Matthew 21:1-11 21 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, Go into the village ahead 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, just say this, The Lord needs them. And he will send them immediately. 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5 Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven! 10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, Who is this? 11 The crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. 1
04.13.2014 Everyone Loves a Winner The state of Connecticut, where I am from, is one of the smaller of the fifty United States. There are no professional men s sports teams in the state. What Connecticut does have, as far as sports is concerned, is college basketball. For the last twenty years the men s and women s basketball teams of the University of Connecticut, or UConn, have been among the best in the country. This past Monday night (Tuesday morning here in Korea), the men s team won the national championship. It was the fourth time they have won the title since 1999. No other university has been as successful during that timeframe. Don t tell anyone, but after the Tuesday morning pastors meeting, I actually went home to watch the game, which to my surprise, was shown on one of the Korean sports channels. As successful as the men s team has been, the women s team has been even more so [SLIDE]. On Tuesday night, one day after the men s team won the national championship, the women s team also won the women s championship. It was their ninth championship in the last twenty years. So in 2014, the little state of Connecticut has the reigning men s and women s basketball teams. Nor was this the first year that the men s and women s teams won their respective championships in the same year; they accomplished the feat ten years earlier in 2004. No other school has ever done it once and now UConn has done it twice. Does it sound like I m bragging? Maybe a little bit, but everyone likes to be associated with a winner. Connecticut is now a basketball-crazed state, but it wasn t always the case. As a child growing up in the 1980s, I remember when no one showed much interest in UConn basketball. That s because they weren t very good. Back then UConn played in a field house not even a stadium. The field house held only 4,000 people, 2
less than half of their current stadium, which holds 10,000. It wasn t until UConn started winning in the early 1990s that more people took notice of the basketball programs. I ll say it again: everyone loves a winner. And it s not just basketball. The most popular baseball team in America is the New York Yankees. At every baseball stadium in America more tickets are sold when the Yankees come to town. Why are they so popular? It s not because America loves New York (although they should, it s a great city); it s because the Yankees have a tradition of winning. They have won more World Series titles than any other team. Believe me, as a fan of the Baltimore Orioles, who play in the same division as the Yankees, it pains me to say that, but it s true [SLIDE]. What s also true is that popularity and winning go hand in hand. We all want to cheer for a winner. The concept is not a modern one, nor is it confined to the arena of sports. It s as old as the Bible, and we see it in today s passage. The crowds that lined the streets of Jerusalem as Jesus entered the city also thought that they were cheering a winner. There was no ticker tape falling from the sky as we would see today at a parade celebrating the triumph of a sports team [SLIDE]. Instead, in a sign of adulation and celebration, some people threw their cloaks on the road while others spread palm leaves before Jesus feet. The people shouted Hosanna and pronounced blessings on Jesus. The mood was festive, celebratory. And then a few short days later the crowds would turn against him. His disciples, who had gone with him into Jerusalem and who were also greeted with cheers, would abandon him. Peter would even deny that he knew him. Then he would die scorned and alone. But before we look at what transpired after Jesus came to Jerusalem that turned the people against him, let s first focus on the events leading up to his arrival in the city of 3
David. Just before Jesus arrives at the outskirts of Jerusalem, he and the disciples pass through Jericho, which was just a few miles from Jerusalem [SLIDE]. A large crowd is following them. Suddenly two blind men call out to Jesus, Have mercy on us, Son of David! The crowd attempts to silence them, but they shout all the louder, Have mercy on us, Son of David! Their shouting has caught Jesus attention. He stops and addresses the blind men: What do you want me to do for you? The men ask for their eyes to be opened. Jesus is moved with compassion, and either they make their way toward him, or more likely, Jesus approaches them, lays his hands on their eyes, and heals them of their blindness. They immediately join the crowd and follow Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. The