This sermon is available in audio form through Mixcloud below. For a transcript (not word perfect, I never read direct from my notes) see below. It's based on: Luke 19: 28-40 and Luke 23.
Here we are at the cusp of Holy Week, from here on events will unfold quickly until on Friday they come to an abrupt halt as Jesus dies on the cross. And here at the start Jesus enters Jerusalem. This isn’t the first time he has visited the city; he’s been here a few times before for festivals but this time is different. In the Gospels there comes a point where it says Jesus turns His face towards Jerusalem, he begins to move very deliberately towards the city.
And this time he doesn’t slip into the city as he has done in the past, quite the opposite, he rides through the gates on a donkey in full procession. It’s a picture lifted straight out of Israel’s golden age where the King, like David or Saul, would return from battle victorious bringing with them the spoils of war as the city danced and cheered around them. The King has returned, fulfilling the words of Zechariah the prophet (Ch9v9 if you’re interested), and now all will be well again, victory is at hand. So why does this same crowd shortly afterwards turn on Jesus and call for his execution? What happened? The expectations for the Messiah at this time was a great leader like David. Even though they had long returned from exile and were back in the land they were still under occupation, so the arrival of the Messiah would surely herald the driving out of the enemy nations and the reestablishment once more the borders of the ancient Kingdom, Israel restored to its former glory. They would finally be free once more. So when Jesus rides into Jerusalem in full procession perhaps they are expecting the beginnings of a coup, the overthrow of the pretender king Herod who sold them out to the Romans, the sacking of the Praetorium where Pilate is based. Jesus taking back the city and his throne and from there beginning the establishment of the new Israel. But what does Jesus do? Very soon after this he heads to the Temple and drives out the money lenders and stall holders. He preaches against the religious leaders and tells parables against them. He talks about prostitutes and tax collectors, the lowest of the low, entering the Kingdom of God ahead of those who think they are righteous. He predicts the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Oh and he curses a fig tree. This isn’t sounding much like the beginnings of a glorious new chapter for the nation. This is scandalous, it’s immoral people like the tax collectors and prostitutes who got them exiled in the first place and now he’s saying they’re better than them? He’s supposed to be re-establishing Israel’s borders, keeping them fortified and the nation safe from harm not predicting the destruction of everything they hold dear. So they turn on Him. They send him to the Praetorium, not to sack it and overthrow it, but to be condemned to die, they hand him over to be put to death by the very ones he was meant to overthrow. They send him to King Herod to answer for calling himself a King. And they send Him on a very different procession back out of the city to a hill called The Place of the Skull. Having not got the revolution they were hoping for they hand Him over to be killed by those he was meant to kill, and the city vomits him out. How often to we remake Jesus in the image we want of Him? How often does he say exactly what we want Him to say, tell us to do exactly what we wanted to do anyway? Have we remade Him in our own image, made Him the champion of all we hold dear as respectable and good. The Jesus who tells amusing stories at dinner parties. Do we read the Bible and take Him in for who He is or do we gloss over those things which don’t fit our picture? Look closer. He’s found at Tommy Robinson’s house at dinner. He’s in Amsterdam visiting the girls in the shadier end of town. He’s sat at the Mexico border talking with those trying to get through. He’s talking with the illegal immigrants in the detention centres at the coast. He tells great stories yes, but the company He keeps is scandalous. He’s not the Jesus you’d want at dinner parties, to be honest he’d probably say no and you’d later see Him helping a drunk teenager covered in vomit into a taxi outside a nightclub in Cardiff. He’s always exactly where He is needed, not with the people who think they have it all sorted but with those who know they are far from sorted. Does this Jesus make us uncomfortable? I hope not, but if He does, spend some time this week reading the Gospels and praying, asking God to show you what His Son is like. Some people like to make Jesus all about social action, they get excited when I talk about Him as I just have because that’s right up their street, getting out there and helping people. But Jesus also had some pretty tough things to say about the bigger questions of life, about eternity and about God. Heaven doesn’t have an open door policy He says, it’s pretty exclusive, invite only. Jesus never cares for people’s physical needs without addressing their spiritual needs, and never addresses their spiritual needs without their physical needs, He suggests or gives out food a surprising amount. Jesus is constantly talking about heaven and what it is like. Jesus isn’t safe and cuddly and acceptable, he’s also not some sort of 1st Century social worker. He’s the Son of God, come to save the lost and the broken and bring them back to God. So that’s where He goes and that’s what He does. The crowds tried to remould Jesus into what they thought they needed. Let’s not fall into that same trap. Let’s not remake Him in another mould because he will not fit, we don’t remould Jesus, He remoulds us, into His likeness. Which means we are to be like Him, seeking the lost and the broken and bringing them back to God, not in our power but in the Spirit’s power. By the end of this week it seems like events have overtaken Him, that He arrived to joyous crowds expecting a wonderful trip and suddenly finds himself hunted, arrested and executed. A man too controversial for His time killed for His message. But events don’t overtake Him, to quote from our reading from Isaiah (Ch50 v7)this morning ‘Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do his will’. Jesus turns His face towards Jerusalem, knowing that it means the cross. As the people rejoice around Him as he rides into the city, He knows these same people will mock him and spit on Him as he drags the cross out of the city. But He does it anyway, He came for this reason. He knows that the only way that the lost and the broken will find their way back to God is if He opens it for them, if He makes a way by sacrificing Himself. I would challenge you not to skip to the end of the story, it’s easy to come today for His Triumphant entry and not think about Him again until we celebrate the resurrection in a week’s time but to do so glosses over the key moment in our faith. This is the moment when Jesus does exactly what the crowds expected Him to do, just not in the way they expected Him to do it. He comes and on the cross overthrows the invading forces which have held humanity captive for so long. He enthrones Himself not on a throne in a palace but on a cross on a hill. He re-establishes Israel’s borders so that they may reach the whole world over and he clears the way for the new Jerusalem, the Holy City which John see’s later descending from heaven when heaven and earth are made new. So sit with Him, walk the road with Jesus this week, from the Last Supper to Gethsemane, from the Praetorium to the Cross. Stand at its foot and gaze at our crucified King, knowing that He does this for us. And when all seems lost on Saturday, hold tight, the dawn is coming, and it’s brighter than we could ever imagine.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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