What do you miss when you're in a hurry?
Generally speaking, the busier you are, the less emotional
bandwidth you have for other people.
The more pressed and overwhelmed you feel, the more you're going
to resent interruptions, the more you're going to sort of
knuckle down on your own agenda because you don't have enough
time to do all the things you're supposed to do.
You're going to be more set on the things you feel you have to
do, sometimes at the expense of other people's needs, other
people's feelings, other people's agendas.
Busier you feel, the more you're likely to resent any imposition
on your agenda or change to your agenda.
Sometimes it seems like in the professional world, the more
important someone is, the more authority they have, the harder
it is to get at any of their time.
You might go through a quest to get access to some kind of
specialist doctor, going to your General practitioner, getting
some tests done, getting a referral, getting through their
office, getting on their calendar.
And then you go to the specialist appointment.
You get to see the doctor for all of 8 minutes because they're
important, they're busy, they're in demand.
You might think of ACEO, of a company who has meetings stacked
back-to-back to back-to-back to back-to-back all day in 15
minute increments because there's so many important
decisions to be made. President George W Bush once
said that the only decisions he had to make were hard decisions,
because if they weren't hard decisions, they wouldn't have
made it all the way to his desk. When someone in authority is
that busy that pressed, it could be hard to get to them.
It's easy to treat them either with a wrong kind of reverence
and awe. Oh wow, they are so important.
They are so influential, they are so powerful.
That is why they are so busy. Or you could treat them with the
wrong kind of resentment. Oh, they're, they're much too
important for a little person like me.
I shouldn't bother that person about this thing, because surely
they wouldn't care. When you're in that kind of
authority, when your time is that pressed or in demand,
there's all kinds of temptations you can fall into.
Jesus of Nazareth held no formal public office in his earthly
life, but he lived under intense demands.
His time was always severely pressed.
He was constantly pressed by people with overwhelming needs
and competing demands on him, clamoring for his time and
attention. But was Jesus in a hurry?
Did Jesus have low emotional bandwidth to meet people in
need? How did Jesus respond to people
who seemed not important enough to have a claim on his time?
Our passage for this morning is Mark 1046 through 1111.
If you don't have a Bible, you can feel free to put up a hand
and someone will bring you one. This morning we arrive at a
turning point in the whole Gospel of Mark.
Our passage recounts the last stage of Jesus's journey to
Jerusalem that he's been on for the last three chapters, and it
records his approach to the city and his entrance into the city.
Jerusalem is the political and religious capital of the Jewish
people. It's the place where pilgrims
would gather in huge numbers, 3 * a year.
It's the place where God dwelt personally with his people,
showing his presence in the temple.
And it's the place where, as Jesus knows, and as he has
predicted 3 times in the last three chapters, he will be
betrayed and beaten and killed. In this passage, a truth that's
been pulsing beneath the surface of Mark's gospel all along
breaks through more fully than it has yet.
It's that Jesus is the Messiah, He's the King.
He's the descendant of David who will fulfill God's promises and
bring God's Kingdom to earth. But what kind of king is he?
As the king, he would be at the very tippy top of that ladder of
importance, of authority, of being in demand of it, taking a
lot to get a claim on his time and attention.
What kind of king is Jesus? Please follow along as I read
Mark 1046 to 1111. And they came to Jericho.
And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great
crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was
sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of
David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling
him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Son of David,
have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, Call
him. And they called the blind man,
saying to him, Take heart, get up, he is calling you.
And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?
And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
And Jesus said to him, Go your way, your faith has made you
well. And immediately he recovered his
sight, and followed him on the way.
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Beth Phage and
Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples
and said to them, Go into the village in front of you, and
immediately as you enter it you will find a cult tide on which
no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.
If anyone says to you, why are you doing this, say the Lord has
need of it and will send it back here immediately.
And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in
the street, and they united it. And some of those standing there
said to them, What are you doing untying the Colts?
And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.
And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on
it. And he sat on it.
And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread
leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.
And those who went before and those who followed were
shouting, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming Kingdom of
our Father David Hosanna in the highest.
And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when
he had looked around at everything, as it was already
late, he went out to Bethany with the 12.
Here's the point of our passage in one sentence.
Jesus is the humble King who brings the mercy, joy, and
judgment we all need. I'll say that again.
Jesus is the humble king who brings the mercy, joy, and
judgment we all need. Our passage has two big sections
and one little section. There's the healing of
Bartimaeus in chapter 10, verses 46 to 52.
