Banner Logo

Sermon

Sermon Graphic


Palm Sunday
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, March 20, 2016


The King Has Come!


Text: Luke 19:28–40

Many years ago I worked with a fellow that really loved to go skydiving. He belonged to a skydiving club in Dublin and he invited me to go with him as a guest one Saturday and offered to pay for my initial training. I told him that I had often thought that I would like to try skydiving and so he invited me to go with him on a specific date that was weeks away. I finally said that I would love to go with him but the more I thought about it the more apprehensive I became. I didn’t have the courage to admit that I was scared and wanted to back out. So it finally came down to three days from this test of my courage when he called me on Wednesday and said that the jump was called off because the weather was supposed to be really bad but that we would be sure to reschedule soon. I pretended to be disappointed but secretly I was elated. I honestly don’t know if I would have gone through with it but I suspect that my pride couldn’t take that kind of damage, so I probably would have gone through with the jump and simply messed my pants. Fortunately, for me, he soon left our company and I never saw him again.

I was reminded of this story as I began considering our passages for this morning. I was remembering what it was like to know that something is coming up soon that will take everything I had to go through with it. As we begin Passion Week, the week leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus I want to begin by reminding ourselves of how we began the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday. We read Luke’s account of Jesus turning toward Jerusalem to begin the journey that ended with the Triumphal Entry of Jesus that we read about this morning.

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51

I love the way that Luke states this, “He set his face”, it means that he fixed his intention on what was to happen in Jerusalem. There was no doubt in Jesus’ mind what was to take place for him in Jerusalem and yet when the time was right he turned and faced the very thing that he dreaded the most. In Luke this begins what is known as the “Jerusalem Discourse” and it ends at Luke 19:28 where Jesus enters Jerusalem. He knows what will take place and that the moment of his departure was imminent but he was setting his face to accomplish what his Father had sent him to do.

To really understand the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem and its importance I believe that it is helpful for us to first consider the importance of the Jewish understanding of the passages that we read this morning. It is important to know that the anticipation of the coming of the Messiah was rooted in the Word of God, the Hebrew Scriptures and for all their unfaithfulness to God’s laws most of the Jews did know Torah and the prophets. It was a part of the Jewish heritage and culture. Even when they went into exile and were scattered and then ruled by Greeks and Roman dictators, they were careful to preserve the Word that God had given them. That is why we still have the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) and the Apocrypha and other preserved writings. They were careful to preserve the written word even though their captures tried to destroy any vestige of their Judaism. They loved their culture and national identity and God had them protect the Word. So when Jesus spoke words from Torah, they were familiar words to them and they had meaning and context for them.

As far as the disciples were concerned Jesus was going to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover like all Jews did every year. It wouldn’t have seemed odd that Jesus was sending them to prepare for his entrance. It would have made strategic sense for Jesus to make a grand entrance into Jerusalem while so many had gathered at one time. After all they knew that he was coming to reveal that he was the chosen King of Israel and Psalm 118 (that we read this morning) played a huge role in this whole scenario, it was very Messianic.

The people greeted him in his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem with shouts of joy quoted from this Psalm:

"Hosanna (meaning save us), blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!"

Jesus knew that he was the Messiah, the anointed deliverer of God’s people and the people believed that he was that Messiah too. This is clearly shown by their shouts of praise and joy at the coming of this great and mighty King into Jerusalem. They were most likely thinking of the implications of this Psalm,

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.

20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.

21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

23 This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:19–24

This was the long awaited Messiah that had been prophesied first by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15 but foretold as far back as the Garden of Eden, where the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

They knew the implications of what they were singing and shouting, it was part of their training, it was a part of their national identity. They had both heard of and seen the amazing miracles that Jesus had performed: the blind could see, the lame could walk, and the dead were raised. Now here was their king coming in victory to proclaim his place and Rome was going to get their payback and Israel was going to shine! Imagine their excitement!

In Mark's account of the Passover meal we see this Psalm again, Mark 14:26 tells us that after the disciples and Jesus ate the Passover meal that they sang a hymn together. In the Jewish liturgy of the Passover it was traditional to terminate the meal by singing Psalms 115–118 which is actually still the custom today. Psalm 118 may have been the final song in the mind of Jesus as he celebrated Passover with his disciples. This Psalm anticipates the suffering and glorification of the Messiah. Jesus quoted verses 22-23 concerning himself in Mark 12:10–11,

Have you not read this Scripture,

'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Jesus knew that he was the fulfillment of this Psalm but they didn’t really understand how he was that fulfillment and what he had come to do. He knew that their praises would be short lived and that his plan would be rejected by the very same people who had lined the streets of Jerusalem praising and welcoming their King but he came anyway. Jesus had always known who he was and now it was time to reveal it clearly.

