When he had said these things he went on ahead going up to
Jerusalem as he approached bethphage and Bethany, at the
place called the Mount of Olives.
He sent two of the disciples and said, go into the village ahead
of you. As you enter it, you will find a
Colt tied there on which no one had a has ever sat untie it, and
bring it. If anyone asks, you, why are you
untying it say this, the Lord needs it?
So those who were sent left and found it just as he had told
them as they were untying the Colt its owners said to them.
Why are you untying that colt? The Lord needs it.
They said, then they brought it to Jesus.
And after throwing their clothes on the cult, they help Jesus get
on it as he was going along. They were spreading their
clothes on the road. Now, he came near the path, down
the Mount of Olives. And the whole crowd of the
disciples began to Praise God, joyfully with a loud voice.
For all the Miracles they had seen blessed is the king who
comes in the name of the Lord peace in heaven and glory in the
highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees from the
crowd told him teacher rebuke your disciples.
He answered I tell you if they were to keep silent the stones
would cry out as he approached and saw the city he wept for it.
Saying, if you knew this day what would bring peace.
But now it is hidden from your eyes for the days will come on
you when your enemies will build a better.
Barricade around you, surround, you and hem.
Un on every side. They will crush you and your
children among you to the ground and they will not leave one
stone on another in your midst because you did not recognize
the time when God visited you. So I want you to imagine with me
for just a second as we get started, the most peaceful
setting you can think of. So, depending on who you are,
you might have a different scenario in your head.
Some of you might be thinking about a day on the beach.
The weather is perfect. It's not too crowded.
You have a great book in one hand and your favorite drink in
the other. You don't have to tell anybody
what it is. Others of you might be thinking
of a cabin on the side of a mountain somewhere.
The snow is falling Outside. The Fire is crackling inside,
and you're sitting in an oversized comfortable recliner
with not a care in the world and still others of you might be
thinking of something, maybe a little noisier but still what
you would describe as peaceful. Maybe you imagine sitting at
your favorite restaurant, their best entree and front of you.
Someone else is picking up the bill.
Bill and you're surrounded by your closest friends and a table
full of laughter and joy. Peace this morning.
We're going to spend a few minutes looking together at this
idea of Peace as revealed for us by the person of Jesus.
Now, when we think of Peace often, we primarily think of
maybe the absence of conflict, a place of safety and sitting in
the midst of a bunch of things that make us happy.
And that's not a bad vision and those are not bad desires.
However, I would argue that the pathway to peace is not seeking
to attain enough status or wealth, where you can kind of
manufacture and create enough peaceful settings in your life
and rid your world of any disturbances.
Because as we all know and have experienced, even when we try
our best to create or manufacture piece, things that
are out of our control can very quickly disrupt that however, if
our peace is found not in experiences, but rather in a
person, what we might just find is that there is a peace offer
to us that cannot be disturbed or taken away.
But the path to that piece might be much different than we'd ever
imagined. So good morning again, church is
always, as I said earlier, it is a joy to be gathered with you.
As I mentioned earlier, my name is Joel, and I have the
privilege of serving as the pastor for preaching and
oversight here, continue to be a prayer for Kevin.
Perry our pastor for shepherding, he and his wife
Kris are still in Africa on a mission support trip, supporting
some friends of theirs and they hope to A kind of head back this
way. Saturday.
They might make it next Sunday, we don't know.
I told him. Don't feel like you have to.
I know it's Easter but it's all right.
You don't get extra points docked off because you missed
Easter. So go listen to last week's
sermon if you don't like that. Alright, anyways, as you can
see, we're taking a break from our series through Hebrews,
which will pick back up after Easter, were kind of spinning
two weeks, which will do this some years to look at the last
week of the life of Jesus as narrated by Luke's gospel the
last week of Jesus. His life is traditionally called
Holy Week. Now depending on if you grew up
in church at all or what church tradition, you grew up in, you
might be like, more familiar with Holy Week than I am.
