Jesus as king – Zechariah 9:9 (the whole point of the entry)
- riding a donkey means riding in peace
People's acceptance (based on prophecy, also on Jesus' miracles)
Jesus as Lord (God calls items to need when he needs them)
What is Jesus' opinion – despite the greeting, they have not recognised the Christ “that will bring them peace”
Jesus drives traders out of the temple – evidence of the city's attitude to God
Religious leaders have denied him – trying to kill him
Words
If you have someone important coming over to your house, do you prepare for it? Your parents, perhaps, or your boss, or some important business partner, maybe a member of parliament – whoever the important people are that you generally have around for dinner, when you know they're coming, do you change anything in your house? Clean up a bit, perhaps? Cook something special? Use the best glasses and silverware? We might call this the red carpet treatment, and although we don't see red carpets used a lot any more, one place you still see them regularly is at big movie premieres. When the movie is showing for the first time, and all the movie stars and directors and producers are going in their best dresses and suits, pulling up in their limousines, they roll out the red carpet for them. And you know it's just for them, because if you go and see the movie the next day, they don't roll out any carpet for you. They just rip your ticket in half, point you towards the cinema your movie is in, and charge you an excessively large price for popcorn.
Important people are treated importantly, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is all part of how we show that we respect and admire those people for what they do. Political leaders, for example, deserve to be respected because they work hard at their jobs of leading and managing our country. We are not fantastic at such respect here in Australia. We call our Prime Minister Kev, you can just walk up and shake his hand, and if you want to argue with him or make fun of him in a TV interview, you just do it. America is really good at respecting their leaders though – everyone always addresses the president as Mr President, everyone must stand when he enters the room, you are even restricted in the sorts of questions you can ask him and how you treat him – no yelling at the president or making bad jokes at his expense on television.
Now, these days with private planes and helicopters and such, our leaders travel around a lot more than they used to. It used to be that if your country's leader left to go somewhere, that was a big deal. Usually it was only for a war or for an important political matter that they would leave, because the travel could take weeks or months, and so when they would return people would come out in groups to greet them, because it was quite an event. So now imagine this – that instead of your country's leader being away for weeks, or months, or even years, imagine he has been away for centuries. A leader who you knew would one day come and lead your people into a time of peace and wealth and happiness. A king that God himself promised he would send.
In Luke's gospel in chapter 19, we read of exactly this happening. A man called Jesus has spent several years moving around the towns and villages of the land, preaching, teaching, even performing miracles, and generally bringing the message that God's promised king has arrived, and that he is that king. Now, as he has always planned, Jesus finally makes his way to Jerusalem, his nation's capital. There is an air of anticipation as to how he is going to be received there. He is followed by a large group of people, hundreds of people who call themselves his disciples, his students. But he stops just outside the city, on a hill, because there is a problem. As king, one does not simply walk into Jerusalem. He should be properly mounted, and properly greeted. Jesus, of course, is not your regular sort of king. He wasn't born in a palace, he was born in a stable. He wasn't rich, he was the son of a carpenter. And he didn't travel around mounted on a noble steed, he walked around like a common man.
But this was going to be his grand entrance, so he tells two of his disciples to go into town and fetch him a colt, in this case it turns out to be a young donkey. Jesus doesn't want just any colt, though. Jesus wants a specific colt. He tells his disciples where they will find it tied, and what is so special about it. It has never been ridden before . Requesting such a thing is very bold, because only powerful royalty, or in fact God himself, can request to use something that has never before been used. To claim the first ride of a young donkey is quite an honour – especially when it's not even your donkey!
Imagine if you'd just bought a new car, had it delivered to your front yard, it has never been driven before, you're aching to take it out for a spin, see how it handles, enjoy that new car smell. But then, a couple of guys turn up and take the keys and hop in, about to drive it off. What would you do? You'd say, “Oi! What do you think you're doing with my brand new car?” And rightly so. Jesus had thought of this eventuality, though. He told his disciples that if anyone is to ask why they are untying this donkey and leading it away, they are to respond, “The Lord needs it.” God needs it. So sure enough, they head down into the village, and they see the donkey exactly where Jesus said it would be. They start untying it, and the owner comes out and says, “Hey, what do you think you're doing with my brand new donkey?” and the disciples say, “Well, the Lord needs it.”
