Luke 19:28-48
Today is Palm Sunday, the day we remember and celebrate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Luke’s description makes it clear that Jesus comes to Jerusalem as the long-awaited Messiah, God’s anointed King.
There was a historic pattern of kings coming into Israel’s capital with great ceremony. Whether Isaelite kings returning from victory in war and foreign kings visiting as friends.
Typically the king was accompanied into the city by the citizens or his own soldiers. Hymns were sung along with shouts of praises. Sometimes garments would be spread out on the ground. After riding into the city, the king would go to the temple and offer sacrifice under the direction of the high priest.
Jesus’ entry as king into Jerusalem generally follows this pattern. As he rode from the Mount of Olives his followers accompanied him, spreading out their coats and palm branches along the road. They sang from the Psalms and shouted praises. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” they cried out.
Yet Jesus’ entry was different in important ways. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Most kings rode in on a war horse to emphasize their exalted status and military power. Jesus riding in on a donkey emphasized his humbleness and that he came in peace. As Zechariah had prophesied, “Look, your king comes to you . . . humble and riding on a donkey.”
Jesus was signaling that he was a different kind of king. Not one who would lead the Israelites in war against the Roman army occupying their country. Riding on a donkey meant that Jesus came as a peacemaker, not as a conquering warrior.
Likewise, when Jesus comes into our lives, he comes in humbleness and peace. I had a friend once who told me that Jesus was out to get him, chasing him everywhere. He said that had to run from him and fight him off.
That may sound pretty strange. But my friend seemed to think that Jesus wanted to overthrow his life. To forcibly change him to be someone he didn’t want to be.
But that’s not what Jesus does. Jesus comes into our lives as a friend and healer. He comes to fulfill our lives, to help us become who we truly are. To enable us to find our deepest identity and sense of self.
Jesus comes to us in love and gentleness, riding on a donkey, as it were, not on a war horse. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “for I am gentle and humble in mind, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Even as believers, some of us may have trouble experiencing Jesus as a peaceful presence in our lives. We may struggle with the feeling that we can never please God. That God is always judging us.
But that’s not what God is like. God wants us to live confidently before him in joy. Not in fear and self-condemnation. Yes, we make mistakes, we sin. And we need to recognize that and address our failings. But Jesus died for our sins and is always praying for us. God loves us, imperfections and all.
There’s an enchanting verse in Zephaniah which reads that God “will take delight in you with gladness.” The literal translation of that verse is that God will dance over you with shouts of joy. Can we visualize that? Jesus dancing over us with shouts of joy! Our relationship with God is a delight to God and a joy for us.
Jesus is with us in peace, not as a harsh judge. His “yoke is easy and his burden is light,” Jesus says, and he gives us “rest for our souls.”
Another way that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was different is that Jesus didn’t go into the temple and offer sacrifice. Instead he went to the temple and overturned the tables of the merchants and money-changers and drove them out.
Jews came to Jerusalem during the major festivals from throughout the Roman world. They needed to exchange their currency and buy animals for their sacrificial offerings. In order to profit from this need merchants and money changers set up tables in a court of the temple, charging excessive prices. This commercialized the worship of God, turning God’s temple into a marketplace of greed. Jesus quoted Isaiah: “You have made my house a den of thieves.”
Another problem was that the temple court occupied by the merchants was the court of the Gentiles. It was where non-Jewish people could gather to worship the true God. But there was no room for Gentile worshippers because the merchants and money-changers filled that space. Jesus drove them out quoting Isaiah, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people.” Jesus came into Jerusalem in peace, but he contronted injustice and called for change.
In our lives, too, God’s call for change is sometimes unsettling. It can feel like God is overturning the tables of our lives. During our second year of marriage, Diana and I started arguing all the time. We were constantly bumping up against each other. We were upset with each other all the time. Or, to be accurate, I kept getting upset. Diana was a model of patience and love!
All this seemed very strange and confusing. Like our lives were being turned upside down.
We finally understood that God was teaching us to unite our lives as one, as a married couple rather than two individuals each doing our own thing. God was moving us from independence to interdependence. To replace individualistic self-centeredness with loving union. God was overturning the tables in our lives to make us into the loving couple that God called us to be.
So if today any of us is going through a confusing, unsettling time, whether in our marriage or in some other area of life, it may be that God is shaking up our lives, turning over the tables, as it were, in order to take us to a new level of maturity as his sons and daughters.
There’s a third difference between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and that of other kings. Before he enters, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. He mourns its coming destruction with tears. Jesus laments that the people of Jerusalem and Judea failed to embrace “the things that make for peace.”
Instead of following Jesus and his way of peace, people were allowing their understandable hatred of the Romans to grow into violent resistance. They chose violence and war. As a result, Jesus prophesied, Jerusalem would be destroyed.
That happened in 70 AD, within a generation of Jesus’ warning. In 66 AD there began a violent revolt against the Roman occupation of Israel. The war went on until 70 AD when the Romans marched in force on Judea and Jerusalem. They destroyed the Temple and razed the city to the ground. Jesus saw all this coming and he wept.
Like the people of Jerusalem, we too can be doing something that is very self-destructive. And if we don’t change, the result will be catastrophe. Our harmful behavior will eventually catch up with us.
I knew a married Christian couple in which the husband always insisted on his way of doing things. He was very controlling and always had to get his way in the marriage. Friends tried to talk to him about this, but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t alter his behavior. He had a stubborn attitude and wouldn’t change. As a result, their marriage kept deteriorating until they divorced
There’s a story about a small boy whose hand was stuck in an expensive museum vase of priceless value. Try as people did, they couldn’t unlodge his hand. So the precious vase finally had to be broken to free him. When they did that, they saw that the boy was grasping a quarter that had been in the bottom of the vase. That’s why they couldn’t get his hand out. His fist was too big for the mouth of the vase, and the boy wouldn’t relax his fist and release the coin. Because of this the vase was ruined.
Sometimes we hold on tight to behaviors that in the end will demolish our life, if we don’t let go. And perhaps demolish other lives as well. We keep holding on to the harmful behavior because what we’re doing seems important to us. We think we need to do it, have to have it, can’t let go. Like the boy felt about the quarter. But as valuable as our obsession may be, it doesn’t compare with the worth of our life, our future, our happiness.
If this lesson should happen to apply to any of us here, may we hear God weeping over us in love. And with his help make the changes we must make.
To conclude, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem was a joyful moment for his followers. But probably less so for Jesus. Because Jesus knew what was ahead for him in the days to follow. The desertion of his friends, arrest, trial. And on the day we call Good Friday, crucifixion.
But Jesus was able to look beyond these devastations to the victory God would bring. He knew God was faithful to see him through the week of pain to the joy on the other side.
Like Jesus, we can have confidence in God. That in whatever difficulties we face God loves us and is with us. He’ll take us through to the other side. That’s God’s promise. For us, as for Jesus, the darkness of Good Friday will give way to the glory of Easter Sunday.
Praise be to God!