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The Cross Series
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Good evening everyone. It's great to see you here tonight. Whether you come to Grace Church every week or this is your very first time, we're so glad you're here.
If you don't know me, my name's Chris. I'm part of our leadership team here, and it's my joy to be preaching to you today on what is Palm Sunday as we approach Easter. We're in the penultimate message in our series The Cross, where over the last eight or nine weeks we've been looking at this pivotal moment in the history of humanity from different angles. It's a little like when you go to the opticians and they ask, "Is it clearer with lens one or lens two?" We've been doing that process, gaining clarity and seeing more beauty of what is going on in this moment.
Over the last couple of Sundays we've been looking through the lens of the resurrection and the ascension. Today we're going to flip it and look through the lens of the entry of Jesus and his arrival into the city of Jerusalem.
Before we get into it, I want to pose this question: How ready do you feel for Easter? It's next weekend, and there's lots going on. I don't know what your expectations are coming into Easter this week. For some, it's about school holidays. For others, it's the chocolate, eggs, and bunnies. The garden centers have gone absolutely ham on Easter this year—giant bunnies hanging from ceilings, meadows with lambs and rabbits, floral garlands everywhere. It's like an Easter wonderland.
But none of that is what Easter is. It's all just peripheral cultural baggage that's been piled in. My prayer for us today is that each of us would leave profoundly and properly ready for this week as we approach Easter next weekend.
We're going to look at Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in Luke chapter 19, verses 28 through 48. If you have a Bible, open it there. If not, the words will be on the screen.
When he had said these things, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, "Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you'll find a colt tied on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this, 'The Lord has need of it.'" So those who were sent went 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 throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that 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 crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation."
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, "It is written, my house should be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers." And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
We join Jesus here on the road in his final approach to the city of Jerusalem. There's a lot of detail here given by Luke. You might wonder: why so much information? Why not just say "eventually Jesus arrived in Jerusalem"?
Well, I believe what Luke's doing is telling us, the readers, precisely who is arriving. We find here in his arrival into the city that Jesus is entering in three particular capacities: prophet, priest, and king. These are often referred to as the three-fold office of Jesus.
Each of these offices, roles, and positions appears throughout the Old Testament in different kings, prophets, and priests—little glimpses, types, and shadows of Jesus. All of these things find their perfection and their fulfillment in him.
Seeing him and understanding him in this way really helps shape our expectations of who he is, what he's done, and what he's still doing for us.
First in our passage today, we have what is probably titled in your Bible as the Triumphal Entry. It tells of the coming of the king.
Jesus and his disciples arrive at the Mount of Olives. Jesus pauses and sends two of his disciples to go and get a donkey from the local village—a young colt that's never been ridden on. He tells them, "If anyone questions you, just say the Lord has need of it."
I love trying to get into the heads of the disciples when you hear stories like this. I can just imagine the two of them standing there, wondering: "Are you going to say it or am I? Is this actually going to work?" They look at each other and say, "The Lord has need of it." And lo and behold, the owner happily hands over the donkey.
They take it back to Jesus. They put their cloaks on it to create a saddle for him to sit on. The others start to lay their garments on the road in front of him as he rides down the mountainside.
It's very tempting to look at this and think Jesus is being meek and mild, gentle and lowly, tired from walking. But I don't think that's what's going on. I think we're underselling what's happening here. Jesus knows exactly what he's doing.
It's very different from how he's operated in his ministry thus far. Throughout his ministry, he's tried to retreat from the crowds. He's even told people who realize who he is, "Please don't go tell anyone about this yet, for my hour has not yet come." And yet here, all of a sudden, all of that restraint is thrown out the window. Everything has changed because his time is now.
Jesus' actions here are not just humble or gentle. They are a final fulfillment of so many Old Testament scriptures paving the way for the great Messiah king to come.
In 1 Kings 1, David the king is anointing Solomon his son as king. He says, "Take with you the servants of your lord and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, my donkey, and anoint him king over Israel."
In 2 Kings 9, Elisha is anointing Jehu as king. It says, "Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel." And then look what happens: "In haste, every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps and proclaimed, 'Jehu is king.'"
Perhaps most famously of all, Zechariah 9 says:
Behold, your king is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.
You see, it was the practice of kings in the Old Testament to ride on a donkey to their anointing, to their coronation. It was the practice of the people to lay their garments down ahead of the coming king—an ancient red carpet—to proclaim him. And in precisely this way, it was prophesied that the Messiah would come.
Here we have it: no longer shying away from public view, but knowing his time had come, Jesus arrives into Jerusalem as king, ready to take up his kingdom. The people would have known. They would have known the prophecies. They would have known their history. They would have known the significance of what was going on.
As he draws closer to the city, the people come out to greet him. They start to lay their garments down on the road. In some of the other accounts, they cut palm branches off the trees—that's where we get the name Palm Sunday from. These branches are a sign of victory, of proclamation, of joy and celebration.