There's Jesus's triumphal approach to the city of
Jerusalem in Chapter 11, verses 1 to 10, and then you'll see the
ESV even sets it off as its own paragraph.
There's the the last verse of the passage, verse 11.
There's just this little brief note about what Jesus does when
he first gets into this city. He visits the temple and he
looks around. These three sections each reveal
something about the kind of king Jesus is.
In Jesus character and work, there is a paradoxical fullness.
He embodies and unites things you don't often find together in
a human being. He contains in himself and
imagination stretching abundance.
Some of us in the church history class this morning learned about
the early American theologian Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards was fond of saying that Jesus unites in
himself diverse excellencies. These diverse excellencies meet
our diverse needs. Jesus is not too busy for
anyone. Jesus meets your most urgent
needs. Jesus meets your longest running
needs. Jesus meets needs you didn't
know you had. Jesus is all you need and more.
Our passage shows us that in three ways, corresponding to the
three sections. First in chapter 10, verses 46
to 52, the merciful healer. The merciful healer looking at
verse 46 and they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving
Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind
beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.
Jesus was journeying from Galilee in the north to
Jerusalem. And on that trip, the last major
settlement you'd hit would be Jericho.
It's very close to Jerusalem. And so Jesus is on the move with
a huge crowd with him. But someone who's not on the
move is Bartimaeus. Usually Mark doesn't name the
people that Jesus heals, but he names Bartimaeus, presumably
because, as we'll see, he became a follower of Jesus.
He was presumably a well known follower.
People would have known who he was throughout the early
Christian movement. When we meet Bartimaeus, he's
sitting by the roadside. He's not only blind, he's poor.
He's so poor he's reduced to sitting in place and begging for
whatever anyone's willing to give him.
So he has to sit where there's a lot of traffic, kind of on the
main road into and out of the city.
He has to stay put there in order to appeal to people's
compassion who are passing by. He has no job, no prospects for
a job. He can't meet his own needs.
He has no hope of how his life might get any better.
No hope except one verse 47. When he heard that it was Jesus
of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus son of David, have
mercy on me. By calling Jesus the son of
David, Bartimaeus is confessing him as the Messiah.
We'll talk about that a lot more.
The only other person to confess Jesus as the Messiah so far in
Mark's gospel was Peter back in chapter 8.
But we saw there that Peter was right to recognize Jesus as the
Messiah, but very wrong in the kind of Messiah he thought Jesus
was. So here Bartimaeus also
recognizes Jesus as Messiah, and he declares that knowledge of
Jesus openly. How did Bartimaeus come to know
the truth about Jesus? Ultimately, his faith is a gift
of God. But how did he hear about Jesus?
He must have heard other people's reports.
Word must have gotten around to him.
People must have told him about the things Jesus taught and the
things Jesus did. So without ever meeting Jesus,
without ever seeing Jesus, he can't.
He's blind. Without ever having any personal
interaction with Jesus, Bartimaeus comes to faith in
Jesus. When Jesus comes by, Bartimaeus
already believes in him. He cries out in faith in him as
the Messiah. He's confident Jesus can do what
he needs. Bartimaeus came to a true
spiritual sight of Jesus. We often think that only seeing
is believing, that you should only trust those things that you
can personally verify. But there are times when only
believing is seeing. Bartimaeus trusts in Jesus
without ever seeing him. That means that before he has
his personal encounter with Jesus, he's in precisely the
same place the modern believers are.
But Bartimaeus is not just confessing truth.
He's begging for help. Jesus, son of David, have mercy
on me. He's asking Jesus to show
concern for his miserable condition.
Bartimaeus has nothing to commend himself to Jesus.
No resume, no CV, no bank account.
All Bartimaeus brings is his need.
He's confident Jesus is able to help.
He's confident Jesus is willing to help.
Bartimaeus knows that he is all need and Jesus is all supply.
He trusts that Jesus can meet his most pressing need.
What would you say is your most pressing need?
And how confident are you that what seems to be your most
pressing need really is? If you're here last week, you'll
remember that two of Jesus disciples, James and John, also
made a request of Jesus. But there's a striking contrast
between Bartimaeus's request and their request.
They wanted primacy. Bartimaeus wants mercy.
They were driven by ambition. Bartimaeus is driven by
desperation. They wanted to be first.
Bartimaeus wants to be whole. Do you know that you need mercy
from Jesus? If you don't, this whole sermon
is just going to wash over you like water off a duck's back.
The only way to know that you need mercy from Jesus is to know
that there's something wrong with you that you can't fix, and
to know that Jesus can fix it. This is true of all of us.
