Revolution of Hope
Welcome to week four of our mostly online gathering in Christ to worship God, give Him thanks, and receive His promises of love and grace and forgiveness. More than ever we need to be reminded of these things: We have a peace that transcends the peace that unbelievers can understand. We have a hope that is in more than merely existing another day on this broken and fallen planet. It’s all getting pretty weird out there. Bad things are happening—sickness, death, economic tension, political unrest. We feel the pain and trouble of this world, we grieve at the loss of our friends and family, we’re concerned about the state of the world—but we don’t grieve like all the people who have no hope. We don’t worry like unbelievers. We suffer the troubles of this world in faith that Jesus has overcome the world. Faith means we believe without seeing. We see glimpses of it now but just glimpses of that promise of a glorious new kingdom that began when Jesus walked the earth and will arrive in fullness when He comes back.
We need to be reminded of these things. And we need to understand what we’re supposed to do in the meantime.
Because it’s the same every day. Always has been. Every generation of faithful believers have lived out this same pattern over and over: we need to turn back to God every day and believe His promises, believe His Word, believe in His faithfulness, love, mercy, kindness, and power. He is almighty God. We’re supposed to turn back to Him and trust Him. Repent and believe.
Even if the government tells us we need to stay at home? Even if we can’t gather in the same room to worship and praise God? That it’s for our own good?
We’re still the Church. We find a way to gather and worship and hear His promises. We turn back to God, we trust Him. We repent and believe.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15
That was true 2,000 years ago and it’s still true today.
This virus is a very real and present danger. Most of us are probably starting to hear of people we know and are close to who have died or are expected to die from it. We see the charts and graphs on the news, the nations are afraid, the people are panicked. It won’t be long before we’re all walking around in homemade hazmat suits like some dystopian B-movie.
But we are people of faith. We believe in the true and living God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Savior of the world, the healer of the sick and brokenhearted, the very power of life and love in a world of death and fear. We are Christians. We are not afraid. We do not grieve as those without hope, we do not worry like unbelievers.
Today is Palm Sunday. The day we remember one of the most provocative things Jesus did in His earthly ministry. It doesn’t seem like much on the surface. A small town rabbi rode a borrowed donkey into the back gate of Jerusalem—an occupied city on the outskirts of the Roman empire. Some people waved tree branches and shouted “hosanna.” So what? Right?
I’m going to show you a few layers of what was really going on, and I think you’ll start to see that this has some very profound implications for where we find ourselves right now.
Let’s pray: Father in heaven, we come to You today, we turn to You and away from ourselves, and our fears, from our worries, and our idols of government, security, politics, and all the sins that we let stand between us and being truly faithful to You. Help us to repent, help us to believe. Forgive us and make us stand before You completely whole and righteous because of Jesus. We trust in Your kindness and love and mercy in the name of Jesus. AMEN
Here’s the Palm Sunday text, starting with the Gospel of John:
The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD! Hail to the King of Israel!”
Matthew records them saying,
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Luke says they were
“shouting and singing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.” They said, “Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the LORD!” But they also said, “Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!” (Luke 19:37–38)
Which ought to remind us of what the Angels sang to the shepherds when He was born.
Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the story of the disciples borrowing a donkey for Jesus to ride, John just says,
“Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said: “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming, riding on a donkey’s colt.”
Quoting Zechariah, but also the blessing that Jacob gave his son Judah in Genesis—remember Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah—when Jacob said,
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor. He ties his foal to a grapevine, the colt of his donkey to a choice vine. He washes his clothes in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.”
Jesus is the one the Bible has been looking for since all the way back in the beginning.
John says the disciples didn’t see all those layers at the time:
“His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.”
Mark says that Jesus was in the center of the procession and John says there were a lot of people who knew about Jesus because they were there when He raised Lazarus from the dead:
“Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others about it. That was the reason so many went out to meet him—because they had heard about this miraculous sign. Then the Pharisees said to each other, “There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!” John 12:12-19
Okay, so that’s the basic story. What does it all mean?
First, what’s the deal with the donkey? Why a donkey?
Jesus is being called the “Son of David.” The “True King.” In 1st Kings when David’s son, Solomon was anointed to be king of Israel, he rode into Jerusalem on David’s donkey. So, Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise that a son of David will establish a kingdom that will reign forever.
So one layer is a guy riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while people are calling Him the Son of David. This is more than a little provocative. They wouldn’t have missed the message: This guy is claiming to be the Messiah.
They were also waving palm branches and laying them on the ground before him. While they shouted “Hosanna!” “Save us!”
What’s the deal with palm branches?
Well 150 years before this little parade, there had been another parade. A guy named Simon Maccabeus, who was the High Priest and an outspoken political leader of the Jews, he had led a rebellion against the worship of Greek gods and political oppression of the Jews—and he pulled it off, he won. In a victory march back into Jerusalem the people used palm branches like flags that they waved in celebration. Palm branches became the symbol of freedom from oppression, freedom from foreign domination. They printed Jewish coins with palms on them. Waving palm branches was like waving the Confederate flag—it was a bold act of national defiance against Rome and against any Jews who were getting too comfortable with their Roman overlords. When they shouted “Hosanna” they were hoping He would go to war and crush the Romans with military force.
