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April 13, 2003
Jesus’ Storms Jerusalem’s Gates
Jesus’ Storms Jerusalem’s Gates
Psalm 21 / Zechariah 9: 9-10
Luke 19: 29-40
April 13th, 2003
When we put side by side Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with our soldiers’ triumphal entry into Baghdad, there’s not much to compare. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey colt, accompanied by some unarmed disciples. The palace of the Roman governor, Pilate, was quite safe. There was no body count showing that Rome was no match for heaven. Within a week Jesus was hanging on a cross, His body racked with pain. Yet we refer to the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Jesus put great stock in that day. He said, as some protested at His disciples’ palm waving and singing, “If these were silent, the stones would shout out.” What was inscribed in stone that day, we read today, remembering Easter morning would follow soon.
This morning we will try to understand something about God’s idea of winning—because you hope you will win in the game of life. God has planted eternity in our hearts, but what we see when we look around can appear grim. We look down the pike from the vantage point of that Palm Sunday and what do we see?
In 300 years, barbarian tribes were pounding the borders of the Roman Empire. A little more than 400 years later Rome was in ruins, while the faith of Jesus was gradually, quietly, influencing Western society so that hospitals emerged from monasteries to care for the sick—there had never been hospitals before. Universities blossomed to study God’s creation—there had never been universities before. Agriculture developed in the lonely monasteries that evolved in out of the way places. Agriculture allowed many people to be fed who would have starved. Look at your grocery shelves today and thank Jesus for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
But we know the Western world is far from perfect. War, we hope, will someday go the way of the Medieval torture chamber, slavery, religious persecution, and every other curse. But we are far from this. Our prison population numbers more than two million, not all of whom committed the offense they were convicted of. Injustice is an awful curse. We, who think things should happen quickly, that our oak trees should grow as fast as mushrooms, can’t see how God is winning at all when so much is going so wrong.
But God began the serious business of winning on Palm Sunday. Remember, with God a thousand years are like yesterday when it is past, or less than that, a watch in the night. Where do you fit into His plan, you wonder.
You and I have some ideas about winning, of what life is like at its best. We place a very high importance on the present moment and on outward circumstances. It matters to you that your country is strong n__, that our economy is vigorous now, that your wages are secure now, that your health is good or at least well protected. It matters to us that our children have bright economic prospects, that they will marry well—and be happy. And we like it when the Boilermakers win. These things matter maybe more than we’d like to admit. When we sing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” these are what we have in mind.
But God’s interest in us goes much deeper, and God’s projects are far-reaching. For that matter, our desire is much deeper too, and far reaching if we could only find our depths. We want not only to live well but to have significance. We mistake momentary fame for significance. Our society heaps financial rewards often on the least significant, but most famous. We call “celebrities” people who are famous for being famous, rather than for the richness of their contribution to life. They create a haze, a smokescreen to keep us from seeing what is important and lasting. The outward circumstances of our lives are like a smoke screen we can’t see through to get to matters of the heart. So God works on that smoke screen, taking away our sense of security in what is not lasting. Alzheimers disease reveals how feeble, how delicate are our brains. Our vaunted intellectual pride plummets after a small chemical infiltrates the brain. Recession shows the weakness of our proud currency. In what can we trust? Our money proclaims, “In God we trust” ––perhaps as an unintended reminder that we can’t trust in money.
Let’s get back to the first Palm Sunday when God penetrated our smokescreen, our illusions about winning.
It is hard to see that Palm Sunday brought any kind of triumph at all. Jesus came helplessly into the grasp of all His enemies. In a way it was like Tennyson’s description of the “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” in the Crimean War—when England and France fought Russia over the holy places in Jerusalem. It was six hundred men galloping to their death before Russian “Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them, cannons in front of them.” Tennyson wrote:
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
That charge brought a tragic and futile loss of life. Was Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem like the Charge of the Light Brigade?
Even though Jesus was crucified a week after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the claim of triumph has never faded. Every year we hold a Palm Sunday service, with joyful music. And it is not like an Iraqi news minister, the fool in the deck of cards, claiming there were no coalition troops in Baghdad.
What kind of triumph did Jesus enjoy? There is oddness about Jesus’ triumph, but we sense something big was going on. My dear fellow Christians it would be so helpful if we could come to grips with Jesus’ odd triumph, accepting it as our own.
We read from the prophet Zechariah this morning, as we often do on Palm Sunday, because the Gospels quote Zechariah foretelling Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Zechariah lived at a time when the people of Israel were not winners. They were in exile, scattered throughout the ancient world. Away from Jerusalem, away from their Temple, the Jews longed to be home. Oh that Jerusalem might regain its lost glory!
But it was more than homesickness. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” a pious Jew wrote. Could you sing, “He leadeth me, O blessed thought,” in a prisoner of war camp? “What e’er I do, where e’er I be, still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me,” seems much better to sing when God seems to be leading you from success to success.
