We Were There -
The Crowd Around Jesus
Bible Reading:
Luke 19: 28-48
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
What an active, colourful, almost hectic, back and forth scene it is.
If you want drama, you’ve got it.
Part planning, part spontaneity.
Full support for Jesus. And unabashed opposition.
Great joy. And tears of sorrow.
Jesus is going public, in a big way.
Up to this point in his ministry, he’s done his level best to keep a low profile, at least as much as that may be possible.
Whenever he healed someone, it was accompanied by an order to keep things quiet.
When his disciples confessed him as the Messiah, he told them to hold this to themselves.
He didn’t want the crowds to get too excited.
He didn’t want anyone to get their hopes up too high.
Until now.
Now, very intentionally, he sends ahead for a donkey. Not, as some may want to tell you, a poor man’s animal for a second-rate parade. Donkeys were the beast on which notable old testament figures rode.
Abraham rode one.
So did Moses.
Saul.
David.
They were well accepted in the Ancient World as the riding animal for a king who comes in peace.
So Jesus comes - the Eternal Prince of Peace.
He’s well aware that he’s pushing a hot button with this parade thing. Tapping into their collective faith memory, Jesus lives out the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9:
"Rejoice greatly, o daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
And, oh, how the people respond -- holding a party - singing from their hymnbook the words of Psalm 118:26, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
Without knowing it, they echo the angel choir which sang the night Jesus was born - "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen the faces of some of those gathered here. What a mixed bag, almost a motley crew! And those around them are not much different.
Two disciples get the colt. We’re left to guess which two they are. What sort of characters were they?
You can work your way through the gaggle of followers that Jesus had accumulated.
There’s James & John - fighting for the right to be at head of line
Zacchaeus - still trying to reconcile his bank statements
Faceless followers - who kept trying to keep the kids quiet and out of sight
Lazarus - still surprised at his trip to heaven and quick return
A zealot named Simon, ready for the day Jesus calls for rebellion
Matthew - on leave from his tax booth
Or the characters we’ve met over the last few weeks:
Judas - with all his doubts about falling in line behind Jesus, pulled this way and that by competing interests in his life, never quite finding it.
Peter - swaggering, strong in his step, a self-confident know it all.
Mary - a bewildered mother watching her son head in directions she simply can’t comprehend, admiring, loving....... and worried sick over what’s going to come of him.
And the one who doesn’t show his face, but has his spies watching from the background. Pilate - a compromised, second rate ruler who recognizes political expedience wherever he can find it, a whatever-works-is-fair-game sort of fellow.
Each totally different from the next. Representative of the huge variety of personalities, hopes and dreams that formed the crowd that day. This tapestry of colorful personalities gathers to shout Hosanna, an ancient word meaning, "Lord, save us!"
Some of them zealots - fermenting for political freedom, wanting to be saved from Rome.
Some of them Essenes - religious, end-of-time sorts waiting to be saved from the corruption of the day by God’s final vindication of Israel.
Some of them common folk - wanting nothing more than a decent shake, hoping to be saved from rank poverty and economic corruption.
They’d seen, or at least heard of some amazing things Jesus had done - raising Lazarus, giving sight to blind Bartimaeus. If he could do that, then..... perhaps..... what we want, perhaps he can make that happen, too.
Coats are spread for an improvised red carpet treatment.
Even though Luke doesn’t mention it, Matthew and Mark tell us that some people also went into the fields to cut branches, which they laid on the ground, and which some waved. John tells us that they were palm branches, which is where we get the name for this particular Sunday.
"The righteous flourish like the palm tree" says Song of Songs 7/7-8.
Isaiah 9 uses them to represent the ruler of Israel.
Artwork of the day showed the Tree of Life as a palm tree - symbol of new life from God. Which is also what they represented in the temple and in synagogues, where they were the centre of frequent decorations.
Tree branches......
What’s on nobody’s mind, except that of Christ himself, is another tree - the one on which He will hang. Old Testament scripture says that anyone who is hung on a tree to die is cursed by God and humanity.
That this would be the central purpose of Jesus’ coming - none of them see it.
That this is all part of a much greater struggle, beyond immediate poverty, beyond issues of political oppression, and into the final showdown for cosmic control, into the struggle between heaven and hell, between eternity and damnation......
.....none of them see it.
It’s far beyond them.
It’s only later, after Jesus has died, risen and returned to heaven that his disciples catch the significance of the tree - that the tree of Christ’s death becomes their tree of life (Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29).
They’re all caught up in their own interpretations of the day’s events. Each with their own hopes and dreams of what it will mean.
They wave tree branches and shout Hosanna.
The disciples lead the donkey.
The crowds shout.
The Pharisees demand silence.
