The Righteous and Humble King Matthew 21:1-17: Zechariah 9:9 Abe Stratton, Pastor Sunday Morning, March 29, 2015 Introduction Today begins what has historically been called Holy Week. Beginning with Palm Sunday (today) it is the final week of Jesus life on this earth, and it culminates in His death on Friday and His resurrection next Sunday. I would encourage you to engage in activities or meditations this week which would set your heart on Jesus. There are many ways you can do this. Read through some of the Gospel accounts of Jesus last days. Parents, read the stories about the last days of Jesus to your children from a children s Bible story book. I have made it a personal habit to watch The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday night. Whatever you choose to do, do something to set your heart and mind on Jesus and what He is doing in His final days. It expands your heart and deepens your joy as we come to celebrate His death and resurrection next weekend. In our passage today Jesus deliberately engages in some unusual and shocking behavior in order to confront all who see Him with His true identity. As we read His Word, He is doing that for us today confronting us with who He truly is. Read Matthew 21:1-17. Read Zechariah 9:9. I. The King is righteous bringing victory and salvation. A. He is sovereign. Matthew 21:1-3 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. Jesus behavior may strike us as odd or even offensive. He s just telling His disciples to take someone s donkey and colt? It is possible that Jesus knew the owners of the donkeys, and they would readily recognize who the disciples were talking about. Or it could be that Jesus had arranged for the use of this animal ahead of time. It could also be that there was no relationship and no previous arrangement; Jesus was just telling his disciples to take a donkey and her colt. We don t know the exact circumstances. Despite the circumstances, Jesus uses a title here for himself which sheds insight onto His command. Lord (κύριος): one who is in charge by virtue of possession, owner; one who is in a position of authority It is used often of God in the Gospels, but many times people also use it when talking to Jesus as they recognize His authority. Not everyone who controls a thing or person can without qualification be called κύριος. The term is generally used for the lawful owner. 1 Jesus created all; thus He owns all, and can command all. He had the full right of ownership over that donkey, despite who the human owner was. He had the right to take it, to use it, and to dispose of it as He saw fit. Audience: Disciples. Owners of donkey/colt. Jesus tells the disciples what to do. He is in the position of authority to give the commands. Jesus tells the owners of the donkey/colt what to do. 1 Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964 ), 1045. 1
Application: He holds ultimate authority; we do not. He has the right to tell us what to do and what to believe. He has the right to give and to take. Do you think of Jesus as your Master? Your King? The One who owns you and holds the power to dispose of you as He wills? Are you ready for Him to take your job, your house, your health, your children, your spouse, your life? Illustration: In the upcoming Dispatches we get to see and hear about the hundreds of young men and women who went to China and died for the sake of Gospel. As I was watching that DVD this week with the other pastors, I thought, It seems like such a waste. It s like sending U.S. troops onto the beach at Normandy. And yet the King has a supreme and eternal plan, and He holds the authority and the right to employ what He wills and whom He wills when He wills. In our American democratic society it s easy to think of Jesus as a God that we can take or leave when it s convenient like a politician that we elect into or remove from office. But Jesus is not this type of figure. He is a King who brings salvation because He is sovereign and authoritative. B. He is holy. Matthew 21:6-9 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Apparently Jesus and His disciples were in a crowd of pilgrims surging toward Jerusalem for the Passover feast, and as these people saw Jesus begin to ride the colt, they began to shout out these things. Pretty soon people from the city heard the commotion and began to flood out of the gates toward the pilgrims to discover what was going on. The result was an eruption of noise shouting and chanting. The people who saw what was going on may very well have been thinking about Zechariah 9. Zechariah 9:9-17 The picture of Messiah described here is of a victorious warrior-king, a captain of heavenly armies, who brings justice to His people and who cuts down the enemies of His people, delivering them from danger. It is overwhelmingly warlike and triumphant! So in one sense, who can blame these crowds surrounding Jesus for their chaotic enthusiasm! They see the one that Zechariah prophesied, and they assume that their Deliverer has come to free them from their oppressors the Romans. But their cries of Hosanna (ὡσαννά) carry an irony they don t even realize. Although they mean it as praise for a triumphant King, it means, Help or Save, we pray. They are cheering for the Captain who will overthrow their oppressors, but they have forgotten the context of the OT passage they are quoting. Psalm 118:22-26 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the LORD s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD. The Lord who saves, the Messiah who rescues, is the one who was rejected, not welcomed as a conqueror. They do not understand the Scriptures they are quoting; they do not see the whole picture. At this arrival the King is not marked by bloody conquest, but by sinless perfection; not by powerful domination, but by faithful obedience. He is a King who has always done His Father s will, a King who has completely fulfilled the law of God, a King who lived the life that none of His people could live. And He has done so in order that He might walk to the Cross in just a few days, lay down His perfect life as a substitute, and save His people in a greater way than they can imagine. Any zealot could potentially overthrow the enemies of Israel and save his nation, and many tried. But there is only one who can defeat the power of sin. There is only one who can overthrow the rulers of darkness. There is only one who can triumph over death. There is only one who can reverse the curse. There is only one who can undo all that has gone wrong. There are many men who can 2