The multitude declares:
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
The Pharisees don't like it one bit. These religious leaders ask Jesus to rebuke his disciples to silence them. But instead, he rebukes them. With perhaps one of his more famous jabs at the religious leaders, he says:
If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
In other words, even creation itself, in its groaning and longing, has a sense of what's going on here. You can't stop this.
I want to pause there because I think there's something for all of us to consider. What will your response be to the coming king? How will you receive him this Easter?
There is an air of inevitability to all of this, and his coming demands something of us. We can't just be bystanders. No one can be.
Maybe in your heart you can see something of the Pharisee response. You're quite content with the status quo you've set up in your religious life, and you don't really like it being meddled with. The moment Jesus comes and demands anything of you, upends any of that, or starts to prod at it and say, "I should be king in these areas of your life," you get very uncomfortable and defensive. I can say that because I think I can see that in my life from time to time as well.
Maybe for you it's more like the crowds who, on the first coming of Jesus, you gave your life to him all in celebration: "He's here!" But as time goes on and you realize that actually having him as king means it asks of your whole life—it demands your allegiance, not just the bits you're comfortable with—all of a sudden that makes you feel very uneasy too.
If we're honest, there's probably a bit of both in all of us. I wonder what are the parts of your life that you haven't fully submitted under his kingship? What is it that's holding you back from doing that?
Maybe it's fear of what it would be like if you let him in fully to all that you are. Maybe you have some doubts about who he says he is, what he's supposed to be like. Maybe there are questions about church that hold you back. Or perhaps the thing in the way for you is pain—you've been burned and hurt by people in the past, so you're reluctant to trust again.
Or perhaps most powerfully of all: internal shame. Things you know you have done wrong that no one else in the world knows. You're like, "There is no way I could let anyone know about this. I can't give this over. I can't let anyone see this."
But let me tell you: this king that's arriving here on a donkey into Jerusalem isn't a domineering, crack-the-whip kind of king that you need to be afraid of. He's merciful and kind. He's trustworthy and true in all that he says he is. He is good and gracious in all of his ways. He is the king who came to serve you, not to be served. He came to lay his life down for you—not just the bits of you that you're willing to give him, but all of you: the good, yes, but and the bad, the very worst of you.
He is very simply the best possible king you could ask for.
I wonder if perhaps there's a moment for all of us today to search our hearts: Where is it that I'm not fully giving over to Jesus as king? What am I holding back? How are you going to receive him this Easter? Will you give him your whole life?
So he arrives as king, but he also arrives as prophet into Jerusalem. We find Jesus predicting and foretelling of the state of the city and its future.
We see that Jesus wept over the city as he lays eyes on it. His reason for weeping is not because he knows what's coming to him in a few days' time—which would have been perfectly valid. No, he's weeping because he knows that the fanfare he's receiving isn't going to last a week. He knows that the people celebrating now don't really have eyes to see what is going on. They miss the very thing in front of them that's going to make for peace with God.
For all the religiosity of the temple, its efforts, the things of God are hidden from their eyes.
In verses 43 and 44, Jesus foretells of the destruction of the city. This is going to happen 40 years later. He prophesies that within a generation, because of their failure to know him now, to realize what's happening right in front of them, the city will crumble.
But the Bible's idea of a prophet is not just one that predicts things and gets them right. It is one who makes God known, who reveals God. The prophets of the Bible are those through whom God speaks to show things that are real now and things to come—to make himself known. And there are none that do that better than Jesus.
Listen to Hebrews 1:
Long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he's spoken to us by what? His Son.
And John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God... The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. No one has ever seen God. The only God, at the Father's side, has made him known.
Going way back to Deuteronomy 18, Moses speaks and says:
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you.
Here we have arriving into Jerusalem Jesus, the very word of God. Yes, prophesying over the city, but also in himself, the very revelation of God as he comes to his people. He is the prophet who God has raised up.
He arrives as king. He arrives as prophet. But lastly, he also arrives as priest.
A priest is one who represents the people before God—one who stands in the gap on behalf of the people. The temple complex represents the precise location of those two worlds colliding: God and man.
He arrives into the city and most likely enters the temple the following morning. This is where he remains for the days leading up to his arrest, teaching the people who hang off his every word. I love that. So compelling is Jesus that the religious leaders can't do anything about it.
Jesus cleanses the temple as a statement of intent for what he is going to do in full. The religious leaders had made a mockery of the place of worship, turned it into a marketplace for buying and selling, profiting off primarily the Gentiles and putting things in the way of the people being able to come to God and be near his presence.
Jesus is having none of it. In this very symbolic act of what is to come, he clears it out. He makes a way through. He removes the very obstacles that prevent people from getting to God. He kicks out the old system to start making a way for the new.
Israel would have known about this messianic priest that was to come. It's in Psalm 110, which speaks of this Messiah to come who will be a priest forever.
But as with king and prophet, this little passage we're reading today is but the beginning of his priestly role. He's not just here to tidy up or bring order to the function and mechanics of the temple structure. He's here to reclaim them and then to replace them.
