This morning's scripture reading comes from Matthew 21:1-11. This will be our second part of our 5-sermon series, our 3-week series that we're going to be going through. We are going to have 2 midweek services this week, one on Maundy Thursday at 6:30 and another on Good Friday at 5:30. So if you have the ability to come out to that, it will be something that you don't want to miss. And then obviously on Easter Sunday we'll have that.

Scripture Reading

Matthew 21:1-11

Hear this, the word of the Lord. Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. The disciples went and did as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!' And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, 'Who is this?' The crowd said, 'This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.' This is the word of the Lord.

Big Question

Who is Jesus?

As we enter into this Palm Sunday, the question that comes from the text, the question that we need to answer, and the question that everyone must answer is this: Who is Jesus? Every person on earth has to answer this question, whether Christian or not. If you've ever talked with anyone who doesn't believe in Christianity about Jesus, you'll notice that they have an answer for Jesus. They have to. Jesus is too important. He is too controversial. He is too persistent for people to simply ignore. To simply not have an answer for who is Jesus is something that we can't do.

Every major world religion has a way to explain him. Islam says that he's a prophet, a great prophet, but simply a prophet. Buddhism says that he's a teacher, that he's moral, that he's wise, he's worth listening to. Secular historians say that he's a revolutionary, a man who changed history. And even inside the church, you ask 10 people, 'Who is Jesus?' you'll get 10 different answers. Maybe he's a personal therapist who helps you feel better about yourself. He's a fire insurance policy there to ease your conscience. A moral example that you can admire, or a social activist who was ahead of his time. We have been asking this question, 'Who is Jesus?' for 2,000 years. Kings, scholars, philosophers, historians, skeptics, all answering this question and we still cannot agree.

Who is Jesus? Which either means one of two things. Either it means that we can't answer this question, that the answer is not knowable, or that we've been getting it wrong. Who is Jesus? The Bible has an answer for us, and Matthew writes this chapter, writes this section, because he's saying we have been getting this wrong. We are prone as human beings to get this wrong. So keep your Bibles open with me as we look at Matthew 21:1-11.

Outline

1. He Presents Himself (Matthew 21:1-5)

2. They Shout His Praise (Matthew 21:6-9)

3. They Still Don't See (Matthew 21:10-11)

He Presents Himself (Matthew 21:1-5)

This passage will show us this: Jesus enters Jerusalem as the promised king, receiving public praise while revealing that his kingdom comes in humility and peace and not in worldly power. Where we're at in this series — last week we saw that Jesus had this defining moment in his ministry. In the Gospels, there's really two halves of each Gospel. The first half is his ministry on earth, the first 2 years and some change, and then the rest of it is the last week of his life. A predominant amount of the gospels are focused on the last week of his life. That turning towards Jerusalem that we saw last week starts this last week where he's walking towards Jerusalem, walking towards his crucifixion.

Matthew 21 is one of the most public moments in Jesus's ministry. It's designed to force us to ask and answer the question, 'Who is this?' The way that Jesus presents himself matters here. In the next series of events that unfold in this passage, we see imagery that proclaims the greatness of Jesus, not just as a king, but as something more. In this section, Jesus shows us and the world that he is God, and yet he has come in humility.

Matthew 21:1-3 says this: 'Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, "The Lord needs them," and he will send them at once."' Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem, on this march towards his final destination of his ministry on earth. He stops at the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is significant for a couple of reasons. One, just in terms of where he is topographically, the Mount of Olives is the only peak in all of Israel that is higher than Jerusalem. Jerusalem is on a mountain itself and the Mount of Olives is slightly higher. So Jesus is on this march towards Jerusalem and he's stopping here, able to see all of the city — the city where he will be persecuted, where he will be arrested, tried, and just outside the city walls where he will be crucified.

The Mount of Olives is also where the Garden of Gethsemane is. On Good Friday, we'll talk a lot more about that, but this is the place where Jesus sweat blood. The Mount of Olives has a ton more historical significance tying back to King David and different things like that. But Jesus essentially, by stopping here, is one subtle way of saying that he is king. But this is where they stop to make a plan for what will happen.

I think this is an interesting point to just stop and think about. Jesus doesn't just do things willy-nilly. Jesus has a plan. I think oftentimes when we think about Jesus, or spirituality, we think it needs to be authentic, it needs to be in the moment, we can't really have anything planned out. But Jesus is deliberate here. He stops and makes a plan. The sovereign God of the universe is orchestrating what will happen. I think oftentimes when we think of our own spiritual life, we think, well, if I pray, it has to be something that just comes to me in the moment, but prayer can be something that we even write or rehearse. It can be deliberate. It can be planned out. There are a lot of things in our Christian life that should be planned out. Jesus teaches us that we don't need to only live in the moment.

