Now Presenting: A King and a Lamb
Road to the Cross • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I think I’ve told y’all before that, several years ago, I passed on the opportunity to watch my youngest granddaughter be born.
I was talking to her father this week, and he mentioned that she’ll be entering seventh grade this coming school year — and as old people are prone to do, I started thinking about how time flies.
And pretty soon, I was thinking about the night of her birth, which I spent in the waiting room of the birthing center at Maryview Hospital in Portsmouth.
Annette was in the room for the blessed event. She had it under control. They didn’t need me. And I didn’t need to see all that.
It was a very long labor, and I was out there by myself, with little to do but watch the news, which was all about the earthquake and tsunami Japan had experienced that day.
I was already anxious, so I didn’t really need to add depressed to my mix of emotions, so I turned off the television after a while and just sat.
I kept hoping that any minute someone would come out and say the baby had come and that baby and Mama were both OK.
And that’s what they did, finally. And I remember that not long after that, Annette came out and asked me if I wanted to come in and see the baby.
Well, I did, of course, and we’ve got a couple of good shots of Grandpa holding his tiny granddaughter.
But the truth is that I felt a little like I’d missed something. No, I wasn’t having second thoughts about staying out of the action.
What I didn’t get was that moment when they draw back the curtain of the nursery and a nurse stands on the other side of the glass, holding a swaddled baby for the proud father or grandfather to see.
I missed out on the presentation. Maybe they don’t even do that anymore.
I watched a clip from an I Love Lucy episode this week, and I realized that’s where my memory of this kind of baby presentation comes from.
Lucy is in the hospital to deliver Little Ricky. Ricky Ricardo is in the waiting room with a middle-aged man who looks like he’s waiting for a train.
They get to talking, and the man says he’s so calm because this will be his seventh child. He and his wife already have six girls, and he’s hoping for a boy.
And then, the moment of the presentation comes. The nurse comes out and tells him it’s not a boy. And he says, “Oh no! Now I have SEVEN girls?!” And she says, “No.”
The curtain to the nursery opens, and three nurses are standing on the other side of the glass, holding three baby girls. And the poor guy faints.
That’s the moment I think I was looking for. Something dramatic. A presentation. An unveiling. Didn’t get it. Oh well. I’m still a proud Grandpa.
We’re going to talk this week about this idea of a presentation. Not in the sense of presenting a newborn, but in the sense of Jesus’ presentation of Himself to the Jewish people on what we know as Palm Sunday, almost 2,000 years ago.
I’ve planned a series of messages through Easter about the week before Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Titles aren’t really my thing, so I’ve creatively called this series “The Road to the Cross.”
I’ve picked five of the pivotal events of that week to talk about between now and Easter. You’ll hear a lot about Passover, which I hope will prepare us for the program Rabbi Derek Blumenthal will present the evening of March 26.
You’ll hear about blessings and curses. You’ll hear about weakness and true strength. You’ll hear about love and betrayal.
And then, on Easter Sunday, you’ll hear about how God flipped the script on one of the oldest festivals of the Hebrew culture and faith.
But everything that happened during what we call Holy Week began with a presentation. Let’s take a look at the account in Matthew’s Gospel. We’ll pick up in verse 1 of chapter 21.
The context of this passage is pretty direct and straightforward. Jesus had long since “set His face toward Jerusalem.”
He knew the Pharisees were plotting to kill Him, and He knew one of his own disciples would betray Him. He knew all this would take place in Jerusalem, and He was headed there anyway. Indeed, that’s WHY He was headed to Jerusalem. He wasn’t being trapped. He wasn’t being railroaded.
What Judas and the Pharisees were planning was truly evil — and they will be held responsible by God for their choices.
But Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had eternally agreed that redemption for fallen mankind could only come through the Calvary’s cross at the end of the road that Jesus walked during Holy Week.
And so, we’ll pick up in verse 1 of chapter 21, with Jesus approaching Jerusalem.
1 When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,
2 saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me.
3 “If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.”
What we see during the week before the crucifixion is Jesus and the disciples making trips between Bethany, and Jerusalem.
They’re a little more than a mile and a half apart, and Bethany was the home of friends. So they seem to make a sort of home base in Bethany for excursions into Jerusalem.
Not long before this, they had been in Jericho, where Jesus had healed two blind men, one of whom was named Bartimaeus. The Gospel of Mark says that a large crowd had followed them out of Jericho.
The crowds had come to see Him. They had come to see Lazarus, who’d been raised from the dead in Bethany and had become something of a celebrity.
And they had come to participate in the coming Passover celebration, which would begin the following Friday.
So, the picture you should have in your mind is of this great throng of people on the road to Jerusalem, with Jesus and the 12 at the front.