Jesus not only came intentionally but he was intentional about the way that he came.

Perhaps you’ve wondered about this title- Triumphal Entry- when he was riding a donkey. In our culture this would be seen as odd but for those seeing Jesus entering Jerusalem seated on a donkey it would have been what they anticipated. It was in keeping with the Messianic prophecy of Zechariah,

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9

This was a well-known Messianic prophecy that spoke of the coming priest/king who would free Israel of political and military oppression from their enemies. The symbol of Zechariah’s messianic king riding on a donkey was very important. Instead of riding in on a warriors stead at this point, the great king would make his appearance into Jerusalem astride a young donkey. Donkeys were among the mounts preferred by royalty during peacetime. By riding a donkey a king would indicate his complete victory and the end of the war. Jesus knew that he must fulfill all that was foretold about the Messiah but also he knew that what he came to do would undo the damage done by the kingdom of darkness. The fight wasn’t against Rome or any nation. As a matter of fact, what Israel would not have understood was that Jesus had come to offer salvation to Rome and all other nations as well. No the enemy was far worse; it was the kingdom of Darkness, Satan himself.

In Mark’s account of the Triumphal Entry Jesus received the same praise and adoration from the crowds but then, “Jesus went to the temple. He looked around at everything but since it was late, he went to Bethany with the twelve.”

It’s interesting that Matthew and Luke record that Jesus entered the temple and proceeded to cleanse it by chasing away the money changers but Mark has him come back the next day and cleanse the temple. I believe that Mark was sticking with the point that Jesus was careful to fulfill all things pointing to him as the Messiah. It had been prophesied in Malachi,

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.” Malachi 3:1–3

As I considered what God was revealing to us about Holy Week through these passages, two things stood out for me.

1. Jesus was not making this up as he went along but had intentionally headed to Jerusalem to accomplish all that the Father had given him to do. Again Jesus serves as a model for us and gave us the perfect example of obedience to God and the perfect example of the servant who lays his life down for his friends. Jesus had told his disciples in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends.” Without this there would be no hope for you and I today. As our Epistle reading this morning reveals to us,

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Philippians 2:6–11

No short cuts, it would be the way that the Father had chosen. It is vitally important to remember that Jesus though fully God was also fully man and would have experienced the fear that we experience as he confronted what he knew was inevitable. As we will be talking about on Good Friday, Jesus was praying in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane as he came under the full on attack of Satan and the anticipation of what it would be like to have fellowship with the Father broken for the first time ever. Why would he do such a thing for someone like me? Because of his absolute love for his Father and his complete and total understanding of the Fathers desire for reconciliation with his creation. It was to be the most selfless act ever performed and it was all because of love.

2. I believe that when Jesus walked into the temple in Marks’ gospel and merely looked around and then left, that Mark was making an important point for us today. Jesus looked around and saw nothing more than dead religion. The glory of God that had once dwelt within the temple had gone long before. Religion breeds death but Jesus came to bring new life in him and bring it in the fullness of God through the Holy Spirit. The temple had been for Israel the connection between Heaven and Earth but now Jesus in his incarnation had become that connection. In this too he is our model because we as his body are now the living presence of Christ and the place of God’s indwelling presence by his Spirit. We too must be willing to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, there are no short cuts. We too must be bold in revealing that much of what is presented as Christianity is merely dead orthodoxy and not the gospel witness given to us by Jesus. If we are faithful to the calling of Jesus on our lives then the promise of the Father to the Son in our Epistle reading this morning becomes our greatest joy.

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

This is the fulfillment of what was prophesied in our Old Testament passage from Isaiah 45:22–25,

“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
24 They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.
25 But all the descendants of Israel will find deliverance in the Lord and will make their boast in him.”

That is our hope and the reason for our existence that God will deliver us and restore all things for us in Christ Jesus our reigning and glorious King! If we truly see this for what it is and understand the gospel calling on our lives then we should also be on our knees in prayer knowing that the enemy will do everything in his power to stop us. The good news is that because of what Jesus would do on Calvary, there is no stopping those who by faith surrender to Jesus Christ and walk in his power and authority. Why would we do such a thing? For the very same reason that Jesus did it—out of love for the Father and also out of loving gratitude to the Son for dying for us and for the Holy Spirit’ power and strength.

This is our mission and calling. Are you ready and willing?

©2016 Rev. Mike Moffitt

Return to top

Sermon Archives