“Who Is This King of Glory?”
April 1st 2012 Palm Sunday
(Psalm 24:7-10; Luke 19:28-40; 23:1-56)
Today is a special day/begins a special week—a HOLY week—a week that is set apart from all others.
In fact, I would say that the seven days we look back on and celebrate with music and special services each year are the seven most important days since the first seven days God used to create this world of ours.
what God did during that first HOLY WEEK made it possible for us to get back what those first two humans lost because of their sin—a personal and eternal relationship with our Creator.
• And—it all began on Palm Sunday.
• Let me put it this way.
• What happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning—they are the EFFECTS for which Palm Sunday was the CAUSE.
• Our choir just led us/about this pivotal first day of that Holy Week singing, “The King is Coming.”
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So the psalmist writes “Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.”
and then he adds this question, calling for our reflection: “Who is this King of glory?”
That is our question this morning, on this Day of the Palms as we look ahead to the Day of the Passion.
• Today we look upon this man Jesus, riding into Jerusalem, and we ask, “Who Is This King of Glory?”
• On this Palm Sunday, he certainly looks like a king of glory.
• Cheering crowds, palm branches, cloaks spread on the road--a triumphal entry into the royal city, Jerusalem.
• What a scene of joy and triumph it is, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that says:
“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.”
• But by the end of the week, that Holy Week, instead of a triumphal entry, there is a tearful exit.
• Those who were rejoicing on Sunday are weeping on Friday as the King of glory is led out of town in shame and sorrow.
• Who is this King of glory?
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On this Sunday Jesus is acclaimed as the messianic king: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”
On Friday he is accused of claiming to be that king:
The whole assembly carts Him off to Pilate saying…
“We found this man misleading our nation . . . claiming he himself is Christ, a king.”
“Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks.
Jesus doesn’t deny it saying, “You have said so.”
• Who is this King of glory?
• Soldiers array him in splendid clothing, only to beat him up and mock him.
• Who is this King of glory?
• Glory? Glory, you say?
Where is the glory in being nailed to a cross, and having a sign placed over your head, “This is the King of the Jews”?
No garments strewn before him, now his own garments are stripped from him.
Strange king, indeed.
• On Sunday he rides in triumph on the Way of Glory.
• On Friday he staggers, condemned, on the Way of Sorrows, the way of the cross and darkness and degradation.
• Who is this King of glory?
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The world today would just as soon forget about this king, this puzzling man, Jesus.
• They want to put him on the shelf,
• push him out of sight, out of mind,
• Get on with their lives--their busy, distracted, no-need-for-God lives.
Instead of cheering crowds--or hostile crowds
Today there are just busy crowds, bustling crowds, too-busy-to-be-bothered and too-bored-to-care crowds.
• What a vacuous lot we have become!
• Overloaded with information, but starved for wisdom.
• All too busy, and yet filling our lives with nothing.
• Junk food for the mind. Junk food for the soul.
• No time or need for this man Jesus.
• Who is this King of glory? “
• You say don’t bother me, I don’t want to know.”
Ah, poor Jesus! Poor, neglected, forgotten, obsolete Jesus!
Shed a tear of nostalgia for those days of yesteryear, when religion was important and people cared about Jesus.
Shed a tear, and then let me get back to my I-Phone.
I-Pod, I-Pad--I, I, I. Ay, ay, ay, what fools we have become!
• Jesus would tell our culture: do not shed a tear for Jesus
• Shed a tear for yourselves!
• Weep and mourn, and let your laughter turn to lament!
• Do you think you will escape judgment, you who have no need for God’s mercy and his Messiah?
• How will you escape?
When death intrudes, when cancer comes calling, when judgment comes crashing down, how will you stand?
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What is your support to lean on, to enable you to stand in the day of God’s judgment?
• Will it be your inherent goodness?
• Your pleasing personality?
• Don’t kid yourself.
