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Our scripture reading this morning comes from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 21. Please turn with me now.
When they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethpage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowd said, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.”
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the son of David,” they were indignant. And they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?”
And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise?’”
And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, you have prepared for yourself praise to come in all generations; a praise that we join in at the thoughts of your first coming and a praise that we long for and hope to join in as well at the thought of, and at the advent of your return. Build us up in hope. Let us see the joy in what you have done for us and what you do in us, and what you shall do with us. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, I have a very serious question to ask all of you this morning, and although I do not want a verbal answer, I implore you to strongly consider this question, to honestly think about it, and to earnestly pray about it for as long as necessary: When was the last time you were excited about Jesus?
I mean really excited, like newborn baby or wedding excited. When was the last time you were excited about the gospel of God’s grace and sharing about the glory of our King to everyone around you? I would wager that in each of our cases, few of us can name a specific date and time when we were last that excited.
And I’m ashamed of myself for this because I too share in this same conviction. When we first became Christians, when we were first converted to faith in Jesus Christ and our hearts were regenerated by his Holy Spirit, we felt as if we were on fire for the Lord. We became zealous for our newfound faith, and we were supported by the joy we felt knowing that we have been saved, justified before God in Christ, forgiven of all of our sins, and rescued from the power of damnation and guilt which they have had held over us.
We were delivered from the everlasting curse of death and eternal separation from the love of God. We became like the drowning man who was pulled into a boat and then immediately began calling out for others to swim towards him so that they too may find rescue. We became like a child who wants to share their favorite toy because they want someone else to join them and share in their fun.
We became like the man from Plato’s Cave who, after he saw the sun shining for the first time, tries to bring his companions out from their place of cold shadows and darkness to instead come stand out in the open, in the light of life.
But then that fire that fills us may seem to cool; it smolders within many, while in others it burns itself out quickly and turns cold. Yet in others, the fire settles down into a consistent and steady flame and is thus maintained, consistent, never going out but also infrequently growing.
So what kind of flame is presently burning within your heart? A roaring fire? A steady flame? Smoldering embers? Or maybe the fire of faith has nearly gone out, but you hope that there is yet a spark which may be fanned into a roaring inferno once more?
I hope and pray that your heart is a steady and consistent flame, but even if it is that kind of fire, it needs fuel to be constantly and regularly added to it, just as much as the one that is smoldering. Every one of us needs to have some spiritual oil added to counteract the quenching and watering influence of the world and the devil, or even against our own hesitancy or attempts to conserve our spiritual energy.
And the only person that can add that kind of fuel to the fire of our heart is Jesus Christ, by the ministering of His Holy Spirit and the reading, hearing, and studying of His holy word. We must let him fan our heart flames into such a roaring fire that everyone around us can see it, to remind them and us about why Christians are meant to be so joyful.
And this is part of why we set aside particular special Sundays each year to emphasize particular moments in Jesus’s life and with our faith. Palm Sunday today is one of those days because we remember and we try to recapture some of the joy felt by the crowds of people as Jesus of Nazareth rode into town. They were exceedingly joyful, and they sang his praises that day.
Yet by the end of the week, the fire of their joy had burned itself out, and the encouraging heat of their welcome was transformed into the agonizing chill of winter’s despair because too many did not truly understand what Jesus Christ’s coming actually meant for them.
The story of Jesus, as told through the four gospels, presents the general consensus that he was accepted by most as being a prophet of God, from the crowds who followed him to the priests who tested him. Even Nicodemus, a Pharisee himself, admits that his frequent opponents recognized him as being sent from the Lord.
One practice which ancient Israelite prophets were known for engaging in was what we call sign acts, where they performed actions that symbolized something far greater than what they did. For example, the whole story of the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer is one rather long prophetic sign act.
So we should not be surprised then, as the gospel narrative moves toward its climax, we see Jesus engaging in similar sign acts just like the prophets of old. Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, a few days before the Passover Festival, is a very familiar story for every longtime Christian, and it is often one of our favorite stories.
Whenever we remember this occasion, our hearts become raised in worship and praise, and it often feels like we get to enjoy a foretaste of what life will be like when we are all gathered around the heavenly throne, glorifying God for all that he is—for being the Lord, nothing more and nothing less.
