It was the depression. The father was able to keep bread on the table, but that was it. When his little boy burst into the house excitedly talking about the circus coming to town, the father knew that he could not afford the $1 admission. The boy had never seen the circus and it wasn’t right that a boy not see a circus, especially when he was eight.
So the father made a deal. He told his 8-year-old son, “You find enough odd jobs to earn 50 cents and I’ll give you the other 50 cents.” Well, the little boy did it. The day before the circus came to town, his little piggy bank held 50 cents. True to his word, the father gave him the rest of the money and the boy bought his circus ticket in advance.
When the circus parade went by, he was right at the curb not missing a thing. When the clown danced past him, the boy handed the clown his ticket. When the parade was over, he rushed home to tell his dad all about it. The father, surprised at his son’s early return, asked him to describe what he saw at the circus.
Crestfallen, the father took the boy into his arms and said, “Son, you didn’t see the circus; all you saw was the parade.” (Glen V. Wheeler, Holiday Illustration Collection)
When it comes to this time of year, I’m afraid that’s what many people do. They don’t really see the Christ; they just see the parade. They don’t really enjoy being with Jesus. They just get caught up in the festivities.
Please, let’s not let it happen to us this Easter, but the question is How? How can we be sure not to miss the main event? How can we truly see Jesus and not just the parade? How can we truly enjoy being with Him even in the midst of all the festivities?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to John 12, John 12, where Jesus Himself tells us how after His big parade into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday nearly 2,000 years ago.
John 12:12-16 The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the King of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him. (NIV)
JESUS MAKES HIS TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM, and it’s a grand parade!
People are waving palm branches, the symbol of victory. The crowds proclaim Jesus as their King, and they have come to see Him do some spectacular stuff.
John 12:17-19 Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” (NIV)
Sure the whole world has gone after Him, but they don’t understand what He’s all about. The glory they seek and the glory He seeks are two different things. They seek the glory of a conquering King. Jesus seeks the glory of the cross, as we shall see.
On a Palm Sunday some time ago, 5-year-old Stephanie sat on her aunt’s lap while they listened to the pastor’s sermon together. He described Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem and how the crowds cried, “Hosanna, Hosanna!” At that, Stephanie perked up and began to sing, “Oh, Hosanna, now don’t you cry for me!” (Brenda Fossum, Duluth, MN, “Heart to Heart,” Today’s Christian Woman; www.PreachingToday.com)
She got caught up in the moment, but she had no idea about what was really going on. That’s the way it was with the crowd on that first Palm Sunday, and that’s the way it is with many people today. They get caught up in the excitement, but they have no spiritual perception. Then some Greeks come on the scene.
John 12:20-22 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. (NIV)
These Greeks want to see Jesus, but how? Well…
John 12:23-24 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (NIV)
Jesus is saying, “I am going to die, but by that death I will be glorified, because my death will produce many more believers and followers of God, who like seeds will be able to reproduce themselves in still more believers and followers of God. You see…
JESUS CAME TO DIE.
His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was not the main event. It was only the parade before the main event. The main event was His death on the cross for you and me. He came to give His life so that many could gain eternal life through faith in Him.
The mother of a nine-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher from her son’s school.
“Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately.” The mother began to grow worried.
The teacher continued, “Nothing like this has happened in all my years of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always do, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper:
“‘The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work.
“‘Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begins to beg, ‘Please Mr. Ant, you have much food. Please let me eat, too.’ Then I said, ‘Boys and girls, your job is to write the ending to the story.’
“Your son, Mark, raised his hand. ‘Teacher, may I draw a picture?’
“‘Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture. But first you must write the ending to the story.’
“As in all the years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter, and both the ant and the grasshopper lived. A few children wrote, ‘No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked in the summer. Now, I have just enough food for myself.’ So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.
“But your son ended the story in a way different from any other child, ever. He wrote, ‘So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper. The grasshopper lived through the winter, but the ant died.’
“And the picture? At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses.” (Brad Walden, senior minister with the Tates Creek Christian Church, Lexington, KY; true story told by Mark’s grandfather)
Unlike so many others, nine-year-old Mark got it! He understood why Jesus came – not to head up a victory parade, but to die on a cross for our sins.
Jesus exchanged his wealth for our poverty. He traded his righteousness for our sin, and e died so we could live forever with Him in glory. All we need to do is trust Him. All we need to do is ask Him to save us from our sins.
My friends, if you’ve never done that before, I invite you to do it right now. Put your faith in Christ, who died for you and rose again. Trust Him with your life and your eternal destiny. Call upon the name of the Lord today, and you will be saved from the deadly consequences of your own sin.
But more than that, Christ will use you to bring others to Himself. His death produced “many seeds,” verse 24 says, which are able to reproduce themselves in still more “seeds” to His glory! Jesus didn’t save us just to give us eternal life. He saved us so we could help many others find eternal life in Him, as well!
