Luke 23:26-31 "Three Parades to the Cross"
Parades. Who loves parades? People seem to get excited about them, “Let’s all go to the parade! It’ll be great! We’ll be outside in the rain, or the cold, or the sweltering heat. Lined up on the side of the road like human guardrails watching marching bands, fire trucks, and flatbed trailers covered in crepe paper with miserable people who were talked into being living props, waving and throwing stuff at the common people!” It’s fun. It’s a parade! I’ve seen my share of them. The only one I ever really enjoyed was the Art Car parade—probably because it’s just one step short of a demolition derby, which is one of my favorite things in the world.
Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, and it’s a story of two parades that happened that day. Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey from the east—showing that He came in peace and He was the Messiah. On the other side of town, the same day, Pontius Pilate entered from the west with a military procession to show how special he was—probably sitting on a litter (one of those pompous throne couches carried by slaves) looking like the homecoming king.
Both parades had a big crowd. It was Passover week and the city was busting at the seams with tourists. Roman citizens were expected to welcome Pilate. And word had gotten around that Jesus, the miracle-working rabbi, had just raised a man named Lazarus from the dead! People were talking about Jesus being the Christ, the one they were waiting for—and they wanted to see Lazarus for themselves. Both parades were well attended.
The Romans knew exactly how to throw a fancy spectacle for Pilate. But the Jesus parade was more makeshift—not with floats and balloons, but with palm branches and cloaks on the ground. It was the best they could come up with to welcome the Messiah King.
Fast forward a few days, and the two men being honored in their processions are going to meet in Pilate’s courtroom. Jesus is betrayed by a friend, arrested, taken before Pilate, accused of treason, beaten and scourged until He’s half dead—which was Pilate’s attempt to appease both the Jewish leaders who wanted Jesus dead and his wife who had been warned in a dream and wanted her husband to let Jesus go free. But it didn’t work and the Jewish leaders threatened to start a riot if Jesus wasn’t crucified. So, Pilate condemns Jesus to the cross and sends Him out that same day to be executed.
Now it’s a very different kind of parade. Dead man walking. The crowd that was chanting “crucify him” and the religious leaders that were drumming it up are following Jesus—who’s being led by Roman soldiers to a place outside the city to be crucified. Now Jesus is surrounded, not by cheers but by people mocking Him—carrying a cross instead of riding a donkey. Treated as a criminal instead of a savior. In just a few days, the shouts of the people went from "Hosanna" to "Crucify!"
We started this journey through the Gospel of Luke back in November of 2021. This is the 85th sermon in this series, we’re about halfway through the next to last chapter. Luke 23, starting at verse 26…
"And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus." Luke 23:26
Picture the scene: Jesus is being brutally pushed along by Roman soldiers, He’s being forced to carry His own cross. Probably just the horizontal beam that His hands will be nailed to. He’s being led through the streets of Jerusalem—the same people who watched Him enter the city to songs of Hosanna and listened to Him teach at the temple are seeing Him stumble and struggle to walk half a mile to the location of the vertical poles where crucifixions happened. But Jesus had just been flogged with a leather whip called a cat of nine tails—leather straps with bits of metal attached to the ends. His back was split open, His ribs were showing, organs were probably exposed, He had lost a lot of blood—it was going to be a long walk. He wasn’t going to make it carrying that cross. And there was no way a Roman soldier was going to help some condemned criminal carry it. So they grabbed the nearest Jew and forced him to do it. Roman law said a soldier could command them to drop what they were doing, leave their stuff, and carry whatever they wanted them to carry for one mile. This is why Jesus came up with the saying, “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him the second mile"—I wonder if He knew that was going to come into play here. So, Simon of Cyrene, just a regular guy coming in from the country for the Passover, gets drafted to carry the cross. Stumbles into the most significant event in history. Does he have the worst luck ever, or what? I’ve always thought it would be terrifying—being that close to such a violent execution. Life must have felt pretty cheap. “What if they decide to just nail me up, too?” You know, Simon might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time but it's a vivid picture of what it means to be a disciple. This is literally a picture of what Jesus alluded to when He said, 'If anyone would be my disciple, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'"
And it seems like this encounter with Jesus might have made quite the impact on Mr Simon. We have evidence that it led to him believing in Jesus and sharing that faith with his whole family. The Gospel of Mark mentions that his sons were Alexander and Rufus, and Paul mentions Rufus in Romans 16:13, says he is one who was
“chosen in the Lord”
—he also mentions Simon’s wife who Paul says was like a mother to him. Sometimes we get thrown into situations that change the course of our life and our family's history forever. Certainly looks like that was the case for Simon of Cyrene.
