Jesus is HIM |03.24.24| Holy Week pt.1
Mark chapter 11:1-11
Pastor Erik Anderson
(…) and this is what we hear.
(…)
“And they were out outside in the street. As they were untying it, some bystander said to them, “What are you doing untying the colt?” They told them that Jesus, what Jesus had said, and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks out on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David, Hosanna in the highest.”(…) Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he had looked around at everything as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. This is the word of the Lord.(…) Thanks be to God. Something very special happened a few weeks ago, at least special for some of us, as many of you know and many of you maybe don’t know, I was born in Kansas City, grew up in the area of Kansas City, and a lifelong Chiefs fan. So as you know, a few weeks ago, something very special happened. The Chiefs won their third Super Bowl in five years or whatever ridiculous thing happened, but it was great. I was celebrating with some of the staff and some members here at the church, and we were watching the game. At that last play in overtime, when Patrick Mahomes threw that little, the McColl-Hardeman did a little peel away, and he threw about 10 yards and McColl-Hardeman won. He got into the he got into the touch, or excuse me, he got into the end zone, and they won the game, and it was so exciting. When that did happen, I simply raised my fist and stood up and go, “Yes!”(…) And everybody else in the room was seated and silent, because nobody else in that room cared at all about the Chiefs, or the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, or maybe they were even a little annoyed that the Chiefs have won so much. And so I was very excited. I was celebrating. Nobody else was. It was falling on deaf ears. There was a good news to proclaim. The Chiefs had won yet another Super Bowl, one of probably many. And so I want you to, in your own mind, put yourself in my shoes, because I know especially if you’re a Bears fan, it might be a little bit before you win. So just put in your own mind what it might be like to win a Super Bowl and be in an area where nobody else gets how exciting, what is happening, and how it’s exciting. And actually, I’m not sure what I was more excited about, the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, or Alicia Keys having a feature in the halftime show. My response, I would say, was undignified when Usher and Alicia Keys started singing together.(…) When we are excited about something, we want to share it. We want to celebrate.(…) And oftentimes, when we are excited about something, there are other people around us who maybe have missed how important this thing is, that they don’t respond to the good news the same way that you respond to the good news. Or there might actually be people who respond to the your good news, thinking that it’s bad news, which is how a lot of people celebrate the Chiefs now. That’s bad news when the Chiefs win, because they just keep winning.(…) Well, Jesus’s triumphant approach to Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday is a proclamation of good news. Something great has happened. And for some people in the crowd, it is good news. For other people that Jesus interacts with, it’s bad news. And today, we’re going to explore this push and pull of good news or bad news, and what that means for us today as we also respond to Jesus, as we also respond to the good news of Jesus and witness and testify to that good news. So we jump in here to Mark chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. And this is how it starts off. “When they were approaching Jerusalem at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a cult that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it.” We begin this passage with this pretty normal transition. Mark is a gospel, it’s a biography of Jesus. And it just is telling the story of Jesus, the life of Jesus. And so we’re getting close to this festival called Passover that Jesus would have celebrated every year, that him and his disciples would have celebrated together the last few years as they have traveled together and done ministry. Jesus would have celebrated this with his friends. It was a totally normal thing to have happen. In fact, at this time when you celebrated Passover, most people went to Jerusalem, which was the capital of Israel at the time. It’s where the temple was and all these things. And so these pilgrims would make this pilgrimage to Jerusalem every year at the Passover. So Jesus is surrounded probably by hundreds, if not thousands of people, many of whom he knows, many of whom are from Galilee, the same place that he’s from. Many are his friends, our family, our very, very distant family, but they’re all traveling together. It was safest to travel together in big groups.