Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. Although the overall focus of this episode is on Palm Sunday, Paul takes a right turn onto, Why didn’t I think of that? And that, my friends, is one of the things that I love most about what is being done here at Share the Word by all of those who bring you the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter. Once again, let’s dig in. Mark chapter 11. Details, details, details.

If we believe what the Bible has to say about itself, and if we don’t, why would we believe anything else it has to say? Then Scripture was produced by the Holy Spirit working through human authors. That’s the specific claim by both the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16 and the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:19 to 21. That doesn’t mean the authors were dictational robots, but rather that the Holy Spirit worked through their minds, their vocabularies, their experiences, so that what was written was not only the human authors’ words, but also the very Word of God. That’s interesting to keep in mind when we come to the Gospels, these four accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Matthew, Luke, and John, as well as Mark here, all wrote their own accounts of Jesus.

There is overlap because they are describing the same person and many of the same events come up or teachings come up, but it’s not surprising that their accounts are far from identical. When we come to the most well-known events, which all four include, like what we have come to now in Mark, there are details peculiar to each Gospel account, details which we can attribute to the authors’ individual recollections and vantage point, and also to their particular intended audience. It’s some of those details found in each Gospel that I want to focus on with you today, as we consider the dramatic account of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem near the end of his public ministry, the event we celebrate as Palm Sunday.

I underscored a few episodes ago that Jesus has told his disciples on three different occasions, as recorded by Mark, that when he went up to Jerusalem this time, it would be ending in his arrest and death. He absolutely understood that this was the ultimate reason he had come out of heaven, to suffer and die for our sins on a cross outside Jerusalem. I love the line in Luke 9, which in one of the old versions says, He set his face like flint toward Jerusalem, a Hebrew idiom meaning that Jesus was at this point determined and would not be deterred. So after Mark reached that fulcrum we discussed a couple chapters ago, he then devotes the second half of his Gospel entirely to events leading up to and including Jesus’ passion. And each of the Gospel writers do the same, devoting a disproportionate amount of their story to the very last weeks and days of Jesus’ earthly life.

Although they had a hard time accepting it then, they certainly understood in retrospect when they wrote their Gospels that what happened when he went into Jerusalem this last time was the ultimate reason Jesus had come. That’s why he had kept telling them, I must go up to Jerusalem. In three years’ time, Jesus had become the most controversial figure in his nation. Few were ambivalent, but the prevailing attitudes were people either loved him or hated him. For some time now, he’s been avoiding the southern part of Israel, the areas close to Jerusalem, because the Jewish Sanhedrin and their allies, who did hate him, had for some time been looking for a way to kill him, an excuse to do that.

They did not see any way he could be Israel’s Messiah, and so his popularity with the common people could only threaten their influence, their income, and, as they saw it, the stability of their nation. Their greatest fear was that he would lead a popular uprising that the Romans would then brutally suppress. Jesus’ frequent and very sharp criticism of these religious elites, their hypocrisy, their greed, and their twisting of God’s word infuriated them. Up until this time, in his own words, his hour had not yet come, so Jesus had stayed mostly out of these men’s reach. But the time to avoid them was now over, and as this Passover season approached, Jesus and his disciples were once again in Judea. In fact, they were now staying in Bethany, a village just two miles east of Jerusalem.

They spent most of a week there, and then the Sabbath with Jesus’ close friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who we met in John’s account. But on Sunday, Jesus intended to enter the capital city. He was not acting naively or arbitrarily, but very deliberately advancing toward the climax of his ministry, his appointment with the cross. Just how deliberately he was acting can be seen in the details of what he did that Sunday. In preparation to enter Jerusalem, all four of the gospel writers record that he sent two of his disciples ahead of him into the little wayside village called Bethphage with specific instructions. Here’s how Mark describes them at the outset of chapter 11.

He sent two of his disciples and told them, Go into this village ahead of us. As soon as you enter it, you’ll find a colt there, which no one has ever sat upon. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back to you soon.’ Go into the village ahead of us, and as soon as you enter, you’ll find a colt tied.

The colt was a young donkey, as clear from the other gospel’s accounts of this errand. This is an example of what I mean by each account adding details. In fact, Matthew’s gospel says, and he was there that day, they actually brought two donkeys back to Jesus. The young donkey’s mother was brought along too. Why would that be? Ever hear the phrase stubborn as an A-S-S?

That young colt would have been very hard to separate from its mother and bring to Jesus, so both apparently were brought. Paul, why all the donkey stuff, you may be thinking? Well, there’s a very important reason why. More than 500 years earlier, one of the last Old Testament prophets who spoke to Israel, a man named Zechariah, had made a messianic prophecy to the Jews that they were very familiar with. This is recorded in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9 of the Old Testament. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, daughters of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. So yes, Jesus was proceeding on this day very deliberately. There’s no doubt he intended to clearly identify with this messianic prophecy. No longer is he being coy. He was going to publicly offer himself to Israel as their Messiah.

