Actions have consequences. After that Saturday evening at the dinner in Bethany where Lazarus and Jesus ate together at the house of Simon the Leper, after that dinner where Mary anointed Jesus as her king with a $20,000 bottle of perfume, events began which moved quickly over the next few days. Can you imagine what the people said as they found place to sleep that evening?
- “Jesus has been anointed as king!” one said.
- “We knew Jesus was a mighty healer and teacher, gifted by God, but now He has brought back the dead!” another said.
- “How can we fail to defeat the Romans with a king that can heal people and bring them back from the dead? His army can fight forever even against the Romans!” a third said.
- “And remember – He fed five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread! We’ll never starve in a siege!” still another replied.
- Someone else jumped in. “Tomorrow will be a great day! I’m sure He’ll do some great miracle and order the Romans to leave and then He’ll defeat them if they resist. It’ll be like having King David back again on the throne!”
And through the night the deeds of Jesus moved from lips to ears, and spread throughout all those encamped at Bethany, the thousands of people who were on the road for the regular annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where they would each sacrifice a lamb in front of God to pay for their sins of the previous year.
Little did they realize just what that Lamb would look like, and how many sins He would pay for with His sacrifice. For they were bringing their money to buy lambs and they were expecting to see their new king the next day. They looked with joy and expectation that finally, finally, finally they would have a man of the people, a good man, a strong man as king who would stand up to those who stole tax money from them, to those who took away their rights, to the existing king who was from a foreign land – a man who was born only just over the border, it was true, but this man was not actually Jewish, Herod was an Edomite, a foreigner, but he ruled because the Roman power brokers far off in Europe supported him, and they supported him with money and with the army.
But now they had a savior, a Messiah, an Anointed One who would rescue them from all that. He would use the power of the sword and destroy the enemies of the people. He would use the power of his wisdom to change the laws, he would use the craftiness of His ancestor David to bring back life into the land and make Judah strong again, feared throughout the East. The hated foreigners would be sent home. And the Messiah would bring riches to the people of Judah once again, and life would be good.
The next morning, Jesus and His disciples, the friends at the banquet, the thousands of people of Galilee who had traveled a hundred miles, and the men and women of Jerusalem who had come out to Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus, the man He had resurrected, as well as Martha and Mary and Simon the Leper – All of these people awoke early that morning and began the short walk, the mile-and-a- half in the early morning sun up, up, up the Mount of Olives to where the road crosses the peak at the tiny town of Bethphage, and then down below them, they saw the first rays of sunlight hitting Jerusalem, the Holy City, and they saw the glittering Temple of God in the City of David. And then….
Jesus pulled aside two of His disciples. He told them: “Go into Bethphage and as you enter it, you will see a donkey’s colt that has never been ridden tied there. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’
32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
AND THEY LET THEM GO! Just like that!
Now put that into a modern context. You’re standing there beside your car and a couple of guys you’ve never seen come up and start to take your car. You say, “What are you doing with my car?” And the two guys say “The Lord needs it”.
"OK – Here’s the keys!" SURE!
If you haven’t yet figured out that there was something special about Jesus, you might want to think about this little episode. Why did these guys give up their car…I mean… donkey colt to two guys they never saw before?
So the two disciples take the colt back to Jesus, put their cloaks over the animal, and Jesus gets on it. A couple of observations:
First, this donkey colt that has never been ridden before just takes this all in stride. Jesus, a carpenter’s son – not a cowboy, not a rancher, with no mention made of a particular expertise with animals – Jesus just rides this unbroken colt down the hill with no problem. Once again, do you get the picture that there was something special about Jesus?
And this is not some made up unimportant detail. Three of the four Gospels tell us about it. And two of the Gospels draw our attention to a prophecy from Zechariah 9, about how the king of Jerusalem will arrive riding on a donkey’s colt. The king of Jerusalem will not ride into town on a great stallion, but on a humble donkey’s colt.
Right then, the people should have realized that something was wrong with the story they’d talked about the night before.
Throughout history, people have tried to fit what is happening in the world into stories that they know, stories that have the endings they expect, stories that they know the plot line to. For example, a man grows up from poverty, works hard, struggles through adversity and eventually becomes wealthy, winning a wife from a wealthy family. We know this story. Or a young woman meets a young man, their families try to keep them apart, they resist, and they eventually end up together, but there is a tragic end. We read that story in high school, didn't we? Or a small group of people, hard pressed but righteous fight against a giant evil, and just when it looks like everything will fall apart, are rescued by overpowering force. We know these stories. And Israel had its story of a great military leader, a Messiah who would lead a great rebellion and establish once again the great kingdom of David.