Some of you if you grew up Baptist like me, you have no
idea what it is, and you just think it's a Catholic thing.
And so you're like, I don't even want to know, but holy week is
simply part of the liturgical church calendar, which is a very
helpful tool for Christians, that just reminds us about
different times of Jesus life. And this week, specifically is
for the purpose of us. Slowing, Down and reflecting on
the Life, Death burial and resurrection of Jesus.
What I want to do is give you a quick rundown of the significant
days of Holy weeks to kind of ground Us in the larger context.
So four main significant days in holy week.
So the first one is Palm Sunday. That is what today is on the
church calendar, it's the week before Easter.
And so, that is the day, when Jesus, it's called Palm Sunday,
because Jesus rode his triumphal entry, as people were waving,
palm branches, and they were late.
On the ground as Jesus enters. Jerusalem known commonly again
is the triumphal entry. Then you have Maundy Thursday,
okay, it gets its name on D from the word mandate or command and
it's the new command that Jesus gives his disciples.
This is Thursday the day before Jesus was crucified, if you
remember, it was when Jesus was in the upper room with his
disciples, most people call it the Last Supper, you might have
seen popular paintings on that on this night.
He institute's the Lord's Supper, he washes the feet of
his disciples and he gives them the new Date to love one another
as he had loved them. It's what we remember every week
when we take communion here at new Eden, the death and burial,
the death, and burial of Jesus, then there's good Friday, which
was the day of Jesus crucifixion, the day that he is
placed on a cross to die for the sins of the world.
Now, it seems like an oxymoron to call that day good.
But when you know, what comes on Sunday, it makes sense because
Sunday is what is traditionally called Easter or Resurrection.
Day, call it what you want. Want, I really don't care.
It's the day. Jesus got up out of the grave
and beat Death, hell and sin. So we're going to celebrate it
regardless of how you want to do that.
So in this series for the first week, we're kind of zooming in
at Palm Sunday and next week, we'll be looking at Resurrection
Sunday. I do encourage there's plenty of
resources, online, if you want me to direct you to some, to
kind of spend some time, maybe with your family, or community
group, looking at some of the other days, but we're kind of
just sandwich here in between the two.
And so, we're calling this two-week series revealed.
The idea of this series is the unveiling of Jesus.
That's what the eyes open. Are some people have told me, it
looks like something out of a horror movie, so if that's what
you thought, I'm sorry, I don't know.
We didn't spend much time. It's a two-week Series, so don't
put too much thought into it. Their eyes are big and open and
I thought they were pretty, not scary, but whatever that might
say more about y'all than me, some All right, so what where we
get this name reveals from the at the in Luke's gospel?
What you'll see in the couple weeks were in here especially
towards the end there is this theme.
This recurring theme of people who physically see something
with their eyes. They're staring something in the
face, but they fail to really understand what's going on.
And Jesus will even directly tell them that they failed to
recognize what is actually in front of them.
As you heard read a moment ago, the Pharisees are told that they
don't know what brings about actual piece because they Failed
to recognize the time that God himself, visited them.
And so today, in the time, we have left, we're going to see
how true peace is revealed for us in the person of Christ.
If we can only recognize what is staring Us in the face.
So the first thing about peace, we're going to look at is this
the promise of peace. The promise of peace.
So to understand peace is defined for us by Jesus.
We must first understand a little bit about the world in
which Jesus lived. Peace was not a foreign concept.
It was actually a very trendy idea for the the the context in
which Jesus lived, the life of Jesus took place in a culture
where the Roman Empire was in charge and had experienced
relative success. This time is referred to in
history as the Pax Romana, which meant the piece of And Rome
experienced in one sense, an idea of peace and they they
touted and promise this idea of social peace to their citizens
at least as long as they fell in line with their promise and
their proposed ideals. The issue is that if you study
deep enough, this piece was selectively offered.
