The Desperate Need For A King. What Kind Of King Did They Expect And What Kind Of King Are You Expecting? If Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was triumphal, what went wrong less than a week later? Why did the crowds turn against Jesus so quickly? One week they welcomed Him, and the next week they demanded He be crucified. Why did the crowds who adored Jesus on Sunday, turn on him by Friday of that week? We see this behavior daily, especially in the political arena, the entertainment arena, the Church. People will turn on you in a minute. Will sing praises to you one week and cry crucify you the next week just as they did with Jesus, the same way. Everybody is hopping on the bandwagon with everyone else and do not know why. Let us talk about what really happened and why the people turned so fast on Jesus.
Their shout "Hosanna" meant "save now."
Jesus' Triumphant Entry in the Bible
The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, "Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!"
Introduction: The desperate need for a Messiah
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, everyone knew a regime change was taking place. This was the day that God's people had been praying for. They had been under the boot of Rome. They had been reduced to nothing more than a puppet state. They had no king because the Romans would not let them have one. They could still appoint a high priest, but the Romans said, "We have to approve whoever you choose—and to make sure your high priest never gets any ideas about leading a revolt to create a Jewish state, we're going to keep the ceremonial robes of your high priest locked up in our guard towers.
Matthew 21:4 tells us: 'This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 'Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.' *The prophecy is cited from Zechariah 9:9 and Isaiah 62:11.
Jesus had become somewhat of a celebrity among people who had heard of the miraculous raising of Lazarus from the dead, and they wanted to see Him and treat Him like a king. But Jesus was not arriving to be their king on account of Lazarus; the story of Lazarus would have had the religious leaders in even more of an uproar and determined to put an end to His life, which He knew . . . Jesus’ glory would be greater than that of a local king." -
The Bible says that Jesus wept for Jerusalem. During the praise of the moment, He knew in His heart that it would not be long that these same people would turn their backs on Him, betray Him, and crucify Him. His heart broke with the reality of how much they needed a Savior.
"As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it, and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes." Luke 19:41-42
Man looked for someone to fight their battles in the present-day world. Yet God had the ultimate plan of sending His Son to fight the final battle over death. This is the greatness of why we celebrate this week. Because of Christ's ultimate sacrifice, we can be set free of death.
We have so much to be grateful for this week. The enemy knows that, and you can bet, he is going to do everything he can to try and distract us away from the true meaning of what this Holy Week means. Do not let him win.
In this Holy Week, may God direct our thoughts and attention towards what matters most, Jesus Christ our King...
Let us choose to focus on worshipping our Lord, thanking Him for the gift of His sacrifice, celebrating the power of the Resurrection, and the new life found in Him alone. Grace. "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" 2 Cor. 9:15
A Day of Applause
People respond to Jesus' arrival with joy, betrayal, or the offering of their lives.
SCRIPTURE:
Luke 19:28-43
The words that describe the experiences of the week are a litany of emotions that represent the ups and downs of the week. We know them: hosanna, confrontation, betrayal, denial, trial, scourging, crucifixion, tomb. Then the most electrifying sentence ever uttered—"He is not here! He is risen!"
A week that lifts us with shouts of praise. A week that reveals the abyss of denial and betrayal, the duplicity of Judas, and the unfaithfulness of Peter. We see the weakness of all his disciples who fled the city, the ambivalence of Pilate, the agony of death between two thieves—one who cursed him, the other who asked for his forgiveness. The bleakness of the "final things" at a borrowed tomb. Then on to the glory of his resurrection.
Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time. I believe, and many scholars believe, that he planned his own parade. He had studiously, up until that moment, avoided public acclaim and publicity. Now, he reached out for it. It was Passover time. The city was jammed with pilgrims from all over the world. He entered Jerusalem in a way that would focus the whole city on his arrival.
Why did the crowds turn against Jesus so quickly? One week they welcomed Him, and the next week they demanded He be crucified.
“No events in human history were more important than Jesus’ death and resurrection, and yet many people (even Christians) never take time to study them.
It must have been a dramatic sight as Jesus approached Jerusalem on a donkey (which was a sign of His humility). The Bible says that “the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices … ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!'” (Luke 19:37-38). Even those who were not part of that welcoming crowd listened eagerly to His teaching during the next few days.
But not everyone in Jerusalem welcomed Him; the very next verse says that “the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?'” But soon many turned against Jesus and demanded His death: “‘What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?’ Pilate asked. They all answered, ‘Crucify him!” (Matthew 27:22).