So Jesus, in this planning, he goes and asks the disciples to go get a donkey and a colt. An interesting thing about this — why this would have been strange to any first-century Jewish person reading this — Passover was a celebration, a festival that you were required to walk to. Jesus, up until this point, had walked 100 miles to get to the Mount of Olives. The choice to ride a donkey in on the last 2 or 3 miles in a pilgrimage full of pedestrians is not convenience, it's not coincidence. He's doing something incredibly theological. He is setting himself up as the Messiah. He wants everyone to see him as the Messiah. The time for hiding behind the miracles and saying, 'Don't tell anyone,' is over. As he rides a donkey into Jerusalem, he's proclaiming himself as the Messiah.

When we hear that word Messiah, there's a lot of connotation that comes with that. We think of Jesus, we think of the Lord. But when a Jewish person would have heard the term Messiah, they would have never connected that with this fully God, fully man person. When they hear Messiah, they think this is going to be a king, an anointed king like David, who's going to set up another 200 years of prosperity and blessing for the kingdom of Israel. He's going to come and conquer all of their enemies and he will defeat them. He will allow them to have their own nation back, their own kingdom. They were expecting Jesus to be a conquering king, a king who would destroy Rome. It makes sense to us now when we look back on the Old Testament and see all of this prophecy about the Messiah being God. But this was not their expectation.

So Jesus, by doing this, is making a statement just by getting on the donkey that he is the Messiah. Every Jewish person watching this knows that this is what Jesus is intending to do. He says, 'If someone's giving you trouble, say that the Lord has sent you.' There are two ways to interpret this, and I think both are equally valid. Either Jesus was intending to say the Lord needs them in terms of Yahweh needs them, or the Lord needs them in terms of a medieval lord — a title of lordship. Either way, whether it's a boss or Yahweh himself, what Jesus is saying is, I'm sovereign over everything. All things belong to me. If it's Yahweh, this is God himself needs your donkey. Or if it's a lord, yes, you might be the rightful owner of that animal, but the true owner needs it back.

And all this happened to fulfill what the Old Testament said. Matthew 21:5 says: 'Say to the daughter of Zion, "Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."' Matthew wants us to see something here. He wants his readers to see that Jesus is the king but came in a new way. The passage quoted here from the Old Testament is actually two passages, one from Isaiah and one from Zechariah, both about the Messiah. The main reason Jesus uses them is to highlight something that would not have been popular in the ancient world of leaders and kings — Jesus's humility.

Jesus's humility, the humility of a leader, of a king, would have been so foreign to anyone outside of Israel. To describe a king as humble would have been an insult to any king. It described someone who lacked the power or will to assert themselves — essentially a weakling. But the Old Testament said that the Messiah will be meek, will be humble, because he will be like Moses. Moses was described as being meek, but his meekness was because he laid down his own agenda in submission to God's. Jesus's meekness is not the absence of power, it is the presence of power held back. It is the sovereign choice not to conquer with force.

Jesus could have rode in on a war horse. He owned all the war horses. But he didn't. He chose a donkey. And yet Jesus' meekness is not niceness. This is not wimpy Jesus. This is not passive Jesus. What he's doing is saying, yes, I absolutely could come in with force and yet I'm choosing to go and suffer instead. Dorothy Sayers has this amazing quote. She says this: 'We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him meek and mild, and recommended him as a fitting house pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.' Dorothy Sayers wrote this in 1949 and I think within the church, this notion of a weak and emascified Jesus has only grown stronger. We've sanded down all the sharp edges of Jesus, everything offensive from Jesus. We've made him palatable, agreeable, pliable, safe. But meekness was never meant to be the same thing as niceness. Niceness avoids conflict. Meekness walks straight into Jerusalem knowing exactly what needs to be done there. This is not a house pet that we see here in this passage. This is a sovereign God choosing suffering over power. This is a king who has already decided what his power is for.