(…) And so we have these hundreds, maybe even thousands of people all traveling together to go to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. And as they’re going, they were approaching Jerusalem and they were at this place called Bethphage and Bethany. These are two little villages that are near the Mount of Olives. Now, Jesus has been here several times. He had some friends and some family that lived in Bethany. And so he would stay there quite often. And we’re actually told in one of the gospels that the Mount of Olives was one of his favorite places to pray. So him and the disciples would often pray at the Mount of Olives while they were visiting Jerusalem.(…) But Jesus here does this strange thing of telling his disciples to go into the village and to get a colt, or in another gospels, it’s full of a donkey. So this word can kind of mean both those things. So this child donkey, this colt, the full of a donkey, to go and get it and to bring it back. Now for us hearing this, we just kind of say, okay, kind of a weird thing to do to like steal somebody else’s donkey, right? Or to borrow it for a little bit. So maybe it confuses us a little bit. But Jesus is being really intentional here. He’s doing this on purpose. He is intentionally and purposefully getting his disciples to go get this donkey, because Jesus is making a reference here to an Old Testament prophecy from Zechariah chapter 9. Zechariah chapter 9 tells of these wars that are going to go on. And it describes God gives Zechariah this vision of all these nations raging against each other and fighting. And then in comes this king in the line of David, a king who is in the line of David, who brings peace to all people. And this king, we’re told, is a humble king who rides on a donkey, because a donkey was used for work. A donkey was not used for war.(…) Donkeys were strong and they’re sure footed, but they’re not really easy to ride. They don’t really listen. They’re kind of stubborn and they’re not quick either. Horses are much better for war. They’re quick, they’re strong, they’re fast. You can ride in on Calvary and those kinds of things. But donkeys are not this way. So Zechariah gives this vision, this idea, this word from the Lord about a humble king who rides on a peacetime animal. And it may be something like this, we already do it in 21st century language. We might say it like, well, the new king is going to ride in on a Toyota Prius, rather than a tank, right? Because a Toyota Prius, not a good weapon of war, right? Like, it’s not going to, you’re not going to survive very well on Toyota Prius. You definitely want something like a tank if you’re going to be marching into battle. But the Prius is a peacetime vehicle. Same thing with a donkey.(…) But not only is this a direct prophecy, Jesus is also alluding to his own heritage as coming from the family of David, who is the greatest king that Israel had known. In 1st Kings chapter 1, David’s son Solomon rides to his anointing to be anointed as king on a mule, which is a cross between a horse and a donkey.(…) And Jesus has all this in mind when he tells the disciples to go get to this cult, this full of a donkey. Jesus is very intentionally making a statement here, that he is the prophesied king, that he is the Messiah.(…) Now, 2000 years later, we’ve heard these stories again and again, this isn’t a surprise to us. But throughout the gospel of Mark, Jesus is actually quite purposeful in making sure that news doesn’t spread too far about him. It’s called the Messianic Secret in Mark, where he keeps telling people, “No, don’t tell anybody what I did. Don’t tell anybody what I did.” And in fact, at one point, they proclaim that he is the Christ and he goes, “Great, don’t say that again. Don’t tell anybody until later.” But here, as Jesus approaches Jerusalem, one week before his death, he’s changing his tune. He is now being very intentional to declare and proclaim who he is.(…) Jesus knew who he was. He knew he was the Messiah. He knew he was the prophesied king. He knew he was the savior of the world, and he was fully accepting who he was. He was intentionally making a point to fulfill prophecy. This fulfillment of prophecy was not an accident. He did this on purpose. He made this prophecy fulfilled by telling the disciples to go get the donkey. There was no doubt in Jesus’ mind who he was and what his purpose was going into Jerusalem. Three times before this passage, earlier, later in Mark, right before this passage, there are three times that he tells the disciples he’s going to go die. That he’s going to be handed over to the rulers.(…) He knows, Jesus knows, that he is going to Jerusalem in order to die and to overthrow the powers of sin and darkness. There’s no question in Jesus’ mind exactly what he’s doing here.