When we're not Christians, there's something most
profoundly wrong with us that only Jesus can fix.
It also remains true. As Christians who need Jesus's
mercy, we need his mercy to help us amid the trials of our lives.
We also need His mercy to forgive our sins and to
transform us from within. If you know that you need
Jesus's mercy, how does that change you?
It makes you humble. It brings about a gradual
process of making you less self reliant and more dependent on
God. It makes you more desperate in
prayer. Your prayers become more
pointed, more earnest, to the point you are trying to get
God's attention because you are trying to get God's help.
You pray because you need to, not because anybody told you to.
It also makes you quick to show mercy, whether towards someone
else's suffering or towards someone else's sin.
So in verse 47 Bartimaeus cries out for mercy but the people
around him are not happy about it.
Verse 48 and many rebuked him telling him to be silent, but he
cried out all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me.
Notice Bartimaeus's response to their rebukes or rather his non
response to their rebukes. They rebuke him and he keeps
calling out for Jesus attention. He's not deterred, he's not
hindered. He does not let their opposition
get in the way of him exercising his face.
Real faith perseveres through every headwind of opposition.
Real faith is born from desperation, so it doesn't let
anything get in between it and Jesus.
If you're desperate for Jesus, you won't let anyone stand in
your way. Not family or friends, not
neighbors or colleagues, Not people who are important or have
things you want to get and who you're afraid will think less of
you if you're some kind of weird Jesus person.
Presumably the people who try to silence him think that
Bartimaeus is not important enough to claim Jesus's time and
attention. Kind of like how back in verse
13 of chapter 10, the disciples revuke people who are trying to
bring children to Jesus. Same basic impulse.
I think you know Jesus on the move.
He's marching to Jerusalem. He's got an agenda.
There's this whole huge crowd with him.
What are you going to do, Bartimaeus?
Who are who are you to get in Jesus's way?
Who are you to interrupt Jesus? Who are you to try to change
Jesus agenda? That's how all the crowd sees
Bartimaeus. But that is not how Jesus sees
Bartimaeus. No one else had time for him but
Jesus did. Other people would hinder him
from coming to Jesus, but Jesus welcomed him.
So one question for you and me is, is there anyone you're
tempted to think is not worth Jesus's time and attention?
Is there anyone who, in however subtle a way, you might be
tempted to hinder from coming to Jesus?
Verse 49 Jesus stopped and said call him and they called the
blind man saying to him, take heart, get up, he is calling
you. No one else had time for
Bartimaeus, but Jesus did. No one else had compassion on
Bartimaeus, but Jesus did. No one else thought Bartimaeus
was worth Jesus time, but Jesus did and so Jesus stopped.
He halted his progress toward Jerusalem.
He interrupted his own supremely important agenda.
He turned aside from the whole crowd to single out Bartimaeus.
Jesus's priorities are not other people's priorities.
Jesus leaves the 99 for the sake of the One.
This is a precious window into Christ's perfect compassion.
As Christians, there are two things we always need to do with
Christ's compassion. The Gospels bring this to us
again and again. What do you need to do with
Christ's compassion? Receive it because you know you
need it, and extend it to others because they need it.
This week, what can you do to receive?
Jesus's compassion this week What can you do to extend
Jesus's compassion to others? In verse 49, Jesus extends his
compassion to Bartimaeus. So what does Bartimaeus do?
Verse 50? And throwing off his cloak, he
sprang up and came to Jesus. Bartimaeus responds immediately
and eagerly. He comes with his whole heart as
fast as he can. Is there any significance to his
throwing off his cloak? It could simply be that he
didn't want a longer, bulkier garment getting in the way of
tripping him up as he's trying to run to Jesus.
I think there also might be a deeper significance here.
It's likely that he used his cloak more for begging than for
warmth. Jericho was a hot climate.
It was below sea level, next to the desert, next to the Dead Sea
in the deserts. So Bartimaeus would have spread
out his cloak and that would have been how he would gather
alms from people. In leaving his cloak behind,
it's as if Bartimaeus is declaring from now on I'm going
to get all that I need to live from Jesus.
He is declaring his devotion to Jesus and dependence on Jesus by
leaving his means of begging behind.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, what is keeping you from
doing what Bartimaeus did? What's keeping you from getting
rid of everything in your old life and rising and running and
coming to Jesus? What's keeping you from
dedicating yourself completely to Jesus?
Verses 51 and 52 show us how Jesus responded.
And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?
The blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
And Jesus said to him, Go your way, your faith has made you
well. And immediately he recovered his
sight and followed him on the way.
So in response, Jesus heals Bartimaeus immediately.
He heals him with a word. He puts forth divine power to
make Bartimaeus whole. Only God can do that.
Only the God who created by a word can heal by a word.
Only the God who gave sight can restore sight instantly,
effortlessly. Here there's a deliberate
contrast with a healing miracle back in chapter 8, verses 22 to
26. You can just turn one page back
and glance there if you want. Back there in chapter 8, verse
22 to 26, Jesus also healed a blind man, but he did so in
stages. At first the man only had
partial sight restored. And he said, I see men like
trees walking. But here Jesus heals Bartimaeus
completely and instantly. So why the contrast?
These two healings, these two restorations of sight, are
literary frames or brackets around the central section of
Mark's gospel that runs from chapter 8, verse 27, to chapter
10, verse 45. As we've seen, the main theme of
that whole section, that whole middle section of Mark's gospel
is the cross. It's that Jesus cross becomes
our cross. That being Jesus disciple means
dying to yourself because he died for you.
That point is made throughout that whole section.
But again and again and again, the disciples don't get it.
They show that they're spiritually blind.
Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah.
It's as if he saw him halfway true.
It's as if he saw Jesus blurry a man like a tree walking.
So what's Mark teaching by highlighting these healings of
sight? He's saying that we're all
spiritually blind to who Jesus is by nature.
He's saying that faith is a gift you have to receive from God.
He's saying that sometimes that faith might come gradually.
He's saying that truly seeing who Jesus is means understanding
the cross and understanding that his cross has to become your
cross. If you see that, you see Jesus.
If you get that, you get what it means to be his disciple.
If you don't, you miss Jesus completely, and you miss
discipleship completely. It takes spiritual sight to
perceive it, and Jesus himself can give that spiritual sight.
So Jesus grants Bartimaeus his sight and he tells them your
faith has saved you. I think Jesus is speaking on 2
levels at once. He's saying because you have
faith, that's that's why you came to appeal to me.
That's how you came to receive my mercy and I healed you.
But I think he's speaking on a deeper level about the salvation
of Bartimaeus soul. He's healed spiritually, he's
been saved. And it's not that Bartimaeus
faith is a power that earned or achieved or accomplished his
salvation. Bartimaeus faith is just an
instrument. It's just an empty channel by
which he receives the salvation that comes entirely from Jesus
and his divine power and compassion.
Verse 52, Jesus tells Bartimaeus, go your way.
I don't think that means Jesus is telling Bartimaeus to leave
his presence. Instead, I think Jesus is
telling him that he no longer has to sit by the roadside
begging. He's got a whole new life.
He's free to go. But Bartimaeus has already
decided to do better than that. The end of verse 52.
And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the
way. We've seen in a number of
passages that the literal act of following Jesus on the way to
Jerusalem is also a picture. It's also a pointer to what it
means to follow him as a disciple.
So what does Bartimaeus do? He gets up and starts walking
with Jesus behind Jesus, following Jesus.
He's about to see with his physical eyes.
He is seeing now with his physical eyes for the first
time. And who knows how many years,
decades maybe, who's blind from birth?
We don't know. The very first thing he's going
to see is not going to be his house.
It's not going to be his neighborhood.
It's not going to be his friends or family.
The very first scenes that will come to his newly healed eyes,
it's Jesus and the disciples walking up the steep incline to
get to the city where Jesus will be crucified.
That's where Jesus is going. That's what Bartimaeus now sees.
And so that's where he's going to.
That's what it means to become a Christian.
What now fills your vision is the sight of Jesus going to the
cross and you with him. If Jesus gave you what you most
desired, if you had one ask, one question, one request, what's it
going to be for Jesus and he gave you that, would you turn
around and follow him? Would you give up everything and
become his disciple friends? It should be obvious by now, but
just to make it explicit, Bartimaeus is a picture of all
of us before we come to faith. His sitting by the roadside is a
picture of our spiritual inability.
There's nothing we can do to save ourselves.
His blindness and poverty picture our spiritual condition
apart from Christ. We lack true knowledge of God,
and however rich we think we may be spiritually, we are beggars
like Bartimaeus. All you can bring to Jesus is
your need. And Bartimaeus is also a
glorious picture of every believer's conversion, no matter
if you grew up in a Christian household and can't remember a
time you didn't believe in Jesus, or if you just became a
Christian two weeks ago in a radical, transformative U-turn.