And they all stop outside of Bethpage, where Jesus tells two of His disciples to go and get Him a donkey from the town.
He tells them where they will find it. He tells them HOW they’ll find it. And He tells them that the owner will readily part with these valuable animals when he’s told that they’re for Jesus to use.
The point is that this was no chance encounter. The disciples didn’t stumble across a donkey to meet Jesus’ needs. And HE didn’t just suddenly decide that He was tired of walking.
This week BEGAN with God in control, and it would END with God in control. And, as with every part of Jesus’ three-year ministry on earth that’s recorded in the Gospels, every detail of God’s plan was significant. Including the donkey. Look at verse 4.
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, Gentle, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”
Now, the prophecy Matthew refers to here comes from Zech 9:9.
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
This prophecy clearly is that a king will come for the daughter of Zion. In other words, for the Jewish people.
This is the king God promised would come through David’s sons, the one who would reign eternally in Jerusalem.
And what you’ll see in a moment is that the crowds around Jesus on this day acclaim Him as a king. They treat Him the way Israel had always treated new kings.
But there’s another prophecy that’s echoed in Matthew’s account, back in verse 5. And that prophecy comes from the 62nd chapter of Isaiah, verse 11.
11 Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes; Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”
‘Say to the Jewish people, “Your salvation is coming!”’ This is exactly what the Jews wanted. They were tired of the Roman occupation. They were tired of other nations ruling their Promised Land ever since the days of the exile.
They had waited so long for God to honor His promise to David of a king who would rule forever and restore the nation of Israel to them.
But their mistake was in expecting too little of God. It’s a mistake I think we all make sometimes.
We pray for such little things, but God is capable of so much more, and He WANTS to do so much more for us. We pray for health and good jobs and safe travels, and there’s nothing wrong with praying for these things.
But what we OUGHT to be praying for, in addition to them, is for God’s will to be done in Suffolk as it is in heaven. What we OUGHT to be praying for is for His kingdom to come.
What we OUGHT to be praying for is righteousness and peace to reign in us so we can display His kingdom right in the midst of the kingdom of darkness that rules this earth while the resurrected Jesus waits in heaven to return and rule here.
What we OUGHT to be praying for is that others will come to experience the salvation endowed in Him who rode the foal of a donkey into Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday so long ago.
But, just as we so often do, the Jewish people in this Promised Land occupied by a harsh foreign power largely prayed and hoped for deliverance from their circumstances.
And, as we’ll see beginning in verse 6, that’s what many of them thought they had found in Jesus.
6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them,
7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats.
8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road.
The disciples spread their coats upon the donkey and her foal so Jesus could ride comfortably. But the CROWDS spread their coats and laid the branches of palms in the road for a different reason.
This had been the way that Israel had always acclaimed a new king when he came into the city. We see this in 2 Kings 9:13.
13 Then they hurried and each man took his garment and placed it under him on the bare steps, and blew the trumpet, saying, “Jehu is king!”
Now, the Pharisees and other religious leaders in Jerusalem were a different story, but it’s clear to me that the crowds here were ready to crown Jesus as King.
And as God’s own Son, born of the virgin Mary, who was one of King David’s descendants, He was, indeed, Israel’s rightful king. Indeed, one day He WILL begin His eternal reign upon the throne in Jerusalem.
But there were a couple of things missing in their acclamation of Jesus as King. He had presented Himself as the King, entering His royal city, and as we’ll see, they’d shouted “Hosanna!” to that.
But in His ministry and in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had also presented Himself as MORE than a king. And, as we’ll see in verses 9 through 11, it seems that they crowds were unwilling or unable to see Him in those regards.
9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”
10 When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?”
11 And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”
“Who IS this?” the people in Jerusalem asked the crowds that accompanied Jesus into the city. “This is the prophet Jesus.”
Well, Jesus was, indeed, a prophet. But He was MORE than a prophet. He had quite clearly told the people, on more than one occasion, that He was the very Son of God.
Actually, even the Pharisees seemed willing to accept that Jesus was a prophet. But it was His claim to be the Son of God — His claim to be the very incarnation of God — that caused them to hate Him. It was THAT claim that made them want to kill Him.
In fact, it is THAT claim that the world still hates. Plenty of atheists are willing to admit that Jesus was a great teacher. Plenty of false Christians are willing to admit that he was a prophet. But the deity of Christ is where they draw the line.
Admitting the deity of Christ requires us to admit that we are not masters of our own universe, that Someone greater is in control.
Admitting the deity of Christ means conceding that there is a standard for living that is higher than ours, one that we will be held accountable for living up to or not.
