Palm Sunday: The King Arrives

This Easter weekend's theme is king of kings. That's a theme we've actually run with in the past for Christmas. And so perhaps you could think that that fits more with the glory, the majesty of, you know, the frankincense and the gold and the myrrh that were given to Jesus at his birth. But king of kings is really also suitable for Easter. And so in view of that, it is fitting for us to look at Palm Sunday, the arrival of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem with all the symbolism of his kingship and what it entailed, even in a surprising way.

We're going to look at the initial inkling of that kingship that we see bubbling away to the surface like a brief flash of gold, of a nugget covered in mud and mire, where we see for an instant a glimpse of majesty, for a moment a glimpse of power and authority. On that fateful day, a glimmer of gold, a streak of royal purple, a twinkling of splendour was seen, but only for a moment. Let's turn to Matthew 21 and read of the triumphal entry. Matthew 21, verse 1. Now when Jesus and the disciples drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on 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 fulfil 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 crowd 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 saying, who is this?

And the crowds said, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who sold and bought in the temple. And he turned over 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 people are saying? 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. In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.

And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. He said to it, may no fruit ever come from you again. And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they marvelled saying, how did the fig tree wither at once? And Jesus answered them, truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen.

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. So far, our reading. There's a lot that happens in these verses, particularly our triumphal entry verses 1 through to verse 11. But as we dig through these verses, we'll see that it is absolutely laden with symbolism and meaning. It is full of surprises.

It is full of insinuation, full of undertones and overtones, all of them pointing to one theme: Jesus is king. Jesus is king. So I want to say to you the thing that we need to know this morning. The one thing that I want you to take away from this morning is that Jesus is the king.

He is king over our lives. He is king over the world. He is king over the trajectory of mankind now and forever. And we see this in the multilayered way that our passage has been explained to us. Three points this morning that I want us to see.

Firstly, from our passage verses 1 through to 11, we see a confronting king. It's one of the more obvious things about the triumphal entry, and that is the sort of entrance that Jesus had as he came into the city of Jerusalem. The palm fronds that are being waved, the people celebrating and shouting, the cloaks that are thrown on the ground, these all point to royalty. For a first century audience, what was happening here was not surprising or unusual. It was clear as day.

This is what you do when royalty enters the city. It's one of the most obvious takeaways from this episode in the gospels. When Jesus entered Jerusalem that day, they were saying a king has arrived. And yet something deeper is also happening. And the deeper thing, the surprising thing is that Jesus accepts this title.

Jesus accepts this reception. Because if you think back to the three years of Jesus' ministry, the times where he healed people, the times where he drove out demons, what did he tell them? He said, don't tell anyone what I've done. Don't bring me praise. Don't point back to me.

Why? Well, I think one reason is he didn't want people to interfere with the ministry that he needed to do. And yet here on Palm Sunday, he surprisingly decides to reverse this. In verses 2 and 3, he tells his disciples to go and run ahead, to go and fetch a donkey and a baby donkey, a colt. When they are asked, who is this for?

They are to reply, it is for the Lord. Not simply is Jesus accepting an identification of royalty. Jesus is initiating that identification. It is for the Lord that this donkey is given. As he rides into Jerusalem, he accepts the very public praise and adoration.

Why? Why does all of this happen now? Because the time of the secret Messiah is over. His time to be crowned is at hand. Just before his entry into Jerusalem in chapter 20 of Matthew, Jesus heals two blind men on his way up from Jericho.

They announced in the streets very loudly that Jesus is the son of David. Then Jesus heals these two blind men. In doing so, Jesus accepts the title son of David. Jesus doesn't correct them. Meanwhile, here at the triumphal entry, the people in the streets cry out, Hosanna, meaning God save us.

And Jesus again accepts the public declaration that he is the answer of God's salvation. Now whether the crowd realised that this is God in the flesh, well, it's probably not the case. But the significance of those statements is just as powerful. Remember, it's the Holy Spirit that made sure these people shouted these words. It's the Holy Spirit that made sure that Matthew recorded this, what these people said.

