1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
message from God’s Word on this Palm Sunday is taken from 1 Samuel 12:12-15
(READ TEXT), it’s entitled, “Which King
for You?” Dear brothers and sisters
in Christ.
2.
Except babies, there is probably not
a person here whose mother has not at one time or another said to them, “If everybody else was jumping off a cliff,
would you follow?” Our mothers were trying to tell us two things. First, the fact that everyone else is
doing something is never a good enough reason to do it. Second, don’t be so quick or so eager to seek the approval of
others. The people of Israel came to
Samuel, the last of the judges, with a request. They wanted a king. Why?
Because everyone else had one. A king would be someone to fight their battles,
someone for them to admire and look up to, someone to make them feel safe and
secure.
3.
Samuel felt that the Israelites were
rejecting him and his leadership. The Lord told him, in effect, “Do you think they are rejecting you? Do you
know who they are truly rejecting?” In Israel, God was the real King. When
the people wanted a human king just like all the other nations, this was a
massive insult to the Lord.
4.
The Lord told Samuel to announce
that he was granting their request. They would have a king. Yet they were not
going to get a king on their terms. Rather, it would be on the Lord’s terms,
which are spelled out in our text. In brief, the king was in no way to come
between God and God’s people. Israel was to continue following the Lord. The
king was not to lead the people astray from where the Lord was leading them.
God would not tolerate it. The Lord was going to continue being King in Israel,
or there would be problems.
5.
Israel’s first king was Saul. He was
a handsome man and he also stood a head taller than everyone else. But problems
started to emerge early in Saul’s reign. On one occasion he was about to lead
the Israelite army—more like a citizen militia—into battle. Samuel was supposed
to offer sacrifices before the fighting began, but he was delayed in his
arrival. Soldiers started leaving. Saul became afraid. So, he offered a burnt
offering himself, quite contrary to God’s command. Another time, Saul was
instructed to destroy the Amalekites totally. But he didn’t. He spared their
king and some of their choice livestock. By his own admission, Saul had been
listening to the people. He was heeding their voice. He craved their approval,
so he ignored the Lord and his Word. On this later occasion, the Lord rejected
Saul from being Israel’s king, and told him so through Samuel.
6.
Saul’s approval seeking proved to be
his undoing. The Israelites had wanted a king just like all the other nations
in part so they might get some respect from those other nations. They were
concerned with what the nations thought. Now look what happened when they got a
king who craved the approval of his subjects, who cared so much about what the
people thought, that he forgot his real job. The Lord sent Samuel out to anoint
a new king, who turned out to be the famous King David.
7.
Saul is far from the only person down
through the years who has been undone by approval seeking. Think of all the
woes that have come about because some folks could not bring themselves to say
“no” to others and so risk losing the
approval of those others. It can take a lot of courage to hold your ground,
often more than we seem to have.
8.
Usually we want the approval of the
people right around us. In some cases, though, it is the approval of future
generations that is sought. Politicians and leaders make flamboyant decisions
in the hope that history, or at least living memory, will “vindicate” them. Even if you are not a highly-placed leader, have
you ever felt this way? The worst,
though, is when we “pull a Saul.”
That is, in the process of seeking the approval of others, we forget about the
Lord and his approval. Seeking the approval of others, in other words, can
become much more than unhealthy. It can get to be a form of idolatry. We put
other people’s opinions on such a pedestal that we knock the Lord completely
off. He will not be treated that way. He will not tolerate it. The Lord remains
a jealous God.
9.
What kind of king do you want? What
kind do you suppose the Palm Sunday crowd wanted? What were they screaming for
when they yelled to Jesus? Were they wishing for someone to fight their
battles, to give them a standard to rally around, someone to provide them
safety from the hated Romans? Such thoughts were, no doubt, on many minds on
that first Palm Sunday.
10.
As for Jesus, though, he had a job
to do. He was going to keep on doing it later in the week, when Sunday gave way
to Friday. Then the cries were no longer saying, “Hosanna!” On Friday a different crowd was demanding that Jesus be
hung on a cross, and they insulted and mocked him both before and after he was
there. Still, Jesus kept to his work. It was not their approval that he was
seeking. He was seeking God’s approval, and he was seeking it for the whole
world.
11.
For in truth, this was Christ’s
kingly work. Notably, Jesus is never called “King” in the Gospels more often than in connection with his death
on the cross. The charge against him was that he claimed to be a king. Pilate
asked Jesus whether he was the King of the Jews, and Jesus said yes. Therefore,
Pilate put on Jesus’ cross a written notice that identified him as the King of
the Jews. Mockers at the foot of the cross called him king. The penitent thief
on the cross to his right said, “Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus was identified as King
most of all when he was dying on the cross.
12.
A good king does whatever is
necessary to save his subjects who are in trouble. He pays any price. He even
sacrifices himself if he has to. That is precisely what Jesus was doing. On the
cross, he was acting as King. He was doing what the King of Israel should
always have done. Unlike Saul, and so many of the later kings, Jesus was not
driving a wedge between the Lord and his people. Jesus the Mediator was
bringing them together. “In Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). At the cost of
his own suffering and death, Christ was reconciling to God even sinful
approval-seekers like us. He was the King, God himself, even though he did not
appear to be.
13.
“Back in 1915, when the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
were invading Gallipoli, a man named
Simpson had the duty to find wounded soldiers and bring them to first-aid
stations and hospital tents. One day
Simpson saw a donkey that had lost its driver. He realized he could use it to
help carry wounded men. The man and the donkey became a familiar sight. But on
May 19, the donkey came back alone…
“There is a statue of Simpson and
his donkey in Melbourne, Australia.”
14.
Which king for you? The one who
seeks the approval of people, and even seeks your approval? That might look
pretty good until we realize that we cannot help ourselves out of our sin. No,
we need the King who came humbly, the Man who came with a donkey. We need the
King who could not be swayed from his saving mission by anything that anyone
said. He went on to do exactly what the King was supposed to do. He gave
himself for us.
15.
Jesus our King did his most
distinctive work on a cross. We need this King who was not seeking man’s
approval but God’s approval, and getting it for the world. God has raised him from the dead, highly exalted him, and given him a
name above every name (Philippians 2:9ff.). When Christ our King is
exalted, then you and I are exalted. When Jesus gets God’s approval, he gets it
for you. Amen. The
peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus until life everlasting.
Amen.
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