bring peace?
But now it is hidden from your eyes.
For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you and hem you in on every side.
They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone standing on another in your midst
because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.
Remember, this is the 10th of Nisan, the day we're celebrating the triumphal entry.
We call it a triumphal entry, but for Jesus, it was a tearful entry.
We read here that he wept when he saw the mountain as he crested the Mount of Olives.
He saw Jerusalem and he cried.
The last time that we read that Jesus wept was at the tomb of Lazarus, incidentally, in John chapter 11.
And there we read that he wept, but he wept silently.
It tells us that his weeping, the words used there were like his eyes welled up with tears.
But here the word in Luke 19 for weeping is that he wept audibly, loudly, groaning and wailing.
Some of you have cried like that at different times in your life, where it hurts so bad you just can't hold it in.
And it likely worried the disciples, right?
We're coming into Jerusalem, the people are celebrating palm branches.
They're like, all right, we're finally going to get our due.
People are finally recognizing us.
And then they see Jesus weeping.
What's going on? Is it too much?
Is he overwhelmed? Is he having a mental breakdown?
What's going on with Jesus?
And Jesus said here, if you had only knew what this day meant, that I was coming to bring peace, not war.
If you only knew that I was coming to deal with the real problem, not the external stuff.
If you're only willing to accept that and to welcome that, I wasn't coming as the conquering king.
I was coming as the humble king.
I wasn't coming to conquer the enemies.
I was coming as the lamb to be slain for you.
I'm not coming to solve your external problems alone.
I'm coming to deal with the internal problem, the real problem, your real need.
But he's weeping because they did not recognize the time, as he says, when God visited them.
And really what Jesus is doing here is he's holding the nation accountable that they should have known what this day was.
They should have known.
They should have been aware of what was happening because it wasn't just that it was the 10th of Nisan
and that the lamb was being presented on this particular Sunday.
But this particular 10th of Nisan was a day predicted in Scripture.
Like they had a detailed calendar, if you will, of when the suffering servant was supposed to arrive.
They knew because it was prophesied by Daniel.
And so what he's saying is you should have known this date.
You should have known this day when God visited you.
You should have known the day when God came to you.
You see in Daniel 9, Deanna records a very detailed prediction.
We dealt with some of this in Revelation.
It's a prophecy of future events that God gave to Daniel and it's called Daniel's 70 Weeks.
And there an angel came to Daniel and he said, look, Daniel, I'm going to tell you what the future is going to hold.
And so he gave Daniel this prediction that he said there's going to be 70 periods of seven years that are determined for your people.
Now, I've quoted some of this before, but I'm going to share it again.
There was a man named Sir Robert Anderson who wrote a book once called The Coming Prince.
And in it, he dealt with Daniel's prophecy and calculating the days and the times that were prophesied here.
Now, I do admit that there are a number of dissenting opinions on the calculations of everything.
And I've read a bunch of them and I just I personally feel this one is accurate.
But in Daniel chapter nine, verse twenty five, this was the prophecy.
Know and understand this, the angel said, from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one.
An anointed one.
That word in the Hebrew is Messiah.
Guess what that word is in the Greek? Christ.
From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, the ruler, which means king, will be seven weeks and 62 weeks.
It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times.
So that phrase weeks there, that's a Hebrew idiom that really means a set of seven, a set of seven.
So there will be seven sets of seven and then 62 sets of seven.
Right. That's what that word weeks refers to.
And so we we see that this refers to a seven year period in Leviticus chapter 25, Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy 15.
If you want to look it up. But so what he's saying here is that there's going to be seven sets of seven years and then 62 sets of seven years.
Well, that's pretty easy to do the math.
That's 69 sets of seven years.
Right. Now, again, when Daniel got this prophecy, he was in Babylon.
And so he was using the Babylonian calendar, which was a lunar calendar of three hundred and sixty days a year.
Right. So that comes out to four hundred and eighty three years.
Or one hundred seventy three thousand eight hundred eighty days.