And so the point is exactly what God was doing in that moment, and that was the king was arriving in to save his people in to Jerusalem. Later, after this event, as we read in verses 12 to 17, when Jesus clears out the temple, he calls the temple my house. My house. Now wait a minute. It was God who called the temple His house in the Old Testament.

Right? Layer after layer is being formed. Attention is building up. For three years, Jesus has been receiving a mixed reception. At times, the Pharisees were opposing him.

At other times, the Pharisees were welcoming him. But now Jesus finally declares himself as the messianic king, and he gives everyone this one ultimatum: you either crown me or you kill me. You crown me as king or you kill me as an impostor. That is the confrontation that Jesus is now setting up as he enters Jerusalem.

Jesus may have been quiet and humble for three years, but friends, he's been vocal and confrontational about his kingship for the last two thousand. So the first thing we see as Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem is how he actually saw himself. He sees himself as the king coming to save the people of God. Those of us who may think of Christ as our saviour, those of us who may call Jesus our dear Lord, or as the Africanists may know, you must realise, you and I, that he is more than a saviour. He is the Lord.

He is a king. It was not Jesus the carpenter who demanded a donkey to ride on. It was the Lord who demanded His steed. Descendant of David, Israel's king coming to claim His throne. And that confrontation, you and I have to deal with today.

That confrontation is the same confrontation non-Christians will have to face. He can't be our saviour without being our Lord. And so we begin this morning by asking, is Christ our king? Are you still playing a game? Is He Lord, or is He just a personal saviour?

On His way to the cross when Jesus entered Jerusalem to get there, He finally unveils the truth and He confronts the world with His entry. Crown me or kill me. I will not simply be tolerated. Then we see the next thing. At once, a confronting king, and at the same time, a preposterous prince.

The other fascinating view of the scene is just how laughable it is. The scene is laden with satire and irony. Stanley Hauerwas, in his commentary on Matthew, writes that Jesus is actually throwing a satirical spotlight on the whole royal entrance. He writes, as Stanley does, Hauerwas, on the one hand, this looks like all other triumphal entries. Two hundred years earlier, Simon Maccabees, famous leader in Jewish history, Simon Maccabees defeated foreign armies in Judea and kept the Jews independent.

He also rode into Jerusalem with people shouting cheers and waving palm branches because he had delivered them. Hauerwas says that Jesus' triumphal entry parodies the entries of kings and armies. But it is preposterous. Victors of glorious battles do not ride into the capital cities riding on donkeys. They come in on fearsome war horses, white stallions, but this king does not.

Needless to say, a donkey is definitely not a fearsome horse. Not only that, Jesus chooses a baby donkey, a colt. Can you imagine a fully grown man sitting on a colt this big, feet dragging on the ground? That is not impressive. But it's a very deliberate and clear fulfilment of scripture, as Matthew recognises.

Have a look at verse 5. Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9, which was the Old Testament prophecy of how the Messiah would come into Jerusalem, Mount Zion. The place is the same. The entrance is the same. And so entering into the city in this way is one giant lesson on how He is going to do what the crowd has asked for all along.

Save us, oh God. Sure, Jesus is the confronting king, and He is coming to rule and to save, but He won't do it by taking power and by killing others. He will do it by losing power and dying Himself. The preposterous prince triumphs through weakness. But this is too outlandish for the people to take in.

Sure, Jesus received a hero's welcome, but it would only be a matter of days before He dies a criminal death. Very soon, Jesus is labelled another limp impostor. No true God-given king of the Jews would ever come to such an ignominious death. According to the most commonly held beliefs of the time, the expected Messiah, the anointed king, would do two main things according to Jewish tradition. First, He would come to restore the temple, and second, He would fight a decisive battle against the enemy for independence.

In other words, He would be taking after His forefather, David. David's first act upon being anointed was to fight Goliath and win. David's last act as king was to prepare for the temple. Throughout Jewish history, would-be messiahs popped up, and they were judged according to those same criteria. Simon Maccabees, who I mentioned earlier, defeated the Syrians and he cleansed the temple.

