The Triumphal Entry – A Quiet Time Reflecting

The Triumphal Entry – A Quiet Time Reflecting
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All Scripture verse taken from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted
John 12: 12-19
“The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!" Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt."
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

Try to visualize this huge crowd and they are all shouting and screaming “Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!” This crowd was going wild in the streets of Jerusalem and well they should. They were viewing the arrival of God incarnate, the King of kings was there, and right there on the streets of the city in which they lived and he was crossing over the very stones they walked every day. These people should have been excited about what they were witness to, how often does the King come to see his people? This crowd of humanity had been waiting a long time for the arrival of Messiah and at long last he was there, right there in their presence and the time for shouting for joy was at hand. For their entire life, for the entire life of several generations now these people had been looking toward the sky to see the arrival of Messiah, the Christ and at long last their King was in their presence.

For generations now, life for the masses had been nothing but drudgery. For the vast majority of this crowd of people there had been nothing but hard physical labor from the time the sun rose in the morning until it set in the evening and that made for a long day of work in the hot sun and sweat of the brow labor. If you’ll recall in Mathew 20 and the Parable of the workers in the vineyard, they were still hiring labors to work the vineyard as late as the eleventh hour, they didn’t work an eight-hour day; it was as long as the sun was up. And in the Middle East that’s a lot of sun time. The only day they got to stop working was on the Sabbath, and then it wasn’t a day of joy or happiness. Because on the Sabbath nothing was allowed, basically one could sit and rest but even something like walking had to be measured and metered, they weren’t allowed to just take a walk to enjoy the day, an activity like that was out of the question. Today I know for my family, when we get a nice Sunday in the summer we plan family activities, a happy walk through the swamp and game reserve we have close by to see the wildlife or go to the falls to watch the water cascade over too form a rainbow in the sky. Not so then, you did nothing! And everyone was watching everyone else, looking for the “law breaker”, looking for the one that violated the holy law of God. The Sadduces were always looking, the Pharisees were always looking, and your neighbors were keeping an eye on you as well, even your family members were keeping an eye on you, looking for the “law breakers”.

These people were under the burden of the law and it was a heavy burden to be sure. Over the years the original Ten Commandments God had given to Moses had become a book of thousands of rules and regulations. God hand printed his first Ten Commandments on two stone tablets and the people had turned those two stone tablets into a mountain of stone to live under. Top that with the oppression of living under the iron fist of Rome and the burden they carried was unbearable.

The Hebrew people, the Jews, were then and still are now a very religious people. It has been instilled in them from the very first breath they take at the moment of birth. They know and tell each other daily that they are the chosen people of God. That’s an honor but it can also be turned into a burden. These people lived in a time when all of their neighbors were polytheistic, every nation around their nation of Israel and many of the people that were woven into their society through the Holy Land were believers in a multitude of gods. The Romans were polytheistic; the Greeks were polytheistic. The Egyptians too, everyone around them were believers in many gods, a god for all occasions. The Jews on the other hand were the only monotheistic people in the Holy Land, that’s what set them apart from the other nations around them. That’s what made them so different and we all know that being different can cause others to think that different equates to wrong or abnormal. We still do that today all over the world.

So these people who lived under the burden of Roman rule, these people who lived under the burden of the Law, their own religious law, this mountain of rules and regulations which they respected out of love and fear, at time more so out of fear than anything else. These same people were now seeing Messiah enter their city and they are screaming and hollering “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!

I want to tell you that we aren’t talking about a little chant here, we’re talking about a wild, highly charged, exuberant, and energy filled crowd of screaming people. What you see today on the television is what you would have seen the day Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem. The peoples of the Middle East are far more emotional and animated than we are on this side of the world. Most of us can trace our ancestor’s back to England or any of the European nations, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the like, and we are far more subdued in our enthusiasm. If you look at the people of the Middle East or of African decent they are more animated in voice and action. In times of turmoil they tend to scream more and become physical in their actions, more wailing and crying and throwing their bodies around. We in this area of the world tend to hide our emotions more than they do. And this wild frenzy of a crowd is what Jesus witnessed when he entered Jerusalem. And Jesus didn’t try to dispel them, or call for a quiet to their exuberance; he encouraged it! If we read the account of Jesus’ entry in the book of Luke, in chapter 19 he says; “some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you “ he replied “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Jesus knew that they had waited such a long time for his arrival and he knew that the time was now for that arrival. Now was the time for The Christ to enter Jerusalem! Jesus knew that the people had waited for years and years, eons of time spent in darkness under the burden of the Law and now was their time for dancing in the light of his presence.