They Shout His Praise (Matthew 21:6-9)

So Jesus has staged this moment purposefully, deliberately. He has given every signal and the crowd sees it. They respond to everything that he said with everything that they have. The problem is they believe they're certain of how they're supposed to respond and what they are responding to. So the disciples get the donkeys and Jesus rides the colt, an animal that's never been ridden before. They throw their cloaks down. This act of throwing cloaks down seems kind of like a footnote, but this was important. This is not just an improvised action. This was a coronation ritual. It goes back to Jehu in 1 and 2 Kings. Jehu was coronated as the king of Israel and they threw cloaks down in front of him. This was a way to say, this is the one who we want to save us. The problem is they wanted to domesticate him. Jesus is presenting himself as Messiah, but they wanted to define what Messiah meant for them.

Matthew 21:9 says this: 'And the crowds that went before him and the crowds that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"' Hosanna is a word that means save us. Essentially, this thing that they're saying to Jesus is, we need saving. Here is the authorized one by God who can save, and we need saving. This is the gospel framework, right? Crying out that we need saving, a recognition of our own sinfulness. Seeing who our Savior is and rejoicing that this is the one who can save us.

The crowds shout, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' They are simultaneously praising and pleading for him to save them. The distinction between prayer and praise has collapsed. It is both. The king himself is the answer to the prayer. And Jesus' response to this is worthwhile noting. It's incredibly important. All throughout Jesus' ministry, he tells people not to talk about what he has done. In Matthew 9:29-30, he heals two blind men and he says, 'See to it that no one knows about this.' And now, the whole crowds are shouting and what does Jesus do? He doesn't turn them away. Jesus understands the time for secrecy is over. This worship is appropriate because he knows that he is going to die.

The truth is that what the crowds are doing is actually right, it's just in a wrong heart posture. They aren't hypocrites in a technical sense; they are actually saying all of the right things. They are praising Jesus and inviting him to be their king. Hosanna and 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord' both derive themselves from Psalm 118. These psalms would have been sung by the king with the people as they were marching through the streets in a festival in worship. They're crying out to him saying, 'You're our king.' They're even using the right liturgy, the right terms to worship God, and this is real worship. Yet they miss who Jesus truly is.

They want a king that they've invented in their own minds. They want another David, another king who would destroy their enemies but not destroy their true enemy, liberate them from Rome but not liberate them from sin, restore the kingdom of Israel but not inaugurate the kingdom of heaven. It is entirely possible to praise Jesus loudly, liturgically, and sincerely and to be praising a Jesus of your own imagination. The danger in this text, in our own hearts, is not rejection, not rejecting Jesus. It is Scripture-quoting worship of a domesticated Savior. It is worshiping God truthfully from the pages of Scripture and yet worshiping one that we've invented, one that truly isn't there, one that fits in a box that's convenient for us.

Not the true infinite God of the universe. That is a Jesus that's nice, that's kind, that's easy for us, that's palatable for us, that we can grasp our arms around, one that we can control, the actions of whom we can predict. A Jesus that has the same morals as I do, who's concerned with the same social justice issues as me, who votes the same way that I do. And that, I think, is a real danger for us especially in our world today. The belief that the right leader, the right party, the right coalition, the right policy, the right revolution will finally fix what is broken — this is political idolatry. Political idolatry isn't the problem of caring so much about politics, but that we ask politics to do what only God can do for us. This is clear and evident in our text. They want a political king. They want someone who will come and make a nation for them, a kingdom for them. Jesus has something far superior for them.

These visions of Jesus that we impose on him — we can find passages in Scripture that support our own version of Jesus. That's why we have churches on far ends of political and theological spectrums. We have churches that affirm homosexuality and they bring up passages to talk about Jesus as a social justice warrior. And we see also very legalistic churches who use passages of Scripture to justify their legalistic views. They're not hallucinations. We can find bits and pieces of them. The problem is with a curated Jesus, a Frankenstein's monster sort of Jesus where we take parts and pieces that we like from the gospels and mash them together. That is no longer Jesus. We can quote Scripture that supports our monstrosity but it isn't truly, fully the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

One of the most dangerous things that we can say is, 'If Jesus were here today, he would...' whatever it is, fill in the blank. Unless we're saying Jesus would be truthful, or he wouldn't sin, we can say those things. But if we're trying to say, 'Here's a problem in our culture, if Jesus were here today he would do this, he would vote for my candidate, he would be Reformed, he would be Presbyterian, he would be Methodist' — it's one of the most dangerous things we can say. Nobody could predict what Jesus was about to do next. Not his disciples, not the people traveling with him, not the Pharisees. For us to believe that we can wrap our minds or our arms around Jesus, to contain him in a box that fits neatly in our worldview — it's to be as silly as Peter when he rebukes Jesus.

