Word of Salvation – Vol. 51 No.10 – March 2006
HOSANNA!
A Palm Sunday Sermon by Rev John Haverland
on Matthew 21:1-17
Scripture Readings: Zechariah 9:9-17; Psalm 118
Suggested Hymns: Psalm 8; Psalm 118; PsH 348; 349; 484
Theme: Jesus rode into Jerusalem as the king of peace in the line of David who deserves worship.
Purpose: To help us see that Jesus is the great King of peace and direct us to worship him.
Congregation,
Most of us have been at large parades along the streets of our city or town or we have seen such parades on TV. It may have been an annual Christmas parade or a special pageant. It may have been a large turnout of the town to meet athletes who had come back after winning their events at the Olympics, or a sporting team returning after a victorious tour. On these occasions there are crowds of people lining the streets of the city; people throw streamers and hold balloons and wave banners. They call out and shout in the exuberance of the celebration.
These scenes are reminiscent of this story about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Here, too, there was a huge crowd of people, and there was great rejoicing and much shouting and the waving of palm branches.
Jesus had planned this visit to this city, the capital city of Palestine. He had timed it so that it would coincide with the feast of the Passover when there would be many people around.
Jesus had not always been so open in his publicity. The gospel of Matthew explains that, at first, in the early part of his ministry, Jesus wanted to keep his identity secret. He kept it in the background. Yes, he was the Messiah, but he didn’t want to attract too much attention. He kept his identity hidden because he wanted time to explain who he was and what he had come to do.
But by this time, over the three years of his ministry, he had done all this in his preaching and his teaching, both to his disciples and to the crowd. Now the time had come for a public declaration of who he was. And what better place to do that than Jerusalem, and what better time to do that than the Passover.
The Passover was an annual celebration and was attended by Jews who came from all over the Mediterranean area. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the population of Jerusalem swelled to about 2.5 million at this time.
The Passover was still one week away and Jesus rested on the Sabbath – our Saturday. Then on the day after the Sabbath (our Sunday) he made arrangements to go into Jerusalem. He and his disciples made their way towards the city until they came to the little village called Bethphage on the outskirts of the city by the Mount of Olives on the East side of the city. Jesus sent two disciples ahead of them to organise a young donkey, which they brought back to him. He sat on it and then rode it into Jerusalem.
After three years of teaching, preaching and healing Jesus had become very well known and people were eager to see him. The disciples and the crowd were excited to be with him, and word had already gone ahead to the people in Jerusalem that he was on his way. Huge crowds of people lined the road and began to wave palm branches and to shout to Jesus, the King, the Son of David!
Jesus was ready for this. The time for secrecy had passed. Now he wanted to make a deliberate and public statement about who he was as the kingly Messiah and the Son of God. He did this by riding into Jerusalem as a King on a donkey.
So today we will see that Jesus is the king and we will note four characteristics of his kingship.
1. First of all we note, he was A PEACEFUL KING
The Passover was a time of strong national feeling. Many of the Jews thought back to the deliverance from Egypt and Pharaoh 1500 years earlier; now they longed to be delivered from the Romans and Caesar. There was a terrorist group within Israel called the Zealots who had made this their mission. They wanted to throw out the Romans. They were hoping for another King David, or one like Judas Maccabaeus, who lived two hundred years before Christ. They wanted a great military leader.
But in his teaching Jesus had made it clear that he was not a leader like that. His kingdom was not political but spiritual. He would not achieve his goal by fighting and war but by suffering and dying. The victory would not come by sword and spear but by word and deed:
“For not with swords loud clashing, or roll of stirring drums;
with deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes.”
Rather, Jesus had come as the Prince of Peace spoken of by Isaiah.
He didn’t ride into Jerusalem in a chariot or on a great stallion. No, he came “gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This was the animal the kings of Judah rode in times of peace. He had come to set up a kingdom, but it was going to be a kingdom of peace.
This is what Jesus said to his disciples a few days later in his farewell speech during that last Passover meal: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
As the Prince of Peace, Jesus promises his peace to you as well. If you know Jesus and believe in him, then you will have peace with God. Out of that flows a love for others, and an inner sense of contentment and well-being – a peace that passes all understanding that will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). He is a Peaceful King.
2. Secondly, HE IS THE MESSIAH KING
He came to fulfil all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Matthew often quoted these prophecies to show the Jews that Jesus really was the Messiah.
Here he mentions that, “This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet” (vs 4). He looked back to the prophecies of Zechariah, who lived in the time after the people of Israel returned from the exile. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Zechariah spoke of a time when the King of Israel would come to his people “riding on a donkey” (Zech 9:9). “He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth” (9:10). Jesus was clearly fulfilling this prophecy.
But he also came as the Son of David. The people of Israel looked back to the reign of David as the golden age of their history. That had been the best time; that was the ideal; that was the model for all the kings who followed. They expected a king who would be a Son of David – in David’s line – and a great and powerful ruler like David. And now here was Jesus, the King, and so they shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
In their shouting the people who lined that road into the city also borrowed from Ps 118. This psalm is one of the six most frequently quoted psalms by the New Testament and clearly speaks of the Messiah. They used these words to express their joy and praise; “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (vs 9). Jesus came in the name of the Lord. He was the Messiah. He was the One Promised. All this had been planned by God as part of the work of salvation. God always keeps his promises. He is always faithful to his word.