Admitting the deity of Christ, particularly in light of His atoning sacrifice in our place and on our behalf, requires us to grapple with the fact that there is nothing we could ever do to earn our own salvation.
And that leads us to the second thing the people seem to have missed in Jesus’ presentation of Himself to them on that first Palm Sunday.
Look at what the people were shouting as He rode that donkey’s foal into Jerusalem: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
Remember that I said every detail of God’s plan for His Son was significant? This was an Old Testament quotation from Psalm 118.
This is one of about 10 of what are called Messianic Psalms. They’re called this, because they point primarily to the promised Messiah of Israel, the savior God had promised all the way back to Genesis, chapter 3.
Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist looks ahead in time to the coming of the Messiah, the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Let me read a couple of verses from that psalm for you.
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
27 The Lord is God, and He has given us light; Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
The crowds in Jerusalem that Palm Sunday remembered the blessing from this psalm. But they seem to have forgotten — or at least they didn’t understand — the next verse.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
He was promising to give life to all who would follow Him in faith. Eternal life, life the way it was always meant to be, in the presence of and in everlasting fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And many HAD followed Him during His three-year ministry. But it seems that even His closest disciples never really understood the price He would have to pay for them to have this life.
Even though the psalmist had implied it right there in the 118th psalm. Look at the last part of verse 27.
“Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.”
The festival sacrifice refers to the sacrificial lamb made at the temple altar on Passover.
This tradition went all the way back to Egypt, when God had told Moses to have each of the Hebrew households select a year-old unblemished lamb, to kill it at twilight on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, to spread its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their homes, and to roast and eat the lamb that same night.
The blood on the doorposts and lintels would be a sign for God to pass over those homes as He went out and slew all the firstborn of Egypt.
This was the 10th plague brought by God against the Pharaoh and his people, and it was the one that finally convinced the Pharaoh to release the Hebrew people from slavery and allow them to leave Egypt.
God delivered His chosen people from their slavery on that first Passover, and they celebrated this great work of God every year thereafter.
In fact, that’s what the crowds were headed into Jerusalem to do. The lambs would all be sacrificed on Friday, the people would eat their feasts that night, and then they would celebrate for another week.
But first, the lambs had to be presented to the priests of Israel on the 10th of the Hebrew month of Nisan. They would be examined during the next four days to make sure they were all unblemished before being sacrificed on the 14th.
Remember that I said all the details are important? Guess what the date was when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey’s foal.
If you do the math, it was the 9th, not the 10th. So what gives?
The Jewish people measured their days differently than we do. For them, a new day started around 6 p.m. And so, the 10th of Nisan began at 6 p.m. on what we think of as Sunday.
And when you look at Mark’s account of this day, you’ll see that immediately after the crowds blessed Jesus and shouted Hosanna:
11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.
It was already late when Jesus came into Jerusalem, probably after the calendar had changed to the 10th of Nisan.
What this means is that Jesus was presenting Himself not just as the rightful King of Israel, and not just as the Son of God. He was also presenting Himself as the spotless and sinless lamb whose sacrificial death would provide salvation for all who follow Him in faith.
His blood, shed at Calvary’s cross later that week, would cause God’s righteous judgment for sin to pass over all those who believed in Him.
This is what John the Baptist was saying when Jesus came to him while He was baptizing people in the Jordan River. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
This righteous King, the very Son of the living God, rode into His royal city through throngs of people who didn’t recognize that before they could call Him LORD, they would have to call Him Savior.
Before they could be His subjects, they would have to accept His sacrifice on their behalf.
They would — just as we do — have to recognize they were still slaves, slaves to sin. And they would — just as we do — have to admit that they were powerless to free themselves from it.
But if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.
I don’t know what you think about Jesus. Maybe you think He was a great teacher. Maybe you even concede He was a prophet.
But if this is all you’re willing to concede about Him, you haven’t been freed. You are still a slave to sin, and the wages you will receive for your service to sin is death.
But Jesus came so that you could have LIFE. God Himself stepped into our brokenness in the person of His own Son and gave Himself as a sacrifice to pay the just penalty we all owe for our sins.
He did it so that He could bring you from death into life. He did it so you can be FREE.
We all like to think that the choices we make in life demonstrate our freedom. But in our lostness, what we fail to see so often is that our choices just reflect a pattern of slavery to sin. And that pattern, more often than not, is a downward spiral.
But Jesus — the spotless Lamb of God — came to rescue you from that spiral by taking your sins and their just punishment upon Himself at the cross.
And at the empty tomb, the resurrected Jesus showed that He has the power to keep His promise of eternal life for all who follow Him in faith.
I don’t know what you choose to believe about Jesus. But I DO know that only one choice leads to eternal life. What do YOU choose?