Praise God, I'd love to talk to you about it.
Here's a picture of every believer's conversion.
Faith begins in desperation. Faith begins in recognizing you
need mercy. When you realize that, you'll
call out to Jesus like Bartimaeus did.
You'll beg Jesus for mercy, and you will not let anyone get in
your way. When he answers, you'll spring
up. Bartimaeus did.
You'll leave your old life behind, and you'll follow him.
In our salvation. We do nothing.
Jesus does everything. We receive his perfect work by
faith. Jesus perfectly meets your
deepest need, with no help from you and no thanks to you.
And just as Jesus is healing raised up Bartimaeus from
begging, so his saving work raises us up from spiritual
death. What makes Jesus mercy available
and effective like this? How does he need each of our
deepest need? It's through his death and
resurrection. That's what Mark's gospel is
pointing to. This whole section of the gospel
is like a big arrow pointing straight to the cross.
And as we get closer, the cross gets bigger.
How can you receive this kind of mercy?
Only by knowing and trusting that Jesus died to pay the full
price for your sins. Only by knowing and trusting
that He rose from the dead and defeated death so that no
sickness, no suffering, and no sin can never get the last word
on anyone who trusts in Him. The only way you can receive
this mercy and compassion is by abandoning any pretense or
trying to work your way to God and calling out like a beggar
because He's done everything in his death and resurrection.
What Jesus was marching up those hills on His way to do is how
you can receive the same mercy Bartimaeus did 2000 years ago.
If you don't know that mercy, turn from sin and trust in Jesus
today. Jesus is the King who is
infinitely compassionate. He is the merciful healer.
He is also point to the joy bringing King, the joy bringing
King. We see this in Chapter 11,
verses 1 to 10. In verses 1 to 6, Jesus prepares
for his entry into Jerusalem. He does so by giving his
disciples an odd set of instructions that they
faithfully carry out. Now when they drew near to
Jerusalem, to Beth Phage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the
village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you
will find a colt tide on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are
you doing this, say the Lord has need of it, and we'll send it
back here immediately. And they went away and found a
colt, Tide, at a door outside in the street, and they united it.
And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing
untying the colt? And they told them what Jesus
had said, and they let them go. What is going on here?
Did Jesus make some kind of secret advance plan with people
he knew in Jerusalem before coming to the city?
That's possible. Some commentators think so.
I think a far better explanation is that Jesus is doing something
we've seen him do several times in the Gospel.
Just that he's demonstrating divine foreknowledge, just like
his detailed predictions of his death and resurrection, saying
exactly what's going to happen ahead of time.
Well, so here he's demonstrating a knowledge only God can have.
Here Jesus knows what no human being could know.
There'll be a cult locked outside.
Here's just what to say to get them to give it to you.
This also explains the strange saying in verse 3.
The Lord has need of it. Who is Jesus talking about?
I think he's talking about himself.
He's claiming a divine right to requisition these people's
property. It's as if a military is on the
March authorized by their government.
Well, hey, I'm so sorry. We need your barn to house all
these soldiers while we set up camp.
Well, you don't have a choice. Military's in charge.
You're in that territory. OK, I guess you get to use my
barn to house these fifty soldiers, right?
There's a higher authority that comes in and claims that
property. Here.
Jesus says, well, he's the creator of the cult.
He's the owner of the cult. He's just going to loan it and
give it back. But why is Jesus doing this?
The key to the whole passage is a promise about the Messiah in
the prophetic Old Testament book of Zechariah, Chapter 9, verse
9. You could turn there if you
want, but don't feel the need to.
Here's the verse. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem, 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.
Jesus knows he's the Messiah. Jesus is about to fulfill this
prophecy. He's about to put God's words
into action by requisitioning this cult.
He's announcing by his actions that he is the promised Messiah.
All throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has charged both
people and demons to keep quiet about him.
A person or demon says he's the Son of God, and he says don't
tell anybody. There's the Transfiguration
where they get this vision of his glory and the disciples are
there. Jesus says don't tell anyone
until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.
He has not wanted word of his Messiahship to get around, but
now he's lifting the gag order. He's pulling back the veil of
secrecy. Bartimaeus shouts out that Jesus
is the son of David, and Jesus doesn't rebuke him or quiet him.
And now here he's making a very public announcement by getting a
donkey to ride into Jerusalem. This is a striking act.
All the pilgrims who traveled into Jerusalem would have done
so on foot. Jesus went on foot the whole
time up till now. It was a striking statement of
his kingship to say from here into Jerusalem, I'm going to
ride. That was a royal privilege, a
royal prerogative, and that's why it was a donkey.
