1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we begin Holy
Week with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is taken from
John 12:12-19 and it’s entitled, “Behold,
Your King is Coming,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Back
in 1992, for the first time in 74 years, the bells pealed in Red Square in the
Kremlin in honor of the holy day of the Orthodox Easter. Muscovites crowded
into their candle-lit Orthodox churches to celebrate. At midnight Saturday,
April 25, bells rang in Ivan the Great’s belfry in the Kremlin for the first
time since the communist Bolshevik revolution, and the bells in the Orthodox
churches across the city chimed in. Billboards declaring “Christ has risen” abounded in the center of Moscow, whose past
leaders had vaunted the city as the world center of communism and atheism. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today on Palm Sunday behold your king Jesus
is coming, a king who outlasts all kings, princes, and politicians, because
He’s King of kings and Lord of lords.
3.
It
was Sunday morning, Jesus and His disciples had taken leave of their Bethany
friends and were well on their way to Jerusalem. The news that Jesus was approaching created a
stir within the city the great Prophet of Nazareth who had raised dead Lazarus
to life was soon to enter the city gates!
Seized by a sudden spell of enthusiasm which, the crowds flooded through
the city gates and hurried along the open road to meet the approaching Savior. It’s this triumphal entry into the Holy City, St.
John the Evangelist describes in John 12:12-19, “12The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast
heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13So they took branches of
palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14And Jesus
found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 15“Fear
not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s
colt!” 16His disciples did not understand these things at first, but
when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been
written about him and had been done to him. 17The crowd that had
been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the
dead continued to bear witness. 18The reason why the crowd went to
meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19So the
Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the
world has gone after him.”
4.
Before
Jesus enters into the deepest humiliation.
He is given a hint of the reverence that men will someday give Him at
the final revelation of His glory. St.
Paul tells us in the Epistle reading for today from Philippians 2:91-11, “9Therefore God has highly exalted
him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10so that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.”
To carry and to wave a palm branch was a token
of royal honor to a victorious king returning home from battle. The Roman politician & philosopher Cicero
referred to a person who had been honored for many victories as plurimarum palmarum homo, “a man of many palms.” Palm branches
were a symbol of salvation and victory found on Jewish coins in Jesus’ day. Jesus
was on his way to conquer sin, Satan, and death for you. Today, we who hail him
as King also share in his victory for us.
5.
And
so the glad crowds line the road, swinging their palms and shouting, “Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Unknowingly, they
give Jesus the honor due Him as the promised Savior and Messiah, for those very
words taken from Psalm 118, were spoken in prophecy of Him! Small wonder then that 5 days later Pilate
asked Jesus, “Are You the King of the
Jews,” (John18:33), and that the mocking sign above Jesus’ cross read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the
Jews.” But, Pilate didn’t need to fear
that the King who entered Jerusalem that day had come to unseat him from his
power because this was the lowly King of whom the prophet Zechariah had
foretold: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is
He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9).
6.
The
King who entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday amid the acclaim of the people, could
truthfully say to Pilate on Good Friday:
“You say that I am a king,”
(John 18:37). But He could also add, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John
18:36). His was a kingdom of grace, a
kingdom of hearts. It was human hearts
that He had come to conquer and to win as trophies for His eternal kingdom. Today, Jesus enters your hearts that are
humbled by the recognition of your own sin and your need for the coming Savior
King. Your sin, which the mirror of
God’s law shows you that you have failed to love your neighbor as yourself and to
love God above all things. Today, the
Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those who see Christ’s signs (v 18). Today
those “signs” are God’s Word and
Sacraments, through which Christ enters our hearts. And still today, Jesus, the King of kings and
Lord of lords, doesn’t march at the head of great legions to take great cities
captive. He comes quietly, without pomp
and circumstance, through the preaching of His Word, and knocks at the doors of
human hearts. That is where He seeks to
establish and expand His blessed kingdom of grace.
7.
There
were three kinds of people among the crowd in John 12. (1) V 17: Some had seen Jesus raise Lazarus at Bethany and were now
moving with him toward Jerusalem. They saw and believed in Christ’s ability to
raise the dead. (2) V 18: Some were
in Jerusalem for Passover. They had not seen God deliver Israel from Egypt, but
still believed in God and hoped to see him come someday as their Savior King.
That day is today. (3) The Pharisees heard all Jesus did, and perhaps even witnessed
some of his acts, yet refused to hail him as their King and scoffed at the
others.
8.
As
I said before, today the “signs” that reveal to us Christ’s salvation are God’s
Word and Sacraments. Probably most come to church because they believe in Jesus
and want to hail him as their Savior King. But, others may “go along with the crowd,” perhaps by
pressure from family or peers. Still others may scoff and not hail Jesus like
the Pharisees in John 12. But, the
humble Jesus who entered Jerusalem on a donkey is the same Jesus who, after his
crucifixion and resurrection, ascended into heaven and was seated on his
eternal throne as the King of Glory (Psalm 24).
9.
In
the Roman Forum there are several victory arches through which rulers would
pass and receive the people’s praises. Jesus had no victory arch, but entered
his reign through the cross—a despised symbol of defeat and death. But, in
contrast to the Roman conquerors, whose reigns lasted for only a brief moment
of world history, the triumphant Christ rules to eternity.
10.
The
King who entered Jerusalem humbly was rejected by many. But the King who will
come again to lead us to the heavenly Jerusalem will have the reverence of
everyone; every knee will bow (Phil 2:9–11).
We who hail our King now will praise him in the same manner that the
crowds did on Palm Sunday—with palm branches and singing hosanna—but in the
heavenly Jerusalem, and forever. Rev
7:9–10 says, “9After this I
looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every
nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
10and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God
who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
11.
Behold,
your king is coming. Has Jesus entered
the city of your heart? Have you received
Him as your Lord and royal Guest through the hearing of His Word and
Sacraments? God grant it. And to this end, may we always pray: Redeemer
come and open wide, My heart to Thee, here Lord, abide! O enter with Thy grace divine; Thy face of
mercy on me shine, Thy Holy Spirit guide us on, until our glorious goal is
won. Eternal praise and fame, we offer
to Thy name. Amen. (LSB 341:5-6).
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