Defining Your Own Peace

Transcript

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[0:00] We'll turn now to our sermon text, which can be found in Luke chapter 19, verses 28 through 44. After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called 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. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? Say, The Lord needs it.

[0:47] Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he told them. As they were going, they heard a voice say, If anyone asks you, Why are you untying the colt? Its owners did ask them, Why are you untying the colt? They replied, The Lord needs it.

[1:03] 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 Olives, the whole crowd of disciples, began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

[1:40] Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. but now it is hidden from your eyes.

[2:17] The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. Let's pray.

[2:45] Our God, we thank you for your word. We ask that you speak to our minds and our hearts, and we ask your blessing upon this word today. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it seems like ages have passed between the time that Jesus was born and the time that Jesus died. And yet this passage happens between the time that Jesus sets out for Jerusalem and the time that this passage finally comes to be. It was ten chapters ago in Luke 9, 51, and a lot has happened in those ten chapters. And yet Jesus was never once swayed from this path and from the path of Jesus. from this route to Jerusalem. He always had his eyes fixed on this path. He always knew that this was ahead. It was ever in his sights. And all this time he was busy healing and proclaiming and loving and serving and teaching and doing miracles and showing the people the way to the kingdom of God. And most importantly, he had been spending this time just dwelling with God's people.

[4:21] The one who had been sent by God dwelled with the people in a long-awaited visitation from God. This translation we just read says, God's coming to you. And finally, though, Jesus enters Jerusalem. And it's all that we've been expecting. He enters Jerusalem in this procession that really truly is fit for a king.

[5:04] There are shouts of adoration. And there are cries. There are cries for salvation from God. There was singing and there was worship. And peace. Yes. The people called out. They even demanded peace. And so, Palm Sunday is a day that we need to celebrate every year in all of those ways and for all of those reasons.

[5:37] Yet, here in Luke's text, we see that the people of Jerusalem, for some reason, remember some great great great great great great great great great great great What they wanted of him was not what he had come to offer. The peace that they had defined was faulty. The triumph that they had expected from their king was insufficient in God's eyes, and the peace God was offering was not something that had appealed to them. In some cases, not even something that they recognized. They demanded peace through conquering of worldly kingdoms, and Jesus brought peace between heaven and earth, but it would require the conquering of their hearts.

[6:54] The detail with which the triumphal entry was planned is stunning. It was in an unusually busy time of the year in Jerusalem. The city usually held 20 to 30 thousand people. But at Passover there were usually between 1.5 and 2 million. So the crowds gathered as this celebrity who was rumored to be the next King of Israel passed by were simply enormous. The Passover itself had always been a reminder of God's salvific acts in delivering the people of Israel from Egypt. So there were obvious signs of salvation. themes of salvation. And this holiday and this celebration and this observance was absolutely crucial to Israel's religion and to Israel's worship of God.

[7:55] But it had also become somewhat of a politicized holiday because God had saved the nation from another conquering nation before, from multiple conquering nations before. And so they were waiting for him to deliver them once more. We sometimes say when we're looking at this passage or at the parallel gospel passages here that it was unexpected for Jesus to come riding in on a donkey, that he was this unexpected king. That's true. And yet it's not. There was a tradition. There was a tradition of Roman kings and dignitaries to enter the city in these parades known as triumphs. They rode through on magnificent horses suitable for battle and these horses that were meant for carrying kings. They were majestic.

[9:05] The plunder and prisoner from these battles were paraded behind them. But Jesus, as this alleged future king, rode in on a donkey. Surrounding nations could have mocked that and perhaps there were even some people in Israel who didn't approve. But horses were only used for times of war, in times of peace, kings could ride on donkeys. Was it strange as the crowd was shouting for this long-awaited Messiah to finally bring about their peace and freedom from Rome that he might consider this a suitable time for peace? A suitable time to not go into battle?

[10:03] For some five hundred years there had been a well-known prophecy from Zechariah. Zechariah 9-9 says, Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Kings had ridden on donkeys before. Solomon rode on a mule, on the way to be anointed as king. But the colt of a donkey is about as lowly as one could get. After all, the colt could hardly carry the weight of an adult man, let alone valiantly carry that same rider through a battle if needed. But the people didn't worry when Jesus came riding on a colt. It wasn't all that unexpected because of this prophecy. In fact, because this prophecy was so well-known and so long-awaited, the people only cheered louder. This was not unexpected.

[11:14] They knew that prophecy. If Jesus was riding in on a colt of a donkey, then there must be acknowledgement on his behalf that God was sending him as messiah. And then Zechariah 9-10-12 continues, Zechariah 9-10-12 continues, Zechariah 9-10-12 continues, Zechariah 9-10-12 continues, Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. restore to you double." So here's what the people knew. There were rumors. Rumors of miracles, rumors of this man stirring up things, rumors that he was the Messiah. And then he showed up riding on the colt of a donkey on the Passover, which was a

[12:29] holiday that had become so politicized that on one hand, yes, it was very much a critical observance, and yet it was almost defined as a one-day uprising against Roman rule. And the Pharisees didn't like that. This was a time of relative peace. So sure, the people of Israel were treated like second-class citizens. It wasn't pleasant, necessarily, but it was probably a lot more pleasant to keep the Roman government happy than not. Also, this way of life was working for the Pharisees. They had the charge to keep the peace within the religious order of Jerusalem, which was really how God's people still functioned. They had power and authority and wealth.