But as Jesus began down the Mount of Olives that day, something was wrong, because the Messiah was riding a donkey’s colt instead of a warhorse.
Of course, if they knew their Old Testament scripture, they would have seen that Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy from the Prophet Zechariah, the 9th chapter:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
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.
This king was not going to conquer through war, but He was going to bring peace to all nations. But that wasn’t what the crowd expected – nor wanted, for they wanted the Romans gone and Jerusalem to become the capital once again of a great nation.
The crowd began to chant. “Hallelujah! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Hallelujah!” The noise rose to deafening levels. The people with Jesus could see into the Holy City below them – and the people in the Holy City could hear and see the procession coming down the mountainside road.
And the wise men standing around - Pharisees, yes, but wise - some wise men who had lived through and endured bloodshed in the previous years, the men who knew what the Roman army could and would do if provoked, they yelled to Jesus: “Rabbi, tell your disciples to be quiet!” For they were afraid, they were afraid of the Romans, they were afraid the Romans would not want a new king to come into the city. They were afraid that the Romans would send their troops to take control and the Roman troops were armed with swords and spears. They were not riot police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas. When the Romans broke up riots, many people died.
But Jesus, referring to a prophecy of Isaiah, said: “If they keep quiet, the rocks and stones will cry out.” And the noise continued, but the Romans did not appear that day. And the leaders of the city did not come out to greet the new king, either.
That day, the people were happy and joyful and dancing, for a new king had come into Jerusalem.
But Jesus was not joyful that day…
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 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. 43 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. 44 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.”
We know what happened. We know that Jesus taught in the Temple for several days that week, with approving crowds gathered around Him. We know that the leaders of the city gradually grew more and more disturbed with Him – and we know that Judas Iscariot made a deal to lead an armed group to arrest Him in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. And we know that that arrest was made and Jesus was beaten and executed for the crime of claiming to be God. And He died.
And where were the people of the joyful, supportive crowd that had walked down the Mount of Olives with Him a week earlier? The crowd, many of whom had walked down the Mount of Olives with Him that bright Sunday morning before Passover, the crowd had not only consented to His death, they had demanded it, loudly and vocally, from a reluctant Roman governor. They did not recognize that God the Son, God Himself walking upon the earth had come to visit Jerusalem. Have you recognized that God has come to earth? Have you seen Him in your life?
Yes, we know what happened that week to the crowd. We also know that in the year 65 AD, about 30 years later, a war broke out as the Jews rebelled yet again against Rome. And in the summer of 70 AD, the city was surrounded by a Roman army, the Romans built a wall around the city to keep people inside so that the people would starve, the Romans built a ramp up to the outside of the city wall, and then in August they stormed the city, burnt the Temple slaughtered untold thousands of people and destroyed the town and the ruins of the Temple. Later, the Jews were completely evicted from Jerusalem and they were scattered from Spain to Central Asia, unable to return for centuries. Still later, bringers of an upstart religion from Arabia, the Moslems, would conquer Jerusalem and build a mosque on the site of David’s Temple, where it remains today.
Today, only the Western supporting Wall of the Temple remains, the Western Wall where Jews still worship today in Jerusalem, carefully separated from Moslems by walls and fences.
Too often throughout history, people want their situation to change by looking to a new king. Too often, throughout history, people have indeed got what they asked for. But too often, throughout history, people have forgotten that extreme change usually means the use of the sword and spear. It is after long periods of peace that people are most likely to demand change – and get it. War-weary people do not demand change – they are happy when the change stops.
Jesus was the Messiah, but He was not the Messiah that the people of Judah were expecting. They wanted a king, but God had told the people of Judah through the Prophet Samuel once a long time before that they should desire God to lead them, that they did not really want a king. But they didn't listen.
And so, this time, God sent them a leader who would be a Messiah and king, but not the sort of king that the people wanted. Where they wanted Him to cause the death of the Romans, He wanted to bring life to the Romans. Where they wanted Him to kill the rich in money, He wanted to help all people become rich in spirit. Where they expected a proud, arrogant man on a warhorse, He arrived as a humble teacher on a donkey’s colt. And He began to change the world when on the morning of the third day He arose from the grave and began to teach and preach and speak to His disciples once again. For He had defeated the real enemy – Death – the enemy that weakens all of us, Jew, Christian, Roman alike. And it was that victory that changed the world.
Today, we hear some men and women preaching a gospel of secular power from the pulpit. We are to wrest control of the government, we are to take over the legislatures, we are to put strong men and women into government who will defeat our enemies, who will give power to the poor and the working people, who will right the wrongs of this world at the ballet box …or in the streets with protests, which are always declared to be non-violent until the violence breaks out. We are to take power or make power, these preachers say.