And it came at the expense of many who were enslaved and
oppressed and kept under the thumb of those in political
Empower and even for those who are on the right side of this
piece, those that experienced this temporary peace.
That was the problem. It was temporary.
It only lasted go study history for another couple hundred
years. This piece was not eternal.
So that's the broad social context but not only that,
there's the religious context, there's another institution of
the day that promised peace and that was the religious system.
This old Covenant Jewish system that had the temple life at its
Center. It promised that one could have
peace with God if enough rules and regulations would just be
followed. However, this idea of Peace was
also selectively offered. It was kept tightly guarded by
the Just Gatekeepers of the day who determine who was in and who
was out and who was kept on the outside and on the fringes.
And so, just like the social power of the Romans, came
through political, sorry, the social piece of the Romans came
through political power. This piece came through a
religious power, and again, it would not last in this exact
passage Jesus actually. Prophesized the destruction of
the temple in just 40 under 40, short years from them.
So there's the promise of social peace from Rome, the promise of
religious piece from the old Covenant Temple system in the
religious leaders. But if we look closely and if we
have eyes to see will also see that there was always a promise
of real peace from Yahweh. The god of the Bible who
promised peace, not just to a select few, but to the entire
world, well, before Jesus ever became incarnate and was born,
look back with me to the Old Testament.
I'll have it on the screen for you Zechariah. 9:9 And verses 9
through 10. And this is a prophecy about a
Yahweh who would bring peace. And it says Rejoice greatly, o
daughter, Zion shout and Triumph daughter Jerusalem.
Look, your king is coming to you.
He is righteous and Victorious. Humble and riding on a donkey,
on a Colt. The foal of a donkey I will cut
off The Chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Elam.
So so the Chariot from Ephraim horse from Jerusalem.
There's no more need for for items of war and instruments of
war. The bow of War will be removed
and he will Proclaim peace to Israel.
Wait, no. Peace to the nation's.
His Dominion will extend the borders of German away from sea
to Sea from the Euphrates river to the ends of the Earth.
Long ago, there had been a promise of peace that would
extend not just for a select few.
Not for those with military might or who were born into the
right family but rather to the ends of the Earth.
Not based on social status or ethnicity, or class or
genealogy. And there were those who had
been longing and waiting patiently for this piece to
come. Especially those who were The
Outsiders in Rome and The Outsiders among the religious
Elite, those who have been oppressed and kept on the
margins longed for a leader who would come and in war, and
strife, and poverty, and Division and Usher in peace.
But what would it look like when it arrived?
And how would it unfold? And this is the context.
In which we find the story of Palm Sunday.
These are the cultural pressures that Jesus lived and was born
into on purpose, based on the Sovereign plan of God.
When the right time came Jesus entered As in t right calls.
It it was The Perfect Storm. Our story today takes place at
the end of Jesus ministry. By this point, there were many
followers of Jesus who had read the Old Testament scriptures and
really believe that this was the Messianic King, the long-awaited
Messiah, who would bring peace, he had he had proved it by
Healing The Sick and raising the dead and even forgiving sins.
And not only that people heard and watched as he stood up to
those in power protesting against worldly ideas of peace.
And I include the religious Elite in that worldly,
understanding political religious power, only offered to
the select few Jesus with his life and with his lips, he
protested against that. And so now as the pressure
mounts, no more hiding who Jesus is The tension begins to rise
and Jesus begins his descent toward Jerusalem.
Now, we don't know if the crowds fully understood probably some
did and probably some didn't, but they knew something was up,
but Jesus knew what he was headed toward.
Not peace, but a conflict, and a conflict that was greater than
anything. The world has ever known.
We saw first, the promise of peace and now we see the path of
peace. Culturally.
During this time, when a warrior king would conquer a city that
king would then ride into the city with a huge procession.
No, expense would be spared. The red carpet would be rolled
out the bands would play. The dancers would dance.