Nobody D ever sat on before. That kind of animal was reserved
for kingly use. That brings us to verses 7 and
8. They get the donkey,
specifically a young donkey, and they brought the colt to Jesus
and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.
And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread
leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.
The cloaks on the colt are a makeshift throne.
The cloaks and the branches on the road are a makeshift red
carpet. Both honor Jesus as the king.
Both are improvised in the moment.
These pilgrims journeying with Jesus into Jerusalem for the
Passover are rightly recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.
They're honoring him. They're crowning him.
But they weren't prepared for this.
They had to just use whatever is on hand.
Royal celebrations like a coronation or a 50 year
anniversary of a long reign are usually the biggest exercise in
pomp and circumstance any country can manage.
Pull out all the stops, show all the wealth, all the cultural
vitality, all the strength, all the power.
This one's a little wonky. Just some clothes spread on a
donkey and some clothes and branches on the ground.
So there's two truths here sitting in a kind of paradoxical
tension. On the one hand, Jesus openly
proclaiming his kingship and these fellow pilgrims are openly
acclaiming him as king. But on the other hand, he is
showing that he is a very different kind of king.
He is the humble king, as Zechariah 9 says.
He's coming not to domineer, but to redeem.
He's coming not to be served, but to serve.
He's coming to give his life for you and me.
He's the king. He can do it.
He's the humble king. He's willing to do it.
The people who laid their cloaks on the colt for Jesus to sit on.
We're performing a symbolic act of submission.
The clothes represent the person.
Where did the clothes go? Underneath Jesus.
They're putting themselves under Jesus in reverend submission.
They're offering themselves to Jesus for him to do whatever he
wanted with them. To be a Christian is to say,
Lord, take me and make me a throne for you to sit on.
Lord, take my life, body and soul and make me a throne for
you to reign from. We see another aspect of the
people's right response to Jesus's kingship in verses 9 and
10. They they break out and shouting
doesn't take too much imagination to think they're
probably some songs mixed in because they're quoting from the
Psalms, which were meant to be sung.
Verses 9 and 10. Those who went before and those
who followed were shouting. Hosanna.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our Father David.
Hosanna. In the highest hear, the people
cry out words from the Psalm we read earlier, Psalm 118,
specifically verses 25 and 26. That Hebrew phrase hosanna is a
prayer. It means Lord save us or Lord
save now. So the people bless Jesus as the
one who comes in the name of the Lord.
They recognize him as the one who's going to regather all of
God's people and bring us all together into God's presence.
That's why they rejoice in the Kingdom of David that is soon to
come. They recognize he's the Son of
David. He's going to fulfill all the
promises God made to David. They might not know exactly how
it's all going to play out, but what they're saying here is on
the right track. There is nothing wrong and
everything right with them quoting these scriptures and
seeing them fulfilled in Jesus. So Jesus comes in God's
authority with God's blessing to do God's will, to fulfill God's
work and to bring in God's Kingdom.
Ultimately, he comes in the name of the Lord, because he
eternally bears that name of the Lord.
In the people's response to Jesus, there's an undeniable
note of celebration, of joy, of festivity.
Why? Why does Jesus bring joy?
Because he came to make everything right.
Because his coming Kingdom will perfectly banish sin.
When the Kingdom comes in its fullness, it will perfectly
banish sin from the hearts of all of his people, and it will
perfectly banish sin from the whole realm of the new creation.
Jesus coming Kingdom will remove and reverse suffering.
There will not be one trace of it left.
Jesus coming Kingdom will undo every cause of sadness and bring
infinite reasons to rejoice. Jesus is the joy bringing King.
He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.
Joy is only as good as the ground underneath it.
Joy is only as good as what the joy is in.
Joy in Jesus is better than joy in anything in this world
because only Jesus will never disappoint.
Only Jesus will never fail. Only Jesus will never be taken
by death because he defeated death and delivers from death.
Only Jesus is willing and able to completely renew you and
completely renew this world. Only Jesus can make everything
sad come untrue. So the people rightly cry out,
Hosanna, Lord, save. If you're not a believer in
Jesus, is there anything you say you would need saving from?
And where do you turn for that salvation?
Just as the crowd rejoices in the coming Kingdom, so Jesus
teaches us all to pray your Kingdom come.
Jesus inaugurated this Kingdom by his death and resurrection.
He opened it up and broke into this world, but he didn't
complete it. He will only consummate it when
he returns. And so as Christians, we
regularly pray as part of the Lord's Prayer.
Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. The people cried out.
Hosanna, Lord, save We believers all throughout this age cry out.
Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, If you are a believer in Jesus,
what in your life is most wrong? What's most painful?
What is most seemingly unfixable?
Make sure that trial makes you long for heaven and for the
coming of God's Kingdom. Make sure that trial leads you
to meditate on heaven and on the coming of God's Kingdom.
If you want some help with that, you could read Richard Baxter's
book. It's been recently shrunk down
to a manageable size called The Saints Everlasting Rest.
Our pastor Michael reviewed it online for the Gospel Coalition.
Helpful, rich, challenging stuff on how to meditate on heaven.
Whatever that trial is that seems most unfixable, make sure
it makes you long for Christ's return.
God has 1000 good purposes in ordaining that suffering.
Many of those good purposes converge on teaching you
inwardly to long for heaven more.
This scene on the way to Jerusalem is something like, to
borrow a phrase from Chris Biggers, a Holy Spirit inspired
flash mob that was too good. Had to give credit.
Thanks, Chris. This is a redemptive,
historically unique pop up worship service.
They're getting Jesus right? And so they're worshipping him
then and there. What does that have to teach us
about our own corporate worship? It teaches us that our corporate
worship is about continually acclaiming Christ as King.
Corporate worship is about renewing our allegiance to
Christ as King, learning to say yet again, Lord, may my life be
your throne. Corporate worship is a fresh
weekly declaration of our joy in the coming Kingdom.
In corporate worship, we joyfully submit to Christ's
present rule, and we declare and renew our longing for his future
rule. In corporate worship, we appeal
to Christ to come and consummate his Kingdom.
How do we do this? By praying God's promises back
to him in prayer. By pouring out our hearts and
prayers of praise and pounding on heaven's door in prayers of
petition. By singing songs about heaven
and the second coming, Songs that proclaim truths like Hark
those bursts of acclamation. Hark those loud triumphant
chords. Jesus takes the highest station.
Oh, what joy the sight of Fords. Jesus is the humble King who
brings the joy we all need. He is himself all the joy we
need. And as I said, quoting Edwards a
while ago, Jesus unites in himself diverse excellencies.
Jesus meets needs you know you have and needs you might not
know you have. Needs like judgments .3 The
patient judge. The patient judge.
This point will be brief since it's from just one verse, verse
11, very end of the passage. And he entered Jerusalem and
went into the temple. And when he had looked around at
everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany
with the 12. Jesus approach to Jerusalem is
so grand, so festive. This is an anticlimax.
What? What happened?
He's openly declaring his kingship.
People are responding. And then what happens next?
Well, nothing. Jesus goes into Jerusalem, He
goes into the temple, he looks around, he leaves.
He's going to spend the night in the little village right outside
the city. OK.
We're not told of any big time religious leaders greeting him
in either a warm welcome or a sort of warning of their
opposition. We're not told of any people
looking for the coming of the Messiah and going, wait a
minute, Jesus, huh? Putting it together, confessing
faith in him. Nothing.
He goes, looks around, leaves. What on earth is going on here?
There are two keys, I think, in the wording of the verse that
help us get it. There's also a major key in an
Old Testament passage that this echoes.
So key number one, in the verse, Jesus looked around.
That might not sound like much, but every other time this Greek
verb is used in Mark's gospel, Jesus is looking around is an
authoritative act of divine assessment.
He's not looking around like waiting for a bus, wondering if
it's going to come on time. He's looking around like taking
stock of everything that is happening, measuring and
assessing everything that everyone is doing and saying and
at times even thinking. One example, Mark 35 religious
leaders care more about trying to trap Jesus than about Jesus
healing a man with a deformity, it says.
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their
hardness of heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand.
So his looking around is something special.
Second key in the verse, Jesus looked around at everything.
This is comprehensive. It is an all embracing survey.
Nothing escapes his attention. Nothing escapes his notice.
There's no dark corners where anybody can hide anything that
he's not going to see. This is not a curious tourist
glancing around at a historic cathedral and just kind of, oh,
pretty windows, nice ceiling that was taking a long time to
build. I don't know.
This is the divine judge coming to assess whether his people in
his place are worshipping him faithfully.
Now. Another big key, this time from
the Old Testament. Just like Jesus active sitting
on a donkey echoed an Old Testament prophecy, so his
active coming to the temple echoes an Old Testament
prophecy. It's Malachi 3 verse one.
