Abel, would you please remain standing for the reading of
God's Word? This morning I'll be reading
from two different passages, one from the Old Testament, followed
by one from the Gospel of Matthew.
I begin by reading the prophet Zechariah, Chapter 9, beginning
with verse 9. 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. I will cut off the chariot from
Ephraim and the War Horse from Jerusalem.
The battle bows shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to
the nations. His rules should be from sea to
sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I
will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.
Today I declare that I will restore to you double.
For I've bent Judah as my bow. I've made Ephraim its arrow.
I will stir up your son's, O Zion, against your sons, O
Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword.
Now the Gospel of Matthew chapter 21 beginning with verse
one. And when they drew new to
Jerusalem and came to Bethpage, the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus sent 2 disciples saying to them, go into the
village in front of you and immediately you will find a
donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone says anything to you, you'll say the Lord needs them
and he'll send them at once. This took place to fulfill what
was spoken by the prophet saying say to the daughter of Zion,
behold, your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a
donkey, on a colt, the fold of a beast of burden.
This is the word of Lord. You may be seated.
The story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is
not a myth. It's not a folk tale, it's not a
work of fiction. It is history.
In fact, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is
the turning point of all of history.
And in the Bible, the Gospels record the eyewitness accounts
of the people who were there. Gospel of Luke begins this way.
This is Luke 1 verse one. Luke tells us in as much as many
have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that
have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the
beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word have
delivered them to us. It seemed good to me also,
having followed all things closely for some Thai past, to
write an orderly account. Luke tells us that everything
he's written in the Gospel of Luke and an Acts is an orderly
account of eyewitness testimony. It can be trusted because every
event actually happened. People were there and they saw
it with their own eyes, and they gave reports that were recorded
down for you and for me. The Gospel of John ends like
this. John 21, verse 24, Speaking of
himself, John says this is the disciple who is bearing witness
about these things and who has written about these things and
we know that his testimony is true.
What that means for us as we enter into yet another Holy Week
and we rehearse and we retell the story of the Passion of our
Savior Jesus Christ once more, it is essential that we remember
that everything we proclaim actually happened.
This is the true story of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, and
his resurrection. And there were witnesses, people
who were actually there, who saw it with their own eyes.
Can you imagine what it must have been like?
Can you imagine what it must have been like to have been
there that day nearly 2000 years ago at the first triumphal entry
when Jesus came into Jerusalem? Can you imagine what it must
have been like to have waved a palm branch in your hand?
To have strained your eyes just to get a glimpse of this man
that you've heard has done miracles and healed the sick?
To see him riding on a donkey and hear the people cry out.
Hosanna, hosanna. Can you imagine what it must
have been like for the disciples gathered in the upper room as
Jesus took bread and wine and said, This is my body, this is
my blood given for you? Can you imagine what it must
have been like to hear those words, be completely stunned by
them? Can you imagine what it must
have been like to have been with the crowds that day as people
yelled out Crucify Him, crucify him, give us Barabbas?
Can you imagine what it must have been like to have been
there when, in the middle of the afternoon, the sky turned black
and Jesus hung there on a cross, straining to breathe?
Can you imagine what it must have been like to have seen the
risen Jesus, to have put your fingers and the wounds in his
hands, put your hand in his side?
There were witnesses, people who are actually there.
And this Holy Week it is our prayer that we will see Jesus
for who he truly is through their eyes.
And as we begin this Palm Sunday, we're going to begin in
an unlikely place, not through the eyes of the disciples for
the those who are there that Passion Week, but we're going to
begin 500 years before the birth of Jesus with the prophet
Zechariah. And through his prophetic eyes,
as he set his hope on the coming Messiah, we will see what it
means for us to hope in Christ today, this morning.
I want to look at that in three ways.
The first is this. I want you to know that Christ
has come for our salvation. I want you to look with me at
Zechariah 99. You can find it in your bulletin
or also invite you to open your Bible.
If you don't have a Bible this morning, please take the Blue
Pew Bible in front of you. That's our gift to you,
Zechariah 99. You'll find it as the second to
last book of the Old Testament. Zechariah writes this.
Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion.
Shout aloud, oh daughter of Jerusalem.
Now before we get into Zechariah's prophecy of the
becoming Messiah, we must first get our bearings on who
Zechariah actually was and why he wrote this book in the 1st
place. Zechariah is one of the 12 minor
prophets. That's the last 12 books of the
Bible, and as I told you, it's actually the second to last
book. The book of Zechariah was
written beginning in 520 BC. That is over half a millennia
before the birth of Jesus. And yet Zechariah's prophecy of
the coming Messiah is vivid and it's specific.
