INI   Palm Sunday   April 5, 2009

Sermon preached at Cross of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), 9931 Foley Blvd. NW, Coon Rapids, MN  55433. Please share this with someone else after you have finished. Thank you!

Bible Text—Mark 11:1-10

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

It’s the home opener for the Minnesota Twins. As the team takes the field for their last season in the Metrodome, there’s a loud shout of acclamation from the stands.

Later this summer you go to a grandstand show at the state fair. After waiting for several minutes that seemed like hours, your favorite musical celebrity walks out on stage. Everyone in the crowd starts yelling and screaming.

It’s a campaign year, and the President of the United States comes to town on the campaign trail since he’s running for re-election. When he approaches the podium and the music to “Hail to the Chief” begins, the crowd erupts in shouts and everyone is waving.

About five hundred years before Christ’s birth, Jews that were held captive in Babylon were allowed to return home. When they reached Jerusalem, they were downhearted and depressed because of what they found and how much work that had to be done. To encourage their hearts and to strengthen their faith, the Holy Spirit through Zechariah prophesied about their coming King in the words of our first lesson for today (9:9): “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Every faithful Jew knew this prophecy like we know John 3:16. So when the Passover pilgrims saw Jesus on the donkey riding into Jerusalem, they knew exactly what was going on. This was not a baseball player at the home opener or a celebrity at a state fair performance or a president on the campaign trail, but this was their King—the Messiah, the Anointed One—promised of old! So using words from a psalm they sang every year during the Passover, the crowds shouted: “Hosanna!” Originally this word meant, “Save now!” But on Palm Sunday it was a way of saying, “Praise be to you!” So today, on this Palm Sunday, may we also SING HOSANNA TO OUR KING!

1. This is a song for one who is truly a King. 

2. This is a song for a King like no other on earth.

Jesus and his disciples were coming from Jericho on his final journey to Jerusalem. It was a seventeen mile trip from Jericho to Jerusalem, and the road made a step ascent of over thirty five hundred feet. As a traveler approached Jerusalem from the east like this, the city wasn’t visible because it was hidden behind the Mount of Olives. As you walked up the mountain you would come to the little villages of Bethany and Bethphage. You’ll recall that Bethany was the home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. When a traveler reached these two villages, that would be a clear sign you had almost reached Jerusalem. It was sort of like when you come from Wisconsin on I-94 and you reach Hudson and the St. Croix River. You know you’re almost to the Twin Cities. And just a little past these two villages, as the traveler reached the top of the Mount of Olives, he could see the whole city spread out before him.

So it was when Jesus and his disciples reached what was probably Bethphage, he directed two of his followers to go into the village and bring back a young donkey so he could ride into Jerusalem: As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ”

Jesus was in complete control of every event in his life. Remember how he had said that as the Good Shepherd, no one would take his life from him, but he would lay down his life of his own accord (John 10:18)?  Since he was in control, Jesus could declare by his actions that he was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. By riding on the young donkey, he would show to anyone who knew the Scriptures that he was their Messiah-King as Zechariah had promised.

But Jesus showed himself as the Lord in other ways as well—he told the two disciples he had sent on ahead exactly what they would find in the village. He knows all things! And if he knew what the disciples would encounter in Bethphage, he certainly knew what faced him in Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday, Jesus deliberately set into motion the final act of God’s plan of salvation—even though it would mean the cross for him on Good Friday!

Notice also how Jesus gave directions to his followers that he expected them to carry out. As the one who would redeem them—and us—from hell by shedding his blood on Calvary, he had the right to claim their obedience. In the same way, Jesus lays claim to us. He doesn’t want us to argue with him when he wants us to do or not do certain things, or when he tells us in his Word how we are to conduct ourselves in this life. We are not our own—we are bought at a price.

Now when the two disciples entered the village, they found things exactly as Jesus had said:  They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.

