A city with a meaningful name live up to its name.
Like who wants to have to be the person that reports the crime
statistics, particularly violent crime for Philadelphia, the city
of brotherly love? Cities have trouble living up to
high and lofty names, and Jerusalem is also a city that
has struggled for thousands of years to live up to its name as
a city of peace. And as we come into a familiar
story today with the Palm Sunday in the triumphal entry and all
this, I want you to just take a minute and think about what it
meant to be a Jewish person living in Jerusalem 2000 years
ago. What does it mean to live under
an oppressor? We know we have talk a lot in
church about the desecration of the temple and about 160 years
before this the MAGA beans, the Hanukkah story where they had
light that lasted 7 days because the temple had been poorly
treated around 4 BC. I mean CE or common error or AD
depending which system you want to use.
There was actually a revolt in Jerusalem and they stoned a
whole company of Roman soldiers trying to get them out.
Which means that there is, by the time Palm Sunday happens,
High Roman alert Pontius Pilate would have come in in a parade
showing Roman authority because they don't want during Passover
to have another rebellion. But why would people rebel?
Why would people look for a saviour?
Think about what you know in history and about oppressors.
You see, Roman soldiers would come, they would charm Jewish
girls and they would leave children behind as they got
resettled in another place. You know that Jesus says go the
extra mile and we think, oh, that's cheap and easy, but it
comes because a Roman soldier could just grab anybody and say
carry my heavy pack and you would have to go a full mile by
law. And Jesus said go extra.
So when Jesus saying go in the extra mile, it wasn't, oh, give
your friend two birthday presents instead of one.
It was there was some oppression to this.
Their sons saw who was getting higher positions and frankly, it
wasn't the ones that were following after God.
It was the ones that were willing to do what Rome wanted.
And so their sons were being wooed into jobs that shamed the
whole family. So when we think about what
Jesus's triumphal entry meant, enter into the space of what
does it mean to be an oppressed people who need salvation?
And let's read now in Matthew chapter 21.
And this is not for today, but this is for you at home.
I was at a conference last week and I just want to encourage you
when you read, get your physical Bible.
Do you know the research coming out with cognitive
neuroscientists are saying that we can't help it when we read a
screen, we skim and that there's something that happens when we
have a physical book. There's a space place in our
minds that gets activated. Jesus also activates the space
place in our understanding of who God is because he is an
embodiment of who the Father is. And so let's read Matthew 21.
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of
Olives, Jesus sent 2 disciples saying to them, go to the
village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied
there with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and
he will send them right away. This took place to fulfil what
was spoken through the prophet. Say to daughter Zion, See, your
king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a
colt the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as
Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the
colt and placed the cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others
cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed
shouted Hosanna to the Son of David.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the
highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem,
the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this?
And the crowds answered, This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth
in Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple
courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there.
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches
of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them,
My house will be called a House of prayer, but you are making it
a den of robbers. The blind and the lame came to
him at the temple, and he healed them.
But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the
wonderful things he did, and the children shouting in the temple
courts hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant.
Do you hear what these children are saying?
They asked him. Yes, replied Jesus, have you
never read from the lips of children and infants?
You, Lord, have called forth your praise.
And he left them, and went out of the city to Bethany, where he
spent the night. Early in the morning, as Jesus
was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.
Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found
nothing on it except leaves. And then he said to it, May you
never bear fruit again. Immediately the tree withered
and when the disciples saw this, they were amazed.
How did the fig tree wither so quickly?
They asked and Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, if you have
faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the
fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, go throw
yourself into the sea and it'll be done.
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
Jesus arose and as we'll look through the story we'll find
that Jesus arose above others expectations and with a faith
that moves mountains, you can also rise above others
expectations. So what do they expect from
Jesus? They expected him to save them
because he is acting like a king.
And as he came in, everything he did was purposeful.
First of all, if I leaned over and I asked you, Bethany, to go
and get somebody else, and I'm going to ask you to just go over
to the Parcade and get somebody's Lexus and somebody
else's Mini Cooper, she's going to want a little more
information. And that's what Jesus did.