Again, based upon the Babylonian calendar, our calendar today is three hundred sixty five and a third days a year.
That's why we every four years have to go, hey, leap year and all this weird stuff we have to do with our calendar.
Right. Anyways, it's historically understood that the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem took place on March 14th, 445 B.C.
When Art of Xerxes Longomanus on our modern calendar decreed, he he told them at that time, Jews, go back to your city and rebuild it.
So that was the decree to go back and rebuild Jerusalem.
Now, there was a number of decrees given to them during their captivity to go back and do stuff in Jerusalem.
And so he gives us a little detail here.
It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times to differentiate this particular decree from the other decrees.
The other decrees primarily had to do with rebuilding the temple.
But again, this prophecy is about rebuilding the city, Jerusalem.
So if you count one hundred seventy three thousand eight hundred eighty days from March 14th, 445 B.C.
on our modern calendar and then you go through and do all the weird stuff where you factor in leap years
and you factor in that when we went from year one B.C. to year one A.D., there was no year zero.
Right. You factor in all this stuff together.
You come to a date that is April 6th, thirty two A.D.
And if you translate April 6th, thirty two A.D. back into the Jewish calendar of three hundred sixty days a year,
guess what day that lands on?
The 10th of Nisan, thirty two A.D.
That very day, that exact day when the sacrificial lambs were being selected by the people for evaluation,
Jesus, the Lamb of God, found a donkey, an animal of peace,
sat on it deliberately fulfilling Zechariah nine nine,
rode into the city deliberately proclaiming himself by his actions the coming king.
But in fulfillment of Zechariah, he was the coming humble king.
Not the conquering king.
And on the exact day that the Messiah King was prophesied to arrive in Jerusalem by Daniel,
the anointed one, Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in the Greek, entered into Jerusalem.
Where he would then be evaluated like the lambs were as he's put through all these mock trials.
Ultimately being rejected by the people, but then accepted by God and sacrificed as the atonement for the sins of all mankind.
But here we see that Jesus wept.
He's weeping because the people should have known.
They had the prophecies.
They should have known who he was really, what he was really coming to do.
They should have known that he was coming to save them from their sins.
Instead, the crowds welcomed him gleefully out of a desire for a deliverer,
but not the deliverer who would deliver them from their sins,
but a deliverer who would lead them in revolt against Rome.
They were seeking a deliverer to bring temporary external peace instead of an internal, eternal,
spiritual peace with the one they had sinned against.
So back to John 12, we read an interesting detail, and I will close on this detail because I think it's really important.
Obviously, it's in God's word.
John 12 verse 20.
It says, Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival.
So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, Sir, we want to see Jesus.
Philip went and told Andrew, and then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Now the reason this is an interesting detail is John is the only gospel that includes it.
John is the only gospel that mentions this little event about some Greeks,
and we don't know anything about them.
It just says they're Greeks, right?
We don't know exactly their place of origin.
We don't know who they are specifically.
We don't know exactly why they are there, except for this one little detail we're going to look at,
but John brings it up in his gospel.
And the focus of this little story is that these Greeks showed up, and they said, Sir, we want to see Jesus.
Now what do we know about Greeks of the time?
Historically, Greeks of this time were known for something.
They were known as people who loved wisdom.
They sought out wisdom.
They wanted to be wise.
In Acts chapter 17, when Paul went to Athens, it says that he went to the Areopagus, which is Mars Hill.
He went to this place, and all the philosophers gathered there, and the philosophers would gather there and just talk.
Acts 17, 21, it says, Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there
spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.
Give me a new tidbit.
Give me a new philosophy.
Give me a new thing.
Wow, that's cool.
Nito burrito.
Who's next?
Right?
They weren't really doing anything with it, but they loved wisdom.
They just loved hearing something new, and so they would swap stories and swap ideas, and wow, bro, that's deep.
Right?
It was just this weird collection of people doing nothing but tell me something new.
So maybe these Greeks were just traveling, seeking something new in that sense,
but it tells us they were among those who went up to worship at the festival.