Remember: Jesus had told his two followers this was a colt on which no one had ever ridden. This was significant. In the Old Testament, God had given directions that when animals were used for spiritual reasons, they should not have been previously used for anything else. It’s only right then, that when the divine King comes riding into Jerusalem to establish his spiritual kingdom, he comes on an animal never before ridden!

We also see here further evidence of Jesus’ Godhead. Have you ever tried to ride an unbroken animal? You’ve seen it in the movies or in rodeos on TV or in person I’m sure, where a cowboy tries to sit on a horse that’s never held a rider before. The horse bolts and bucks and balks as it tries to throw the rider off its back. But this unbroken colt, never before ridden, calmly proceeded to Jerusalem with Jesus on its back! It did this in the face of the crowds singing and waving branches! This was no ordinary rider! This was no ordinary King! This is the Son of God!

SING HOSANNA TO OUR KING!  2. This is a song for a King like no other on earth.

When we combine the Palm Sunday accounts of both Mark and John, we see a much fuller picture of the crowds on that day Jesus entered Jerusalem. Some came out of the city to meet him. Another group walked ahead while another walked behind. There were so many people in Jerusalem because the Passover was one of the three major festivals when all male Jews were supposed to worship at the Temple. Over the previous three years during his public ministry, many of these people had seen Jesus’ miracles and they had heard his loving words. Now they were ready to greet him as their King: Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!’” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Psalm 113-118 were known as the Hallel Psalms. They were sung by the pilgrims every year when they entered Jerusalem for their Jewish religious festivals. The words they sang for Jesus were from the 118^th Psalm. In Psalm 118, the Messiah-King urged God’s people to give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love. He described how he had won a great victory with the Lord’s help. The King’s life had been threatened. He had been in anguish, surrounded by his enemies on every side, pushed back and about to fall, and severely chastened by the Lord to the point of death. Yet the King did not base his hope of being rescued on the size of his army, the strength of his warriors or any alliance he might have made with other princes. He won the victory “in the name of the Lord”—by relying on God to help him according to his gracious promise. 

By singing these words to Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem, the people were declaring their belief that Jesus is the King who gave the words of Psalm 118 their full and complete meaning. They’re acclaiming him as the Messiah who would win the victory over the dark spiritual forces that threaten humanity. He will win the victory—not through armies and earthly might—but “in the name of the Lord.” He will win by relying on the promised help of his Father.

The next phrase underscores a similar idea: “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” The Lord had promised David long before this that one of his descendants would be the ruler of an everlasting kingdom. David’s earthly kingdom—ruled over by his descendants—had crumbled long before this. But the faithful in Israel were certain that another Son of David would one day come to establish an everlasting spiritual kingdom.

The people now saw the dawn of that new kingdom in Jesus’ arrival at the gates of Jerusalem. And so they sang out: “Hosanna in the highest!” Since the crowds recognized Jesus as their King sent from the heavenly Father, they expected their shouts of joy to find an answering echo in heaven. Voices in heaven and on earth must join together in one matchless song of praise to the God who saves! In the same way when our children sing for a worship service as they did today, I have often wondered if the angel choirs accompany them in heaven.

In ancient times when a powerful king would enter a city he would ride a large warhorse or in a battle chariot. He would be surrounded by his soldiers covered with armor and carrying their weapons.

Jesus could have come on a warhorse as a powerful earthly king. He could have easily thrown out the Romans; he could have wiped out all sickness and disease and created a kingdom where bread was free. But our real problem would have remained. The spiritual battle would have been lost to Satan. All people would still be dying in their sins. The whole world would still be condemned to hell.

But Jesus came on a young donkey, for his kingdom is not of this world. He came to wage war in our behalf against our real enemies—sin, death and the devil. He came in the name of the Lord, relying on the spiritual strength God the Father had promised in his Word to supply, since Jesus had laid aside the full use of his divine power.

And what was the result? As we will once again witness on Easter Sunday, death has been abolished, the victory is won! And so we SING HOSANNA TO OUR KING!  Amen.