He had set things up and he was exerting the ride of the king,
the ride of the leader we called us.
My aunt and uncle had lived in their same house for over 45
years. And then the government decided
that it was in the trajectory of the airport expansion.
And guess what? The government could come in and
say we need your land. We don't actually care about
your family memories and the Reno's you did and da, da da.
And that Jesus right now is exerting kingship.
It seems he had made arrangements and it all went all
right. But do you realize that
disciples had reasons to be like?
Also, Jesus is setting up a nod to the prophet Zechariah.
I've listed out from Zechariah 9.
I encourage you to read it later, but just because we're
not catching the illusion does not mean the people there did
not know it. They knew that he was acting out
with this entrance, with this fall.
It talks about coming in as rejoice.
They would rejoice, they would be righteous, victorious.
And here's the piece. Slowly, and riding on a donkey's
fall, Jesus is making sure to activate their expectation that
He is a king. And I want you to see who this
king came for, because this matters.
He came for the peace of the nations.
So they forgot that part. See, they got excited that this
king was going to come and overthrow their oppressor, but
their imaginations could not contain the fact that this king
was for all nations, that this king was to free all prisoners,
and that those that felt imprisoned by their own hope
were going to be restored. But Jesus is asking them to
activate all that prior knowledge and to recognize He is
king. So do not, do not mistake that
Jesus's entrance was anything but a royal declaration.
Now the whole city was stirred. You remember that little 4B4
ADCE event I told you where a whole company of Roman soldiers
were stoned? See, when the whole city gets
stirred at Passover, Rome goes on high alert because they don't
want another revolt. Who is in the crowd?
There are people that were genuinely interested in the work
of Jesus and what he had done. But you know what else?
There were people who just wanted Rome gone.
And then have you ever been to a parade and it has nothing to do
with you, but you just went? One of our kids for a while was
a would dance in Vancouver's Saint Patrick's Day parade.
Now, y'all, there are just not many Irish people in this city
and how we sustained about 10 years of a Saint Patrick's Day
parade, I'm not sure. I'm married to one of the
Irishmen, but they're just not many.
And so you would go and you would look around and you would
see who was in the parade and you're thinking, I don't think
there's much Irish heritage in this crowd, but people wanted to
be there for a good time. And so in Jesus reception as he
comes in declaring himself as king, there are people who are
desperate for help. There are people that genuinely
are followers of Jesus and there's a whole lot of let's see
what this is all about or if they fight, I'll jump in to do
whatever it takes to get rid of these Romans.
And so is a mixed crowd. And what is the cry?
The cry is in verse 9 here. Hosanna to the son of David,
bless. It is he who comes in the name
of the Lord Hosanna in the highest heavens.
Now y'all when I was a child, have you all ever had like you
had the fronds and you had it was like a party on Palm Sunday.
But the word Hosanna is not a party word.
It is save us now and the tradition I grew up in.
It is a help me Jesus y'all true story.
If I would say under my breath, help me Jesus about something
small like the copier at work is making me very frustrated.
And people would think, oh, and that's a funny way to curse.
And I'm like, well, no, I have no way to fix this copier and
I'm actually asking for some help.
But these people were calling out for save us now from the
ones that are taking our daughters from the ones that are
tempting our sons. Save us now from taxes that are
eating up all we have and we can't take care of our families.
Save us now from the rape, pillage and plundering of an
oppressive nation. And So what in your life has you
gone? God save me now because there is
a wait. And this is the cry.
This isn't just it was a party atmosphere, but it was a deep
cry to the God of Jacob saying do not forget us and please save
us. Now Jesus goes from there and
enters the temple. Now again, my childhood
understanding of Jesus cleansing of the temple has never quite
left me because you know what I see as a kid, it's like Jesus
got to have a fit. Craig and I one time went to one
service and had this beautiful table and the pastor flipped it
and he brought out all of a sudden it was quite dramatic.
But I want you to think about what Jesus is doing.
Do you remember the Zechariah verses is that He will proclaim
peace to the nations in a week of weeks plus one more week.
