Sermon Notes for April 1, 2007

10

Sermon Notes for April 1, 2007

Palm Sunday

“Don’t Misunderstand What

Happened On Palm Sunday”

Luke 19:28-44

Introduction

A.  The LAST WEEK In The Life Of Jesus.

1.  It was Passover.

a.  the most holy of all Jewish holidays

b.  a time when Jewish pilgrims would come from all over Israel for this special event

c.  a city of 20,000 would grow into some 200,000 people

2.  It would be the last week in the life of Jesus. He would:

a.  Sunday - ride into Jerusalem

b.  Monday - cleanse the Temple

c.  Tuesday - confront the Jewish leaders

d.  Wednesday - apparently rest.

e.  Thursday –celebrate the Passover and later be arrested

f.  Friday –be tried, crucified and buried

g.  Saturday - be in the grave

h.  Sunday - rise from the dead

B.  LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE LAST WEEK In The Life Of Jesus.

1.  How did these events transpire?

2.  Did He expect them to happen?

I. The PREPARATION Of Jesus

A.  The PLAN Of Jesus.

1.  You can ask yourself… Did Jesus really know what was going on?

a. or was He simply taken off by the crowd and then later killed by the
Jews?

b.  was it like Dr. Albert Schweitzer said in his book Quest For The Historical Jesus – “What am I doing on this Cross?”

2.  Or you can look in the Bible, which CLEARLY shows that Jesus knew EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DOING.

a.  Jesus would fulfill prophecy

Zechariah 9:9 – “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout,
Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous
and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the
foal of a donkey.”

b.  Jesus would fulfill the law

Exodus 12:3 – “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.”

1. the Passover lamb was to be presented on the 10th day of the
month and presented for sacrifice

2. THIS WAS THE 10TH DAY OF THE MONTH!

c.  Jesus would force the issue

1. notice throughout the gospels when Jesus said that it was NOT
the time

a. John 2:4 – the wedding at Cana – “Dear woman, why
do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My time has not
yet come.’”

b. John 7:30 – the religious leaders tried to take Him – “At
this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on
him, because his time had not yet come.”

2. but notice also what the Scriptures said as Jesus prepared
Himself for the cross - it IS the time!

a. John 13:1 – at Passover – “It was just before the
Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for
him to leave this world and go to the Father.”

b. John 17:1 – Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer – “After Jesus
said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: ‘Father
the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son
may glorify you.’”

c. our text today - Luke 19:28 – “After Jesus had said this,
he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”

d.  WITHOUT A DOUBT, JESUS NOT ONLY KNEW, BUT HE MADE CERTAIN THAT THEY KNEW!

1. look at what Jesus had been doing:

a. feeding the 5,000

b. healing two blind men

c. healing a man of leprosy

d. raising Lazarus from the dead

2. as a result the crowds were “more than willing to welcome and
praise Him”

3. His entrance into Jerusalem on the donkey was His way of
“forcing the issue” or “throwing down the gauntlet”

a. He would come out into full view

b. He would appear as if He were a conquering King

c. He would receive the praise of the people

4. this event of Jesus would send the Jewish leaders “over the
edge”

a. William Barclay – “It is a breath-taking thing to
think of a man with a price on his head, an outlaw
deliberately riding into a city in such a way that
every eye was fixed upon Him.”

b. William Hendricksen – “By means of it, Jesus
deliberately evokes a demonstration. He fully
realizes that, as a result, the enthusiasm of the masses
will enrage the hostile leaders at Jerusalem, so that
they will desire more than ever to carry out their plot
against Him.”

3.  This was a sovereign act by a sovereign God to do His sovereign will

a. it was the time

b.  how else do you account for the fact that Jesus, THE LAMB OF GOD, would “coincidentally” be crucified at PASSOVER! GIVE GOD SOME CREDIT HERE!

B.  The POWER Of Jesus.

1.  In order to “push the envelope,” His plan was to ride into Jerusalem, thus showing His reign over the city.

a.  He would ride into the city on a foal; or the foal of a donkey

b.  in Jesus’ day, it was customary for Kings to ride into the city

1. during times of war, they would ride proudly into the city on a
horse

2. in times of peace, they would often ride into the city on a
donkey

2.  Jesus would usher in His reign by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

a. by doing this, Jesus communicated two things:

1. He is a king

2. He is a king who brings peace

b.  by riding on a foal that had never been ridden and that wasn’t His, it showed two other things:

1. He is omniscient in knowing where the foal was

2. He is omnipotent in being able to ride a foal that had never
been ridden.

a. why the colt didn’t throw Jesus off. 5 years old.
“Because the donkey knew that it was Jesus!”

b. Jesus is Lord over creation

II. The PERSPECTIVE Of Jesus.

A.  The HUMILITY Of Jesus.

1.  Before you get all caught up in this outpouring of love toward Jesus, lets look at what REALLY happened.

a.  the obvious

1. after the foal was found and brought to Jesus, the disciples
created a saddle with their clothes and PUT Jesus on the foal

2. then they laid their clothes along the way

a. rolling out the “red carpet”

b. symbolic of submission to a ruler. “We place ourselves
at your feet, even to walk over if necessary.”