Herod the Great defeated the Parthians and rebuilt Herod's great temple. Bar Kokhba, the last would-be messiah of that period, rallied the troops to rebel against the Romans, and he attempted to rebuild the temple. Meanwhile, Jesus enters Jerusalem like royalty, and the very next day goes to the temple, not to restore it, but to chase away the worshippers and the temple servants. He calls the temple rulers vipers and whitewashed tombs. Jesus comes to the city and doesn't overthrow the Romans.

He doesn't dethrone the false king Herod Antipas. In fact, He is sentenced to death by both of them and dies as a failed revolutionary. The long expected saviour Jesus is not. People often say to me, how on earth could the people of Jerusalem turn their backs on Jesus so quickly? One day, they praise Him.

The next, they shout, crucify, crucify. But I think we can sympathise. In their eyes, Jesus was just another disappointing impostor, another loopy flake, someone even more pitiful than those who have come before. Their response is, in fact, not very different from our own. We would be careful not to distance ourselves too far from them.

Why? Because Jesus constantly offends our expectation. What did these people think they needed from God? Well, they believed that He needed to bring judgment down on the rulers, to bring revolution to the religious system. And yet, what the people really needed and didn't realise was that they needed someone to bear God's judgment on their behalf.

It wasn't the king. It wasn't the temple that ruined the world. It was the very people in those streets. What is it that gives us the most grief these days? If we have morning tea next and you ask, what is the greatest gripe that you have with the way things are today?

I bet you someone would say, our political leaders are fallen and our megachurches are corrupt. That's not the real problem. It's not those things that are ruining our world. It is you and I. It is not one single nation.

It is not one class of people. There is no single philosophy or religion which is our greatest threat. There is something wrong with the world alright, and we only need to look at our own hearts to find it. Jerusalem demanded a warrior that day when what they really needed was a pardon from God. The people needed for God to end evil without ending you and me.

And friends, if you think about it, this has all sorts of implications for those who profess Jesus to be their Lord. Because the followers of Jesus do not receive His salvation by Jesus' force. We receive our salvation by His sacrifice. Likewise, we Christians will not save the world through our own force of will. We cannot rescue the world through our force of politics or campaigning even as we enter into election mode.

We cannot win the world by our social media influence. We can't even win the world through our moral perfection. People will not see my nice, clean lifestyle and fall to their knees in worship of Jesus Christ. Why? Because we weren't saved by a strong saviour.

We weren't saved by a hero on a war horse yelling to His onlookers, be like me. Take up the arms. Follow me. We're going to the palace. We're storming the gates.

Jesus didn't say try hard enough and we will conquer this world together. Jesus enters Jerusalem in a preposterous way, foreshadowing the humiliating end on the cross. He is a king who brings salvation, in other words, through weakness. And so when we are tempted to take up arms, to assault the world's injustices, to fight back at the powers that be, we should ask ourself, if the Lord triumphs through weakness, why do we think we will win the world in any other way? Salvation can therefore only ever be by faith alone in the lonely work that our lonely saviour did on that Hill of Calvary.

Our hope can only ever be in His work alone. And yet how continually do we forget it? We still grab for power. We still clutch for moral high ground. Palm Sunday is an incredible parable of the lifelong mismatch of what we think we need from God and what God actually provides.

We expect a war hero on a stallion, and what God sends is a carpenter on a donkey. What we think we need from Him is almost always too shallow, however. So when we hope for a better world and when we pray for the world that needs to look a certain way, remember that we pray to the God who knows more than we do. A God who is able to do more than we can imagine or think up. And what that means for us in our Christian lives is that we pray humbly.

We wait patiently, and we can expect to be surprised by how the Lord actually answers our requests concerning His kingdom. So we first see a confronting king who says, guys, I'm here. But then we see a preposterous prince who surprises us. And finally, thirdly, in the triumphal entry, we see the foreshadowing of a looming Lord. Traditionally, when it comes to Palm Sunday, more traditional denominations have associated their Bible readings, their liturgy, remembering Palm Sunday while also pointing forward to the second coming of Christ.