So in 57 days, Pentecost is coming at Passover, which is in
this next week of the story. And then Pentecost, which was 50
days after, Jewish people from all around the world would take
a once in a lifetime trip to Jerusalem to be there for the
high and holy feasts. And they had money that wasn't
local currency. And so it started out as let's
help you out. We'll change your money over so
you can buy the sacrifices that are purified so that you can
make your sacrifices to God. In some ways it was to help, but
it became the place where the nations could come to pray was
all about business and trade. So Jesus is cleansing his
temple, is actually making a space for those that were coming
into Jerusalem, the city of peace, where there is no peace.
And he is making a place where they can meet his Father.
And he calls out and he references a verse in Isaiah and
I want to read all of it to you, Isaiah chapter 56, and then
it'll be verses 6 and seven. It's worth you reading the whole
chapter later. It's beautiful, but he is
referencing this and foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be His
servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it,
and who will hold fast to My covenant.
These I will bring to My holy mountain and give them joy in My
House of prayer. Their burnt offerings and
sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for my house will be
called a House of prayer for all nations.
Jesus, as he enters in his high and most famed and fanish
moment, makes it clear that He has come for all of us, that He
has come for all nations, and that He has come so that all of
us can be in conversation with the Heavenly Father.
He has come so that they would meet Him.
And so a den of robbers is not going to be distracting.
Jesus is making sure that all those that come have a place to
pray. Now who does he help?
Think about this, if you are back to Matthew 21, if you are
sitting around trying to become an influencer, his brothers told
him he should come now and he didn't.
What are you going to do? You're going to find other, you
know, they do this. They find other influencers to
come on their post and their podcast so that then they get
both each other's and then they share newsletter lists.
So if you like me, you're going to like my three friends too.
It's not bad marketing, but who did Jesus go and help?
He helps the blind and the lame, y'all.
That's not the way to gain friends and influence people if
you want to become powerful. But Jesus knew who he was.
Jesus knew that he had power, and Jesus knew he was the Son of
the high King of Heaven. And so he knew who he was and
what he was about, and he did not forget that he was called to
go to those who are on the margins.
And guess what? Who notices?
The religious authorities, right?
Is that who's celebrating this healing?
It's the children. If you want to notice where the
healthy response is to God, notice children's responses and
if children are delighted and you're not, ask yourself why.
And if you feel bothered by and we all do it sometimes when
someone's asking you for something like the Lyme and lame
and the blinds were asking for Jesus, say, all right, Jesus,
where's your heart? I know I need good boundaries,
but I don't want to lose a soft heart for where you had a soft
heart. And then notice what makes you
indignant. Are the things that make you
indignant the things that make God indignant?
Or do you have friends that help you justify your indignantness?
I don't think that's a word because everybody else feels
that way. Well, you're only human, OK,
take that phrase out of you. You are human, filled with the
spirit of the Almighty God. And so the spirit of Almighty
God gives us emotional and spiritual reserves to see things
differently. And when we don't we say help us
Jesus. This week I was traveling for a
conference and work and I had, well, let's just say more
layovers than you can shake a stick at in the States.
And every layover got worse and it ended me having an extra
spin. The night party that I didn't
expect to have in one city. And as I was going through, I
came accidentally like y'all, it was some kind of crazy, like we
had to stand shoulder to shoulder in threes and dogs
coming. I had never.
I've travelled a lot, I've never had this kind and all of a
sudden I'm face to face. With someone in his shirt, said
Ice. And my mouth literally curled up
in disgust. Y'all I don't feel disgust to
other humans. I have like really strong
senses. Humans are made in the image of
God. No one is beyond.
And I just was like like like disgust.
And now it is a week later and I have prayed for this man every
day because if I know it's OK that I don't like all of what
his work is doing. I, I, I don't think that I think
that is from God, but the disdain and disgust for another
human that is not from God, that also is not going to bring
change. And so that disgust response in
me is the disgust response that the chief priests were having
for Jesus. And so I'm still repenting
because I'm like, part of me feels justified.