What if God was to call some precious thing of yours into his service? What would your response be? You see, you don't get told that it will be returned to you unscathed, or even at all. You might never see it again. You don't get told whether it's going to be used to achieve some special purpose, or if it's just going to be used as a symbol for God's power to take it away from you. You might say, “Well, of course, if God asked me to give it, I would give it gladly – my car, my house, my money, whatever.” Well, let me tell you something. I have seen several Christian parents, and grandparents, disagree with their children's decision to go and serve God overseas in difficult or dangerous places, because they are afraid of never seeing their grandchildren again, of something bad happening to them, or even of just seeing them less regularly. Think about that – if God called your children to become missionaries to a deadly place, if God was calling them to die in a faraway land, or to have one of their children die, one of your grandchildren die, what would you say to God? He comes and says, “The Lord needs it.” How would you respond?
The owners of this colt relent to this request, and the disciples come back to Jesus with his special, never-before-ridden donkey. It's important that it's a donkey, too. You might say, well, what difference does it make? Think of it like this – if a king enters a city at the head of his troops, inside a tank or an armoured car with a big gun on top, what sort of message is he sending? That is obviously a warrior king, ready for war and conquering. So, instead of riding a brilliant, large warhorse into Jerusalem, Jesus opts for the peaceful vehicle of the time – a donkey – an animal used by merchants, not soldiers. Jesus is the king that brings peace to his people, not war. There is another reason, too. This entry into Jerusalem was promised by God, prophesied beforehand in the book of Zechariah, 400 years earlier. In Zechariah 9:9 it states, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The king will come in peace, on a donkey, not warlike on a warhorse. That is how God has planned it, that is how Jesus does it.
And as Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem, he was welcomed like a king. The Bible says that people were taking off their coats and laying them on the ground as his donkey approached, the ancient equivalent of rolling out the red carpet. They were also, as the prophecy of Zechariah says, joyfully praising God in loud voices, for all the miracles that they had seen Jesus do. Some shouted, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”, others quoted Psalm 118 and said, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” It's quite a fine procession, really – Jesus on someone's brand new donkey, disciples rolling out the red carpet by putting coats down on the road for him to travel over, and the shouts of praise and blessing as he rides towards the nation's capital, Jerusalem.
But then, some people come to try and ruin it. Specifically, these people are the ruling religious leaders in Jerusalem, the Pharisees. They don't like the fact that Jesus is proclaiming to have been sent by God. They don't appreciate the challenge that he is giving to their position as leaders by calling himself king, nor do they appreciate the trouble he might stir up with the ruling Roman governor by riding into Jerusalem as if he owns the place. So they come out and they tell Jesus, “Hey, teacher, tell your students to keep quiet. You're going to cause trouble.” The Pharisees might not be happy that their country is currently being ruled by a foreign power, but they also don't want unnecessary trouble being caused so close to the yearly passover feast. Besides, as far as they know, this Jesus can't be the promised king from God – he disagrees with the Pharisees too much. So they come out and tell him to make his disciples stop causing such a racket.
And they would be perfectly in their rights to do so, as well, except for one thing – Jesus really is the promised king from God. So no matter how much trouble it might cause, no matter how much they might disagree, Jesus is the king, and he must be greeted and welcomed on his way into the city. God demands it. And so Jesus says to the Pharisees, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will cry out.” Jesus, the king from God, has come, and if the people do not sing his praises, the very stones will do it, because no-one can get in the way of the will of God. Things will happen the way God wants them to happen no matter what we do.
Now we imagine this picture – Jesus riding on someone else's brand new donkey, the disciples laying down their coats as a red carpet, and singing God's praises and blessings on Jesus as he rides into the city – and it sounds like an important procession. But unfortunately, it is fake. The king isn't fake – Jesus really is the king of the world, sent by God. The respect and admiration of the disciples isn't fake – no doubt they really believe what they were shouting. The fake part is the response of the city itself. They did not roll out the carpet. They did not sing God's praises. The only response Jesus got from the city was a bunch of Pharisees telling the disciples to keep the noise down. Jesus knows the ignorance of the people, and it upsets him. He weeps over the city and its rejection of the peace he offers them. These were his words as he approached the walls:
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come on you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognise the time of God's coming to you.”
Because Jesus' entry into the city of Jerusalem was not just the entry of a chosen king into a nation's capital. It was the time of God's coming – the entry of God himself, on earth, into his chosen city. Jesus, Son of God, has arrived at the city, offering peace. Not just peace from war, peace from other nations, or peace from internal dissent. God, in Jesus, is offering an eternal peace, peace with God forever, that we might no longer be God's enemies through our rebellion against him. But the people of the world, represented by those in Jerusalem, didn't accept him. They rejected or ignored him and his peaceful entry. And so Jesus wept for them, because when you make yourself an enemy of God, God always wins the fight, and you always lose.