And people would line the street, the king's subjects,
both old and new would line the pathway and begin to cheer, and
chant, probably some out of joy and some out of fear because
They didn't want to be squashed too and they would give honor
and allegiance to the king. this was the expectation, but the
reality of this King and this entrance is much different Jesus
sends his followers, not to get a war horse. but a donkey, A
humble animal not revered or looked highly upon, but
typically only used by those who couldn't afford a horse, but
still these people so badly. Want to believe that this is the
warrior king that always dreamed of.
And so they begin to chant a line from an old poem from Psalm
118, which is where Luke 1938 comes from blessed.
And the palm, the, the poem from Psalm says, blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord, and they insert themselves.
Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
This is the king. We've always waited for Psalm
118 was a Messianic, Psalm about a one who would come in and save
the people and destroy the powerful enemies.
Save the people. So in other gospels, they cried
out Hosanna, which means save us now And Jesus is fulfilling this
Psalm of destroying his enemies. Just not in the way we might
expect. Because he loves them.
He really is the one prophesied back in Zechariah 9, who would
come humble and mounted on a donkey and this had to throw
everyone for a loop. All they had known were worldly
ways of Peace achieved through Power and dominance and stamping
out any insurrectionist, who would dare stand up to us, but
Jesus rides into town on a donkey on a path full of
tattered. Worn coats, Cheered on by
Misfits and outcasts. And in doing this he is staging
a protest against worldly understandings of peace.
As we think of the crowd who most likely most of them, we
don't know for sure but most of them probably envisioned.
Something drastically different from this self-proclaimed
Messiah. I mean he had healed the sick
and raise the dead. Surely he can go in and
overthrow the Roman rulers and oppression and end it. and as we
think about this, we have to ask ourselves, which Jesus, we are
comfortable with following Do we want the warrior king who comes
riding in with the military might political strength and
religious Authority? Or are we okay with following a
king into humility and meekness? A Shepherd, who protest against
our worldly understandings of Peace?
How often do we want? A king who will just conquer our
foes? Give us Comfort security,
wealth, happiness and everything.
We want we could even get passionate and cheer this King
on. We can even be excited about
this King that we fashioned in our mind.
But are we still willing to follow him down?
The path of Peace? If it means losing our life, And
walking into humility and even death.
Are we willing to lay down our most cherished rights for the
lives of others or do we cling onto them?
Do we follow the politicians of the day?
The religious leaders of the day or the influential wealthy Elite
over the ways of Jesus because when you follow Jesus, it comes
at the iron and persecution of others.
Jesus said, if you think they're not going to hate you like they
hated me. Surely they're going to hate my
followers. Do we just want him to be what
we want him to be? Where we have fashioned?
A Jesus we like and hear how here's how you know?
And I know if I'm beginning to Fashion, a Jesus and make him in
my image instead of being conformed to his, here's how
this works. Jesus hates everyone.
We hate and loves everyone. We love He always agrees with
our political talking points. He always has the same standards
and rules for all Christians that we have.
And if this is our Jesus, we're not worshiping Jesus, we're
worshipping ourselves. This is one response to Jesus
and his path of peace that we might find ourselves tempted to
follow. There's another path that of the
religious Elite In this passage the religious Elite even come to
Jesus, a silence the crowd, calm them down and Jesus refuses,
because even if the crowd is a little confused, at least
they're they're they're like on the right path and this
religious Elite. They had their agreement with
Rome that they could keep their social status and Power in the
religious sphere as long as there were no uprisings no
self-proclaimed Messiahs. Let's just keep the peace.
The only problem is that, keeping peace is different than
making peace. And Jesus was here to make peace
for all regardless of the disturbance it required.
Some of us want to soft in Jesus, make him palatable so we
can kind of just maintain some peace with the powerful cultural
and social leaders, and influencers of the day.
But the pathway of following Jesus doesn't allow for that.
The gospel will bring offense at one point or another.
I'm not saying we should just be jerks, that's not the point.
