A Weeping Savior

Series on Luke

V The Imminence of the Kingdom

D Triumphal Entry

Text:19:28-44

Introduction

The day described in our text is known as Palm Sunday or the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. We generally think of it as a grand and happy day followed later by a reversal in fortune on good Friday with the cross of Calvary. But this is a day on which Jesus weeps according to verses 41-44, As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” This is a part of his humiliation not his exaltation. That humiliation is shown not only in the outward trappings of his entry riding an unbroken colt but in the total misunderstanding of the Savior’s mission. There is a fatal mistake here, a betrayal of all that Jesus stands for. He comes to present himself as a spiritual king, defenseless, unarmed, meek and lowly. He said, My kingdom is not of this world. They look for a physical king with the power to remove the Roman yoke. They see this entry as a prelude to his exaltation. He sees it as a prelude to the cross. Because they do not understand He weeps. He weeps because they are losing their only hope of true peace. Let us look more closely today at the things which grieve our Savior.

I The Betrayal of His Word

The people play fast and lose with the inspired Word of God. To get a firmer grip on Jesus’ grief we need to remember that I Peter 3:19 says that the Spirit that inspired the prophets was the Spirit of Christ. These are truly His words they are twisting to their own advantage. It is amazing that the high priest of Israel can stand up later and say it is expedient that one man die for the nation and not know he is fulfilling prophecy, or that the soldiers can gamble over His garments, or the chief priests pay 30 pieces of silver to Judas to betray Christ and they are blithely unaware that they are fulfilling prophecy. They can be so ignorant of what is happening prophetically and yet now they remember Scripture as He enters the city. It suits their purpose, and we read in verses 28-38, After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it.’” Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They replied, “The Lord needs it.” They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” They accept it only when it serves themselves. Whole denominations and institutions today engage in what R. C. Sproul calls an exegesis of despair. This is the Palm Sunday syndrome. They pick and choose what they want from the Bible. They make it say things that were never intended. They do this so that they can be popular and espouse the current views of culture. On an individual level there is a great danger that we will do the same thing, that is, find a rationalization for our behavior where there is none by taking Scripture out of context. One of the reasons we have a Confession of Faith and Catechisms is to establish a consensus about what the Bible teaches on various subjects and prevent that kind of abuse of the Bible. We need to ask ourselves the question, “Do i please my Savior by taking the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible for my life, or do i grieve him?”

II The Betrayal of His Wonders

Notice the almost inconspicuous reference Luke makes to the motivation for the acclaim Jesus receives. He says in verse 37, The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Some people had followed him when he multiplied the loaves and fishes because of the food. Some now were following because they thought the miracles demonstrated the necessary power to combat Rome. But deep in the heart of every sinner is the attraction to raw power. Jesus did demonstrate unusual might in His ministry but it was secondary. What mattered was his mission and his message. The miracles were only done to confirm His words. That means that every sign or wonder in the Bible is a prophecy, and every miracle is eschatological or future oriented. None of them are there to make us think we can have a paradise here! They are all there to remind us of what can be rather than of what is. Every blind person to whom Jesus gave sight is an emblem of the day when there is no more darkness, and the Lord is our light. Every sick person healed is a picture of the day when there is no more crying or pain. Every dead person raised is a symbol of the day when there is no more death and mourning. They are pointers telling us that if we listen to his mission and message then this is the way things can be. Klas Schilder says a miracle is like Sodom. it is attractive and entrancing but alas for him who looks back at it. The miracle calls for looking ahead to heaven. So what happens today? The same thing that happened then. People don’t want the message, they want the miracle. Whole denominations are forming and attracting thousands of people because they preach that the only authentic Christianity is accompanied by signs and wonders. Individuals refuse to believe because they get no sign. Others fall away because they cannot get a miraculous solution to their problems. Don’t look for miracles, and if you’ve had one don’t look back. Listen instead to the mission and message of Jesus. This brings me to my last point, the betrayal of Jesus’ wisdom.

III The Betrayal of His Wisdom

The wisdom of God is to save us through the cross and no other way. As Paul says in I Corinthians 1:21-25, For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. The cross is the last thing on the minds of these people. The song they sing is peace in heaven. It is dangerously similar to the song the angels sang at Jesus’ birth, but remember the angelic messenger told Joseph, You shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. That is not on their minds now. They have adopted the current theology. Heaven will be blessed by earth. The peace in heaven they sing about is a peace brought about by their triumph, by works of righteousness which they have done and the Messiah smashing the power of Rome. There is no place in their theology for the lonely Christ of the cross. Tomorrow they suppose the humble figure on the ass’s foal will become the Lion of the tribe of Judah and tear their enemies limb from limb. Instead the humble figure on the ass’s foal will be come humbler still, and He will be the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Peace does not come to heaven because it is achieved on earth. It happens first in heaven and then on earth and this way is made clear in Scripture. Paul tells says of Jesus in Colossians 1:17-20, He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Today, seminaries, churches, and individuals have rejected the blood of the cross in the same way they did that first Palm Sunday. We have a utopian political dream of a better world which will make peace in heaven. But God will not be at peace except through the blood. When Bill Devlin of the Philadelphia Christian Action Council says close down the bath houses in the city, those obscene revolting hotbeds of venereal disease and aids, some of the members of the mayor’s commission mock him. But the real difference here friends is that they believe peace will be made by their social reforms, and he believes that peace is made by the cross.

Conclusion

And so briefly, what is the warning here? Don’t make our Savior sad; don’t grieve the Spirit; don’t cause Christ to cry. Don’t take the cross out of the Bible; don’t take the cross out of your present life; and don’t take the cross out of your hope for eternal life. That’s what they did.