So it's likely that these Greeks were what's known as proselytes.
Proselytes were people who weren't Jewish by genetics, but had converted to Judaism,
and so they were allowed to kind of be a part of the faith, if you will, but they weren't actually Jews,
and so they were called proselytes, and it seems to indicate that because they were there to go worship at the festival.
Now, it was well known that Jesus was from Galilee,
and the area of Galilee at the time was called Galilee of the Gentiles,
and so who does it say they approached?
Philip.
Well, Philip is a Greek name.
Philip was the name of Alexander the Great's father, Philip of Macedon,
and it tells us that Philip was from Bethsaida.
Guess who else was from Bethsaida?
Philip of Macedon.
It was a very Gentile area, right?
It's given us this picture that this is a very Gentile moment taking place in the middle of the Jewish festival
of Passover and all that is getting celebrated here,
and so we gather that these Greeks probably approached Philip because his name was Greek,
and he was from a Gentile area, and well, this Jesus was from the Galilee of the Gentiles,
so we want to see him, sir.
We would see Jesus.
Now, why did John include this little detail?
I believe it's because John wanted us, his readers, to know that Jesus didn't just love the Jewish people.
He wasn't just there as the Lamb of God to die for the Jewish people.
He loved all the people.
He loved the whole world, including the Gentiles.
He was the Savior of the entire world.
He came to be the Savior of the entire world for everybody, both Jew and Gentile,
and right here is where the picture of this final week of Jesus' life as the door is closing on Judaism, if you will,
and we see that the Jews will ultimately reject Jesus.
A door is opening to the Gentile world,
and the book of Acts shows us that that door was then stepped through by the Apostle Peter
as he had to get a vision from Jesus, and Jesus said,
Don't you dare call unclean what I've called clean.
He's like, All right, I'll go talk to the Gentiles,
and then Paul just kind of smashed that whole door open and went throughout the whole world preaching Jesus to all who would believe in him,
and it's just an interesting detail because you look at the life of Jesus.
His life is bookended by Gentiles seeking him.
You remember in the very beginning of his life, it was wise men from the East that sought him out,
wise men from the East who came to say, Hey, we want to come worship the King,
and then here toward the end of his life, you have these Greeks who are wisdom-loving people from the West seeking out Jesus.
I want to know him. I want to know about him.
And then in the middle of those bookends, really, it's a sad story that the people who should have known better missed it.
Now, of course, on both sides of the fence, there were many who got it, right?
Peter in Matthew 16, 16, Peter made the confession, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Right? And Jesus himself, it's on this confession that I will build my church.
Like our church is built on the confession that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Son of the living God.
He is the Christ. He is the Savior of our souls.
It is all built on that. And on Palm Sunday, April 6, 32 A.D., the day we celebrate and remember today,
Jesus, for the first and only time in his entire earthly ministry, publicly presented himself as the Messiah, the anointed one,
the coming promised King by deliberately riding in on a donkey in fulfillment of prophecy on the exact day that was prophesied over three centuries earlier.
But the part the masses missed on that day,
the part we can't miss is the rest of Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 9, 26.
It says after those 62 weeks, the anointed one will be cut off and have nothing.
You see those 62 set of seven years came after the first seven. There will be seven sets of seven in the 62.
So 69, ba ba ba, we come to the same date.
In the anointed one, it says, will be cut off and have nothing.
His first coming was to reconcile God in his creation.
The first coming of Christ was to atone for the sins of the world, to die as the lamb sacrificed for us.
He came in peace. He came in peace, not to wage war on the world, but to save it,
to save all who would recognize him as the pure, spotless, unblemished lamb of God.
The only perfect sacrifice, the one and only perfect sacrifice that would once and for all satisfy the justice of Almighty God.
And he came and he presented himself to the nation, presenting himself really to the world on the very day
when the sacrificial lambs were being selected and he was accepted by God as that one and only perfect atoning sacrifice for you and for me.