Handel captured this sense of joy and worship, sharing it with us in his oratorio, the Messiah, in the song, ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates,’ as he quotes David’s words from Psalm 24: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.”
But on this day, the crowds of Jerusalem stopped whatever they were doing and turned to honor this man riding upon the foal of a donkey because he is Jesus of Nazareth—the prophet from Galilee, the wise rabbi who teaches God’s Torah with authority, the miracle worker, the healer, and exerciser of demons.
Their proclamation and response to his appearance also names him by their hope as their Savior and King, crying out, “Hosanna to the son of David! Save us, our rightful King!” They were so joyfully exuberant because they recognized Jesus for who he is—the King of Glory. They were responding in hope, but they quickly turned against him because he did not come to do what they hoped the Messiah would do. Their hopes were proven false.
Jesus did not come to overthrow and drive out the Romans, nor did he come to re-establish the Davidic monarchy. He came to overthrow the greater powers of sin and death and to take his place on God’s eternal throne, as promised to King David, to reign over all and to judge the people of this world as the righteous and just King Jesus truly is our sovereign King—the only hope for salvation and life—who has come to rule over and for all of God’s elect.
But only those to whom the Holy Spirit grants the gracious gift of faith joyfully receive him as such. Everything about Jesus’s triumphal entry proclaims this one truth, and it affects everyone like gasoline on a fire—whether we love him or hate him—the idea of Jesus’s kingship inflames our hearts.
The gospel writer Matthew explains that Jesus riding in on the donkey was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy and an obvious declaration of Jesus’s claim to Davidic kingship. We’re also reminded by our understanding of the culture that his choice of mount was a clear statement concerning the character of his rule.
The king riding upon a horse was a symbol of war, of conflict, and their victory through battle, whereas a king riding upon a donkey was a sign of his land being at peace and as a further sign of personal humility. Our joyfulness in Christ should be inflamed because of what the whole of this prophetic sign means for God’s people.
Zechariah wrote, “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. And I will cut off the chariots from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.”
The prophet commands that all the Lord’s people are to rejoice, to shout praise, and give God glory when their King appears because of what his presence promises to them—peace. Peace for God’s people who no longer would have to fight for their land or their safety and security. Peace to and for all the many nations of the world because he shall rule over them all, establishing true peace by his word—not a promise for an end to all conflicts, although that becomes the consequence.
This is a promise of an end to division between men, an end to division between nations, and an end to the division between men and God. Peace shall be the rule; Shalom shall be the standard. And when the King comes, we shall be made truly whole and complete. He shall come and he shall bring us what we have been missing.
And then Zechariah continues, “As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit; return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope! Today I declare that I will restore to you double.”
To the elect, to God’s chosen covenant people, the prophet says that because of the Lord’s promises, because of the costly covenant which he sovereignly chose to make with and for his people, they would be set free from the waterless pit—from a place of death, a deep dry pit where nothing can long survive or live, a place of absolute separation from the blessings of the Lord and Giver of Life—a place that we often do not even recognize ourselves as being trapped in.
We’ve been imprisoned for so long that we have forgotten the sound of the wind, the feel of the sun shining on our faces, the sweetness of water, and the taste of bread. We are prisoners, but by our hearing and by believing the prophet’s words, we become the prisoners of hope, the beneficiaries of God’s covenant promises. And when the King comes, we shall be truly set free.
We shall be raised up from out of the pit of despair and be restored. We shall receive a positive doubling as we will be elevated above and beyond the place of our fall. We shall be raised from death to life, to an eternally abundant life, as our dead calcified souls, which have been long imprisoned by our sins, will be set free. They will be transformed and we shall become living spirits—the adopted children of our God and King, the Sovereign Lord.
Those crowds in Jerusalem who saw Jesus riding in as both their King and Savior cried out, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” quoting from Psalm 118: “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.” They worshiped and blessed Jesus, believing that the Lord’s anointed king who had come to save them; thus they called “Hosanna.” But they did not understand; they were mistaken about the salvation which they should have been hoping for.
First-century Judea was a land under foreign authority. The holy city of Jerusalem, of Zion, was occupied by the Romans—enemies of Israel and the Lord. Many of the Jews believed; they hoped, and some even feared that King Jesus had come to cast out the Romans, to overthrow the Herodian dynasty, to restore the glory of David’s throne, and to re-establish civil, Torah-compliant peace in the land.