Jesus was a Peaceful King, the Messiah king, and thirdly:
3. He was A RIGHTEOUS KING
We know from the chronology of the other gospels that Jesus went back to Bethany that Sunday night to stay with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Then the next day, the Monday, he came back to Jerusalem and drove the traders out of the temple. From the gospel of John we learn that Jesus had cleaned out the temple in the early months of his ministry. Now, three years later, he did the same thing again. The temple trade had obviously recovered from the upset Jesus had caused.
The same happens in our present world economy. There is a terrorist attack or a war and the markets suddenly fall, but after a while people get more confident and business picks up again. So, too, in the temple. Yes, they had a setback, but now it was business as usual. Buying and selling were in full swing. All this took place in the outer court, known as the Court of the Gentiles. Money changers were set up there so that people visiting the temple could pay their temple tax. They had to pay that in the right currency and so money changers had set up to be as close as possible to their customers.
Any Gentile who might have come into this court to worship would have found it impossible to concentrate with all this noise and activity going on. Not only was there a money exchange but there was also a market going on. Traders sold doves and sheep and other animals so that people could buy these for the temple sacrifices. The priests and the traders had set it up in such a way that only sacrifices sold in the temple court were accepted by the priests. These animals, of course, were sold at highly inflated prices. So the whole system was a racket. What God had intended as a symbol of the payment and cleansing for sin had been turned into a money making exercise. No wonder Jesus was angry!
This is why Jesus accused them of turning this “house of prayer” into a “den of robbers”. Again he quoted from the Old Testament. The phrase, “den of robbers” comes from Jeremiah 7:11 where the prophet condemned the people of Judah for stealing and murder, adultery, perjury and idolatry. In the midst of their sin, the people in Jeremiah’s day would retreat into the temple, thinking that there they would be safe, that the formal rituals of the temple and its sacrifices would deliver them. They were like robbers who returned to their den or their hideout after committing their crimes. But the Lord warned them that he had been watching them! They would not escape.
Jesus came in judgment 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'” (vs 12-13). Jesus was a righteous king and he wanted Israel to worship God the Father in a right way. He was full of zeal for the Lord his God and for a true obedience to the Law of God.
Today, too, we can find plenty of examples of people who are trying to make money out of religion. Cathedrals all over the world have a souvenir shop located somewhere in or around the building. Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Lourdes have whole lines of tourist shops and stalls selling all sorts of religious trinkets.
But we need to think a little deeper than this for a contemporary application. Let’s remember that the temple has been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 12:6 Jesus said, “I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.” The temple symbolised the presence of God. In Jesus, God had come to dwell among his people. So with his coming there was no need for the temple any longer. This temple described here was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and has not been rebuilt. We don’t need it.
Today Jesus gathers his people for worship as the church. We are the temple of the Lord, the body of Christ. We no longer have a “house of prayer” in the temple but we have a people who gather as the church to pray, to hear God’s word, to sing his praise, to offer their gifts. Let’s keep our focus on these aspects of worship and be sure that we don’t turn the church and its worship into a commercial enterprise or an entertainment industry.
This brings us to the final observation about Jesus as the king. We have seen that he is a peaceful King, the Messiah King, a righteous King, and finally:
4. He is A DIVINE KING
He accepted praise as the One who was God, as divine. We see that in two quotes from the Old Testament.
The crowds that surrounded Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem shouted words taken from Psalm 118: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest” (Mt 21:9). If someone comes collecting at your door you want to know the name of the organisation they represent. They aren’t going around for themselves but for the organisation. That is also true of people representing a company as a sales rep. To come in the name of a company means that you come with their authority. Jesus came “in the name of the Lord” in the fullest possible sense of that term. He came to explain who the Lord was, to do his will, to perform his works. He came with the full rights of the Lord God because he was the Son of God – he was God himself!
This is why the people could say; “Hosanna in the highest!” ‘Hosanna’ was a word expressing praise. ‘Highest’ referred to heaven. May Jesus be praised in heaven because he is God!
We also see Jesus accepting praise as God in his answer to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They objected to the praise the children were giving to Jesus. They thought it was irreverent and out of place. But Jesus accepted it and defended them by quoting from Psalm 8: “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’.” This is significant because that psalm is one of praise to God, but Jesus related that to himself so that he received the same praise. He did that because he is God!
Children often grasp spiritual truth more readily than adults; they often have a clear and simple insight into God and his ways, more so than many people who are older and who think they are wiser and more sophisticated and more knowledgeable. These children knew that Jesus ought to be praised. We don’t know how much they knew about him but they knew enough to praise him. They were enthusiastic and cheerful and energetic in their worship. They wanted to honour him.
People in our country can get very enthusiastic about victories in sport – in rugby, cricket or netball. Sporting victories are often causes of great celebration. But we have more reason to celebrate. We have a far greater hero to praise. We are honouring him who is the King of Kings!
Is that how you see Jesus?
Do you know him as the Prince of Peace?
Do you recognise him as the fulfilment of all God’s promises in the Old Testament?
Do you know him as the One who is righteous and just and who will not tolerate oppression or greed or hypocrisy?
Do you believe in him as the One who is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, who came in the name of the Lord?
Will you worship him, as the children did?
“Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna in the highest.”
Will you do that not only today, but every day of your life?
Amen.