So don't miss that God came for you.
Don't miss that God came for you. He came for you, He came for me, He came for all who are watching.
He came to die for our sins.
I don't really understand how he could have made it more clear,
but we're kind of dumb, aren't we?
That's why we're compared to sheep so much.
Sheep are dumb.
You all seen the video, right? They get the sheep out of the trench and it runs and jumps right back in the trench.
I think that's a dumb sheep.
But we're so like that in so many ways because we're just lost, broken people.
That's why we couldn't die for our own sins.
We may be sheep, but we are blemished all over the place.
But he was the Lamb of God, unblemished, perfect, came to die for us so that we would be redeemed, that we would be forgiven.
And that's what we're going to be remembering this Sunday when we celebrate Good Friday.
But he did die and in his death he did indeed conquer.
But what it was he conquered was the power of sin and death.
And through his resurrection he gives us that same victory.
And that's what we're going to be celebrating together next Sunday.
I can't wait to celebrate that with all of you.
And then after all of that process of him coming, him dying, him rising again, us putting our faith in him, the only true God,
he works through us to change the world one life at a time.
Let's pray.
Father, we love you so much.
God, we are so unworthy of your affection.
We are so unworthy of your love.
We are so unworthy, God, of the sacrifice you made for us.
But Lord, your word is very clear. You didn't die for us because we were worthy.
You didn't die for us because we earned it.
You came, Lord, to die for us because you loved us.
And Lord, it broke your heart on the day you entered Jerusalem that the people, they missed it.
They didn't get it.
Lord, and I see a big part of that is because although they had your word, they weren't paying attention to your word.
They got so many of us as your children, Lord.
We live lives where we have your word, but we don't read it.
We don't study it, and then we don't understand, Lord.
And God, even when we do, sometimes there are things you do that just, they're not for us to know.
It's just for us to trust and obey.
But God, it starts with us recognizing and understanding that you were the lamb slain for us.
You were the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
That before we even existed physically in this world, God, you knew each one of us.
Before creation even existed, you knew what man was going to do.
You knew the problem, and you solved it.
You created the plan.
You spoke it prophetically to your prophets.
You fulfilled it perfectly in every detail.
And God, our call is just to accept it, to put faith in it, to believe in it, to walk in it.
And so God, we thank you so much.
While we're praying, I just want to give opportunity if there's anybody in here that doesn't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
And God has spoken to you today about His coming for you to save your soul.
Or if you're watching online and God has spoken to you and you want to receive Him as your Lord and Savior today,
this Palm Sunday, that it would truly indeed be a triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into your life.
I just want you to pray with me right now.
I say, Lord Jesus, I believe in you.
I believe you are God.
I believe you came for me to die for my sins as the Lamb of God, perfect, spotless, to atone for me.
Thank you for loving me so much.
Thank you for everything you did, everything you're doing, and everything you will do.
I put my faith in you today.
I invite you into my life today.
I accept you today as my Lord and Savior.
Change my heart and work through me to change the hearts of those around me with the power and the hope and the love of Jesus Christ.
Thank you for loving me so much.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
For the rest of us, this is Holy Week.
This is Holy Week.
If you have been waiting for an excuse to get out and tell someone about Jesus,
the whole world is thinking about it right now.
Now, yeah, they might be thinking of Easter bunnies and colored eggs,
but tell them about what it's really about, about the God who loved them so much to come and die for their sins.
What an opportunity we have to celebrate.
You know, we've said this many times in the past, but we all have friends and family who might not come to church with us normally,
but there's two high holidays in the church that they'll often come.
It's Christmas and Easter, so invite everybody you know.
Say, hey, come celebrate resurrection.
Come celebrate Jesus with me this Sunday at my church.
And I tell you what, I'm going to do my best to convince them that Jesus is God who died for them and rose again for their souls.
And I expect a harvest of salvation, but you guys are a part of it.
And so let's pray. Let's band together as his church and see what God is going to do this Holy Week. Amen.
God bless you guys.