VERSE 27:
"And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Luke 23:27-28
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, after the shouts of “hosanna!” had died down, He looked at the city and wept for its future—wept for the destruction of the temple, said “not one stone will remain standing.” In about 30 years, God’s judgment was going to fall hard on Jerusalem. It’s going to be one of the most horrific and brutal things that has ever happened in history. The city that rejected the promised Messiah, the city that rejected Jesus the Son of God, was going to be rejected by God. And He was going to use the Romans to do the same thing to the city that they were doing to Him.
The “Daughters of Jerusalem” represent all of faithful Israel. There are a lot of Scriptures that mention the “Daughters of Jerusalem” or the “Daughters of Zion” as a faithful remnant of God’s people. So, Jesus looks at these women, even in His most pathetic state—weak, bloody, barely able to stand, on His way to be publicly humiliated and tortured to death—He looks at them with compassion. “Don’t weep for me, weep for yourselves—it’s going to be worse for you and your children than it is for me.”
VERSE 29:
For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?'" Luke 23:29-32
Judgment is coming, and it's not going to be pretty. It’s going to be better for those who never had kids, those who don’t have to watch their children die in the chaos. It’s going to be bad, people are going to wish for the mountains to fall on them and bury them rather than suffer the coming judgment.
And it happened. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. There’s two very important things I want us all to remember about it. One: The destruction of Jerusalem is an event that foretells the final judgment of the world when Jesus returns at the end of time. What happened to Jerusalem is going to happen to the entire world. What happened to those who rejected Jesus the first time is going to happen to anyone who continues to reject Him.
The second thing I want us all to remember about it is there’s not a single mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in the New Testament—not after it happened. There’s all kinds of warnings and predictions but not a single thing is said that would lead us to believe it had already happened at the time the books were written. This is important, because it means all the books of the entire New Testament were written before 70 AD. All of them, within 30 years of the resurrection. Including Revelation, which is an extended prediction and warning about what was going to happen to Jerusalem.
This means the New Testament was written while eyewitnesses were still alive. It means that all those catastrophic things Revelation talks about were first and foremost about Rome destroying Jerusalem and the temple. Secondarily, all those horrific predictions are also talking about what we think of as the Apocalypse—the end of the world—the return of our Lord and King. Next time He won’t be riding a donkey or stumbling toward a cross—He’ll be on a white war horse leading an army of those terrifying angels who will be much more complete in their destruction of the world and all its wickedness than Rome was ever capable of.
So, Jesus is also speaking to us along with the Daughters of Jerusalem. He’s also speaking to the church, the Bride of Christ. Don’t weep for Him in His hour of weakness. Weep for yourselves—judgment is coming.
It’s a call to repentance. To weep for our sin. To weep for our children. To take up our cross and follow Him—pray that our children don’t reject Him. Pray that our family doesn’t reject Him. Pray that our friends and neighbors don’t reject Him. No matter what happens in this life, we need to remember that Jesus is Christ the Lord, King of heaven and earth—we need to live each day like we believe that. We need to live in our hope. And when people ask about it—we need to be ready to tell them about Jesus.
Then there’s that weird saying about green and dry wood. It’s like a riddle.
"If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" In other words, if the innocent (Jesus, the green wood) suffers like this, what’s going to be the fate of the guilty (the dry wood) when judgment comes? It's a sobering thought. Jesus, the green wood, is about to be crucified. What’s going to be the fate of those who kill Him, those who reject Him, the dry wood, when the fires of judgment burn?
Green wood is wood that is still alive. Remember a couple years ago in February when Houston was frozen and without power for a week? It killed a lot of the plants and bushes in my neighborhood. When Spring came, it was interesting to see which of them bounced back and which ones ended up like tumbleweed.