It’s almost as if Jesus was saying, “Let them go, let them enjoy themselves. If they don’t honor me at this time the very rocks of the ground are going to sing praises to me.”
And as for the people, there was no question as to what was in their minds. Messiah had come at long last; The Christ of prophecy was there and there was no controlling them. Our reading tells us that many of those present had just recently witness Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and that they were telling many in the crowd what they had seen. I’m sure that in this mass of humanity there were many present there that had seen other miracles Jesus had preformed. They had seen him raise the dead, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, feed the multitudes with little to nothing and they wanted to talk about it. It was big news.

We humans by nature are namedroppers; it gives us a sense of importance. Our pride puffs up if we can say, “I saw him heal a sick man who was crippled from birth.” “I was there when he fed everyone with a hand full of fish and loaves”. And all of these stories circulating through the crowd would add fuel to the wild frenzy of the moment. “Our Savior is here, our Savior is here” they’d be shouting, and they would be waving their palms and throwing flower peddles and even laying down their robes for Jesus to cross over, just to be able to say that they had been there and been a part of it all. The crowd was caught up in the moment and they were enjoying every minute of it. And well they should have because it surely was a Kodak moment.

And now my friends we come back to this moment, this Palm Sunday. If you have come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior you should be able to relate to the sensation of exuberance the people of the day felt back then. Because I don’t care what your background is, whether you were born and raised in a Christian home or a household that totally ignored the existence of Jesus. Whether senior saints or fallen sinners raised you it matters not one bit. Until you’ve had that personal experience of knowing Jesus, until you’ve had a personal relationship with our Lord, until you’ve said “Lord Jesus I ask for your forgiveness for my sins, I accept your grace and mercy and I acknowledge that you are my King.” Until this has happened you were just like the people in our reading. Lost in the excitement of moment but not fully understanding what is happening around you. Sensing in your spirit that something is happening but not experiencing it in all of its fullness.

We were all at one time walking down a road of darkness under a huge cloud of sin and shame. I don’t care where or how you were raised, rich or poor, in plenty or in poverty; we were all living under the bondage of sin that rest upon all mankind, we were all living in a fallen state, in a fallen world. We couldn’t buy our way out and we couldn’t work our way out. I don’t care how many tasks of righteousness we did or how large our tithe was; we were still living under that cloud of bondage. Whether we were raised in a home of the faithful out in the country or on the streets of a city with no church background at all. It matters not, because we were all living under the cloud of darkness until we connect with this Christ, this Jesus. Until we make that personal connection we are all lost and in darkness.

Remember what I said about namedroppers before? It hasn’t changed. We still do the same thing today. You may have heard someone say, my great grandfather was a pastor, my grandfather was a pastor, my dad was a pastor, and my mother’s uncle’s sister’s son on my father’s side was a missionary. It may sound impressive but it isn’t going to help us, God isn’t all that easily impressed with titles or the accomplishments of others. We can say that we have little crosses in every room of the house and Scripture painted on the walls. We can say that we have Elvis singing the gospel piped into every room and the television is always on TCT but it’s not going to help us gain entrance into heaven. We need that personal connection with Jesus Christ and that’s all we need. We can wave our palms and shout “Hosanna” until the cows come home but until we tell Jesus that we believe in his power over sin and death. Until we say “I believe in the power of your shed blood and my sins are no more” we will still be under the cloud of bondage and only Jesus can lift that cloud and carry us out of the darkness and into the light of God. It doesn’t matter who our family members are, what they’ve done and how holy they appear. It doesn’t matter if we live in the church and do everything we can think of saying that we are working for “God”.

All of our works are nice but they won’t get us even close to the door of the kingdom. Having great family members is nice but there isn’t one of them that can call upon God and slip us in the back door. It’s a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; it’s calling on Jesus, acknowledging that we have sin in our lives and asking for forgiveness. It’s believing that Christ died for our sins, that those sins are no more and that God’s grace and mercy has cleaned the slate and each day is a new day and each new day will present opportunity to come to the foot of the cross again and again. No matter how often we need to come to the cross the path will always be open and the blood of Jesus will always be there to work a miracle in our life.

And now we move forward, we’ve come to Jesus, acknowledged that he’s God and he’s broken the bonds of sin and we are truly set free. Once that’s done, then we can be celebrating and shouting in the streets, just like the people in our story. We can shout Hosanna and wave our palms. But then the question comes up. How real is this and how long will it last? How exuberant are we going to be once the crowd is all gone and it’s just us and the Lord and there’s no one left to empress with our shouts, when there’s no one left to empress with our waving palms.
We’ve just read what happened and how excited the people of Jerusalem were when they welcomed Jesus in. But how long did it last? And what caused the change of heart in the people? Because we all know that just as quickly as they became a chanting adoring crowd, shouting Hosanna, with in a week this same crowd became an angry mob shouting “crucify, crucify!”