He's not speaking in generalities, but he's giving a
very vivid description of the coming Messiah, what he is like,
and what he will come to do. Zechariah refers to him first in
chapter 3. He calls him the branch.
If you have your Bible open, you can turn back to Zechariah 3,
verse 8. Zechariah first describes the
Messiah this way. He says here now, O Joshua, the
high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for
they are men who are a sign, Behold, I will bring my servant
the branch. You may notice in your Bible the
word branch is capitalized as if to say it's a title.
You know, I might be thinking, well, to describe the Messiah as
the branch seems like a strange title to give him.
But what Zechariah is doing, he's tapping into a title that's
already been given by the prophets to describe the coming
Savior King. This is Jeremiah 23 verse 5.
Jeremiah says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall
reign as king and deal wisely. He shall execute justice and
righteousness in the land and the days Judah will be saved and
Israel will dwell securely. And in this the name by which he
will be called the Lord our righteousness.
What Jeremiah is telling us is that a king is coming, a
long-awaited savior king, a king who will bring salvation and
righteousness. And he calls him the branch
because he is of the royal family tree of King David, this
long-awaited savior king from David's royal line.
Throughout the Bible, he's called the Messiah.
The word Messiah means anointed one in Hebrew.
In Greek, the word Messiah is the word Christ.
It's why Jesus is often called Jesus Christ.
When we say Jesus Christ, we're not giving his first and last
name. No, the word Christ is a title.
It means Messiah. Every time we say the words
Jesus Christ, we are declaring a statement of faith that Jesus is
the Messiah, the long-awaited Savior, King from the royal line
of King David. He is the branch.
He is the one to bring righteousness and salvation and
to rescue His people. And that is exactly who
Zechariah is talking about in Zechariah 99.
It's why he begins by saying, rejoice, praise the Lord, your
king is coming, look with me. At the end of verse 9, he says,
behold, your king is coming to you righteous and having
salvation as he humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt,
the foal of a donkey. Zechariah is promising that the
Messiah will come. Now, it's hard for us as 21st
century Western Christians to fully appreciate the role that
hope played in the life of God's people in the Old Testament.
That hope begins as early as the book of Genesis.
Hope that a Savior king would come to rescue them.
In Genesis 3 verse 15, as God brings a curse because of the
sin of Adam and Eve in their fall, he also makes a promise.
God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise
your head and you shall bruise his heel.
As early as the 3rd chapter of the Bible, we're given a promise
of this long-awaited Messiah in Genesis.
He is the snake crusher, the one who will come to defeat Satan
once and for all. And as the pages of Scripture
unfold, we learn that the snake crusher is going to come from
David's royal family tree. Second Samuel 7 verse 12, When
your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your father's, I
will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from
your body, and I will establish his Kingdom, and he shall build
a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his
Kingdom forever. And God's people would wait, and
they would wait, and they would wait with hope that a king would
come from David's line, that would come for the rescue as the
prophets begin to promise that's king would come.
For the prophet. Isaiah called him a light.
Isaiah 9 verse 2. The people who walked in
darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwelt in a
land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
This messianic hope for a savior king to be the light of the
world. It's one of the dominant themes
of the Bible. People longed and they waited,
and they hoped that God would keep his promise, that Messiah
would come for their rescue. And so it is all of that hope
that people gathered nearly 2000 years ago, the Mount of Olives,
to get a glimpse of Jesus. Would you now please turn to
Matthew 21? You can find it as the first
book of the New Testament. You'll find it there in your
bulletin. Matthew tells us that the crowds
gathered, but he doesn't tell us.
But we know to be true. As they gathered with hope,
longing, messianic hope, they had heard of this man Jesus who
could heal the sick, who spoke with authority, who had done
signs and wonders. They're beginning to hope that
maybe this is the Messiah. Maybe God has finally kept his
promise. Maybe all of our hopes have been
realized in this man Jesus, and they've come to get a glimpse of
him, to see him. We're told that Jesus tells two
of his disciples to go and get a donkey for reading for this for
the first time. You think that's a strange thing
to tell his disciples to do? Even stranger, that Jesus knows
there will there will be a donkey waiting for him.
That's going to be fine for him to take it and use it as his
own. Why?
Well, Matthew tells us why verse four, that this took place to
fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.
Which prophet? Well, the very prophet we're
reading this morning, the prophet Zechariah Matthew then
quotes him in verse 5, say to the daughter of Zion, behold,
your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey
on a colt, the full of a beast of burden.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as a fulfillment of
Zechariah's prophecy that the Savior King, the Messiah, would
come. So all of the people who were
gathered that day put their hopes on him.