[13:30] It would not suit them for things to change too much. And they could have been concerned about the possibility of blasphemous claims that Jesus was the Messiah. And obviously, from Jesus's actions and riding in on this donkey, he was not doing anything to stop those claims. In fact, all of his actions seemed to be encouraging them.

[13:59] The Pharisees opposed Jesus. But if you oppose the one who is sent by God himself on behalf of the world, well, that is injustice against God himself. And Scripture shows a history of creation crying out to God in opposition to injustice. We see it in Genesis 4, the ground where Abel was slain. In Habakkuk 2.11, the stone in the walls and the wood in the beams of houses that were made and built on injustice, they cry out. And in James 5.4, not the people but the wages given to exploited field workers. All of these things cry out to God. To stop the work of Jesus, to get in the way of the of the people praising their Savior, that is an injustice against God's peace. The Pharisees dreaded the disruption of the order and peace that they enjoyed socially and politically, but it was not God's order or God's peace. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But it wasn't just the Pharisees that Jesus was weeping over. There were just hordes and hordes of people there that day, and they were not necessarily opposing Jesus, at least not in word or action. They were shouting his praise emphatically with all their might. Luke is specific to say that the whole crowd of Jesus's disciples were not just the Pharisees, but the people who were

[15:53] praying for Jesus. The disciples began to joyfully praise God. They called out the miracles that they had witnessed. The disciples began to praise in loud voices and the disciples cited the words that we know from Psalm 118, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. There were some devoted followers in that crowd. There were some disciples, some devoted followers who had been transformed by Jesus. Who had encountered him personally and listened to his words and made it their life to follow him in faith. Knowing that he had been sent by God. And that was key. It was their hearts which had been transformed by Jesus's peace. It was not the world around them that had been changed to fit their preferences. But it was their their hearts which had been healed and aligned with God's purposes. The world carried on as it always had, but when they received the peace that came from Christ, they faithfully adapted their own behavior to represent Christ and glorify God to that world. Now they were just some in this huge entire crowd of people and that huge entire crowd of people was not made up of Jesus's disciples. But at the sound of his disciples praising, these people joined in. The whole multitude joined in. They were only waiting for a reason.

[17:43] Somebody Somebody just needed to confirm what they had been hoping for, and then they would jump right in. There was a lot of crowd mentality, and a crowd like that can be fickle. It's why five days later, so many from that very same crowd would be shouting, crucify him. They're praising Jesus, and I think they mean it, but they also don't fully understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and so they waver in their support easily. I said that it was acceptable to them that Jesus rode in on a colt. Yeah, and that was even expected, but what was not expected was everything else that they would see from Jesus in the course of the week. They were going to be paying extra close attention to his actions.

[18:40] And they weren't going to like what they saw. Now, some of the things that tended to happen in those triumphal kingly processions like this one were things like a king would visit the temple, and Jesus did that, in fact, that very day. But his visit didn't go as the people had hoped. In fact, where they hoped that he would rage against them, they didn't. They didn't. So if God had porced them against the Romans, he raged against the temple. And by the end of the week, this peaceful messiah had thoroughly disappointed them. He stood beaten and vulnerable before the Romans. Not even defending himself against their accusations. God had promised them a messiah who would bring them peace. And this was not their definition of peace or of triumph. and supporting Jesus, it was obvious that was going to come with a cost.

[19:45] Even Peter, a devoted disciple, denied knowing Jesus three times in the very early hours of that morning. It was dangerous to get on the wrong side of the Roman government, and it seemed dangerous to follow Jesus at all and not worth it.

[20:06] After all, how could this man bring the triumphant victory of a nation seeking peace when he wouldn't even fight for himself? Now something else was happening on the road to Jerusalem the day of that first Palm Sunday. It was the day of the inspection of the Passover lambs. The lambs needed to be observed by a priest to make sure that they were without blemish and worthy of sacrifice. The high priest would use this day to choose a perfect lamb, then lead it to Jerusalem. While the people of Israel crowded either side of the streets, singing songs of salvation to God and waving palms as that Passover lamb passed by.

[20:59] Does that sound familiar? They would especially sing Psalm 118, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now we see in our passage that the words are changed slightly, so that when after the lamb passed by and when Jesus was passing by, they changed the words to the king in place of he. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

[21:28] But while the throngs were so tied up in the political symbolism of their king coming to lead, their battle for peace against Rome, they missed that Jesus walked the path of the sacrificial lamb, who would rescue them from sin.

[21:50] Peace was more appealing to them when they defined it on their own terms. How quickly is our faith shaken when God does not do what we want him to do. How quickly is our faith shaken when we want or expect.

[22:07] How shaky is our discipleship when we come face to face with the uncomfortable parts of following Jesus. How often do our self-serving instincts lead us to deny Jesus and his claim on our lives. And so Jesus wept. Jesus wept. Jesus wept over their future judgment.

[22:38] God doesn't enjoy bringing about destruction or judgment. It is painful and heartbreaking to him. The time of God's coming or visitation was intended to bring salvation to Israel, to the world. Jesus wept because many in Israel have not recognized him as Messiah and Lord, and have not accepted his peaceful visitation.

[23:10] Some perhaps had accepted the idea of it. Some wanted the reward. Some faltered. But what Jesus requires is true discipleship, no agenda. God's peace meant that Jesus came so that he might dwell among us and transform our lives to be like him. For the glory of God is in him. For his great end for for for for for peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.