C.S. Lewis says this: 'We want not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven, a senile benevolence who, as they say, likes to see young people enjoying themselves and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "A good time was had by all."' We want a God who will make our life better. We become like the people in the crowd. C.S. Lewis nailed it. We don't want a king, we want a benefactor. Someone who smiles at our choices and picks up the tab. A God who is endlessly supportive and never inconvenient. But that God does not exist. And deep down, we know it. Because a God small enough just to make you happy is not a big enough God to save you, and ultimately not a big enough God worthy of worship.

They Still Don't See (Matthew 21:10-11)

Matthew 21:10-11 says this: 'And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, "Who is this?" And the crowd said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee."' The whole town after hearing this parade of Jesus coming into Jerusalem asks the question, 'Who is this?' The town is stirred up. Actually, a better translation of that word 'stirred up' would be more closely tied to an earthquake — shaken would probably be a better word for this. Every time the true identity of Jesus presses in on those who do not recognize him, the whole world shakes.

This word 'shaken' is consistent throughout Jesus's life. When Jesus was born, Bethlehem shook. When Jesus enters into Jerusalem, Jerusalem shook. When Jesus is crucified, the veil is torn and the earth shook. And on the third day, the tomb rolled away, the earth shook. History itself is being seismically reoriented around this man, the God-man, Jesus Christ. The only question is whether you will let him reorient your life.

Who is this? This is the question they ask. Who is Jesus? The fragments of the truth have been laid throughout the gospel narratives leading up into this point. Some say king, some say the coming one, some say Jeremiah or Elisha. The people in Jerusalem say, 'A prophet.' To say, to call someone a prophet like they're calling Jesus is the highest thing that they can call someone. Spiritually, this is the greatest honor you could give someone in a title. This is the most glorious thing you could call someone. So are we overreacting that these people are just calling him a prophet? No, this is not an overreaction at all.

To call Jesus merely a prophet is the greatest slight in human history. Categorically getting the person of Jesus wrong, putting him in an altogether different category. It would be like calling a man and a fish the same thing because they both have a heartbeat. Calling him a prophet is not just an error that's harmless. What you think about Jesus determines what you expect him to do. The crowd called him a prophet. But prophets don't rise to overthrow Rome. Prophets don't sit on thrones. So when he didn't do what a king would do, they turned on him. The Jesus that you expect determines the response that you give to the Jesus you get. The world has an answer for Jesus, each answer insufficient or wrong. There is only one answer.

Main Idea

Praise the humble King who comes to save

What do we do when we see our king humble and riding on a donkey? We praise the humble King who comes to save. We have to praise Jesus for who he truly is, not the Jesus we want, but the Jesus who is truly there. The crowd goes from praising him to condemning him in a week. The Jesus they wanted was the one who would defeat Rome, but Jesus becomes the one who allows Roman guards to arrest him and crucify him. When this happens, they feel betrayed. The Jesus that you expect determines the response that you get from Jesus. A Jesus of your own imagination will disappoint you.

I don't want you to miss that. When we imagine Jesus, when we create our own version of him, the Jesus that we can fit into a box, the Jesus that really has to be smaller than us if we're going to comprehend him, that Jesus will disappoint you. Oftentimes as a pastor, one of the most prominent questions I get asked is, 'Pastor, how do I get through a season of hardship? How do I get through a season of spiritual drought? I just don't feel a connection with God anymore.' Oftentimes, the answer to this is that we have brought Jesus so far down to our level, in fact, beneath us, that this is a Jesus that we don't even feel like we should worship. It's not a Jesus that we can connect to. An invented Jesus is not a Jesus worth worshiping. And so, honestly, we don't.

We have to let go of the Jesus we like, the Jesus that we want to worship, and embrace the true and rightful King. The King who does things that we cannot predict, riding in on a donkey. The King who comes in sometimes with power, sometimes with anger, as we see if you just kept reading, as Jesus cleanses the temple. This Jesus we can't predict, this Jesus who is beyond our human capacity for reason. What do you do when you find a Jesus who scares you, who confronts you, who challenges you, who calls you out to something different, who calls you to something greater? Do you retreat to the Jesus that you knew, that you can hold in the box, that feels comfortable, or do you embrace a Jesus who might just scare you?