Later in Matthew 21, he tells us they be at the end to cry out
hosanna, which means save us. They waved palm branches in
their hand, which is a symbol of victory, and they're laid their
cloaks at his feet to honor him as king, royalty, victory,
salvation, three things that belong to long-awaited Savior,
King, the Messiah. They put all of their hopes on
him. And yet John tells us in his
gospel, the very words that we read together this morning, that
the disciples didn't understand it at first.
They even with all of their hopes, imagining Jesus to be the
Messiah, they didn't understand why, because they thought the
Messiah would come with an army. They thought the Messiah would
come for their liberation, to free them, not from sin and
death, from a very real oppression.
The Roman occupation that they lived under.
They expected a human king to rebuild a human Kingdom.
They did not yet fully see that this was no mere human king, but
he was fully God and fully man, the very Son of God, and that
the Messiah came to establish the Kingdom over every Kingdom
once and for all. So it's a second thing that we
see here in the triumphal entry. And as we look back on
Zechariah's prophecy, not only has Christ come for our
salvation, but he's come for our peace.
This long-awaited Savior king came not with an army, but on a
donkey. This donkey that Jesus rode in
on was not just a very specific fulfillment of prophecy, but it
tells us just what kind of Savior King He is, what He came
to do. He came not with a sword in His
first, but to lay His life down for you and for me.
We see this in Zechariah's prophecy.
Now Matthew only looks back at verse 9.
I think Matthew would have known that anyone familiar with the
prophets and the promises of the long-awaited Messiah would have
known all of Zechariah's prophecy.
And he continues after verse 9 into verse 10, once you look
with me, His prophecy of the Messiah continues.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the War Horse from
Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off,
and He shall speak peace to the nation's.
His rules will be from sea to sea and from the river to the
ends of the earth. Now, all of these things should
be familiar for anyone waiting and hoping in the coming Savior
King that He would speak peace to the nations, that His rule
would be from sea to sea. What they were hoping and what
they were waiting for is for a king to come and rescue them and
give them peace. And just like we see in our
broken and fractured world today, the way that we
accomplish peace as human beings throughout our history is
through war. We fight war, we wage battle in
order to get peace. That's our own story as
Americans, so many who've died before us in order that we could
enjoy peace. It's always been that way.
So they expected that this Savior king would wage war,
would fight a battle, would come leading an army.
But notice what it says here in Zechariah 910.
It says I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, the War
Horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations.
In other words, the Messiah is going to come and bring peace in
a way that you would least expect, not with Chariots, not
with war horses, not with a battle bow.
And in fact, later in Zechariah's prophecy, he says,
actually now God's people will become his chariot.
God's people will become his arrow.
He's come to fight our battles, to establish his Kingdom, but
not through war. But he will make peace through
the blood of his own body on the cross.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day with palm branches of
victory amongst the hopes and expectations that he would lead
them into battle, and instead he came to lay his life down.
He came to be arrested, to be beaten, to be scourged, and to
be nailed to a cross in order to die in our place.
He came to fight a battle far greater than any human
oppression, but he came to set us free from sin and death.
He came to establish no earthly Kingdom, but to establish the
Kingdom of God so that he might be seated on the throne as King
of Kings and Lord of Lords, all of this bringing peace.
And this is no kind of just earthly peace.
It's not simply the absence of war or the absence of
oppression, but peace. In the Bible, the kind of peace
spoken of here in Zechariah 910 is Shalom.
It's the word that's used, not the absence of war, but the
presence of God. And where he reigns and rules,
his people flourish. They have the fullness of peace
in his presence. And Jesus established this peace
through the cross. Not just peace for God's people
over their enemies and over evil in the kingdoms of darkness on
this earth, but a peace far greater and far deeper that
every one of us needs. You see, people could not have
imagined his disciples, could have never understood that of
all the enemies they faced, their greatest enemy lied
within. Apostle Paul tells us New
Testament that because of our sin, we are enemies of God, the
true battle that lies before us. Yes, of course it's all around
us and it will be till Christ returns.
But there are wars around us because there is a war inside of
us. We are not at peace with God.
And everyone who has sinned, everyone who's turned their back
on God, everyone who's said I will disobey him and I will
follow my own way, has committed treason against the King and his
Kingdom. We are not at peace with God
because of sin, and yet Jesus came for our peace.
He came to make peace between US and God, to reconcile us to our
Father, that we who once enemies might now be called sons and
daughters. The apostle Paul put it this
way. Ephesians 2 verse 12.
Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ,
alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers, the
covenant of promise, having no hope because we and our sin are
enemies of God. We are hopeless strangers to the
promises of God that we are talking about even this morning.
But Paul doesn't stop there. Verse 13 But now, but now in
Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near
by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem not to lead Chariots and war horses,
but he laid down his war bow, and he died on the cross, and he
shed his blood in order to make peace for us before God.
It was our sin that nailed Him there, His death that we should
have died and his blood that now grants us peace.