These were not necessarily the same people who had welcomed Him, it has always been discussed that some of the same people were in this group as well—but the reversal is still striking. Were they disappointed because He refused to establish an earthly political kingdom? Probably. But Jesus did not come to set up a new political system. He came instead to change our hearts and save us from our sins by His death and resurrection. He declared during that last week, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight. … My kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36). This deeply disappointed those who hoped He would throw out the hated Roman occupiers. They may also have disliked His demand that they repent.
Where would you have been on that day? Among the disciples who welcomed Him—or among the skeptical crowds? It is easy to condemn those who condemned Jesus—but would we have acted any differently? We too are sinners, and we too have rebelled against God.
But the central message of Resurrection Day is that God still loves us, and because of Christ we can be forgiven. He came for one reason: “Christ died for sins once for all … to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). May you welcome Him into your life during this holy season.”
The day on which Jesus’ rode into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. This day has been described by Christians for generations as the “triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” But, have you ever asked yourself, “If this was a triumphal entry, then why did they crucify Jesus at the end of the week?”
Jesus, riding on a young donkey, embodies the peace and tranquility that the shalom that God brings to His people.
The Problem of Leadership
But there is another problem.
Leadership is about disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.
So, Jesus has another problem. Of course, his followers and others who get caught up in his entry into Jerusalem think they are choosing to follow Jesus. But by the end of the week, Jesus will have disappointed the crowd at a rate faster than they can stand. They will turn on him. Even those closest to Jesus, the 12 disciples, will either betray him outright, or abandon him in confusion and fear.
It is interesting to note that the crowd on that Sunday, proclaimed, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” In other words, they were placing their faith in Jesus that he would restore the glory of the nation to its splendor when David and his son, Solomon, ruled a United Kingdom.
That is what the Jews wanted, after all. To be ruled by a man like David, a man so committed to God that the Old Testament prophets had proclaimed that the coming Messiah would sit on the throne of his father, David. The Messiah would bring back the glory of Israel, would rid the nation of oppressors, would rule benevolently, and would be kind to the common people.
Jesus had challenged the rulers of Judea already. Not the Roman rulers, but the local rulers. He had said to them that the Temple was not the only way to find God’s forgiveness; and further, that the Temple would be destroyed, with not one stone left on another.
Of course, those who made their living from the Temple like the scribes; the chief priest and his priests; the ruling council of the Sanhedrin; and, the religious parties, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, would all lose their power and prestige if there was no Temple. Or, even if the Temple were no longer the only place where one could be forgiven by God.
So, when Jesus miraculously saves the lame man by first saying, “Your sins are forgiven” and then healing him, he challenges the authority of the Temple system. And when Jesus drove the moneychangers from the Temple, proclaiming that the Temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations, but that the religious leaders had made it a den of thieves, Jesus exposed the corruption of the Temple tax, the scandalous monetary exchange rate, and the dishonesty of those who sold animals for sacrifice.
Jesus had disappointed and alienated powerful people. He did so because the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priest, the scribes, most of the Levitical priests, and others who ruled on Rome’s behalf, were part of the same system of oppression and domination that Pilate was part of.
A contrast between kings and kingdoms was on display that day in Rome. And, although many of the common people thought they sided with Jesus, they did so for the same reasons the Pharisees and others sided with Rome. They thought Jesus could do for them what Rome had done for their rulers—make their lives better, deliver them from the oppressive system under which they lived and worked, and turn the tables on the Romans.
That is why the crowd turns on Jesus by the end of the week. They do not think he is going to do any of those things. And, in addition, Jesus is going to make life worse for them, not better. Their religious leaders, all of them, who never agree on anything, agree that Jesus is going to attract the attention of the Roman empire, especially during Passover, and Rome will come down fast and hard on the entire nation. (see Caiaphas’ speech in John 11:45-50)
So, when Jesus is accused, when he is brought by Pilate before the angry mobs, they want to be rid of him. Jesus, in their minds, never did what they wanted him to do. He never defeated the Romans, he never dissolved the unfair tax system, he never put common people in charge of the government, and furthermore, he never would.
To appease the crowds that swelled the city of Jerusalem, Pilate had the custom of releasing prisoners, many of whom were political prisoners. But on this last week in the life of Jesus, Pilate offers the crowd a choice between Barabbas, a known robber, and Jesus, a failed Messiah. Fearing that if Jesus were released, he would start all over again, the crowd begged for Barabbas to be released, and for Jesus to be executed. And not just by any means, “Crucify him” was the cry. Because crucifixion was the one form of capital punishment that would show Rome the Jews were completely loyal, and would humiliate Jesus, even in death.
Because that is the choice we make each day. To choose power and might over love. To choose “the way things are done” over “the way God intends them to be.” Two theologies. Two choices. Which would you choose? What kind of king do you expect?
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