I don't blame it on. Well gospel, just defensive and
you're a well you're a jerk. I'll say that word instead of
something else. The gospel will bring offense.
the message of Jesus Can't Be Tamed or water down and at some
point unnecessarily, it will come into conflict with the way
of the world and the way of religious systems, it is a whole
new kingdom and the question is not if it's willing to conform
to what we want it to, but if we're willing to forsake
everything and conformed to Christ, even if we lose the
world, the crowd continues to cheer as Jesus nears closer to
Jerusalem. He knows where he's headed.
As Jesus rides on the back of the Donkey.
And it comes over the ridge, he can see in the distance, the
city of Jerusalem, what represented, the center of
religious life for his people. The chosen ones through whom God
wanted to bless the world. You would expect as Jesus gets
closer to this conflict that he would egg on the chance as you
watch Caitlin, Clark do when she hits a big shot.
Let's go. Some of y'all know I'm talking
about some. Y'all don't need a much more
women's basketball. Can I get an?
Amen. All right, we got one.
You would expect him to egg on the chance, maybe gain some
momentum, as he heads toward the city.
But for those in the crowd who took a long enough break from
the frenzy and the chance to notice, if they look close at
Jesus, they would have seen a shocking scene. instead of his
head held high and pride and confidence, our text tells us
that Jesus begins to weep in the Greek this is not just a few
tears kind of that roll down his face, this is a violent sobbing
emotionally overwhelmed filled with filled with grief and
sadness because he knows that he has been rejected by his own,
this is Yahweh, God, in flesh, Emmanuel, God With Us, Jesus the
creator of the world Weeps And he's not sad for his own sake.
But for there's he knows what is to come and it Grieves him he
says Jerusalem I would have loved to have gathered you but
you would not if only you knew what would bring peace but
you're not recognizing the time when God himself visited you
you're missing what's staring you in the face?
And I hate it because God is not willing that any should perish.
And Jesus, sadly prophetically predicts.
What would come true in about 40 short years, the temple would be
destroyed and the piece that they were trying.
So hard to juggle and maintain, and that's why they reject Jesus
in other passages. If you don't get rid of Jesus,
they're gonna come, take away your place and your nation and
we can't lose that. We got to maintain that.
And in trying to keep their own Earthly Kingdom, they missed out
on the kingdom of God. And in the end they lost both.
When we try to gain the world, we lose our soul.
And you lose the world, too. as c.s.
Lewis said, aim at heaven and you will get her thrown in a
matter. Jesus sobs because he knows that
real lasting Eternal. Peace is not found in a
revolution but in the revelation of God has revealed in the man
Christ Jesus. To those who reject him.
He says some of the saddest words Would you have known what
brought peace. You did not recognize the time
when God visited you. They wanted a religious and
political leader. And what they missed was that
God, in flesh, was in their midst, visiting them and
offering true, and ultimate piece.
But they did not have eyes. And this is the last thing.
We'll see. We saw the promise of Peace.
The pathway of peace. And now we see the person of
peace. See, peace is not ultimately
found in creating tranquil scenes for ourselves.
Peace is ultimately found in a person But peace does not come
without division first, hope does not come without loss.
Joy does not come without grief life, does not come without
death, and Easter does not happen without Good Friday.
Jesus knew that piece for the world would require Conflict for
him. Require him to go into the
greatest battle. Ever fought against sin and the
enemy and he would have to crawl up on a cross and died for the
sins of the world because the ultimate peace that we all need
the we there's nothing wrong with Desiring peace in the here
and now but the ultimate peace, we need is not to either be
freed from our oppressors or to join sides with them and
overthrow our Amy's. The ultimate, peace.
We need is peace with God and our sin has kept us from that.
Not only has it affected us as individuals.
It's infected the entire Cosmos like the world is groaning to be
restored because it is broken. Wars divisions school, shootings
and death and sickness and pain. But Jesus, did not stay distant
from that. He came to deal with the
ultimate problem and that is the story of Good Friday.
He is beaten and mocked stripped naked and made ashamed.