• Those supports are all too flimsy.
• They will collapse and crumble.
• You need some stronger stuff than that.
My support on the Day of Judgment/cross of Christ my Savior.
He is my only hope--and your only hope, also.
And that’s the only hope and support you need
So maybe we should take a second look at that man Jesus and ask again the question, “Who is this King of glory?”
• There’s something special about him, something unique that takes hold of us.
• The more we look, the closer we look, the more we realize we need him.
• What is special about this man?
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We pick up some clues from the story.
When Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem, he tells two of his disciples: “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”
• A colt no one has ever yet sat on.
• And the Lord has need of it. Hmm. . . .
Then on Friday, after/crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea takes down the body of Jesus and lays him in a tomb cut in stone
• “where no one had ever yet been laid.”
• Hmm. . . .
• A colt no one has ridden.
• And a tomb no one has ever been laid in.
• What’s going on here?
It appears there are some divine arrangements going on here. ___________________________________________________
That’s what it is.
• God has set apart some divine preparations,
• some never-used vessels, a colt and a tomb,
• set apart and reserved for a most special purpose,
• A most special guest.
That’s the point: Both Sunday and Friday are part of God’s plan.
• The plan all along was for this Jesus that the choir sang about to ride in glory into Jerusalem
• And his glory, God’s glory
• Would be seen and shown and brought to fulfillment precisely in Jesus going to the cross.
The cross and tomb are part of the plan--indeed, the heart of God’s plan, his plan for you! ___________________________________________
Who is this King of glory?
He is the King who suffers and dies for you.
• Yes, you the sinner.
• You the “die-er,” the person who dies.
• You, who would come under God’s judgment yourself
• You need Jesus to bear your sins and die for you and suffer that judgment in your place.
• That’s why he rides into town.
• Only Jesus could do that job.
Who is this King of glory? __________________________________________________
Some more clues from our text: Pilate, the judge, says of Jesus, “I find no guilt in this man.”
Second time he tells his accusers, “After examining him before you, I find no basis of any charges against him.
• Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.
• “He has done nothing to deserve death.”
A third time he said to them
“What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty.”
• Even the thief on the cross can see/truth/Jesus:
• “This man has done nothing wrong.”
And the Roman centurion likewise:
• “Surely this is a righteous man!”
Now Pilate/thief/centurion all spoke truer than they realized.
• Not only was Jesus not guilty of any crime
• not only was he innocent by the world’s standards
• Jesus was even innocent and righteous by God’s standards.
• Truly righteous, totally innocent
• No sin or guilt that he should die in any way, much less die the death of a criminal.
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But you and I--we cannot manufacture a verdict like that for ourselves.
• You and I have done wrong, we have sinned,
• In a hundred ways, a hundred times a thousand.
• Maybe not capital crimes in the world’s eyes
• But sins, grievous sins nonetheless, in God’s sight.
• In countless ways, we have sinned against God
• in thought, in word, in deed, from as far back as we can remember
• all the way to the grave--we have made false gods for ourselves
• worshiping the idols of our own making
• Our own opinions and ideas of right and wrong.
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And the Lord God looks down on this folly and says of all those who would trust in themselves
• “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge?”
• No, only God, the true God, can deliver us.
Who is this King of glory?
• The psalmist tells us: “The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!”
• “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!”
• Yes, only God can deliver us.
And that is why he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to do the job we couldn’t do.
• The holy Son of God
• true God from eternity
• born of the virgin Mary
• this Jesus, God in the flesh,
Jesus, the God-man Savior--he is the King of glory who saves us from sin and death.
• Dear friends, cling to him in faith
• lean upon his cross as your only support
• And you will be strong to stand in the day of trouble.
In Christ, for us the Day of Judgment becomes the day of our salvation.
Hallelujah . . Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Thank God for his mercy in Christ!
Who is the King of glory?
He is Jesus Christ, your Savior and your King!
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