(…) And then we move on. If we jump down to verse seven, this is what we hear. “Then they brought the colt to Jesus,” that’s his disciples, “and they threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. Many people now,” so the crowd that’s around him from Galilee that’s traveling with him, “they spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.” That’s why we wave our palms. That’s why we celebrate our Palm Sunday now is because of this. They cut these palm branches, which was sort of like a national symbol of Israel. They’re waving them in celebration. They’re laying out their cloaks in front of the donkey before the road, where now Jesus is sitting up on a donkey. He’s not getting dirty from the road. He’s not getting muddy from the road, but these people are actually honoring Jesus so much that they’re laying out the blankets for his donkey not to get muddy and dirty on the road. These Galileans, these travelers, these pilgrims who are traveling with Jesus, they knew who Jesus was. They had spent the last three years hearing stories, witnessing Jesus heal people, hearing him preach. This was the main place that he had preached over the last three years, over his ministry, was up in Galilee where he was from. And so his friends and his family and his distant relatives and all those in the community, they knew who he was. And we see here that many of them are now recognizing Jesus as the Davidic king prophesied. They would have known the prophecy of Zechariah 9. They would have known the story of Solomon. They would have known that Jesus was beginning to make some statements and beginning to give some hints that he was this king. They knew who Jesus was and they believed it. They believed it. They had seen it and they believed who Jesus was. These people were responding to this good news as good news, celebrating and worshiping and honoring Jesus because of who he was. And Jesus could have been inconspicuous throughout this whole thing. It’s entirely possible that Jesus could have just stayed in the crowds. There are thousands of people streaming to Jerusalem. It would have been easy just to disappear into the crowds. There’s so many pilgrims traveling and Jesus had done this multiple years now where he had gone to Jerusalem with these pilgrims and he hadn’t made all this hubbub. But now here we have Jesus intentionally fulfilling prophecy and he’s also just physically sitting higher than everybody now. Everybody else is walking and Jesus is up on a donkey. Now he’s literally head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. It would have been easy to see Jesus riding on this donkey and then see all the hubbub of people worshiping and proclaiming this psalm, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the Lion of David and blessed be the kingdom from the Lion of David. He lets these people hail him as king and on top of that he’s a young man, an able-bodied man who is riding on an animal which was reserved for those who were sick or old. Jesus is being conspicuous. He’s trying to be seen here. He is trying to be noticed and the people who respond to this good news with this worship and praise may not have fully recognized the implications of Jesus being this king because they all seem surprised by Jesus’ death but they recognized who he was and Jesus was not hiding who he was. This is the grand entrance of the new king. This is the grand entrance of this Davidic king and some recognized that it was good news but some didn’t. As we end this passage in verse 11, he proceeds into Jerusalem and we’re never told that he gets off the donkey so the image that we get is that he rides this donkey with these people celebrating and waving the palms and laying out their cloaks all the way into Jerusalem and not only into Jerusalem but all the way into the temple. He is led in this procession or he leads this procession. He’s on this donkey, all the all the ways all the things that people know about these prophecies in the messiah, they’re all activating in their heads. Everybody knows what’s going on. He’s making a big stink right now about everything. He comes into the temple and he looks around. He looks at everything and it was getting kind of late so he went back to Bethany where he had some friends that he could stay with them. Right after this passage in chapter 11, Jesus comes back the next day and this is where he flips over the tables of the people who were selling animals, lending money, exchanging money. He makes a whip out of cords and he dries violently drives out the people who were making money and getting rich off the religion of these faithful Jews.(…) He is known now. There is no mistaking who Jesus is and who he thinks he is.