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The Good News of Jesus

08/23/2009 - The King is Here, Mark 11:1-11

One of my favorite holidays of the year is Thanksgiving. I know it's only August and November seems like a long way away, but I couldn't help but think of Thanksgiving and the holiday season as I was studying the passage we're going to look at today.

The busiest travel day of the year is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It's a day when millions of Americans are on the move and most are headed home to be with family and friends for the long holiday weekend. We're already looking forward to Thanksgiving because that's probably the next time our daughter, Chelsea, will be home from college.

More than any other holiday Thanksgiving prompts us to count our blessings and be thankful for what we have. It's a time to look back and reflect on the goodness of God. It's also the one holiday that's built around the meal and the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

I know that when we come together as an extended family everybody arrives with a dish to contribute to the feast. Thanksgiving is the holiday that gives us all permission to overeat! And for most of us it's a fun, festive time.

Passover was the Thanksgiving holiday for the Jewish people in Jesus' day. It was the time of the year that they looked forward to perhaps more than any other. Like Thanksgiving it was the one holiday that was built around the meal. The Passover Seder was the main event, only the meat that was carved at the table wasn't turkey it was lamb. It was the Passover lamb.

Passover was the busiest travel season of the year. Thousands of Jewish people from all over world were on the move, going up to Jerusalem to make their sacrifice and to remember how God had miraculously delivered his people from bondage to slavery in Egypt and set them free. There was the anticipation of seeing relatives and old friends, of singing and dancing, feasting and praying, and just having a great time together.

By law every Jewish male over 12 years of age was required to attend the Passover in the city of Jerusalem. And many would bring their families as well. So the population of the city would swell about ten times during the holiday. And that would force many of the worshipers to stay in the surrounding villages and made crowd control a nightmare for the Romans who ruled the city at that time. Freedom was on everybody's mind so a riot could occur at anytime and they knew that which is why the Romans hated Passover week.

But the Jewish people loved it. There was always excitement in the air as they made the exhausting 18 mile climb from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jericho is the lowest city on earth, 800 feet below sea level, and Jerusalem is 2,500 above sea level. So the Jericho Road is almost straight up. I've been on it a number of times.

It was a dangerous climb. There were cliffs to fall off and wild animals that could attack and thieves that could jump you and take your money or your life or both. Which is why the Israelites would sing the psalms of ascent as they hiked like Psalm 121, I lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from? ²My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. ³He will not let your foot slip - he who watches over you will not slumber, ⁴indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

It was a dangerous, exhausting climb, but at the end there was the exhilaration of coming over that final ridge and being blinded by the glow shining off the golden roof of the Jewish Temple, the most magnificent building in the ancient world.

The Temple at Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God. It was the most sacred place on earth for the Jewish people. It was a thrill to go to Jerusalem.

And that's where Jesus is headed along with his twelve disciples to celebrate the Passover, his final Passover. They were singing the songs of ascent and climbing up the Jericho Road with visions and dreams of the kingdom on their minds. "This is it!" the disciples were thinking. We've got the Messiah with us. Look out you Romans the kingdom is on its way.

But Passover wasn't going to unfold the way the disciples envisioned and only Jesus knew that. If you have a Bible turn with me to Mark 11.

Look at Mark 11:1, As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ²saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'"

This is the day that we call Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This is the first day of what has become known as Passion Week. Notice, the last six chapters of Mark, chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, over one-third of his gospel, is devoted to the last week of Jesus' life. That tells us something about the importance of these events. Passion Week is the culmination of Jesus' mission. This is what everything else has been anticipating and pointing towards.

And so they approach Jerusalem, but they don't go there, at least not yet. Instead, they stop short of the city and come to two small villages on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, Bethphage, which means "House of Figs," and Bethany, which means "House of Dates."

Now we know Jesus had friends in Bethany that he often stayed with when he visited Jerusalem. Lazarus lived in Bethany, along with his two sisters, Mary & Martha. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead just a few months before. And since that time the Pharisees had put a price on Jesus' head and on Lazarus' head too.

The gospel of John tells us that the chief priests wanted to kill them both because so many people were putting their faith in Jesus as a result of Lazarus' story. He had been dead for four days. It was hard to deny what Jesus had done. John 11:57 says, But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.

Jesus was a marked man. His picture was on TV and all over the Internet. He name was on top of Israel's Ten Most Wanted List. This was a dangerous time and a dangerous place for Jesus to be hanging out. And if he didn't have a mission to accomplish it would have been way better for Jesus to have stayed home and not show up for this year's Passover. But that wasn't the plan.

Instead, the plan was to make a public appearance. And so while they're in Bethany he's not looking for a place to hide out. Instead, he sends two of his disciples to get him a donkey so he can ride into Jerusalem on one of the busiest days of the year, right down Main Street in front of the Pharisees and the chief priests and thousands of other people who would be there.

Look at verse 4, They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" ⁶They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.