We had this mimosa tree in our backyard that just wouldn’t die. It was like a dead log most of the year standing up next to the shed and then, every Spring, it would explode into all this purple and pink. I thought the freeze finally killed it. We even cut it down to the stump—but it still keeps trying to grow new shoots.
That’s the kind of thing Jesus is talking about. If the wood still has some green in it, some life in it, there’s still hope. But once that green is gone, once there’s no more life—it’s done.
The green wood, which is Jesus, was subjected to suffering despite His innocence—but as we all know, He’s going to live again in the resurrection. But the dry wood, representing sinful humanity, if we’re not connected by faith to Jesus—we’re not going to fare as well in the fire of God's judgment. This is a call to repentance, a call to align ourselves with the only hope for life. He is the living vine and we are a branch, grafted on by faith.
I mean, it’s a strange little riddle. We know the green wood refers to Jesus and the dry wood to those who reject Jesus: So, at the very least we know He’s saying, “If the Romans treat Me, who they admit to be innocent, like this, how are they going to treat someone they know is guilty?” And also, “ If the Jews reject me, the One who came to save them, what do you think God is going to do to them for treating me like this?” When all is said and done, we’re either in the crowd shouting “hosanna” or the crowd shouting “crucify Him.”
VERSE 32:
"Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him." Luke 23:32
Two bad guys. Isaiah said, “He will be numbered among the transgressors.” Along with fulfilling prophecy, Pilate was getting a couple more jabs in on the Jewish leaders. Herod had dressed Jesus up as a king before parading him back to Pilate. Pilate had a sign put on the cross that said Jesus was the king of the Jews. He probably thought it was funny to execute Jesus between two thieves. Of course, we all know the rest of the story, we know it was going to turn out to be a good day for one of them—we’ll get to that next time.
Two parades clash in the middle of town and create a new sad parade that the world will never forget. The Via Dolorosa—the way of suffering. Memorialized in the Stations of the Cross.
So, what can we take away from this?
Well, first, we need to be open to unexpected things God might have in store for us—no matter how daunting they might seem. Like Simon of Cyrene who probably thought his plans were rudely interrupted but it turned out to be the most important thing that ever happened to him.
How might what you say or do today influence your family’s spiritual destiny? Simon layed down whatever he was doing and followed Jesus carrying His cross—what would that look like for you? What might you need to lay down so you can pick up your cross and follow Jesus?
The Daughters of Jerusalem were mourning for the wrong reason. What are you upset about that might be misguided? Instead of feeling sorry for things that are happening to you, maybe your tears need to be tears of repentance. Instead of being upset about how you’ve been treated, maybe you should consider how what you’ve done has caused pain for someone else.
The “green wood” means being alive in Christ by faith. There’s no life outside Him. Cling to Him, trust in Him, rely on Him. That’s what faith looks like.
Pray for your children, your parents, your friends, that they don’t reject Jesus. Do whatever you can to encourage them to grow in their faith and embrace Him as Lord and Savior.
Most people don’t actually reject Jesus, they get hurt by Christians or they get sideways with the church. Don’t let the turkeys get between you and God. Also, don’t be a turkey—don’t chase people away from Jesus.
There is a lot of talk in this message about judgment. Judgment is coming but we’re not supposed to be doomsday prophets, we’re supposed to live every day in the hope of the resurrection and the promise of life and forgiveness in Jesus. We’re supposed to live in the Gospel. And Gospel means good news.
Which brings me to the best part: in spite of all the warnings and the sobering reminders, in spite of this sad parade and bleak chapter, there's hope. Jesus walked this road for us. He walked this road for you. It’s what He came to do—He took the punishment you deserved, so you won’t ever have to face it. Because of His willing sacrifice, we can look forward to a future where there's no more pain, or sorrow, or death. All of us who follow Jesus, follow Him to a cross, but beyond that cross is a resurrection and a life without suffering.
Today is Palm Sunday, let's remember what that kicks into motion. It's not just about the triumphal entry; it's also about finishing the journey to the cross. A journey that shows us the cost of our sin, and also the incredible hope of the gospel. We wave our palm branches and shout "Hosanna," but we also carry our crosses and follow Jesus, not just when we feel like it but also when life is interrupted by inconvenient troubles. Wherever we are, let's turn to Jesus wherever we are, and rejoice in the hope of His resurrection and the promise of our own. Amen.