(…) The gospel of Mark is 16 chapters. It’s not a very big. It’s actually the shortest gospel and there’s not a lot of words in Mark compared to these other gospels. There’s only 16 chapters and it’s six of those chapters. More than a third are devoted to this last week of Jesus’ life from his entrance till his crucifixion and resurrection. Over a third of the gospel, it like zooms in and gives details on this week and most of what Jesus is doing in this week is publicly announcing that he is the Messiah. He’s publicly announcing that Jerusalem would be overthrown, that the temple would be destroyed. Publicly announcing that the leaders, the religious leaders of the Israelites are fruitless and faithless.(…) Jesus would say in chapter 14 in front of the Sanhedrin, the council, in chapter 14 he says that he is the human who sits on God’s throne in heaven. That’s a prophecy from Daniel. Daniel describes this person, this human, who is sitting on God’s throne itself and Jesus says, “I am the Son of Man” and you will see the Son of Man high and lifted up sitting at the right hand of God.(…) The scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, are appalled at Jesus’ audacity and his seeming blasphemy.(…) It’s actually these statements about the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, that the leaders of the Israelites are fruitless and faithless. It’s this audacity that leads to his crucifixion.(…) Jesus knows exactly who he is, he knows exactly what he is about, and he knows exactly what to say. Clearly and concisely, he proclaims who he is again and again and again in these last few chapters. For the religious leaders, for the scribes and the Pharisees, this is bad news. This is not good news to them and it ultimately leads to Jesus’ death.(…) Jesus is king.(…) He has been prophesied in the Old Testament again and again and again. He is the prophesied king foretold in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and Zechariah and so many other places. The whole Old Testament is this long drama that’s unfolding and it’s always hoping for this king, this king in the line of David, to be raised up, this king in the line of David to take over, to take over his rule. We heard last week from Isaiah chapter 6 and chapters 2 about this future, that this is going to be a peaceful future, that the king is going to rule from the temple, that he’s going to sit in God’s throne, that he’s going to live in God’s home and all the nations are going to stream to him and seek his wisdom and his guidance and his goodness. Jesus is this king.(…) Jesus is the uncorrupted Davidic king, fully good, with no failure. Again and again and again in the Old Testament, we hear about these kings who almost make the cut. They’re almost good enough but they always have some sort of failure, but Jesus never fails. Jesus is the eternal king that will rule for all time, that’s going to make the new creation what we call heaven and that is going to be peace for all eternity, that there will be no more sickness and tears and that he is stronger and more powerful than every other ruler and every other ruler on earth will bend their knee to Jesus.(…) This is Jesus. This is who he is and who he understood himself to be.(…) Jesus is also the expert human.(…) He’s human as it should be, full of the Holy Spirit, always listening to the Father, always obeying the Father’s prompting. He lived as every human should, full of grace and truth, full of the fruit of the Spirit. He is the king, he is the example, he is the all in all. Jesus is the greatest thing that we can think about. That we can dwell on.(…) Jesus is the expert human who can lead us into a good, full and abundant life both now and for all eternity.(…) Jesus is king and ruler and Lord of all and was not afraid to declare it, to say it, to testify to it and that’s what we see here on this Palm Sunday. A Jesus who is fully aware of who he is and fully accepts the mantle of leadership and suffering that he is going to have and he is not afraid to tell others that this is the truth.(…) And in our own lives here at New Life Lutheran Church we do what we call spiritual habits. There are ways that we can become like Jesus, ways we can spend time with him and become like him and live as he lived and one of the ways that we do that is through witnessing.
(…)
Witnessing, when we think about witnessing sometimes we think about evangelism door to door, knocking on the door and like the use of card salesman like hey you know you accept Jesus into your heart right now. The kind of high pressure, weird, awkward, Christian-y kind of thing that makes people go icky, right?(…) Witnessing is not that.(…) Witnessing actually is a lot more like how we understand witnesses in a courtroom today. That’s how they would have understood it there. Where a witness is simply somebody who has seen something or has experienced something and they say exactly what they saw and exactly what they experienced.