In November 1964, anarchy broke out in the Belgian Congo. Assemblies of God missionary J. W. Tucker knew he was at risk, but he stayed where God had placed him. One day, a mob attacked and killed him with sticks, clubs, fists, and broken bottles. They took his body, threw it in the back of a truck, drove a good distance, and then tossed his corpse to the crocodiles in the Bomokande River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
J. W. Tucker had risked everything, yet he seemingly had nothing to show for it. But 30 years later, John Weidman, a close friend of Tucker’s, was in the country (by then known as Zaire) and learned how God used that missionary’s sacrifice.
The Bomokande River flows through the middle of the Mangbeto tribe, a people virtually without the gospel. During a time of civil war, the Mangbeto king became distressed with the violence and appealed to the central government in Kinshasa for help. The central government responded by sending a man called the Brigadier, a well-known policeman of strong stature and reputation who came from the region of Isiro. J. W. Tucker had won the Brigadier to the Lord just two months before he was killed.
The Brigadier determined to reach the Mangbetos with the gospel, the only way to peace. Being a relatively new Christian, he did his best to witness, but he was met with no response. Then one day he heard of a Mangbeto tradition that said: “If the blood of any man flows in the Bomokande River, you must listen to his message.” This saying had been with the Mangbetos for as long as anyone could remember.
The Brigadier called for the king and all the village elders. They gathered in full assembly to hear his address. “Some time ago a man was killed, and his body was thrown into your Bomokande River,” the Brigadier began. “The crocodiles in this river ate him up. His blood flowed in your river. But before he died, he left me a message.
“This message concerns God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to this world to save people who were sinners. He died for the sins of the world; He died for my sins. I received this message, and it changed my life.” As the Brigadier preached, the Spirit of God descended and people began to fall on their knees and cry out to the Lord. Many were converted that day.
And since that day, thousands of Mangbetos have come to Christ and dozens of churches have started, all because of a message from a man whose blood flowed in the Bomokande River. (George O. Wood, general secretary of the Assemblies of God; www.PreachingToday.com)
When a seed dies, it produces many more seeds, and tat’s why Jesus came. He came to die to produce the seed of eternal life in people, so they can turn around and bring more people to life in Christ. Jesus came to die, so if we want to see Jesus this Easter, we too must…
GO TO THE PLACE OF DEATH.
We too must be willing to risk our lives. We too must be willing to give our lives to see people find eternal life in Christ. That’s what Jesus said in verse 25. Look at it.
John 12:25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (NIV)
Now, when Jesus first spoke this, He meant it very literally. By the end of the week, He was going to be hanging on a cross. And those Greeks, if they were truly serious about seeing Him, would have to go to the cross at the risk of their own lives.
Do YOU want to see Jesus this Easter? Then you too have to go to the cross. In other words, you have to die to your own agenda. You have to give up your own rights and risk your life to follow Christ.
People may think you’re stupid or weird. People might criticize you. In some cases, people might even kill you for being a follower of Christ. But if you want to see Jesus, if you want to enjoy being with Him this Easter, then that’s the risk you have to take.
Now, that’s going to hold a lot of people back from going after Christ, perhaps even some of you. But I urge you, go ahead and take the risk, because life without risk is no life at all. If you seek to protect your life, you are going to lose it. But if you risk your life for Jesus’ sake, then you will really live. That’s really what Jesus is saying in verse 25.
Tyrtaeus, an old Greek poet who lived before the time of Christ, wrote something very similar to what Jesus said here. Tyrtaeus wrote, “The man who risks his life in battle has the best chance in saving it; the one who flees to save it is most likely to lose it.” (Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 2nd ed., p.95b)
If you want to live, then take a risk!
Gary Haugen is president and CEO of International Justice Mission. It’s a Christian organization dedicated to fighting sex trafficking. He writes:
After we have poured into our children all the good food and shelter and clothing, after we have provided them with great education, discipline, structure and love, after we have worked so hard to provide every good thing, they turn to us and ask, “Why have you given all of this to me.”
And the honest answer from me is, “So you’ll be safe.”
And my kid looks up at me and says, “Really? That’s it? You want me to be safe? Your grand ambition for my life is that nothing bad happens?”
And I think something inside them dies, Haugen says. They either go away to perish in safety, or they go away looking for adventure in the wrong places. Jesus, on the other hand, affirms their sense of adventure and their yearning for larger glory.” (Gary Haugen, Just Courage, InterVarsity Press, 2008, pp.124-125; www.PreachingToday.com)
Don’t live to be safe, Jesus says. Don’t “love your life.” Instead, risk your life, “hate your life,” for my sake and find it.
Gary Haugen then talks about the risk he took in starting the International Justice Mission. He said:
“I vividly remember when I finally had to make a decision to abandon my career at the U.S. Department of Justice to become the first employee of a not-for-profit organization that didn’t yet actually exist, called International Justice Mission. I had worked for three years with friends on the idea of IJM and was very excited, in theory, about this dream of following Jesus in the work of justice in the world. But then I had to actually act. I had to walk into the Department of Justice and turn in my badge… I tried to be very brave and very safe. That is to say, I walked in and asked my bosses for a yearlong leave of absence… My bosses politely declined.