What had Jesus told them to say? He told them to say, The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly. What we need to see here, right at the beginning of Passion Week, is that Jesus is in control. As crazy and chaotic as things are going to get, the Lord is in control. As crazy and chaotic as things are in this world, the Lord is in control. As crazy and chaotic as things are in your life and my life right now, the Lord is in control. The Lord needs it and the people let them go.

What is going to happen in the next seven days is going to blow the disciples' minds. But it's all part of God's plan. This is all part of the fulfillment of a great script that was written down centuries earlier by the Hebrew prophets. In Matthew's account of this event he quotes Zechariah the prophet who described this scene over 500 years before Jesus was even born.

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

I don't know about you, but when my faith starts to sag and doubts seep into my mind I find great encouragement in the amazing ways that Jesus fulfilled detail prophecies written about his life hundreds of years before he was born like this one. Your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The plan is unfolding just the way God intended.

Look at verse 7, When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" ¹⁰ "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" "Hosanna in the highest!"

This passage is pregnant with Messianic images. Jesus is presenting himself to the nation of Israel as their long, awaited king. He's riding on a colt that has never been sat on before, but because he's Lord the colt's afraid to throw him off! In that day and age kings rode horses into battle and rode donkeys as a sign of peace. So Jesus is presenting himself to his people as the King of Peace and the King for Peace. He's unlike any other king. He comes meek and lowly, not powering up with a sign of force.

And while he's riding they're cutting down branches and throwing their coats out in the road. John tells us in his gospel that they're waving palm branches which is how we get the name Palm Sunday. This is all regal stuff, the stuff that was done for kings.

Often when a king would visit a city the people would build a brand new road for the occasion and the king would be the first one to ride or walk down on it. So that's what's happening here. A new road is being built for Jesus out of branches and coats and palm fronds.

And the people are shouting the words of Psalm 118. Hosanna which in Hebrew means "save now." Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! The phrase "he who comes" was a common reference to the Messiah. The Jews would often speak of Messiah as the "one who is coming." Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!

There was no hiding the fact that Jesus was making a dramatic, symbolic, public proclamation to be Israel's Messiah. And there were those in the crowd that thought it was great. They were praising God. They were on board with Jesus' claim to be king and couldn't wait for him to establish his kingdom.

But there were others who couldn't stand it and so we read in Luke 19:39-40, Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" ⁴⁰ "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

One author I read this week wrote, "No incident so shows the sheer courage of Jesus as this does. Under the circumstances we might have expected Jesus to enter Jerusalem secretly and to keep hidden from the authorities who were out to destroy him. Instead, he entered in such a way that the attention of every eye was focused on him. Here we see Jesus making his last appeal of love and making it with a courage that is heroic ... By this time it must have been plain to the disciples that Jesus was committing suicide. But they still stood by him."

So people are singing and some are shouting. Some are happy. Some are angry. And in the midst of it all, what's Jesus doing? Jesus is crying. There are tears rolling down his cheeks as he weeps over Jerusalem.

Luke gives us that important detail in Luke 19:41-44, 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 on 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."

Jesus knows what's going to happen. In his mind's eye he looks ahead about forty years to A.D. 70, when the Romans would completely destroy the Temple and demolish the city as an expression of God's judgment because of their rejection of the Messiah and it causes him to weep. If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Some scholars believe that when Jesus says the words "this day" he's referring to the fulfillment of another incredible prophecy that was made by the prophet Daniel over 500 years earlier.

In Daniel 9:25 we read, So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince comes there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.

In that passage, Daniel is saying that from the time of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah comes there will be seven and sixty-two weeks or a total of sixty-nine weeks. Now what does that mean?

Well, history tells us that onMarch 5, 444 B.C. King Cyrus issued a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. And Daniel is saying that from that date until the coming of Messiah the Prince there would be a time period of sixty-nine weeks. Now if those weeks were made up of seven days that would be 483 days. But Messiah didn't come 483 days after the decree of Cyrus.

But if those weeks were made up of seven years that would be 483 years. And if those years were 360 days long as was used in biblical times then we have 483 years x 360 days = 173,880 days.

So when scholars add 173,880 days to March 5, 444 B.C. they come up with the date for the triumphal entry ofMarch 30, A. D. 33 or on the Jewish calendar the 10^th day of the month of Nisan which would fulfill the prophecy of Daniel down to the very day! If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Again everything was unfolding right on schedule, just as God has planned it.

Look at verse 11, So Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

That was enough for day one of Passion Week. The Jewish Temple was chaotic that Sunday as thousands of worshipers were busy selecting and buying their Passover lambs. The lambs were always selected on the 10^th day of Nisan and then slaughtered at twilight on the 14^th day of Nisan.

And so here Jesus, the Lamb of God, presents himself to the nation of Israel on the very same day the nation is selecting Passover lambs to slaughter for themselves. So they miss the Lamb of God as their search for their own Passover lambs and it causes Jesus to weep.

We're going to take the next number of months to work our way through the last seven days of Jesus life. And as we do don't be fooled by the chaos and the randomness of the events that are going to occur during this Passion Week. There's nothing random about it. It is all the unfolding of God's great plan of redemption. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and he is in control. He was then and he is now.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.