biblical writers, although they are usually not concerned with providing details as a novelist would, are nonetheless skilled writers. One example of this is the way that they place passages next to each other so as to enhance their meaning. At seminary I was taught the importance of reading the passages that come before and after the passage I m preaching from. Passages are not meant to be read in isolation but in light of the passages that surround them. So this passage with the two blind men may shed some light for us on today s passage, in which Jesus enters Jerusalem. Like the crowd that has gathered around Jesus, following him from place to place, the blind men know of Jesus fame. That is why they themselves have come to witness him pass through Jericho. Although they have come to be near Jesus, they have to shout to get his attention. They probably weren t able to get that close to him. In their desperation they cry out to Jesus to show them mercy, but the crowd attempts to silence them. Why? Why does this crowd treat these men as a nuisance, as an annoyance? They act as if healing were not a vital part of Jesus ministry. 4
Undeterred, the men then shout all the louder, for they know that Jesus can and does heal the blind, the deaf, and the lame. This is the great irony of the passage: when it comes to understanding the nature of Jesus ministry, the blind men see clearly while the crowd that silences them is blind. What about the crowds that greet Jesus as he reaches Bethphage? The ranks of the crowds have swelled to include not only those who have been traveling with Jesus, but now the crowds awaiting him in Bethphage as well. If you have ever been part of a crowd, you know what the dynamic is like how easy it is to get pulled into the emotion of the moment. Now that the baseball season has started, I feel that pull on a daily basis with the cheering from the crowd at the stadium across the street. Between the Twins and the Bears, who share the stadium, there s a game almost every day. I can hear the roar of the crowd from my office, which doesn t even face the stadium. Baseball crowds in Korea are not like those in America. In America people are drinking bear or talking on their cell phones, or surfing the Web on their phones. The game itself is almost secondary to the experience of being outdoors. But here in Korea the atmosphere is much more lively. People cheer throughout the game, not only when something good happens for the home team. And the crowd has their own unique cheers. The atmosphere is so much more exciting here; I really want to see a game, and I don t even have a rooting interest. I just think it would be fun to be part of that atmosphere. I wonder if the same could be said for those who lined the streets shouting Hosanna as Jesus rode into town. Did they know what they were cheering for? Did they know who it was that they were cheering? If they did, then where were they a week later when Jesus was arrested, put on trial, and then executed [SLIDE]? It was easy to cheer when Jesus came to Jerusalem as a hero, but when those in power, Jewish and Roman, treated him as an enemy, those who had earlier cheered were either silent or now raised 5
their voices in opposition to Jesus. Instead of shouting Hosanna, they shouted Crucify him! The seeds of this turn are already evident at the end of today s passage [SLIDE]. In verse 9 the crowd is shouting Hosanna in the highest heaven, but in verse 10, when Jesus finally enters Jerusalem, Matthew writes that the whole city was in turmoil (Mt. 21:10). They are asking themselves and one another, Who is this? Some identify him as a prophet. While this is true, it doesn t go far enough. Jesus has not come to Jerusalem solely as a prophet but as a savior. He has not come just to proclaim God s word; he is the personal embodiment of the Word of God. The crowds greet him by shouting Hosanna to the Son of David! By doing so, they acknowledge Jesus as a king, one who comes from the line of the greatest Israelite king. But Jesus does not enter Jerusalem with greatness, certainly not a conventional greatness. If Jesus were the type of earthly king that many were hoping for, then he would have entered Jerusalem with pomp and circumstance, riding a stallion and accompanied by his armies. If Jesus had been that type of king, his entrance would have looked something like this [VIDEO]. But Jesus doesn t ride a war horse; he rides into Jerusalem sitting on a donkey [SLIDE]. The donkey isn t known for its prowess in combat. No general ever rode a donkey into battle. The donkey is not tall or fast. It s known as a beast of burden. What a donkey does well is carry things on its back so that humans don t have to, as Jesus would soon do with the cross, taking the burden of the sins of the world on his shoulders. Nor does Jesus come with a conquering army. He is accompanied by his disciples regular people who have left behind their occupations, and in some cases their families, to follow him. 6