They were concerned that King Jesus would unite all of the different Jewish factions, just as King David had once united the tribes, and then he would reclaim all of God’s promised land once more. Jesus’s kingly entry inspired the hope for a free Israel in the hearts of the people, and he also inspired fear in the hearts of those who held the reins of power.
They feared that his coming would disrupt the satisfactory status quo, that he would end the land’s present calm and inspire a return to the violent conflicts of the Hasmonean period, that he would provoke Rome’s anger to bring about the final destruction of Israel and their Jewish life.
Instead, what they should have been hoping for was the real freedom found only in the Lord—freedom from sin and sinfulness, freedom from fear, freedom from death, freedom from all divisions, freedom to be obedient and to live their best life according to God’s appointed chief end.
That’s because they were disappointed at not receiving the fulfillment of the lesser desired blessing; they could not enjoy God’s higher and greater and unlooked-for blessing. And although the people’s hope of temporal salvation was a mistaken hope, the authorities were correct to fear this coming of the humble King Jesus because he had come with the power and authority of divine judgment.
He came to restore the Lord’s peace and overthrow all of their different systems of division, of race, of nation, of creed and interpretation. But now this triumphal procession led Jesus directly up to the temple—the only suitable destination in Jerusalem for the Lord’s anointed to go and be named King by popular acclamation.
But Jesus did not go up there to receive a crown; he went up to render judgment. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Again, as with his choice of a humble mount, everything that Jesus did that day has prophetic meaning and is of far greater importance than we recognize at first. See, those money changers were a necessary part of Jewish society, serving an important role in the temple cult because every person paying the temple tax had to convert their offering into the local Jewish currency; Roman coins were stamped with an idolatrous image of the emperor.
So at the core, their work and presence was not sinful or offensive, but unscrupulous merchants would make unfair and exorbitant exchanges, thus taking advantage of worshipers. There were also merchants who would charge more than an animal’s value, selling them for an extra, selling pigeons and other animals to worshipers for an extreme profit to offer a sacrifice.
This practice of selling these sacrifices was deemed acceptable and necessary because of the different challenges and inconveniences of Jewish pilgrims bringing their own animals from home, walking from all across Judea to there to Jerusalem, to the temple.
So, there was nothing wrong, sinful, or prohibited about their actions or presence that warranted divine judgment on its face. Yet they had become problematic because of where these transactions were happening on the temple grounds and because they were exploiting God’s faith, and that is what Jesus was condemning when he overturned their tables and accused them of transforming his father’s house into a den of robbers.
And although the other gospels recount this event with greater emphasis upon Jesus’s righteous anger or the violence of his zealotry for the Lord, Matthew frames the story with Jesus’s quotation from Isaiah 56:7: “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” framing this prophetic sign act and giving us more cause to rejoice.
Isaiah wrote, “And the foreigners who joined themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant; these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.” This sign speaks to the inclusion of the Gentiles and of all other different categories of outcasts into the family of the Lord, which gives us our cause to be joyful.
We’re invited to be with God. We are to be included as his people. Is that not reason enough to be excited in our faith? Jesus’s act of declarative judgment also creates space for all the marginalized and lost to approach the Lord and receive mercy, grace, and healing.
As Matthew continues, “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.” Recall that the blind and the lame were social and religious outcasts prohibited from entering the temple grounds because their disabilities rendered them ritually unclean. They were kept separated and were treated as less than human, as being worse than a pagan Gentile.
But Jesus brought them close to himself. He healed them and invited them back into fellowship with the Lord. Jesus’s coming and his welcome of these outcasts was a further sign and suggestion that soon even more people will be brought close—that soon even the Gentiles would be brought into God’s presence.
Thus Jesus fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy: “The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered,” a fact which Jesus also alludes to in John, saying, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
When he spoke about those not of this fold, the Sovereign King Jesus welcomed these outcasts into his father’s house. He welcomes all who desire to earnestly come and worship the Lord because everyone who comes is drawn there by God.
This was absolutely outrageous to the religious authorities of the day, who were willing to facilitate, exploit, and benefit from the sacrifices of these outcasts and Gentile God-fearers so long as they remained at a distance outside.