We get this glimpse of the full work Jesus has come to accomplish. We see a Jesus determined to make right the relationship between God and his people. A Jesus passionate about the true and proper worship of God. He is a priest who will stop at nothing to see those things restored.
Here in this Palm Sunday passage, as Jesus completes this month-long journey to Jerusalem, we find Luke slowing the narrative, drawing our attention to how Jesus arrives to show us who it is that's arriving. Jesus the King. Jesus the prophet. Jesus the priest.
Yet as you read this passage and grapple with these roles and how they're being depicted, you get the feeling that he's teeing up something far greater. This is an incomplete story. For if he's a king as he arrives to be, where is his coronation? If he's a prophet as he demonstrates he is, where is the great proclamation? If he's a priest here to replace this temple system, where is the new altar?
Well, it's all here at the cross.
Here at the cross, as prophet, Jesus reveals God's heart and his will perfectly to us and to the world. He makes known what has been described as the holy justice and covenant love of God as they collide together at the cross.
Unlike the prophets of old who knew in part what was to come—like seeing in a dimly lit room—here, as we're told, darkness covered the land as Jesus was dying. The light of the world shines forth and proclaims in full what has taken place with his dying words: "It is finished. The salvation work is complete here. Sin has been atoned for all."
And because of the resurrection and because of the ascension, he is forever now revealing the Father to us. Right now, the very word of God is speaking life to us by his Spirit through his word. He is the great prophet here.
Here as priest, Jesus makes a way for the people. He himself becomes the spotless sacrifice to rid us of our sin on the altar. He who knew no sin becomes sin that we might become the righteousness of God. The lamb who was slain, who takes away the sin of the world.
Unlike the priests of old who had to make sacrifices daily for the people, who themselves would eventually die and have to be replaced, Jesus holds his priesthood permanently. He is the once-for-all sacrifice. He himself stands in the gap where no one else could.
And because of the resurrection, because of the ascension, we know Jesus can never die. He now lives forever, interceding for you, standing in that gap for you before the Father, reconciling you to God, bringing you into the very presence of the Holy Almighty God. The curtain was torn in two the moment he died. He is our great high priest.
And here as king, Jesus is enthroned. This is his glory. This is his crowning moment. But it's not with gold or silver. It is with thorns pressed into his brow, with blood and sweat dripping down his skin.
As your king, he wages war here against the spiritual rulers and authorities. He overpowers sin, hits its hold on you and its tyranny. He puts them to open shame, triumphing over them where? Here at the cross, he subdues our enemy.
Unlike the kings of old, whose rule was subject to time and the ebb and flow of worldly power and politics, Jesus's reign will never end. And because of the resurrection, because of the ascension, we know he's been vindicated. We know he will never be dethroned. For he is more than the mocking sign above his head suggested. Not king of the Jews, but the king of the nations, the king of the ages, the king of kings, and the Lord of Lords.
He was when he arrived into the city and when he died, is this very second, and forever will be our prophet, our priest, and our king.
As we come into land, I want to return to that question I asked at the beginning: How ready do you feel in your approach to Easter?
Only you can answer that, right? Only you know what's going on because I don't know what you're coming into this week carrying. I don't know what road you've taken to get here. I don't know how tired your legs feel, how weary you are. I don't know the mountains you've had to climb. I don't know the valleys you've ended up wandering day after day. I don't know the joys you've felt or the pain you've experienced.
But what I do know is that there is one who's walked this road before you. And this Easter, he's inviting you to know him. Whether you've done more Easters than you can remember or this is your very first one as a Christian, you can know him afresh.
You could just do next weekend and go through the motions. I know how easy it is for all of us to do that because we're so used to this stuff. We do it every week. We do it every year. It's our rhythm. It's our routine. You could just get through it. You could just grin and bear it, treat it as you always do—the service on Friday, the morning on Sunday—you could just get through.
But I believe God wants more for you than that. He wants you to know him. He gave his very best so that we could. And wherever you think you are on the road, it's never too late to return to him. There's never a moment where you've gone too far to come back.
So you could approach next weekend as you were going to. Or you could heed his invitation in three ways:
You could heed the invitation to know him as your prophet—the one who has revealed the Father to you, whose word right now is living and active, whose voice speaks from the pages of this book with comfort, peace, hope, and everlasting joy.
You could heed the invitation to know him as your priest—the one who is right now advocating for you before the Father, who himself was the lamb slain for you. Standing in the gap, presenting you faultless before the throne of the Almighty, so that you can just come as you are with all of your baggage.
You could heed the invitation to know him as your king—the one who fought for you with his life to overthrow your enemy. To know the one who is ruling now, seated in the heavenly places. The one who invites you not just to be a subject under this king, but actually to reign with him in his kingdom.
That is what is on offer to you, to us this week. He longs for you to know him in these ways.
This Easter, with one week to go, it's not too late to return to him. Not too late to have your heart searched and come back to him. You are invited to see Jesus for who he really is: your prophet, your great high priest, and your king.