A crown of thorns shoved into his head and anyone watching
would have thought of this seen as bringing anything but peace.
Where was the army? Where were the soldiers?
Who's going to overthrow the Roman rule?
We thought he was the one. Who's going to usher in peace?
And the revolution seems to be an utter failure as he gasped
for breath on the cross. He cries out asking his father,
my God. My God, why have you forsaken
me? He was willing to enter into
that division. From his own father so that we
might be brought into peace and Union with God.
Eventually takes his last breath.
He's placed in a borrowed tomb, to rot.
On, Holy Saturday. He lays silent in the grave
Resting on the Sabbath, just as God did in the original
creation. His Jesus is bringing a new
creation and he lays in a rock hewn out of the Earth.
But on Resurrection morning. The stones begin to cry out and
the Earth opens up and gives way to the Son of God and the peace,
bring her walks out of the Tomb alive and it is through his
death that he brings life. It is through his grief that he
offers Joy. It is through his sacrifice that
he offers healing. It is through his division that
he offers peace. And this is the story of the
person of Peace. It's about the Life, Death,
burial. And resurrection of Jesus is
what we hinge everything on its, what Christians commonly called
The Gospel, or the good news, because that's what it is.
And this is the invitation to you because of the work of
Christ. No matter what family, you were
born into. No matter what you've done, no
matter your marital status, no matter your income level.
The invitation is to come find peace at the table of Jesus.
He is the piece that we're longing for when we try to fill
the void with things of this age, it is offered in Christ.
He is where true peace is found. So, wherever you find yourself
today, maybe you identify with the crowds or the Pharisees,
however, you've responded to Jesus in the past.
Whether you fully understood his way or not, right here, right
now. Peace is offered to you because
ultimate piece is revealed in the beautiful face of Jesus and
it's a peace that the world did not give so the world cannot
take it away. And when we surrender to this
when we quit trying to clamor and try to have control and
power and might and we surrender our eyes are opened and we
recognize the time that God has visited us in Christ when we see
a God Who Weeps? Because he loves you that much,
you can't stay the same. We say I'll follow you anywhere,
we'll go into death. Let's go sometimes through tears
and weeping and crying. Dean.
But we walk into humility lost surrender, weeping even death
because we know that Joy life and peace await on the other
side. And, you know, the proof of that
it's Easter morning, the resurrection of Jesus is What's
called the first fruits, that means, they're more to come.
There will be actual real peace when Jesus returns like
tangible. Like you can chill by the fire
and the snow falling outside, whatever is for you, he's
preparing to place. For you, well, whatever it is
like, that's real, that's coming.
But then, the big thing about it is that Jesus, the Blazing Glory
of Christ will be at the center of it.
All. There will be no more need for
sun because the glory of Christ is brighter than any Earthly
son. School shootings.
Will end Wars will cease? Guns will be turned to garden
tools, instruments of death will be transformed to instruments of
life. Death will turn to life, ashes
will turn to beauty, and tears, crying, Prejudice, poverty,
despair racism, all of it will be eradicated and cast outside
the kingdom of Shalom. The kingdom of peace.
I'll because of a humble King who lived I buried in was rose
again. And so in the here, and now we
want to see Kingdom Come burst forth into the presence and give
a snapshot a picture and appetizer, a foretaste of the
feast that is coming. That's why we gather on Sundays
church because she just got out of the grave and we're going to
celebrate forever. It's going to be vibrant life
getting. This is just a picture of for
taste. Our lives are the protest to the
world showing where true peace can be found a peace.
That passes worldly. Understanding that says it, does
it make sense? And we point them to Jesus and
said you're right, it doesn't. But for God, our hope is not in
money. Fame political religious power,
might, but rather in a crucified and risen Messiah.
So on this Palm Sunday, maybe reflect on the promise of Peace.
Offer to us. The pathway of peace that were
invited to walk. And the person of Peace Jesus
who gave his life to Ransom and redeem us.