(…)
That’s what a witness does. They testify to something that they have seen or heard and in a courtroom that witness shares exactly what they have seen and they don’t have the kind of value statement behind it. There’s no pressure to accept it as fact. You simply witness to the thing that you have experienced or seen.(…) So when we are called to witness, we are not called to be used car salesman. In fact, we are called to testify and to witness to what Jesus has done and what he continues to do for us.(…) So the question that I have for you is this.(…) How has Jesus changed your life?(…) How has he transformed your life?(…) Jesus is Lord of all. He is ruler. He is king. He is good. He is the expert human.(…) What experiences have you had with Jesus that have changed the way that you think, feel, and act?(…) Sometimes they can be big.(…) Sometimes they can be small. But there are these moments where the Holy Spirit grips us and something happens to us. Maybe it’s through a brother or sister in Christ speaking to us, speaking the words to us. Maybe it’s from us reading our own, reading the scriptures for ourselves or maybe it’s from a sermon that we heard. But sometimes things get jostled loose and it leads us toward this path of transformation, of change. And sometimes it’s fast and sometimes it’s slow.(…) But many of you have stories like this.(…) Stories of hope,(…) of change, of ways that Jesus has changed the way you think about a situation or a person,(…) ways that Jesus has changed the way that you grieve or have hope.(…) How has Jesus changed you?(…) How has he transformed you?(…) And who can you share it with?(…) How can you just witness to the fact that Jesus is king and that Jesus is good?(…) For those of you who have not had an experience with Jesus, for those of you who have not experienced change and transformation in Jesus’ name, I actually want to invite you now to recognize Jesus as Lord. He is. He is good. And he is mighty. He is powerful.(…) He is gentle.(…) And the Lord has changed my life. Lord has renewed my mind and changed my heart from somebody with incredibly high anxiety. When I was young, I was a pretty smart kid, pretty precocious. And so there’s like a lot of like pressure. I felt like the golden boy in a lot of ways. A lot of the spaces that I was in, people were like, “Oh, Eric, you’re so smart. Oh, Eric, you’re so good. Oh, Eric, you’re so responsible.” All these things. And ultimately that led to a great deal of pressure and burden in my own life. And I couldn’t untangle that from Jesus. I couldn’t untangle that from my faith. And so that led me into my teenage years to just like give it all up, right? And to give up on working hard at the work that I had in front of me, my schoolwork, to give up working hard and pursuing my faith in Jesus Christ. To just kind of give up and do my own thing and kind of float in this nebulous water of not knowing what direction I wanted to go, not really understanding what, how I should live or what God wanted for me. And it was when the Holy Spirit got a grip on me and helped me unlock and understand just how central God’s love for me is in my life. That his love is not based on performance. That I didn’t have to be the golden boy to be accepted. That I didn’t have to be smart. That I didn’t have to be responsible. That God loved me for me and not for what I could do for him.(…) And as that began to unpack and unfold, it would chip away at my ego. It chipped away at my anxiety. It chipped away at my need for approval. And now over years of following Jesus, of spending time with him, of becoming like him, of doing what he did, I’m a different person than I was when I was a teenager. I’m a different person than I was even five years ago. I’m a different person than I was 10 years ago and it’s because of Jesus.
(…)
And I have a life now that feels full, full of peace and goodness. It doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen. But now when bad things happen, I’m able to respond and have a capacity for peace that I never had before.(…) A capacity for goodness and hope that I never had even five years ago. That’s what Jesus did for me. And he wants that for you.(…) So if you haven’t experienced the goodness of God, if you haven’t experienced the peace of Jesus Christ, if you haven’t maybe recognized that Jesus is the expert human and is worth following,(…) I invite you. I invite you now to make the commitment to just follow Jesus for a while. Be with him. Read the scriptures. Talk to pastor Drew or I. Be part of a life group. Do whatever it is that you need to do to spend some time with Jesus to become like him, to do what he did. And I guarantee you it’ll change you. I guarantee you it’ll change your life.(…) Because Jesus is Lord. He is the prophesied king, the uncorrupted Davidic king. He is the eternal king. He is the expert human.(…) So let your life be transformed by being ruled by Jesus and share with others what Jesus has done for you and that Jesus is Lord. Amen.