Things did not go well for the Jews. But the problem was deeper than their exile. What had become of God’s promise to King David, “I will establish your line forever, and your throne as long as the heavens endure?” Where’s your promise, Lord? Are You still as good as Your word? The Jews had reason to wonder if all their established confidence in God was a house of cards. The most devout put it modestly, “God has hidden Himself.” Some Jews said, “There is no God after all.” The psalmist told these disillusioned atheists, “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”
Devout Jews trusted that the promise of God to Abraham extended his blessing through all time. At least the prophets remembered it was a promise of blessing to all nations. How could this promise of universal blessing be kept if Israel, God’s special people, were scattered throughout the countries of the earth? Their sacred city was destroyed. The Temple, where God chose to live on earth, was a pile of rubble. When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, Baghdad had all the muscle and God’s people were helpless. Where was God in all this?
Seventy years passed, and the Jews could not forget from what heights they had fallen. In this difficult time God chose Zechariah, living in what we would now call Iran, to speak to the Jews. “Thus says the Lord of hosts; return to me . . . and I will return to you. . . Do not be like your ancestors.” He told them, “Your ancestors deserved this exile.” “The Lord has dealt with us according to our ways and deeds, just as he planned to do.”
It must have been very hard for Zechariah to talk straight talk to his people. Who likes to hear when you’re down, “You got what was coming to you.” The first order of business for God’s people was to get their hearts right. It still is. In the short-run, all that you and I can handle, has to do with the state of our hearts.
The heart is private. I recently saw a picture of my innards. That’s what I’m like inside?! Yuk! But our hearts are even deeper than that. The Jews, just like you and me, thought more in terms of outward circumstances than of the importance of the heart. It is possible to drift along with outward circumstances going smoothly, while the heart is gradually decaying. We seldom take inventory of our hearts until things go wrong.
The quality of life in ancient Israel had gone down hill fast from the beginning. The time came when they were not recognizable to themselves or to God as His people. But they still claimed to be God’s people. It was like our slogan, “In God we trust” that even an atheist has on his dollar bill.
But their claims to be God’s people didn’t matter much when idol worship was as common in their towns as it was among the Philistines. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Injustice made of the courts a mockery. Sexual morality was a joke. Sinful meant “fun.” God let Israel’s heart-sickness take its course, and the nation fell.
In exile the Jews remembered from what they had fallen. The people who heard Zechariah knew he was right. But it’s so hard to get serious about matters of the heart. Long habit has inertia.
Zechariah spoke God’s message to his people as they struggled to keep motivated in rebuilding the Temple, “I have returned to Jerusalem with compassion; my house shall be built in it. . . my cities shall again overflow with prosperity.” It sure didn’t seem like this was true. What did he mean when he wrote, “Rejoice. . . shout aloud . . . your king comes triumphant and victorious?”
Two truths emerge as I think of Zechariah’s message in light of Palm Sunday—one truth we can act on in the short run, one truth we can trust for the long run. First, that God expected holy living from his people. No matter where they lived in exile or in Jerusalem, God wanted them to return to Him freely, from the heart. God still sees His people this way. We dare to think we are included as His people. It matters how you live now. We are not just a bundle of nerve endings and appetites. It matters how you live. You and I are called to live holy lives. The idea sounds strange today. Holiness has come to seem an option, not a necessity for a Christian. What’s your life like?
Second, God’s triumph in Jerusalem would not be in the ordinary way, nor as fast as people wished. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts.”
Lois read for us this morning, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion . . . Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious . . . riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Triumphant? Victorious? We see God hinting at the unusual way He would defeat Israel’s enemies, and fulfill the promise He made to King David. “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” It would be a conquest of love rather than war. War spawns more war. Defeated people seek revenge. But love conquers all. Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem had no hints of belligerence. It was ostentatiously gentle. It was God’s power muted. And the muted love of God triumphed in Jesus. How so, you wonder. Well, remember the Cross. We now sing “Lift High the Cross.” We have a slight sense of its power. Remember what all claim on EASTER –– Easter’s triumph too is muted.
One of the blessings of life we are taught from the past is that success in life is not always what it seems at the moment. On Palm Sunday it was as it is now –– “We have not yet experienced God’s fulfilled plan.” Patience, endurance, waiting were essential to Jesus’ life. They are still essential to living the Jesus-life. Jesus does not apologize that the life of following Him has so many resemblances to his life –– that we too must wait, and bear with the purifying power of longing for God’s big triumph over sin and death.
Throughout His life, Jesus kept before Him, “My will is to do the will of my Father in heaven.” And He followed that course of life to the end. And who will deny the success of Jesus’ life. A time will come when “every knee will bow to him, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” And they will do so happily, cheerfully, radiantly. There will be more joy then, that we can understand, than there was on Palm Sunday that people could not understand.
There is a saying I used to hear quite often, “Only one life, t’will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” This is a clue that we can partly understand. We can see that a life lived in obedience to Jesus somehow looks better, even when momentary financial, health, or other struggles come. The victory of Palm Sunday came first in Jesus’ obedience to the will of His Father. The long-range victory waited to come. We still wait to see its full measure. But in the meanwhile, ride your life in majesty. Quietly, privately, live as though the most important thing of all is doing Jesus’ will. Then you will be winning in the way that matters now. And you will share in the joy of Jesus’ ultimate victory when that time comes.
Let us pray: O Lord, thank you for Jesus, who was faithful unto death. Thank you that He rode into Jerusalem that day, and was triumphant over my sin and death. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at April 13, 2003 09:30 AM