The next day, Jesus entered the temple courts, and he found a gross example of the fact that the people were ignoring God. Inside the temple to God, merchants had set up shop. They were selling animals, oil, bread, salt and wine temple for sacrifices, offering money changing for paying of the temple tax, and possibly even selling trinkets or souvenirs to visitors. Now there is nothing wrong with selling these things. I mean, there's no rule saying you have to bring your sacrificial stuff all the way from your house a hundred miles away. You can buy it in town, of course. At the beginning of the book of Luke, Joseph and Mary take the baby Jesus to Jerusalem and make a sacrifice for him of two doves – which I'll bet they bought beforehand. But there is a difference between selling things that are needed, and taking up an area in the temple set aside for prayer as a marketplace. There is a difference between being a lawyer (a respectable profession) and chasing an ambulance to offer the person inside injury compensation. It's the difference between having a Christian bookstall outside the church hall, and having the preacher sell copies of his latest book in the middle of his sermon.
There is a place for doing such things, and the temple area set aside for prayer was not the right place. So Jesus goes in there and starts throwing tables over, driving out the businesspeople who are prepared to do their trading inside the temple. In doing this, he is setting out his authority. He's the one who the day before rode into town like a king. Now he's cleaning out the temple, showing his God-given authority over the place where God resides with his people. He's doing what the high priest or the Pharisees should have done, but were not doing. And as he turns the tables over and shoos the merchants out, he shouts at them God's words from the Bible. “My house will be a house of prayer” he says, quoting Isaiah regarding the future promise that God will call people to himself to worship him, but these merchants have made his house “a den of robbers”, now quoting Jeremiah when he stood at the temple gates and shouted at people for their false religion, for pretending to worship God.
This is exactly the situation Jesus found on arriving in Jerusalem – he came to bring peace to the people, peace with God so that they might be able to come into his presence and worship. What he found instead were people pretending to worship God, but really just doing their own thing. Jesus would stay in Jerusalem one more week, telling the people who he was, angering the leadership so much that they would plot to kill him. But people enjoyed listening to him, so it took a week until finally the leaders seize their chance and have him killed by nailing him to a cross. But he is the Son of God, so not even death can defeat him. Instead, he was raised to life three days later, to prove that everything he said was true – that he is the king sent by God, that he is God's son, and that he comes offering peace with God to those who will accept his authority.
How will you react to his approach? Jesus isn't just asking for your donkey. He is demanding your allegiance. He is king over the whole world, he is God, and he demands that you drop down on one knee and obey him. You might have lived your whole life like one of those people in the city, who was just ignorant about Jesus, or maybe a little bit interested to hear what he had to say, but never really thought about it too much, never took it seriously. Well, Jesus is offering you peace with God forever. Perhaps you have lived your life like one of the Pharisees – plotting against God, angry with him, working against his plan, telling him to keep the noise down so that you can get on with living your life the way you think it should be. Remember what I said – when you make an enemy of God, God always wins, and you always lose. But Jesus is riding his donkey of peace, and he is offering you amnesty for your rebellion against him. If you accept his authority as God, and change your attitude to be like one of the disciples, giving up things for him, laying down your coat for him, singing praise to him, then you, even you, can receive the peace that he has on offer.
Jesus promised he would return, and he said when he comes back, it won't be on a donkey. It will be on a warhorse. When he comes back, it's too late for peace. If you are his enemy, he will dash you to the ground. So take the offer of peace while it is still good, and surrender to Jesus, the Christ, the king of God. Pray with me now,
Heavenly father,
I acknowledge that you are the ruler over all the universe, over everything and everyone, including me. I recognise that you sent Jesus into this world as your king, God on earth, to bring us a message of peace. I apologise for rebelling against him, for ignoring him, or for not taking him seriously. I want to accept your offer of eternal peace with you, your offer of amnesty. I want to roll out the red carpet and welcome Jesus as Lord. Help me to become one of your disciples, to give up my donkey, to lay down my coat, to sing your praises and welcome Jesus in his rightful place as ruler over my life. By his authority I pray to you,
Amen
You may have prayed prayers like that many times, and there is no harm in doing it again. But if that was the first time you have ever seriously prayed to God to accept you as a disciple, then I would urge you to come and talk to me, or one of the members of this church, to find out more about what it means to be a student of Jesus. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Thanks for listening.
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