And.......... while nobody seems to notice......... Jesus cries.
There are two occasions in the Bible where we read of tears streaming down the face of the Saviour.
One is when he stands outside and tomb and experiences the intense grief of a family facing the death of a loved one – Mary & Martha weeping over the death of Lazarus. You can read of it in John 11. Their pain and despair move him to tears. He grieves that they suffer so, and are so helpless in the face of death.
The other occasion is here. More tears. This time Jesus grieving because they don’t see how close they are to death; how close they are to being swallowed up by it; how close they are to missing their great and only hope for eternal life; how close they stand to God’s condemning judgement.
Caught in their own little worlds.
Caught up, now, in enthusiasm.
Caught up - a few days later - by bloodthirsty rage as they form the mob demanding Jesus’ crucifixion; or by fear, as they hide in the shadows from the mob.
Jesus, with divine awareness, sees into the future when Roman general Titus will gather his legions and destroy Jerusalem in AD70, killing almost one million inhabitants in the process; divine punishment, says Luke, for refusing to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah.
He weeps.
He weeps, aware that soon, as he agonizes in Gethsemane, his closest friends will fall asleep on him..... and later scatter into the night.
He weeps, aware of a betraying kiss to come.
He weeps for the rootless crowds who easily sway from "Hosanna" to "Crucify him" – whichever way seems good at the moment.
Fishermen, farmers, shepherds, tax collectors, zealots......
Ah, there were many faces in the crowd that day as Jesus rode into Jerusalem -- many faces for whom Jesus wept.
Tears:
for the pharisees whose own sense of religious right and wrong blinded them to God’s real presence in Christ
perhaps even for Pilate, so shallow, so empty.
Can you see this scene in your mind - the many different expectations, the many different agendas - can you see it?
Behind the palm branches - can you see the faces?
Whatever you do, as you see them and try to get a handle on this step along the road to the cross, please don’t leave here shaking your head;
wondering how they could be so blind
wondering why could change so quickly
wondering why it had to be this way.
Whatever you do, don’t do that.
Instead, look again at the crowd.
Peer one more time behind those waving palm branches.
The faces - do any of them look familiar?
Are you there, perhaps?
Yes, my friend. You. Or me.
See, we’re a pretty mixed up, jumbled group. As colorful a tapesty as was present on that first Palm Sunday. Each of us so different from the next.
And we, too.....
we, too, have sung "Hosanna." We watched the children wave.
Perhaps this year for the first time. Perhaps the 75th time.
But how fickle is that "Hosanna"? How quickly will our tune change?
What happens the moment the last note sounds, the video screen goes dark, and you walk out those doors?
What will happen tomorrow when you’re at school, or at work?
Will there be Hosanna’s in your actions? Or will you slide right into Monday’s mob just like everyone else?
Will your vocabulary be praise worthy? Or language used just like the person in the next desk?
Will we hide our faith in the bushes, cowering spiritually like those disciples, keeping loving evidence of Christian witness hidden in secret places, refusing to stand up and out for changes we know that holy Justice demands in our society?
Will it be a day of driving a spike through the body of our Saviour?
Or praises offered through our actions, words and thoughts?
What will tomorrow look like?
And, beyond tomorrow, where will you be at the last great Palm parade?
It’s where palm branches appear again in scripture. I’m referring to Revelation 7. Please read it with me:
REVELATION 7: 9-17
This, my friends, is the whole reason for Christ’s coming.
The great gathering of believers. Preparing for a grand re-entry to earth, when all will be made new, and an eternity of working, playing and serving the Lord will stretch before us in a New Creation.
Will your face be there?
The only way is through complete, total surrender to the one riding into Jerusalem;
by committing your life - your ambitions, your recreation, your sexuality, your finances, your friendships, your studies, your job
- everything
to Him.
Acknowledging that the road to the cross, to condemnation and punishment by God, is the road He walked for you.
Deliberately, fully.
For you.
You know, if there’s one thing you have to say for this city of Ottawa - it’s a pretty laid back place. Nobody gets too much excited. We’ve seen it all. Folks around here tend to keep a lot of things at a bit of a distance. Don’t get real committed to too much.
Here, my friends, is where that all stops.
For those who insist on holding back, waiting it out - for them Jesus weeps.
Eventually - what happened to the money changers in the temple will happen to all who refuse to fully commit to Jesus - driven out of the presence of God. Chilling, but true – for us here, and those whom we will meet tomorrow.
Which makes for one last thought;
a thought for those who have surrendered to Jesus.
If He was weeping over the fate of those who refused to submit to Him......
do you?
Do you believe that the fate of which He spoke is real?
And
Does it affect how you share and live your Christianity?