Well to start with what did Jesus do after his entry? Look at (Luke 19:45-46) “Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.” The people were thrilled to have Jesus in their presence when he first got there, but when Jesus comes in doesn’t he usually start to clean house and remove the things that aren’t supposed to be there in the first place? When Jesus first came into Jerusalem the people welcomed him with open arms but when he started to point out the sin in the temple and point out the moneychangers, then in the heart of some he wasn’t so welcome anymore. I’m glad you’re here Lord and you can give me what I want but don’t start to mess with what I’ve got, I like that just where it’s at thank you.
And for some of us don’t we do the same thing? When we first accept Jesus as Lord we’re delighted and we’re saying “Amen brother, bless you sister, well praise God the Lord is good, Amen and holy hallelujah”. And then a little later Jesus starts to point out some of those little flaws we like to hide in our life and these are the things we would kind of like to keep around. We know that they are wrong but we’re comfortable with them being there. “Hosanna, Hosanna, welcome Lord Jesus … but I kind of like my pornography, no one knows but me and it doesn’t really hurt anyone.” “Hosanna, Hosanna, welcome Lord Jesus … but I just heard this and I’ve got to call someone and share it right away. And besides gossip doesn’t really hurt anyone and I know the person I tell can keep a secret, it’ll just be our little secret.” “Hosanna, Hosanna Lord Jesus … but everyone else does it so why can’t I?”

When we read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem we really need to read all of them. If you keep a little journal and do a side-by-side comparison you’ll see the little nuances of information. You’ll see things in one account that don’t show up in the other and get a better picture of what happened and the time line in which it happened. In the Gospel account of Luke we see that Luke recorded Jesus shedding tears over Jerusalem as he enters the city. Because he knows that although the throngs of people are shouting Hosanna, there are many that will reject him in the very near future. Jesus knows that the thrill of the moment for some will last a whole lifetime but he also knows that for many more it is just a passing fancy and will be short lived. If you’ll recall Jesus even did a teaching on this very subject. The parable of the seeds cast on the ground, some took root but died out quickly, some lasted just a season and some came up in the weeds and were choked off and some not only took root and grew, they produced a good return. Jesus knew that this very thing was going to happen with-in this very crowd of people he was looking at and it broke his heart into a million tears just to think of it. Of all those shouting, dancing people, Jesus knew that with-in a short time they would be the very ones that would reject him and want him killed.

You see the people were looking for a warrior king and Jesus knew and understood this. They expected a Messiah, a Christ who would lead them into battle against the power of Rome and end their life of hardship and oppression. But Jesus didn’t come for that; he came to give them perfection not in this life but in the one to follow where that perfection would last forever. Jesus knew that man’s life on earth is but a short duration and he came to minister more to the soul of man than to his physical well-being. That’s why he told the woman at the well that the water he offered would quench her thirst forever, he wasn’t talking about a physical thirst; he was talking about the thirst of her soul and spirit for salvation and eternity with the Father in heaven. Jesus knew that many in the crowd that day in Jerusalem would fall away when they saw that he wasn’t there to change their world and conquer Rome. His message was to learn how to live under the Roman fist and still show love to all and that’s not what the crowd wanted to hear.

How many reading this today know of someone or may have experienced for themselves the feeling of exuberance in coming to Jesus Christ and then started wandering away later when the storms of life came against you and your world didn’t become the rose garden you thought it would be? It happens all the time, we come to Jesus and expect that never again will the bill collectors come knocking on the door but they still show up and we start to loose faith. Or we think that once we have this wonderful encounter with the Lord our spouse will instantly change and life will be eternally happy, but when it doesn’t work out right away we tire quickly and we start to look elsewhere for a quick fix for our problem. We think we will never loose our temper or get discouraged or exhibit any of the things we did before we accepted Jesus and all of a sudden we are right back in the some old rut. Something happens, an unexpected hardship, trouble at work, and trouble with the kids, surprise bills, loss of a job or a loved one. Something happens in the family of the church, a person or people that doesn’t live up to our expectations. A situation that doesn’t meet the criterion in the way we deemed it should have. We quit to quickly and wander back to our old ways, relying on old crutches to hold us up. Saying that Jesus didn’t live up to his end of the agreement, the covenant we entered into with him, so why should we? When all the time if we were honest with ourselves we’d see that it wasn’t Jesus that went down the wrong path but us who wandered away from him.