Mark actually opens his whole gospel by quoting the words of
Isaiah from chapter 40 and some of the words from Malachi 3
verse one, the very beginning of the gospel.
He mentions it and now Jesus is here to do it.
Here's Malachi 31. Behold, I send my messenger, and
he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek
will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the
covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the
Lord of hosts. And then the next person,
Malachi, which shows the purpose of this coming.
Verse 2. But who can endure the day of
his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiners fire. And like fuller's soap.
When the Lord comes to his temple, he will carry out a
purifying judgement. Who has now come to the temple?
The Lord himself. Jesus is the Master of the
house, and he's come to inspect what's rightfully His.
This silent visit is preparation for that judgement Jesus is
quietly serving. Notice at the time for the
temple's inspection has come. In the very next passage we'll
see Jesus performing an act of cleansing judgement on the
temple. That judgement in one day was a
preview of much more severe judgement that Jesus himself
promised. That would come in 70 AD when
the whole temple would be destroyed.
And in Jesus own teaching in Mark 13, the destruction of the
temple is itself a preview and a guarantee of the judgement God's
going to carry out on the whole world.
Jesus's visit to the temple is preparation for judgement.
He is symbolically showing that He sees all and knows all, and
so he has every right to judge all He will judge.
And unlike our judgement when we fly off the chain and want
revenge on somebody, when we try to get even when we think
they've wronged me, I'm going to do this to them.
Unlike our sinful anger when we would like to carry out our own
judgement, Jesus's judgement is perfectly informed, perfectly
accurate, perfectly righteous, perfectly just, perfectly self
controlled because as God, He is in no way threatened by human
sin and rebellion. How is it that judgement is
something we need? That sounds backward?
And in one sense, it is. If you're not a believer in
Jesus, what you most need is to escape God's judgement for all
of us. We continue to sin.
We need to be spared God's judgement.
We need to be safe and sound in light of God's judgement.
And that's what Jesus accomplished through his death
and resurrection. That's the promise he holds out
to everyone who believes in him. But we also need God's judgement
in the sense of repaying evil as it deserves.
You might think of historic evil on a grand scale, some of the
greatest atrocities perpetuated in human history.
You might think of the ways that other people have sinned against
you personally most severely, done the most damage to you.
When you are aware of injustice, whether on a grand scale or a
very personal scale, particularly when you've
suffered grave harm from other people's sins, you start to
resonate and know instinctively part of what it means for God to
make this world right is to repay sin as it deserves.
Human authorities can only do so much.
Human governments will only ever give out partial justice and do
it imperfectly. Hope in the face of atrocity,
hope in the face of oppression, Hope in the face of abuse, hope
in the face of being personally mistreated includes the element
of trusting God to repay evil as it deserves.
God's judgement, including his retribution of sin in hell, is
part of what it means for him to set the world right.
Whatever those outstanding atrocities you're most aware of,
if the perpetrators only ever got a cosmic get out of jail
free card, then God is not just, and He's not really making
everything right. Just as Jesus served notice
before his act of judgement in the temple, so today he remains
a patient judge. Every sermon you hear is notice
of coming judgements. He remains patient.
He's given you almost 2000 years.
He's let history play out so that people would have a chance
to hear the good news and repent and be saved and wind up on the
right side of judgment, which is a much bigger deal than winding
up on the so-called right side of history.
The right side you want to wind up on his, on God's judgment.
His verdict matters far more than fallen human history.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, the fact that you're
alive and breathing today is a sign of His patience toward you.
What He wants you to do is turn from sin and trust in Him and be
saved. Jesus is the patient judge.
Jesus is the humble King who brings the mercy, joy and
judgement we all need. As Jesus's disciples and the
crowds were soon to discover, Jesus doesn't bring all these
things all at once. First, He came to die for our
sins and rise from the grave. When He comes again, He will
deliver His people from death and usher in the new creation.
You will only receive the full measure of Jesus's blessings at
His return. Until then, He will answer
prayers. Until then, He will be with you.
Until then, He will help you. He will sustain you on your
journey, your pilgrimage to heaven.
But everything He gives you now is like food for the trip.
It's like trail mix and beef jerky compared to the feast
that's coming. If you trust in Jesus, then
every day of your life until you die or He comes back, He will
sustain you. And when His Kingdom comes in
its fullness, He will satisfy you.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you
for your mercy, Your grace, and Your justice in bringing your
Kingdom. Father, we pray that we would
trust in Jesus. We pray that we would receive
His mercy. We pray that we would extend
that mercy to others in Jesus name, Amen.