We might read a passage like Revelation 1:7. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. All the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him, and even so, amen. Ask yourself, why does the church often look towards the second coming of Christ when we remember His arrival to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday? The reason is because that event is actually prophetic.

It is looking forward. We see this explicit mention of the type of leaves that were used in the accounts of the triumphal entry. Why is it important for us to know that it was palm leaves that were used? Why not just say they picked up branches or leaves? Well, the palm tree signified peace and victory.

Palms were often depicted on Roman coins as indicating authority and rule. Here, Jesus is visibly being associated with authority in the Roman era. But branches and leaves have an Old Testament meaning as well. Psalm 96:12 predicted the arrival of God as the rescuer of Israel in this way. Psalm 96:12, then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for He comes.

He comes to judge the earth. So we see the forest, the trees singing for joy. Isaiah 55 speaks of a new David who will become a witness to all the world's people of God's power. He is said to become a leader of nations who don't even belong to Him. In other words, the Gentiles will also be His people, this king David.

Then verses 12 and 13, God says that this servant will go out into the world and, quote, the mountains and the hills shall break into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands at His coming. The palm branches are an allusion to this. The second bit of symbolism is found on what Jesus was riding, and we've already spoken about that briefly. Don Carson, in his commentary on Matthew, points out that Jesus is riding on an unbroken animal. If you've ever worked with horses, you know that you can't ride an animal before it is broken in.

Yet Jesus hops on a baby donkey, a colt. Not only does He manage to get onto this baby donkey, He manages to ride this donkey through a screaming crowd. There are very few animal handlers that could do that. Carson writes, in the midst of all this, an unbroken young animal remains totally calm under the hands of the Messiah who controls nature and stills the storm. This even points to the peace of the consummated kingdom.

Jesus is the Lord of all, and under His hand, nothing but harmony and peace comes about. This is a foreshadowing of the healing and completion of all nature as found in Isaiah 11. The wolf shall live with the lamb. The leopard lie down with the goat. Jesus is portraying Himself as the Lord of a looming kingdom, a kingdom which has come with Him, but will come more fully at His second coming.

As we look at Him entering Jerusalem, we can't but have our eyes cast forward to the day when Jesus comes again. We see a looming Lord who will return one day, not riding on a donkey this time, but on the clouds of glory. Psalm 24 gives us a final insight, perhaps not on the way that it happens, but the emotion that will be associated with it. Speaking metaphorically to the great gates of Jerusalem, guarding the city, the subjects of the great and coming king shout this. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.

Who is this king of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. At one time, Jesus entered those gates weak and humble. His death looked like a defeat.

Meanwhile, the scriptures claim that He is the Lord, strong and mighty. He is the one who is mighty in battle. Once He looked preposterous, even comical, but as He focused His gaze on the cross, He knew where the real battle lay. Even in His humble entrance into Jerusalem, because of His work on the cross, He will one day return to claim His kingdom. He will arrive no longer preposterous, but fearsome and glorious.

So friend, we ask the question, are you ready for that day? Will that day be a joyful day? Will that day be a fear-inducing and terrifying day? Let Easter this week be a time where you pay special attention, where you stand in relation to this king. He is indeed the king of kings, the Lord of lords, and He commands you now to bow the knee.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we may receive the great promise and hope of Jesus' arrival as the coming of a king. And though His power was hidden, although the method of His victory was obscure, we see now through the enlightenment of Your Holy Spirit, through the power that is active in our hearts right now, Lord, that You are our king because You have died to save Your kingdom. Lord, as our hearts and our minds are now sharpened and focused on what happens this week as we live out again, in some way, the drama of the passion. We pray that the doors of our hearts may be lifted up, that we will allow the king of glory to enter.

We pray, Lord, that in a profound sense again, we may crown You as our Lord, the one in whose light and in whose glory we will live. In Your precious name, we ask this. Jesus, our Lord. Amen.