They did believe the scriptures which prophesied that one day the nations would come to Zion for worship and justice, but they interpreted such that they retained a prominent position of honor so that only the truly righteous might enter into the Lord’s close presence.
They were almost right by their practices, but they were also completely missing the mark. The Lord said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” not, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all Israel,” while the Gentiles must only pray out on the front lawn.
God’s house—the temple built upon Mount Zion in the city of Jerusalem—has always been meant for everyone to enjoy as the place where all of the elect will come to worship the Lord, whether they be Jews, Samaritans, or Gentiles.
See, Jesus practiced the most radical form of inclusivity, inviting and welcoming all who would come to the Lord by faith, regardless of their national or ethnic origins. Everyone who is called by the Lord and given faith by his sovereign grace may and must come into His holy presence to receive his mercy and the forgiveness of our sins.
Everyone who earnestly desires it may enjoy fellowship with God, rather than enmity or the suffering of his just wrath and righteous anger, so that now we may dwell in peace, in Shalom, rather than the division of sin and under the dominion of Satan.
Is that not an idea to fan the flames of your faith, pouring oil unto the fire of joy in your heart? Is that not good news—the greatest news imaginable? Can you not sing, “I’ve got joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart”? Does that not make you excited?
You should be excited for yourself, and you should be excited to tell others about what Jesus has done for you. For us, it should! If you believe that the good news is true, and if you believe that it is truly good news for you, then you should also believe that it is good news which other people need to hear.
You should want them to have the same level of excitement as you; you should want them to experience the same depth of joy that you do. This is not something you should want to keep to yourself. It is something you must not keep to yourself.
If you honestly believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news, then the meanest, cruelest, and most hateful thing that you can ever do to another person is to not tell them all about Jesus and what he has done for you.
Not only is it the duty and obligation of every Christian—your duty and obligation to ensure that every one of your friends and every member of your family hears the gospel and has the opportunity to respond to Christ’s call—it is the express commandment of Christ himself.
If we are to be obedient to Jesus, then we must do as he has said. He has commanded us, through his disciples, to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, and whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
So you see, we must proclaim the gospel. And to do that, we must keep our fires burning hot, and we should use our excitement and the joy of our salvation to drive our witness. Let our cries of “Hosanna! Save us, we pray!” become the grateful “Hallelujah! Let us praise the Lord!” and let us invite everyone to join our chorus.
But if we have no fire, if we surrender our joy and excitement about the gospel, then we risk becoming like the religious authorities of Jesus’s day. We risk becoming like the Pharisees, the chief priests, and the scribes—every one of them faithful and diligent church attendees who, when they heard the crowds cry out and they saw all that Jesus did and understood what his coming represented, they were indignant.
They were upset because they did not like what Jesus was doing; they did not like what he represented or what his appearance meant for the practitioners of dead religion like them, doers of good and righteous works but lacking faith in the Lord. They certainly did not appreciate how he upset their status quo with his radical inclusion, so they sought to thwart God’s will of giving himself to the many by jealously hoarding access to God’s presence.
See, Jesus’s coming poured fuel on the fires of faith, but those who opposed him tried to quench the flame and stamp out his religious revolution. Soon the jubilant crowds turned ugly and cruel as their hopeful shouts of “Hosanna!” were quickly transformed into the hateful cry, “Crucify him!”
They lost the excitement and the joy of the gospel. So let me ask you again: Are you excited about the good news of Jesus Christ? I wouldn’t mind an answer this time. Are you excited about the good news of Jesus Christ? Are you excited about the good news of Jesus Christ?
There we go! Is the fire of your faith burning strong? Does it feel like it’s going out, or has your fire never been kindled? If your fire is burning strong, then keep fanning those flames and keep adding fuel to the fire. But if it is weakening or you fear that it may be going out, then pray that Jesus will stoke it himself, build it up, and pour the oil of joy into your heart.
And if your heart is cold, then now is the time to ask Christ to strike the matter and set your soul on fire. Cry out, “Hosanna!” and accept his gracious gift of deliverance. Experience the joy of the Lord and join us to sing, “Hallelujah!” Amen! Amen!
Please stand as we say what I certainly hope we all believe and gladly and joyfully affirm as we say the words of the Nicene Creed.
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We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty… is it… is it or is it the Apostles? (in there Apostles?) Okay, we’ll go with the Apostles. Through God the Father Almighty.