Luke 19:29-44 True Triumph
Good morning! It may not feel much like Easter outside but it might feel a little bit like it in here for the next few weeks!
Today we are going to look at a text that is traditionally connected to what we call Palm Sunday. It’s the Sunday before Easter Sunday where we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the beginning of Jesus’ Passion ministry, the Passion week. The Gospels give us a day by day account of Passion Week or Holy Week and towards the end they even get down to hour by hour.
So the church didn’t just slap a label on Palm Sunday, the events we are going to look at in Luke this morning really happened on the Sunday before Jesus was crucified, the Last Supper really did happen on Thursday of that week. Jesus really was crucified on Good Friday and really did rise from the dead on Easter Sunday.
But even though the headings in our Bibles might say that the text we are going to look at today describes the Triumphal Entry, it really describes a kind of triumphal entry that nobody was really looking for.
This Journey starts in Jericho where we have been studying for the last few weeks and picks up right where we left off.
Let’s pray.
28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 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, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 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. 43 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 44 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.”
45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
47 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, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
Here in Luke’s Gospel, Luke leaves out some of the details that the other Gospels include, the first of which is to point out that Jesus is fulfilling prophecy here in this scene.
Zechariah 9:9 says, “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, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is describing Jesus riding on the colt! And the Jewish people, the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem, were rejoicing greatly and shouting aloud! Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
But Luke left all that out…
The fact that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey is significant too.
Entering the city on a donkey was a simple way to symbolize the truth that Jesus did in fact come as King of Israel.
Jesus and the crowd would have remembered that when Solomon became king after David, he rode his father's favorite mule during the inaugural procession into Jerusalem as described in 1 Kings 1:33.
Now, a far greater "Son of David" rides triumphantly into the city of kings on a donkey. It showed for the first time that he accepted the title, and he accepted the people's praise.
Even though we call it Palm Sunday, interestingly, Luke left out any description of palm branches too. Matthew and Mark both include the cutting down of palm branches and waving them around and spreading them on the road and this was very symbolically significant.
Palm branches were highly symbolic in that culture, they were like the bald eagle of Israel. They represented refreshment, blessing, festival, new life, and victory. Palm branches were even stamped on their coins.
It was no small thing that the people would spread palm branches on the road before Jesus, they were declaring that Jesus was in fact the Messiah! “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Even the phrase in verse 38, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” kind of reminds us of the angels’ annunciation of Jesus’ miraculous birth to the shepherds back in Luke 2.
This crowd of people was an interesting mix too. You’ve got the disciples obviously, and all the other people that had been following Jesus through Jericho. You also have a crowd from Bethany, people who had witnessed Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead as described in John 11. The city of Jerusalem and its surrounding villages would have been filled to overflowing with pilgrims for Passover, you have the regular crowd of Pharisees following Jesus around, and then you have the Romans trying to keep all these crazy people under control.
There were believers, there were skeptics, and there were scoffers.
The believers in the crowd were shouting praise in keeping with Zechariah’s prophecy, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
The word "Hosanna" is a transliteration of a Hebrew phrase that means "please save!" or "help!"
We can see it in the prophecy of Psalm 118, 25Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!
It’s not insignificant that Jesus goes directly to the Temple after this parade, after all he is the perfect festal sacrifice described in Psalm 118.
Some of the skeptics and scoffers in the crowd, otherwise known as the Pharisees say to Jesus in verse 39, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “They are saying that you’re Messiah! Tell them to quit it!”
But Jesus knew what was going on and He accepted the people’s praise because He is in fact Messiah! He said that if He made the people stop the rocks would cry out instead!
Now this is where the “Triumphal Entry” takes a twist; a turn that the people didn’t expect. The people had misunderstood the Messianic hope. Their “hosannas” were a cry for Jesus to save them from their circumstances, to save them from the oppression of the Romans.
People had tried to force Jesus to be their king in the past but He refused it and hid Himself from them, but now here He was finally accepting their nomination and riding triumphantly into the city and in the middle of the parade He stops, no doubt to make a very kingly speech…
Jesus stops the procession and looks from the hillside across the valley at the city of Jerusalem…
A hush falls over the crowd… Jesus is going to speak…
But instead of making an acceptance speech, instead of making a declaration that now is the time for the Romans to go and for His kingdom to be set up and for Him to take His rightful place on the throne of His father David… Instead of saying, “My Fellow Israelites…”
He starts crying. Heartbroken, He weeps over the city and her people.
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 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. 43 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 44 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.”
Can you hear His heart? Can you see His love for God’s chosen people? Can you see His anguish over their rejection of Messiah?
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem wasn’t triumphant, at least not in the way the people wanted, it was tragic.
He was scorned and rejected by the ones He came to save. They wanted Him to conquer the Romans and cleanse the nation and give it back to Israel, that was the triumph they wanted, but instead He came to conquer sin and death and cleanse those who would believe in Him of their sin, and who needs that?!.
That’s not what they wanted, that’s not what the crowd was after, His triumphal entry had totally fizzled!
It’s not that it didn’t go as Jesus wanted but it certainly didn’t go as anyone else wanted…
The people were disappointed and the crowds dissipated, even the Disciples would eventually desert Him.
He wasn’t the kind of king that people wanted… But He certainly is the kind of King that people NEED.
But before we start to feel like we know better than those folks…
Those people wanted a Messiah to save them from our circumstances not their sins.
They wanted a king to conquer Rome and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. But during His trial before Pilate, in John 18, Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world.
Those people wanted a Messiah to save them from our circumstances not their sins. Are we any different?
After all, we can see our circumstances; we can see what our earthly troubles do to us and our families and friends, we pray for sickness to stop, we pray for difficulties to end, we want health and wealth and good times.
We don’t see how Jesus could possibly work through our trouble. How could He possibly want to use our difficulties to make us more like Him?
We want Jesus to conquer America again, we want Him to kick out the ungodly rulers and make this a Christian nation again with laws that honor Him. We have forgotten that He said that His kingdom is not of this world.
The people in that crowd on the first Palm Sunday didn’t trust Jesus to be who He really was. They had no interest in the task that the Father had asked Him to do.
They wanted a political Messiah and He said, “no.”
They wanted Him to save them from their circumstances and He said, “no.”
When given the opportunity to trust Him to be who He is and do what He was there to do, they said, “no.”
What will you say?
Will you trust Jesus Christ to save you from your sin even if He doesn’t save you from your circumstances?
Will you trust Jesus to walk beside you through your circumstances and allow Him to make you more like Himself? Because He promised to do it!
He promised to never leave us! He promised that in this world we will have trouble but to take heart because He has overcome this world!
It doesn’t matter how bad it gets, it will never separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus!
Do you trust Him?
There is coming a day when Jesus will re-enter, this time riding on a white horse not a donkey.
Revelation 19:11-16
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Let’s pray.
[Pray for courage to trust in all circumstances.]