I don’t want a show of hands since that wouldn’t work to well with a written sermon on a computer but how many have had that Hosanna Hosanna experience and then when things didn’t go as we wanted left the Hosanna camp and entered that other crowd? My friend I know what I’m talking about because I’ve been there. I too have had my moments of disappointment and have wandered away from the path to God. But do you know what? After I had had my little temper tantrum and vented my misguided wrath Jesus told me that he understood my frustration, that he understood my anger and he still loved me just the same. He told me that he was still there waiting for me with open arms and he called my attention to the words of the Apostle Paul when he penned the love chapter of (1st Corinthians 13:4-7) “ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” And then he told me that although he used Paul as the tool to record the words, they were his words and that they came from his heart just for me. And like all of his words, they will never change and they will never pass away.

My friend this is the Passion Week, it starts with us waving the palm fronds. We’re in the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus Christ as he enters Jerusalem. We’ve already looked at the crowd and the tears of Jesus. We’ve already looked at how Jesus knew of the people in the crowd and of the ones that would turn away in just a few short hours. How he knew of the faithful and the unfaithful. But now I want to draw your attention to another group that really should be emulated by all of us here today.

It was during this week that Jesus became more intimate with his closest followers. We have been able to figure out from studying the scriptures what Jesus did on Sunday through Tuesday. The events were all laid out to some degree of clarity in the four Gospel accounts. And we know what happened on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Easter Sunday. But Wednesday is a mystery day, not one of the Gospel accounts tells us what happened on Wednesday. So what I’m saying is purely hypothetical. But I have no doubt that Jesus spent that day with his closest friends and disciples. I have no doubt that they spent much of the day in prayer and intimate conversation. And even in this day of mystery I think it was intended to be just that, a day that was unrecorded just for us now.

Matthew Mark Luke and John recorded so many words, events and circumstances that it seems rather odd that one entire day would be left unrecorded completely. And yet I think that this wonderful Jesus made it known to those who were called to record his words and actions that he wanted this time to be unknown for a reason. And that reason may have been to be an example for us the followers of our Lord. I think it was left unrecorded so that we could see how he and his personal friends spent a day in quiet communication and prayer together… we today can do likewise. All we have to do is ask him and he will spend the day with us, a quiet day of private conversation and prayer. Each of us today can be a part of the private circle of friends that Jesus associated with on that day of unrecorded history, each of us has the ability to spend a day with Christ in quietness and prayer and fasting. The decision to do so is up to each of us, we can do so when we so desire.

This one missing day may just be a reminder to us all that each of us needs to take some time, some quiet personal time, and spend it with our Lord this week. Having no written record may say more that having volumes of words on paper. And that my friend is the sole purpose for today’s sermon, I’ve said all this to come to this point, I’d like to encourage each person reading these words to try to set aside a little slice of this Holy week for a personal reflective time of intimacy with your Lord. He had a quiet personal time of reflection with his disciples and his nearest and dearest friends and he’s asking to do the same with each of us. The time or day doesn’t matter; our dear sweet Savior will always be available. Find a quiet place, take a little time and read the accounts in the Gospels of this last week before the crucifixion. Meditate upon the love and intimacy Jesus displayed with his disciples as he washed their feet, as he shared the Last Supper with them. Read the beauty and power of his words, experience again his pain and suffering leading up to his death. Spend a little time with him while no one else is around and there are no distractions. Relive and experience the emotions the disciples must have felt as they spent that unrecorded day with him. Spend time with Jesus like you’ve never done before. It will be worth your effort.

Heavenly Father, we’ve read your words today. We’ve waved our palms and sang our songs and shouted our Hosannas. We’ve welcomed you Lord Jesus into our town as they did so long ago on the streets of Jerusalem. We thank you for providing us with your written record that we may read it again and again and relive the events as they happened. We thank you for your Holy Communion, the humbling experience of the foot washing and the way you have impacted our lives. And now Lord Jesus we ask you to provide us with a quiet time this coming week that we may spend that time in intimate communication with you, that we could talk together and that you would enter our hearts again as you have so often in the past. Talk to us O God in ways and words we can understand as you did so long ago when with your disciples. You picked each of them by hand and you called each of them by name. You’ve hand picked each of us reading this today, call each of us by name this week and prepare our hearts for the events of this Holy time of the year. Bring to our remembrance the things you would have us to ponder until again we gather together to share in the wonderful story of your resurrection. May the Lord smile upon you not only this day but also every day.
Grace & peace