The disciples did as Jesus instructed and found the donkey colt tied up near the entrance to the village as he said it would be. The owner naturally questioned what they were doing. Hey there, you two, that’s my donkey. But the disciples told the owner what Jesus had instructed them to say. The Lord has need of it, but we’ll bring it back. Perhaps the owner was an admirer of Jesus, perhaps among those who hoped he was the Messiah, or perhaps God just impressed him on that occasion that this was okay, that the animal would be returned as promised.

But the two disciples untied the colt and its mother and brought them back to Jesus, who no doubt by this time had left Bethany with the rest of his disciples and other followers. So they likely met up on the Roman road that comes down from Mount of Olives, crosses the Kidron Valley, and leads to Jerusalem from the east. The disciples, it says, laid their outer cloaks over the back of these donkeys. And surprisingly, Jesus chose to ride the colt. He mounted it, and they began what has been termed his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. All the Gospels indicate a large number of people joined them along the way, sensing that something important was about to happen.

Because many in Jerusalem were anxiously anticipating Jesus’ arrival, once word spread that he had set out from Bethany that morning, they poured out through Jerusalem’s eastern gate to await him, to greet him. When Jesus and his entourage crested the Mount of Olives, the holy city and the gleaming temple came into their view. And when the throngs of jubilant people who had come out of Jerusalem saw him and his party descending toward the city, a spontaneous shout went up. This was all very exciting, very exhilarating. It was an electric atmosphere. The crowds of people now lining this road had definite expectations this day.

They were looking for Jesus to embrace the role of Israel’s Messiah, and they believed he could, and that they could be on the precipice of the kingdom of God. They had seen, or at least heard about, his miracles. They believed he had the power to do what needed to be done. No one was missing the symbolism in how he approached Jerusalem, just as the prophet said the Messiah would. So they started breaking off palm branches to wave them in the air. They covered the road ahead of him with their own cloaks, an act of submission in welcoming a king.

People were shouting aloud messianic slogans: Hosanna to the King of Israel! Glory to God in the highest! Hosanna to the Son of David! Must have been quite a scene. Among the crowd were some Pharisees who were shocked at what was happening. They approached and told Jesus he should rebuke the people for saying these sorts of things, and urged him to command them to be quiet.

But Jesus told them if the people kept quiet on this day, the very stones themselves would cry out. That exchange is detailed, told about in the Gospel of Luke. If you’d been among the multitude that day and could have gotten close enough to Jesus, at some point you would have seen that he became very emotional. Luke, passing on another detail from one of his sources, says as Jesus approached the city, he actually started weeping. People around him likely assumed he was overtaken with emotion at this incredible reception he is getting. The truth of the matter was, Jesus was struck deeply by the fact that on this occasion, very few, if any of them, understood him or his real intentions.

Zechariah had written that he was bringing salvation, and he was, but not the kind the crowds who lived under the boot of Rome were longing for and cheering for that day. He was coming for his appointment with his destiny. He was coming to die for their sins and ours, to make a way of salvation for us that required a cross. Thousands of people were cheering wildly. The absurdity of that must have overwhelmed Jesus as he took in this scene. Luke also adds that he was broken over the fate he knew that was ahead for Jerusalem, and these were his words: There will not be one stone left here upon another.

It is because you did not know when God visited you. But hold up for a moment. We rolled right past the frame I wanted to pause at and focus on in this episode. So again, let’s hit rewind back up to where Jesus and those with him, coming from Bethany, met up with the two disciples who were bringing the donkeys from the village of Bethphage. And again, let’s consider some details. Mark says at verse 7 in our chapter, they brought the colt to Jesus, threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

Remember, there were two donkeys according to Matthew’s eyewitness account, the mother, likely an animal that had often carried loads and probably riders, and her colt. Donkeys were beasts of burden, but people also rode them sometimes. Jesus intentionally chose to mount the young colt, we’re told. Why do you think? Well, for one thing, Zechariah’s prophecy was very specific when it said the king would be coming endowed with salvation, lowly and mounted on the colt of a donkey. So again, to the details, Jesus was deliberately fulfilling prophecy that day.

He would approach and enter Jerusalem not on a stallion with a peasant army from Galilee following behind him, but humbly on a beast of burden with only his spiritual followers with him. I remember thinking the first time I preached a Palm Sunday message on this account, this colt, the animal Jesus rode into Jerusalem on, is described in both Mark and Luke’s account as having never been sat upon. In other words, it was as yet an unbroken animal. You may not even have thought of this until now either. But the disciples threw a couple garments over this colt’s back, which had never been ridden before, and did the rope that led it to Jesus, and then what? What do you see happening next?