And so where are we indignant? And what does that tell us about
the heart of God? So in Jesus going to the temple,
he did all kinds of things. And then I want us to look
really quickly at this tree. This is fig leaves, figless fig
leaves. Quick metaphor.
The temple was to be a place where the presence of God was
experienced. And if you go back to Ezekiel,
it was going to flow to the whole world, the presence of God
from that temple. And Jesus really quickly gave
his followers an image of that. If the presence of God is not
flowing, it's going to wither up and die, and it is already.
And then he calls them into a deep faith.
He calls them into knowing and seeing more.
And y'all, they are about to have a week.
You think sometimes you've had a week.
The disciples were about to have a week and Jesus is saying that
you need faith for this next week that can move mountains and
they did not have it. Now in the midst of all this,
we're going to look very quickly at Jesus response to Jerusalem,
this city of peace where there is no peace.
And when he came over this city, Luke tells us that as he
approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it.
And he said, if you even you had only known on this day what
would bring you peace. And so when we don't usually do
this in the middle of a message, we're going to have a few
moments of prayer if we can show the next picture where we sit
with Jesus. And what I want you to do is to
invite Jesus into the places in your heart where you feel no
peace and where you need Jesus both to weep over you, over your
places of work and residence, over UBC, over Vancouver.
But we're going to sit with Jesus and say, Lord, help me
know, and help us know what will bring us peace.
I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms,
in the arms of my dear. Save your world, there are
10,000 charms. Come ye weary, heavy laden, lost
and ruined by the fall. If you tarry till your better,
you will never come at all. I will arise and go to Jesus.
He will embrace me in His In the homes of my dear Savior, there
are 10,000. If you even you had only known
on this day what would bring you peace.
Jerusalem did not know. And Jesus foretells many sad and
horrible things that were going to happen and did happen about
40 years later. And then he ends up saying,
because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.
Jesus came as a king and we can arise with him.
We can arise when he says the Lord needs it.
One time we had a huge pipe failure and a friend of ours
arose when the Lord told him somebody else needs it.
He had been saving for ATV and he arose in how the Lord told
him to reallocate his resources and he paid for our new pipe.
I know another family who knew. A few years ago, Canada had an
emergency response to the Taliban's resurgence in
Afghanistan. And there was a young woman who
was trying desperately in her 20s, to save up the $20,000 she
had to have in the bank to bring her mom, her sisters and her
dad. And so the Lord reallocated that
family's finances because the Lord needed it and needed that
family to be in safety so that those girls could finish school.
The Lord's going to sometimes say to you, the Lord needs it
and it may be your time, and it may be your specialties and it
may be your resources and your money.
Are you ready for the Lord to take your donkey and coal,
whatever they may be? Jesus had to arise above the
expectations of others to do what the Lord wanted.
Guess what? Those of you that are students,
you have been successful students because you figured out
how to meet expectations. You read the room.
The longer I'm in education, the more I realize intelligence has.
Sometimes even work ethic isn't all it's can you read the person
who is marking you and made expectations?
But that variability, that variability may keep you from
being able to meet the Lord's expectations because you bear
the weight of what those you love, respect, who poured into
you want from you. And everyone has expectations.
The most like Jesus of any human.
Craig and I've ever known is our spiritual formation professor.
And can I just tell you that when we said yes Lord we will go
to Canada, he was disappointed y'all.
And Deb I was like can we hear from Jesus and he not hear it?
Like I I was sure we might be hearing wrong because what he
spoke into our lives had only been from the Lord and was only
truth. And yet we knew.
And 30 more plus years later we are still serving Jesus where I
could believe he called us. Our professor along the way has
joined us and come alongside of us and has done retreat weekends
in all kinds of ways. But when we had to say yes to
Jesus, we did not have his good job.
We didn't have, we had some parents joy about us choosing to
serve the Lord here, but we didn't have all parents.
We weren't meeting expectations for what we were supposed to do.