But that was not Jesus’ plan for taking control of the world.
As the Wisdom of God, Jesus understood that changing which people are in power only gives Satan a new group of people who can be tempted with that power, who can wield that addictive power, who can become tools of Satan because they now have the power to bend others to their will. The oppressed so often will become the new oppressors. Jesus’ plan was not set up a new government by the poor, his plan was not to set up a new government by righteous men and women, his plan was not even to establish a Christian government ruled by Christian men and women.
No, His plan was to change the hearts of men and women around the world, to change hearts to love God and to love each other so that there would be very little need for a government, for when you look at it, what are the good purposes of government?
To protect people from injury by other people, to protect people from the whims of nature, to help those who have been born incapable of living by themselves, to assist people in developing complete, whole, fully healed bodies and souls.
And yet, if people follow Christ’s commands, they will almost stop injuring other people. If people trust in God, they will have wisdom to help each other during natural disasters and see those disasters coming. If people love their neighbors, they will naturally help the helpless. And if people will follow Christ, they will help each other become whole. So little government is needed when people truly follow Christ.
But what do governments usually spend their time and energy upon?
Controlling people, both within the country and in neighboring countries, and in collecting money to support the rulers and to help those rulers become immortal thorough their legacies – be it monuments, programs, conquests, or dynasties. Our rulers fear death and so they take from everyone else so that they may live a year or two longer on this earth. And because they take so much, more people become desperate and fear death and misbehave and need controlling and so the cycle continues to deepen over the years.
The success of many Western governments over the last few centuries is due to one fact – the vast bulk of the populace loved God, and therefore trusted God to provide their needs and most of their wants. And when people trust God, they do not need to have a king take things from other people.
Yet, the people of Jerusalem that day on the Mount of Olives did not realize this. They did not realize that Jesus had a plan, a long term plan that would bring peace to most of the world, a long term plan that would lift poor people from desperate scrambling to survive, a long term plan to defeat Satan and his desire for power by removing the need for earthly power. The people did not realize that their Messiah would have to die in a few days for this to happen.
For the death of Jesus upon the cross showed us that the most powerful Being on earth did not need to use the normal types of power to gain what was important. The death of Jesus showed us that the fear of death that drives us to need and need and need so many things and to take so much from our neighbors does not need to control us. The death of Jesus and His resurrection showed us that loving God and trusting in God is all we really need, for God will take care of us, even bringing us back from death if needed. And that is why we love Christ and worship Him.
Recently, I’ve listened to many of you and almost everyone seems to fear one candidate or another candidate for President. I’ve listened to many of you and some of you are following one or more candidates with the joy that the crowd followed their Messiah down the Mount of Olives that morning. I’ve read your Facebook posts and many of you and your friends believe because of either fear or overwhelming joy that this is The Most Important Election Ever.
It isn’t.
On a Wednesday morning this November, unless the Lord does something amazing, we will awaken to someone new who has been elected our next President. That President to be will be human, neither Christ nor anti-Christ, neither Messiah nor devil. unlikely to go down in history as the best President nor the worst President.
But on that same Wednesday morning in November, there will be people who will die that day and experience tremendous joy and there will be people who will die that day and experience tremendous sadness and grief, for there will be people who will die following Jesus who will see His smile, and there will be people who will die not having a positive relationship with Jesus and they will meet the lake of fire.
If it were not for Jesus and His sacrifice, we would have no hope when death arrives, we would have no reason not to become selfish and grasping and taking and miserly, for if you have no hope after death, there is no reason to share anything, because everything is needed to keep you alive a few years longer, a few days longer, a few minutes more. But with Jesus and His sacrifice, there is nothing that can happen to a follower of Jesus except the loss of this body, for we know that one day we will be resurrected in a renewed body, just as our spirit has been renewed through the Holy Spirit in this body.
Take a moment and watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ23ryYK8ac
The next few months are a time when it is easy to get distracted from reality. And the reality is that it is up to the people of Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, speaking the Word of God to bring people to eternal joy and life by boldly proclaiming that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again and helping people see how this changes everything.
When the followers of Christ remember to focus upon bringing people to Christ, upon helping more people follow Christ, the world will change for the better as more and more people turn away from a selfish need to take and hold and control and turn to a relaxed understanding of what is important in life. God tells us to not put our trust in kings, but only in God and God’s Son. Until that time that we do so, any positive change is only an illusion, temporary, and will disappear just as the joyful crowds did that day after Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
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