3. the other gospels say that the people put palm branches along
the way

a. palm branches were often put on graves to symbolize
eternity

b. some 100 years earlier, Judas Maccabaeus drove the
inhabiting Syrians out of Jerusalem

1. the crowds received him into the city waving
palm branches

2. the coins that were minted at that time had palm
branches imprinted on them

b.  the less obvious

1. Jesus’ ride was a “rental”

a. it was NOT a horse, but a donkey

b. it wasn’t even His donkey

c. Pastor David Dykes – A donkey isn’t a thoroughbred
horse, it’s a plain, ugly animal. A horse is a
magnificent animal; it has a coat that shines in the sun,
beautiful large eyes, and a flowing mane that ripples in
the breeze. It has long graceful legs that gobble up the
miles of a journey. Take a look at a donkey on the other
hand. Nobody would ever call a donkey beautiful.
They have floppy ears that are too large and their
hair looks disheveled. They make a braying sound
that always makes us laugh. In Jesus’ day, horses were
the Ferraris – donkeys were the pickup trucks.

2. the parade was reactive

a. the parade was not planned, but extemporaneous

b. if a king were to plan a parade, it would take weeks to
plan with all kinds of “pomp and circumstance”

c. illustrations:

1. when President Bill Clinton came to my
hometown of Clarksdale, MS a few years ago

a. it took months to prepare

b. at a cost of 8 million dollars!

2. On December 4, 1977, in Bangui, Capital of
the Central African Empire, the world press
witnessed the coronation of his Imperial
Majesty, Bokassa I. The price tag for that one
event, designed and choreographed by French
designer Olivier Brice, was $25 million. At
10:10 a.m. that morning the blare of trumpets
and the roll of drums announced the approach of
His Majesty. The procession began with eight of
Bokassa’s twenty-nine official children
parading down the royal carpet to their seats.
They were followed by Jean Bedel Bokassa II,
heir to the throne, dressed in a white admiral’s
uniform with gold braid. He was seated on a red
pillow to the left of the throne. Catherine
followed, the favorite of Bokassa’s nine wives.
She was wearing a $73,000 gown made by
Lanvin of Paris, strewn with pearls she had
picked out herself. The emperor had arrived in a
gold eagle-bedecked imperial coach drawn by
six matched Anglo-Norman horses. He wore a
thirty-two-pound robe decorated with 785,000
strewn pearls and gold embroidery. On his
brow he wore a gold crown of laurel wreaths,
like those worn by Roman consuls of old, a
symbol of the favor of the gods. As the “Sacred
March” came to a conclusion, Bokassa seated
himself in his $2.5 million eagle throne, took
his gold laurel wreath off, and, as Napoleon 173
years before had done, took his $2.5 million
crown, which was topped with an 80-carat
diamond, and placed it upon his head.

3. At her coronation in 1838, Queen Victoria of
England wore a crown encrusted with giant
rubies and sapphires surrounding a 309-carat
diamond. Her scepter was capped with an even
larger diamond, cut from the Star of Africa and
weighing 516 ½ carats.

4. Julius Caesar entered Rome after a successful
campaign. He was carried on a golden chariot
pulled by 40 elephants.

3. the crowd was rowdy

a. it was Sunday and they are full of praise

b. Jesus, being omniscient, knew that on Friday, the
cheers would turn to “crucify Him, crucify Him.”

4. the spiritual leaders were ridiculing

a. in the midst of the parade that was for Him, Jesus had
to hear the constant criticism of the Jewish leaders,
giving new meaning to “raining on my parade”

b. what a contrast it was!

B.  The HONOR Of Jesus.

1.  Yet, despite all of the hypocrisy of the crowd and the humility of the situation, Jesus received the praises of His people.

2.  This praise greatly angered the religious leaders – who said in verse 39 – “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

a. the Jews didn’t believe in using physical force to stop the cheers

b.  and they didn’t want to call upon the Romans

c.  so, they appealed to Jesus to quiet His own disciples

3.  But notice what Jesus says in the midst of this scene.

Vs. 40 – “I tell you,” He replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

a. DESPITE the fact that the parade was thrown together

b. DESPITE the eventual empty praise of the crowd

c. JESUS ACCEPTED THEIR PRAISE!

d.  in fact, He told them if the people don’t bring praise, the rocks of the earth will do so instead

1. Jesus is CLEARLY saying that He is worthy of praise, worthy
of worship

2. in fact, all of creation praises Him

a. look at Romans 8:19-22 – “The creation waits in eager

expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the
creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own
choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in
hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom
of the children of God. We know that the whole
creation has been groaning as in the pains of
childbirth right up to the present time.”

b. the use of that donkey was a little illustration of
creation’s relationship to Jesus

c. Jesus is the Lord of all creation

1. Hebrews 1:1-2 – “In the past God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times
and in various ways, but in these last days he has
spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir
of all things, and through whom he made the
universe.”
2. Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered.

3. He spoke to the winds and they were silent.

4. He walked on water.

5. He rode on a donkey that had never been
ridden.

III. The PAIN Of Jesus.

A. The WAILING Of Jesus.

1. We have clearly seen what was SPIRITUALLY happening.

a. His omniscience

b. His omnipotence

2. However, we look at what is PHYSICALLY happening as He enters
Jerusalem.

a. He had come from Bethany, about one mile outside of Jerusalem

b.  He had been welcomed by His disciples and by others who had seen and heard of His miracles

c.  He was placed upon the donkey upon the Mount of Olives

1. the Mount gave the clearest panoramic view of the city of
Jerusalem

2. He could see the Temple, one of the true wonders of the world

3. He could see the people lined up on each side of the road

4. He could see the gates of Jerusalem

3. And then we must see what EMOTIONALLY happened as well.

a. verse 41 says that as Jesus took all of this in, He began to weep.

1. The New Testament gives two accounts of Jesus weeping in
Scripture.

a.  John 11:35 – at the death of Lazarus, “Jesus wept”

1. dakruo:

a. to weep silently