And so following Jesus means you're going to let some people
down and look at Jesus on this day he enters and these crowds
are screaming save us now. And he knew more intimately than
we do the pain that they bore under Roman oppression.
He really did want their lives better.
But he knew that the imagination and God on what salvation looks
like was bigger and very different and very brutal.
And so will we arise with Jesus above other people's
expectations to do and be who the Lord wants us to be?
Now this one's tricky, but the next is, would we allow the Lord
to unclutter us? Now see, we don't, we don't have
a church building. We have a lecture hall.
But you know what? We are the church and so when
there is cluttering in our relationships, whether it be
conflict or just too busyness, when our own hearts which are
the temple of God and amongst us, never mind spaces and
places, then we are allowing a den of robbers to come and steal
and kill and destroy where the Lord would have us have abundant
life in these relationships. Travelling to meet my future
brother in law's family and the Czech Republic.
We went into lots of beautiful buildings that had no sense of
Christian shared life and community life.
And then we went into one and y'all, it was a construction
site and it was it had been pretty at one point, but it was
a a mess. And I left crying and my mom's
like what? That's the one that got you
excited? And I said, did you see the
bulletin board, Mama? They've got a food bank and
they've got a prayer group and they've got all these different
things. And there they were having real
body life. So what do you need?
Jesus cleared out the clutter so the nations could come.
In your own heart and amongst your relationships with brothers
and sisters in Christ, where do you need to declutter?
What is robbing the free movement of prayer for the
nations and with the nations? Where does the Lord need to show
up and show more power through you?
Where is the healing needed like the lame and the blind were
healed? Or where do we need to arise and
allow the empty vessels like the empty fig tree to be cleaned
away? Habits and practices and spaces
that are no longer life giving. And then where do we need to
arise in our faith? All the preparation didn't have
them. He has a whole city ready to
violently rebel. But not many were ready for the
kind of revolution Jesus was bringing the next week on the
cross. And so arise with Jesus beyond
your own expectations, the expectations of others.
Arise beyond those. Arise with Jesus beyond the den
of robbers in your life. What is stealing and killing?
Your joy and your peace. And how can you lean into that
so that you no longer have a cluttered heart?
And then arise with Jesus beyond the lack of faith lifting.
True story. Some of you know, in the last
year I've become a grandmother. And so I got really motivated.
I was going to do weightlifting because I was like, I've got to
carry this baby for a long time and I need to make sure I can do
that. And so I've been weightlifting
now y'all do you know those adjustable weights?
And it's like, how much can you carry?
So the kids got those for Craig a couple of years, and now he's
at the top end of those. Yeah, I'm at the same place, but
I'm still doing it so that I can carry this baby for a long time.
And here's what I found. Thought Lord, that's what
happens with our faith. Maybe I'm only starting at a
four kilogram weight lifting and Craig's at 2930 kilogram and
then the kettle bells are bigger.
I don't have it all, but it's not that Craig can carry more
weight or I am. It's that we're both doing
something to stay healthy. And in your faith, what have you
done? Where have you stepped out in
faith and it required something from you that you didn't have?
Where has your generosity of time, your generosity of
relationship, your generosity of money required you to act in
faith? Or better, where has your
generosity of the spirit of Jesus in you to someone else
required an act of faith from you?
So start some faith lifting. No shame if you're with me at
the 4.5 kilogram and you're going to just stay there.
But faith lift because the day will come when something will
happen like Jesus. Disciples were about to walk
into where their lives were on the line for Jesus, and he had
been calling them into more and more faith.
And this Jerusalem, the city of peace that knew no peace, was
about to have a massacre of the one who is the Prince of Peace
so that he could exert the mighty power of God and so arise
with Jesus as he triumphantly enters the city of peace and
say, I want to learn from you, Lord, how to both meet and go
past expectations. Let's pray Jesus, we do
celebrate you and we do join on and say, Hosanna, save us now.
And Lord, we want to see our lives, our relationships, and it
may mean that we weep, but we want to see you Jesus.
And so we ask all of this in your precious name, and that
your spirit would build our faith in our ability to act in
faith in Jesus name. Amen.