“I was suddenly feeling very nervous,” Haugen says. “What was I really afraid of? As I thought about it, I feared humiliation. If my little justice ministry idea didn’t work, no one was going to die. If IJM turned out to be a bad idea and collapsed, my kids weren’t going to starve. We’d probably just have to live with my parents for a while until I could find another job, but with my education, odds are I would soon find a job. The fact is, I would be terribly embarrassed. Having told everybody about my great idea, they would know that it was a bad idea or that I was a bad leader. Either way, it would be humiliating.
So there it was: My boundary of fear. I sensed God inviting me to an extraordinary adventure of service, but deep inside I was afraid of looking like a fool and a loser. This was actually very helpful to see, because it helped me get past it. When I am [older], do I really want to look back and say, Yeah, I sensed that God was calling me to lead a movement to bring rescue to people who desperately need an advocate in the world, but I was afraid of getting embarrassed and so I never even tried?…
Fear is normal, even among the earnest and devout, and it can be overcome. But first we must see the opportunity it provides—a revelation that only comes as we step to the precipice of action. (Gary Haugen, Just Courage, InterVarsity Press, 2008, pp. 129-130; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear friends, Jesus invites us to step to the precipice of action. He invites us not to a life of safety, but to a life of risk and adventure for a cause that has eternal significance. Oh, He may not be calling you to lead a movement, but He may be calling you to invite a neighbor to church or oo say a word on His behalf.
Go ahead, take the risk! Sure, you might have to die a little, but only in death do we find real life. If we want to see Jesus this Easter, we must go to the place of death. But not only that, if we want to see Jesus, we must also…
GO TO THE PLACE OF SERVICE.
Don’t go to the throne room. Go to the servants’ quarters, and there you will find Jesus. In verse 26, Jesus says…
John 12:26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. (NIV)
Just like life comes in the place of death. So honor comes in the place of service.
Pediatrician, David Cerqueira, tells the story of a little girl in his wife’s Sunday School class. His wife had prepared a lesson on being useful and told the children that everyone can be useful in serving God. There was a short moment of silence, and a little girl named Sarah spoke up. “Teacher, what can I do?” she said. “I don’t know how do to many useful things.”
Mrs. Cerqueira had not anticipated that kind of response, but she quickly looked around and spotted an empty flower vase on the windowsill. “Sarah,” she said, “you can bring in a flower and put it in the vase. That would be a useful thing.”
Sarah frowned. “But that’s not important.”
“It is,” her teacher said, “if you are helping someone.”
Sure enough, the next Sunday Sarah brought in a dandelion and placed it in the vase. In fact, she continued to do so each week. Without reminders or help, she made sure the vase was filled with a bright yellow flower, Sunday after Sunday. When her pastor found out about it, he put the vase in the main sanctuary next to the pulpit. That Sunday he gave a sermon on the honor of serving others, using Sarah’s vase as an example. The congregation was touched by the message, and the week started on a good note…
But during that same week, Sarah’s family discovered she had leukemia. David Cerqueira was her pediatrician, and he did his best to explain to Sarah’s parents that nothing could be done to save her life. He says, “I don’t think I have ever had a more difficult conversation than the one that night.”
Eventually, Sarah became confined to bed and to the visits that many people gave her. She lost her smile. She lost most of her weight; and then, the end was near.
That Sunday, at the end of his sermon, the pastor suddenly stopped speaking. His eyes wide, he stared at the back of the church, and everyone turned to see what he was looking at. It was Sarah! Her parents had brought her for one last visit. She was bundled in a blanket, a dandelion in one little hand.
She slowly walked to the front of the church where her vase was still perched by the pulpit. She put her flower in the vase and a piece of paper beside it. Then she returned to her parents.
Four days later, Sarah died… At the funeral, the pastor showed Dr. Cerqueira the note Sarah had left. It said, “Dear God, This vase has been the biggest honor of my life. Sarah.” (David Cerqueira, “Sarah’s Vase,” Today’s Christian, March/April 2008, adapted from Evangel magazine, December 2005; www.PreachingToday.com)
Sarah understood life more than most, even as she was dying. The biggest honor of all is in service.
My friends, if we want to see Jesus this Easter, go to the place of death, and go to the place of service. Find life in death. Find honor is service, because there you find Jesus Christ.
King Jesus, why did you choose a lowly ass
to carry you to ride in your parade?
Had you no friend who owned a horse –
a royal mount with spirit for a king to ride?
Why choose an ass, small, unassuming beast of burden
trained to plow not carry kings?
King Jesus, why did you choose me,
a lowly unimportant person to bear you in my world today?
I’m poor and unimportant, trained to work not carry kings –
let alone the King of kings,
and yet you’ve chosen me to carry you in triumph in this world’s parade.
King Jesus, keep me small so all may see how great you are;
keep me humble, so all may say,
“Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord,”
not what a great ass he rides.
(Joseph Bayly, “Psalms of My Life,” Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 5; www.PreachingToday. com)