conquer empires. But there is only one King who can conquer hearts. His name is Jesus! And He came to truly save His people. Audience: Crowd Application: He will not be made into a Savior according to our desires or thoughts. We must conform to Him, not He to us. Illustration: Conversation with C. D., my unsaved friend who has a hard time with some of the difficult passages in the OT about the annihilation of people groups, including babies. He also has a hard time accepting the statement of Jesus that He is the only way of salvation. But the God of the Bible, this King Jesus, will not be conformed to our concept. Do you want a King who will deliver you from your hardship, from your physical pain, from the rift in that relationship? Do you want a Jesus who will make things more comfortable for you? Jesus is the King who brings salvation, not in the way that people think that He will or wish that He will, but by His perfect life of obedience. C. He is zealous. This paragraph probably occurred the day after Jesus ride into Jerusalem. Mark, in his Gospel account, says, And 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 (11:11). Mark goes on to relate that on the following day Jesus re-entered Jerusalem. Matthew 21:12-17 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers. 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David! they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise? 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. If Jesus entry into the city was not controversial enough, this action is almost offensive. Do you see what Jesus is doing?! He throws out (ἐκβάλλω) the merchants who are buying and selling in the Temple area. That term is normally used of exorcising demons from people. It is a forceful term. Additionally, Mark says, he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple (11:16). Jesus is expelling them and keeping them out! This is not a polite scene. Illustration: I want to show a scene from the Gospel of John. John does not describe this cleansing, but he write an account of an earlier cleansing of the Temple, probably at the beginning of Jesus ministry. Although this account from John takes place at a different time, it is very similar to the actions Jesus is taking here in Matthew. We don t normally think of Jesus this way. But this is not a fly-off-the-handle type of anger; it is a very calculated and intentional series of actions. (Remember that He came into the Temple and looked around the night before.) Why is He acting in such a shocking way? God, His Father, is being dishonored. The holy, transcendent, almighty, Creator-God is being debased by having His special place desecrated by a group of greedy, selfish, grasping, deceitful men. These merchants and money-changers have not come into the Temple area in humility and reverence, confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness. They are not even thinking about God; He is not in all their thoughts. They are using His house for their own ends. And Jesus will not stand for it! Planned for prime time and maximum exposure, it was a demonstration calculated to interrupt business as usual and bring the imminence of God s reign abruptly, forcefully, to the attention of all (Meyer, p. 197). He is zealous for His Father s honor and glory. He is zealous for the reputation of God Almighty! Audience: Merchants in the Temple Application: Are you like the merchants? Do you adhere to this Christianity thing or to religion more broadly simply because of what you believe you can get out of it? Are you here because you think it 3
will benefit you? The King is more concerned for God s character, His worship, and His truth than He is for the sensibilities, comforts, or traditions of men. And He is quite ready to overthrow our traditions and cast our comforts if it will point our gaze to His Father and His glory. Transition: The King is righteous and bringing salvation. He does so because He is sovereign and authoritative; He is holy and perfectly obedient; and He is zealous for His Father and His truth. But were we to leave the portrait of our King there, it would be a deficient view. The Scripture in Zechariah and in Matthew goes on to show us more of this King. Matthew 21:5 Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. II. The King is humble riding on a donkey. Note: The King s humility is what Matthew emphasizes in His Gospel account. Although Messiah is righteous, Matthew does not even quote that part of Zechariah s prophecy here. This King wields power and authority and righteousness like no other, but His identifying quality is His humility like no other. A. He comes as a peaceful King. 1. He rides a donkey s colt, symbolizing peace, not a warhorse, symbolizing conquest. It was not that a donkey was beneath royalty. David had set Solomon on his own royal mule when he had his son anointed king (1 Kings 1:33-34). It was not as though Jesus does not have the authority and power of a conqueror; we see glimpses of it in His cleansing of the Temple. But Jesus is going out of His way to communicate that He is not coming this time as a conqueror. 2. He also comes as an unfamiliar King. Matthew 21:10-11 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this? 11 And the crowds said, This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee. It is not as though Jesus was a national hero, a candidate whom everyone knew because of His distinguished military service or His outstanding political record. He was actually not the ideal candidate; He was and always had been an unknown, common carpenter from an obscure town. He spent most of His time in small towns and the countryside, not in the metropolitan centers of the day. He had never shown himself to be a Messiah only for the elite; He had always displayed that He had come to rescue people from every station as well as every nation. Although they did not understand it, Jesus was displaying to all the people that He was not the Messiah they had imagined. B. He loves lowly people. 