The 3rd and final thing that Zechariah's prophecy teaches us
that we see fulfilled the triumphal entry that Christ has
come for the restoration of all of our hopes.
Zechariah's prophecy continues Chapter 9 verse 11.
He says, As for you also, because of the blood of my
covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the
waterless pit. Through the prophet Zechariah,
God is remembering his covenant, his promises to his people
Israel. A covenant that we are reminded
here is made in blood, kept in blood, the blood of bulls and
goats that were sacrificed for the sins of the people of
Israel. But here is Jesus now fulfilling
this prophecy, coming into Jerusalem, not to shed the blood
of bulls and goats, but his own blood in order to set us free.
Free not from Roman occupation or human oppression, but free
from the shackles of sin itself. The Gospel of John, chapter 8.
Jesus reminds us that everyone who practices sin is a slave to
sin. And this morning, as you think
about your own sin and temptations, those things that
seem to rear their ugly head in your life again and again and
again, those parts of you and your heart, they're continually
at war against God, even though you come this morning, just like
me and praise his name. It doesn't take long to
understand what Jesus is talking about.
We're slaves to sin. Though we strive as hard as we
can to withstand temptation, though I think genuinely so many
of us who follow Jesus long to be obedient.
We're shackled to sin. We're enslaved by it.
That's why sin so often like an addiction.
As hard as we want to follow Jesus, we find ourselves again
and again and again turning back to our sin and giving into
temptation. But notice again the promised
Zechariah gives us. Because of the blood of the
covenant, God will set us free. Because of the blood of the
covenant, because of the blood of Jesus, we have been set free.
When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't just our death that died,
but our sin died with him. And this is the glory of the
gospel that we proclaim this Holy Week again, that all those
who trust in the blood of Jesus for their salvation have been
set free from sin and death. Paul expands on this, the book
of Romans, Romans 6, this Don't you know that if you present
yourself to be anyone, to be obedient slaves, you're slaves
of the one who you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or
of obedience, which leads to righteousness.
But thanks be to God that you who want slaves of sin have
become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to
which you were committed, and have been set free from sin to
become slaves of righteousness. What Paul says is because of the
blood of Jesus Christ, you now have been set free from sin, and
now your shackles have been opened, but now you are bound to
Christ. It's an amazing image, isn't it,
that our shackles to sin have been set free and now we are
shackled to our Savior by His blood.
Same language that we see here, the prophet Zechariah 500 years
before. Notice what Zechariah then says
in verse 12. In light of being set free, He
calls all God's people to return.
Return to your stronghold, he says.
Then notice the title he gives us.
O prisoners of hope, you are no longer a prisoner of sin.
You are no longer a prisoner to oppression.
You are no longer a prisoner to death.
But you have now been set free, and now you have been imprisoned
by hope. Hope has bound itself to you,
and now this side of heaven. As we look back 2000 years ago
on those events of Christ's passion through his death and
resurrection, we find ourselves longing once more.
As we look back on his death and resurrection, we are also look
forward to his return. And just like the people who've
gone before us in the Old Testament, we are still filled
with messianic hope, longing, waiting for Christ to return, to
make all things new. But just like them, if we're
honest, hope is hard, isn't it? You know much of the story of
the Old Testament. You see, often the people would
become hopeless. And when they became hopeless,
they would once again turn to idols and other gods and go back
to their sin. Today we call it cynicism.
It's the opposite of hope. Cynicism is borne by
disappointment and doubt. Cynicism is a self protection, a
way of us to guard our hearts when we don't want to be let
down. Have you ever felt that way?
That God has let you down, the more that we feel God has LED us
down, that causes us to be cynical, hopeless.
If that describes you this morning, I want you to hear the
words the promise of Zechariah. Because of the blood of the
covenant, we've been set free and we are now prisoners of
hope. So as we enter into this Holy
Week, set your hope on Jesus. He rode into Jerusalem on a
donkey for you in order to die on a cross for you.
And the great hope that we have is that he did not stay dead.
But on the third day he rose again to conquer sin and death.
And one day he will come again. And when he comes, it won't be
humbly mounted on a donkey, but it will come in triumph on a
White Horse. And John tells us that his name
will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our long-awaited
Savior, King the Messiah, the Christ who will come to make all
things new. Let's pray.
Father in Heaven, O Lord, as we come into Holy Week, we pray
that we would abound in hope that you, Lord Jesus, even this
morning, which set us free from the bondage of sin and death,
and that we would be bound to hope this morning.
May we walk into Monday of this Holy Week as prisoners of hope,
longing and waiting, just like those who have come before us,
for our Savior King to come again.
It's in his name that we pray. Amen.
Let's stand and let's sing together.