Perhaps you’ve had better luck than me with little ridden animals, but my memories of trying to do this are pretty painful. I watched a few too many cowboy and Indian shows when I was a little kid and had these romantic fantasies about riding horses bareback through the open fields with the wind in my hair. I grew up in a town, actually, so I didn’t have that many chances to become familiar with animals. But I remember once when I was about ten or twelve, getting on a pony at someone’s farm. He didn’t know me and was probably not at all used to being ridden, so he ran me into a fence first, pretty hard, then into a tree, and when that didn’t get me off, he just plopped down and started rolling over, so I had to get off. On another occasion, when I was 13 or 14, I was at a horse stable with my brother or some friends of ours boarded their horse.

There happened to also be a big, beautiful white horse at that stable too. It looked just like the Lone Ranger’s horse. I decided that day I was going to ride him. He had a halter on, but no saddle, no bridle. Who needed those? I confidently jumped on his back, just holding onto the halter with one hand and his mane with the other hand, and for a second I felt really cool and my brother looked very impressed.

Then the horse actually started backing up. He reared up on his hind legs, front hooves pawing the air, high-ho silver style. This was pretty scary. But then he went the whole way over backwards and fell on top of me. Miraculously, I was not crushed. The people who saw it felt sure I had to have ribs broken or my pelvis crushed, but thank God I suffered no serious injuries except to my pride.

I could tell you of more dangerous close calls I had trying to ride things that did not want to be ridden, and you thought I was probably smarter than this, didn’t you? I’ve never tried to ride an unbroken donkey, but only because I never had the opportunity. So what occurred to me when I first read through this passage with my experiences was, how was Jesus able to mount and ride an unbroken animal through throngs of people waving palm branches at them, rushing up to them, loudly calling out things and chanting things all around them, yet he rode this unbroken colt calmly through the melee down that crowded road descending from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. And the colt didn’t kick, didn’t rear, didn’t start running wild, didn’t stand still and refuse to budge. The colt did his part beautifully. And that struck me.

I remember titling my message that Sunday, Learning a Lesson from an Ass, which some smart aleck in my congregation suggested could have been the sermon title every Sunday. By now, I’m sure you’ve grasped this important theme running through Mark’s Gospel. He keeps showing us Jesus’ authority in every situation. Violent storms were calmed at his command. Demons trembled and submitted to him. All manner of diseases and even death were vanquished with only a few words or touch from him.

So it’s not surprising now this unbroken animal realized instinctively who Jesus was and was gentle and responsive to him. I hate to put it this way, but that young donkey, which probably had a brain about the size of a walnut, was smarter than most of us humans. He knew instinctively that Jesus was Lord and that he should therefore be under his control, submissive to his will, and serve him that day. You know, the only things in all creation that do not recognize that fact, that Jesus is Lord and therefore readily accept his authority, are us humans. We alone dig in our heels and often buck against the authority of the Lord of all creation. The word in the New Testament is kurios.

When Jesus sent the two disciples to Bethphage to get this animal, he had said, If anybody asks you what you’re doing, tell them, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ Kurios. That was all its owner needed to hear, the Lord. It was a title used for a master or for a sovereign. I hope all of you who’ve been tuning in to Share the Word now have by this point recognized you need Jesus as your Savior and put your faith in Him. But the other side of that coin is recognizing Jesus is Lord and submitting to and actually following Him.

If He is in fact Lord, as everything He came up against, including this donkey colt, instinctively recognized, then it only makes sense that we recognize that too. So I think the application questions we should be asking ourselves after considering the details of this event are: if you’ve already accepted Jesus as your Savior, are there areas of your life He’s been speaking to you about that are not under His lordship? If so, be wise and listen. Is there something you’ve been holding on to that’s keeping you from really following Christ wholeheartedly? If so, surrender it. All any of us who call ourselves Christians should ever need to hear is, The Lord has need of it, and our response should always be, Of course, Lord.

All that I am and all that I have is Yours. This is Paul for Share the Word. Wow. How many times has God called us to a task and we’ve refused? It might not be as blatant as, No, God, I’m not going to do that. Usually it’s more like, Isn’t there someone else better suited?

or some other excuse. We forget about those like Moses, who showed us what happens when we finally submit and trust in the Lord. God has called each and every one of us and is saying, I have need of you. Go out into this world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Don’t be a stubborn mule. Look at the world around us.

It’s becoming more and more evident about how important the Great Commission is, how we need to share the gospel around the world and bring the good news to all who have ears to hear. And I’d like to suggest to you, visit our blog section and study the information on the post entitled, Why I Trust the Bible. We have to be ready. Are you?