1. He welcomes the outcasts in their need. Matthew 21:14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. After His triumphant entry during which the crowds hailed Him as Messiah and after casting out the merchants from the Temple area and symbolically displaying His authority over the religious sphere, Jesus engages in an almost contradictory action. You would think that a conqueror who had just entered a city would sit down for a celebration feast with all of the nobility. But here He is healing the lowest of the low. Can you imagine the scene? You would think that after the violent display of cleansing the Temple Jesus would be unapproachable. How long would it take for Him to cool down? But here He is, seemingly immediately after His violent actions, welcoming the weak and the hurting. The blind come shuffling toward Him, maybe being led by a friend or family member or maybe just tapping their way toward the commotion they know surrounds Him. Here come the lame, maybe being carried on a cot or maybe limping along on crutches. The scene is pitiful after the public praise of the crowds the day before. These are the hurting ones, the awkward ones, the outcast ones ones who would sometimes be prohibited from entering the Temple area and participating in worship because of their physical defects. 4
Yet here Jesus is welcoming the outcasts. Once again He is showing us that He is not a Messiah made in our image or according to our thoughts. Just as He is more powerful than we can imagine, He is also more kind and gentle and compassionate than we can imagine. Audience: The blind and lame Application: What was it about Jesus that drew these people so magnetically to Him? Many of them must have heard about or even witnessed His violent display in the Temple, and you would think that they would fear Him as a result. Instead He communicated in some way that He was for them. And they came! Maybe they had heard about His miraculous works from a different time in His ministry. Or maybe it was just a realization that this man was not one of the elite who would reject them; instead He had cast out the elite. Maybe this was what drew them. In any case, they knew that they had desperate needs, and they knew that Jesus cared. So they came! Do you view Jesus this way? Do you view yourself this way? Do you see yourself among the lame and the blind a helpless and hopeless wretch who cannot heal or save him or herself? Do you see Jesus as your help and your hope? Do you see Him as for you? Do you think that He is only for the elite, the good, the moral, the put-together? He said himself that He came for the sick, not for the healthy. He is for you, and He welcomes you with open arms. What a King! 2. He cherishes the simple and their praise. Matthew 21:15-16 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David! they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise? The religious leaders are angry probably for several reasons. (1) Definitely because of what Jesus has done. He has attacked their system, their practices, and ultimately their authority. He has challenged them and even humiliated them publicly, and they won t stand for it. He is also welcoming the social outcasts within the very Temple area. No King or Messiah would do such a thing! (2) Definitely because of what is being said. They do not believe that this lowly carpenter, this supposed prophet from Galilee, is actually their conquering Messiah. So they expect Him to put an end to the nonsense which these children are saying. (3) Probably because they are annoyed at the children. These are men who are full of decorum, dedicated to tradition and formality, and here is a group of children crying out/shouting in the Temple area. They have taken up the chant from the crowds the day before, and their young voices fill the air. The peace and quiet of the Temple is being disturbed. But Jesus welcomes the praise of these little ones. They are the boisterous, sometimes annoying, immature, and noisy ones. They probably don t even have full understanding of what they are saying. Yet Jesus welcomes their shouts of praise. They don t have a sense of decorum or formality, and yet Jesus is more concerned about them as little people and more concerned about the truth which they are proclaiming than He is concerned about the traditions which they are disturbing. Audience: The religious leaders. The children. Application: Do you see Jesus this way? Do you see yourself this way? (1) Do you find yourself standing on the side of the religious leaders criticizing others for their immature or awkward praises, demanding that the King be worshiped in your particular way? You need to know that the King doesn t need you to protect Him. He is big enough and strong enough to protect Himself, and He actually rejoices in praise that we sometimes think is inappropriate. (2) Do you find yourself standing on the side of the children offering simple praise and maybe even being criticized by others? Do you feel insignificant and unimportant? Jesus welcomes your praise, even rejoicing in the immature and sometimes awkward ways that you try to praise Him. He delights in the truth that you affirm even if you don t have all of the understanding that you need or wish you had. 5
Once again, Jesus is making it strikingly obvious that He is not the King that His people want Him to be. He is not as formal or as removed or as untouchable as so many other monarchs have been and are. He is humble and kind and compassionate and welcoming. This is a glorious King! Conclusion We need a King like this. We have been made for a King like this. We need a Righteous King. A King who is sovereign and in control. A King who owns all and has the authority to command. We need a King who is holy and completely perfect. A King who always conformed to God s standard and law because we cannot. A King who can save us. We need a King who is zealous for His Father and His glory. A King who will turn our eyes back to what truly matters. We need a King who brings salvation! We need a Humble King. We need a King who is peaceful. A King who does not abuse His authority but who exercises it for our good. We need a King who loves the lowly. A King who welcomes the outcasts and who cherishes the simple. Prayer We bless you, Jesus, Son of David. We praise you for coming in the name of the Lord as our righteous and humble King. And we cry out to you, Save us, we pray. We are needy, lowly, simple people who desperately need a King like you. Thank you that you are ours and we are yours. Benediction Rejoice in this King this week. Gaze upon Him. Think about Him. Worship Him. Glorify Him. And may your hearts be full as you walk with Him through the bloody darkness on Friday and the glorious triumph next Sunday! 6