If you become a Christian and none of your views shift, you've most certainly created a Jesus of your own imagination. True Christianity, the true Christ, challenges you. If you were very conservative before coming to know Christ and none of your views change, you've missed the very liberalness of Jesus that we see in the gospels, who cares about social justice, who cares about oppression, who cares about the poor. And if you're liberal and you become a Christian and nothing changes, you don't see the moral fortitude that Jesus has — the morality that is far more conservative than maybe you're comfortable with. The moral nature that says not only can you not commit adultery, but that you can't even lust. Far more conservative than maybe you'd care to admit. If Jesus doesn't challenge your paradigm, challenge your worldview, I guarantee that you're seeing a Jesus that you're inventing. True Christianity challenged the true Christ. He pushes us beyond our beliefs and changes everything that we do.

The crowd thought that the donkey was the beginning, a humble entrance before the real display of power. Surely, riding in on a donkey was his entrance to take Jerusalem's throne back. The donkey was just the opening act before the war horse came out. But they had it exactly backwards. The donkey wasn't the prelude to his kingship; the donkey was his kingship. Don't you see? The donkey is the gospel. He comes in not to conquer but to be humiliated. It is the clearest possible announcement of the kind of king Jesus came to be. Not the king who rides out against his enemies, not the king who conquers by force, but the King who came to take the blows himself. Not the King who makes others suffer so he can reign, but the King who suffers so we can live.

The road from the donkey leads straight to the cross. This was always his destination. He rode into Jerusalem not to take a throne, but to take a wound. The humility of his entry and the humility of the cross are the same thing. The voluntary surrender of a king who had all the power in the world and chose instead to spend it on you. That's what the prophet saw. Behold your king riding on a donkey, humble. Not humble until the real power shows up, humble as the very shape of our salvation. And that changes everything we know about God and every way we go before him.

We want a king whose power looks like the world's power — force, dominance, victory over enemies. But Jesus said, I have given you something better. I have given you a king whose power looks like a donkey, looks like a cross, and looks like a tomb that could not hold him. This is not weakness dressed up as theology. This is the only power in the universe strong enough to defeat sin, to defeat evil, and to rise victorious over the grave. He is coming back. And this time he will not ride in on a donkey. Jesus will ride in on a war horse, on a blood-soaked robe, one that was bought with the humiliation of riding in on a donkey and being crucified on a cross. Through the humility that the world would call defeat, heaven has called victory.

Application

Bring someone to Easter

You were handed a card on your way in and if you weren't, you need to grab one on your way out. All of Jerusalem asked, 'Who is Jesus?' And church, we know the answer to this. Let this week be a reminder to you as you have this card. This isn't a card to invite you to church, this is a card for you to give someone else. Hand this card to someone else. In fact, before you leave this morning, before you leave the doors to go out to your car, I want you to put a name to it. Know who you're going to give that to. Because I know how it works — you get home, you get in your car, and you start thinking about everything else you have to do. Have a name before you walk out.

Easter is one week away. Invite someone to come and see, to come and ask the question, 'Who is Jesus?' And for us to be able to say, 'Jesus is the most glorious, risen God-man in all of human history, and he's our Savior who's alive and seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.'

Audit your expectations of Jesus

What are you asking Jesus now to do? Not a theological question, but a personal one. Are you asking him to fix your finances, your marriage, asking him to get you a better job? None of those are wrong prayers, absolutely not. But beneath them, what kind of king are you expecting to show up? A war horse king who comes in to overpower every obstacle in your path? Or worse, a king who is there only to serve you, to make your life more comfortable? Because I think oftentimes we turn Jesus into a concierge. He's there when we need something and he's invisible when we don't. We pull him out when life gets hard and we put him back when things are manageable. That is not a king, that is a spiritual vending machine.

Jesus came on a donkey, not because he couldn't ride in on a war horse. He owned everything. Not because he couldn't afford a war horse, but because he held back power in order to serve others, and that's the whole point. Yes, Jesus came to serve, but he came to serve your deepest need. Not your most comfortable request. He didn't come to make your current life easier. He came to give you new life. He came to make you new. His meekness is not weakness. It is strength, strength that chose the cross over a crown. The King you have is better, I promise you, is better than the king that you wanted.

Church, as we leave today, praise the humble King who comes to save.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we thank you and praise you for who you are, that you came in humble, riding in on a donkey, and that your humility, your humiliation did not end with that. But you humbled yourself in the form of a servant, humbled enough and obedient enough to die on a cross on our behalf. Father, we have no hope without you. We have no hope to save ourselves. Thank you for coming to save us, being wounded for our transgressions, stricken for our iniquity. God, you are good. Let us sing in response to how good you are. It's in your name we pray. Amen.