Jesus had come to Jerusalem for Passover [SLIDE]. Passover was and is one of the most significant festivals of Judaism. It is a festival of freedom, commemorating God s saving grace upon the Israelites when they were captives in Egypt. Like Jews today, the Jews of Jesus time would have stopped working and joined with their families to eat, drink, retell the Passover story from Exodus, and celebrate their deliverance. The only taint to this celebration of freedom would have been the fact, obvious to all Jews in Palestine, that they were not free. While they were no longer captives in Egypt, they were an occupied people in their own land. They were ruled by the sword of Rome. This fact would not have been far from anyone s mind as they celebrated the holiday. In fact, the celebratory mood of the Passover was often combined with a nationalistic longing for independence. It was during the Passover that Israel keenly felt the desire for a savior, someone who would liberate them from Roman oppression. The Passover was a patriotic holiday. So the crowds that greeted Jesus with shouts and cheers may have been celebrating not only the arrival of a prophet and miracle worker, but of the long-awaited messiah the liberator of Israel. Jesus had come to liberate Israel, but not only Israel [SLIDE]; Jesus had come to liberate Rome as well. Jesus had come to liberate all people from the tyranny of sin, both the oppressed and the oppressor. Jesus came to liberate Rome from seeing the world through a prism of power. And Rome was captive to such an attitude, consumed with dominating the world rather than living at peace with it. Rome was in need of liberation from their will to dominate. Moreover, Israel too was in need of liberation, and not just from Rome. After Jesus arrives in Jerusalem he heads straight for the temple, as Matthew records in the very next passage, where he finds the merchants selling their wares in the courtyard. The merchants sold animals to sacrifice in the temple, as required by the law. What s wrong with that? In the Old Testament God commands sacrifices; there are numerous 7
regulations even that govern sacrifices. What s wrong is that those in power had turned grace into a commodity, something to be bought and sold by people rather than given freely by God. And what of the poor who could not afford to pay for a sacrifice? They were simply out of luck. Thus, Israel itself was in need of liberation from the way it had commercialized its relationship with YHWH. There s an expression in English that describes the impersonal nature of business decisions that don t take into account human relationships: nothing personal, just business. That is an accurate depiction of the sacrificial system maintained by the religious authorities in ancient Israel. A personal experience of God was sacrificed for the sake of business. But God wasn t concerned with sacrifice but with mercy, justice, and above all, love for God and one s neighbor. This is what the prophets proclaim time and time again. Mercy, justice, and love had all been neglected by turning a house of prayer for all into a house of profit for some. And so Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem as a prophet, as a liberator of both oppressed and oppressor, as a threat to the religious establishment, and ultimately as a savior, but not in the way that most people in Israel expected. He is greeted by shouts of acclamation and cheers of joy. The people lay their cloaks in the road. The throw palm branches at his feet. Here is Israel s deliverer! Here is a winner, the one on whom God s favor rests. It s more than likely that the crowds who cheer him have no idea of the true nature of his ministry, but it s so easy to cheer for the winner. Woo-hoo! We love you, Jesus! Great job! Keep it up! Let s not pretend that we re any different. It s so easy to cheer from the sidelines where nothing is demanded of us. We have no skin in the game. Yes, as the song goes, Jesus paid it all. Jesus won for us victory over sin and death. That is all true. The victory has been won. 8
But here s the thing. We are not winners. We are not winners, because Christianity is a religion for losers. Yes, Christ wants us to be losers. What do I mean [SLIDE]? 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it (Mt. 16:24-25). We are all called to be losers. Christ calls us from the sidelines, where we ve been passively cheering, and invites us invites us to lose everything for him. Let s ask ourselves, what do we need to lose to follow Christ? Is it pride, or pride s companion, a low sense of self worth? Is it fear the fear of letting go of something we hold dear? Is it comfort? Comfort is a continual threat to the Gospel. Is it something that we love more than Christ? Whatever it is, let s ask God to help us lose it. As Christ assures us, those who lose their life for Christ s sake will find it. Let s stop cheering, get off the sidelines, and ask ourselves: what have we got to lose? 9