It’s interesting that the word “Hosanna” is a derivative of “Yehoshua”—both words mean “Save us.” Jesus’ name, in Hebrew, is “Yehoshua.” They were singing and chanting and shouting Psalm 118, which would have always happened for Passover, but they were also pretty much chanting His name.
But Jesus didn’t start this parade. Neither did His followers or the curiosity seekers who came to see Lazarus and the guy who works miracles. Why was there a parade happening that day? Remember, Mark said Jesus was in the center of the procession. What procession?
Jerusalem was the center of worship of the people of God—it’s where the Temple was located. The city usually had about 50,000 people who lived there but on holidays, like Passover, people from all over the country would travel to celebrate and the numbers would swell up to three times that size.
To celebrate Passover, each family had to sacrifice a lamb. The lamb was supposed to be part of the family—a lamb they had brought inside and raised like a pet, they were to name it, and live with it, and love it. The rule was that they had to live with it for at least four days. It also had to be a perfect lamb, without spot or blemish.
So, there’s an extra 100,000 people in town, everyone needs a perfect lamb—where were all these cute little lambys supposed to come from?
Well, there just happened to be these shepherds, Levitical shepherds, which means they were also priests—their job was to raise enough perfect Passover lambs for the annual feast. They lived in a nearby town that you might have heard of. They were in Bethlehem.
They had certain ways of doing things that were specific to raising spotless lambs for Passover. Like when the lamb was born, if it was defective in any way, it became shepherds pie the next day. But if it was a good one, they had to keep it that way, so they would wrap it in strips of cloth and elevate it so it didn’t get stepped on by the other sheep.
Let me say that a different way, they would wrap it in swaddling clothes and lay it in a manger.
When the angels came to the shepherds on the night when Jesus was born, do you remember what they said? They said, ““Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign FOR YOU: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
So here we are, about a week before Passover. Those Levitical shepherds are very carefully leading a parade of perfect, spotless lambs into the Sheep’s Gate in the back of Jerusalem. All the families lined up looking for the special lamb they were going to bring into their family and love, so they could sacrifice it on Friday for Passover. They’re enjoying the procession of cute little lambys.
When all of a sudden there’s this guy riding on a donkey in the middle of this sheep parade. And people start waving palm branches, and singing “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! “Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!”
Some of the older shepherds may have remembered hearing something like that before. Some of the crowd may have remembered John the Baptizer calling Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Everyone understands. Fathers are telling their children—this man is our savior!
They lay down their coats and the palm branches they were waving in the road in front of Him—an attempt to keep Him spotless and clean. To keep Him holy.
But He was already holy. He didn’t need their help, He was the one who was going to make them holy.
He had come to live with them, to dwell with them, longer than four days, long enough for them to love Him. To invite Him into their homes. The King of Glory, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe had entered His creation to do this for them. To save them. To save us.
Not just to overthrow Rome, but to overthrow all oppression and evil.
In the original Passover, the blood of the lamb was painted on the frame of the door and when the angel of death came to take the life of the firstborn—if the blood of the lamb was present, he would pass over that house.
Palm Sunday is the day when the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, takes away the wages of sin which is death, it’s the day when the truly spotless lamb entered Jerusalem so that His blood could be shed for the whole world. For you and for me.
In the beginning, when God created Adam, He created Him from the dirt. He didn’t just say “let there be man” like He had created light and water and everything else. When He created Eve, He created her from the rib of Adam—from His side. He didn’t just say “let there be woman.” God has always given His gifts to His people through His creation. He uses material things, means, to bless and heal and restore and save. He used dirt, Adam’s rib, later He would use oil and fire and the blood of animals and water and bread and wine—always connected to His Word, His promises. Jesus is the long awaited son of Eve who was promised to crush the head of the serpent, the devil who lives to deceive us and lead us away from God. First, He came into the world as a baby on Christmas. Today we remembered the day He entered Jerusalem as the anointed King and Lamb of God. It was a bold move, a provocative move—the kind of thing that could get a person killed.
We are meeting online during this pandemic crisis because we’ve been told to. We are peacefully complying, but we are not afraid. We’re not afraid of the government, and if they try to keep us from worshiping Jesus Christ the Lord, then we’ll find a way to do it anyway. We’re glad to do what we can to prevent people from getting sick, but if it comes right down to it, we’re not afraid to die. We are throwing our full support behind the King who rode into Jerusalem, who gave His life and took it back from the grave—but I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s a story for next week.
Today we raise our palm branches on this Palm Sunday in defiance of any government that tries to oppress the people of God who are in Christ—in defiance of any evil or power or darkness or fear or virus that tries to crush our hope or steal our joy. We are not afraid. We do not grieve as those without hope, we do not worry like unbelievers.
Raise your voice and ask the LORD to save you, to save us! Hosanna! Jesus save us! Have mercy on us, look on us with kindness, and forgiveness. Turn to Him. Turn away from our fear, away from our anger, away from all our sin. We gather today as God’s people, as the church, as the redeemed who are called by Christ’s name—as Christians. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now and always. AMEN.