“28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ”
32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34They replied, “The Lord needs it.” 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it.
36As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. 37When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” 40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.””
There is a fairly well-known pastor whose success I have a hard time celebrating. It isn’t that I disagree with his theology. I agree with most of what he’s written, and, in fact, we went to the same college and seminary. He was raised in a sister denomination. I don’t find it difficult to celebrate his success because he lacks virtue or devotion to his work. From all appearances, he is a sincere man of God. There is nothing in him that prevents me from celebrating his success. There is something rather ugly in me that prevents me from celebrating his success.
It is envy. It is pride. I see this man who is so very like me in many ways and I think, why him and why not me? Why is he speaking at this conference? Why not me? Now there are reasons, of course, for why he is speaking rather than me, but that is beside the point. The point is to see the ugliness of refusing to celebrate. God is working through this man and I find it hard to celebrate this work because of my own envy.
I’m not saying this merely to expose my own struggles, although there is something liberating about that. I’m saying it because that little glimpse into one corner of my heart is all over Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There is a genuine work of God at hand and one that is, of course, far more profound than the work of this pastor I’ve envied. Jesus was proclaimed king. This was one of the most profound moments of human history and yet there were some who were unwilling to celebrate. They were unwilling to celebrate Jesus not for any reason in him but for reasons that had to do with them. These men received some of the sternest warnings in Scripture and I don’t want to act like them. They rained on his parade when they should have joined in. You will do one or the other. Celebrate Jesus; don’t rain on his parade. That is the claim of this sermon: Celebrate Jesus; don’t rain on his parade.
We will study Luke’s account of Palm Sunday in three points. First: preparing for a parade. Second: the parade of the king. Third: raining on the parade. We see preparing for a parade in verses 28-34. We see the parade of the king in verses 35-38 and we see the Pharisees raining on Jesus’ parade in verses 39-40.
First: preparing for a parade. This parade into Jerusalem is one of the high points of the gospels. It appears in all four accounts and each author put a different spin on it. They were all very intentional about how they presented Jesus. They were all very intentional in what they included before and after this account of the entry. You see Luke’s intentionality in the words, “after Jesus had said this,” in verse 28.
Luke wants to remind his attentive readers that Jesus had just told a parable about a man travelling in order to be crowned king. Now Jesus was travelling in order to be crowned king. This parable ended with the gravest of warnings for any who might oppose this king or his kingdom. The parable made clear that God’s kingdom ran along God’s rules.
Jesus did not wear the crown of the kingdom of God lightly. He knew that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He would not and will not tolerate any who attempt to remake the kingdom of God in their own image. He will not tolerate any who refuse his kingship because to refuse him is to refuse God.
Luke arranges his gospel to make clear that Jesus was now finally prepared to be recognized as king. You see this clearly in the fact that this upcoming parade was his idea. It was he who directed his disciples to get the donkey which he would ride into Jerusalem in fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy.
The disciples had been pushing for a public declaration that Jesus was the Messiah, but Jesus demanded silence on the matter. It all seems rather confusing. Jesus clearly wanted his disciples to know who he was but whenever they got it right he told them to keep it quiet. Just on example from Mark; ‘Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.” Then Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.’ The disciples were rather confused by this requirement because the coming of the king was the best news imaginable. Why keep good news to yourself?
The crowds had been pushing for such a pronouncement as well. Jesus had to run from them because he knew that they intended to crown him king. The Pharisees and Sadducees and political allies of Herod also wanted to know if Jesus considered himself the Messiah. Jesus’ purposeful silence on the matter was maddening to any number of parties.
The reason that Jesus was silent about being the Christ will become clear as you read the gospels. This good news that God had sent the Messiah led directly to the death of the Messiah. The attention that Jesus received as he rode that donkey into Jerusalem led directly to his death outside the city walls.
Jesus understood that once people knew who he was, they would kill him. Now many of us have difficulties opening up to others. We fear rejection. We fear what people would say or do if they really knew us. Put yourself in Jesus’ shoes. He understood that when people knew him for who he was, they would kill him. Consider the love of Jesus to endure just that for the sake of your salvation.
The decisive aspect in this section is Jesus’ decision to go public about his kingship. He sent his disciples to find a donkey. He knew that riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was an unmistakable fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, “rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey.”
This parade was Jesus’ plan, and he was very much in charge of it all. You see that by his explanation of what would happen when the disciples retrieved the donkey. He told them where the donkey would be. He told them what to say when the owners asked why they were taking it. Jesus was parading towards his own death, but he was very much in charge of it all.
Jesus was no martyr. Jesus was no victim. He was prepared to be publicly acknowledged as king and he was prepared to suffer the consequences. I do hope that you publicly acknowledge him as king even if you too suffer consequences. Jesus was ready to suffer because he knew that as king he was reconciling God to humanity. He knew what it was that he was reasserting God’s rule. This Palm Sunday ask yourself if you truly do celebrate what Jesus has done. Ask yourself if you are willing to publicly acknowledge Jesus as king. He was willing to be acknowledged publicly as king for your sake even though it led to his death. We come to this very public acknowledgement now in our second point: the parade of the king.
This wasn’t the first parade for a new king. This parade was similar to the parade for Solomon. When Solomon’s brother Adonijah tried to steal the throne, David told the high priest to take Solomon and put him on David’s own mule, parade him around, and yell, “‘Long live King Solomon!” Jesus’ parade on this donkey echoes that parade.
This parade is reminiscent of the celebration for Jehu. At his announcement, 2 Kings 9:13 tells us that the people ‘quickly took their cloaks and spread them under [Jehu] on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, ‘Jehu is king!’” The cloaks being thrown before Jesus’ path echo Jehu’s celebration.
I share this to make clear that this Palm Sunday parade was no product of imagination or invented church tradition. What we are reading here is history. These small details of people throwing cloaks and Jesus riding a donkey were really what happened.
So often people dismiss the Bible as irrelevant without taking the time to understand why everything it records would be incredibly relevant to the people who first experienced it. That is strange because our culture tells us to put ourselves in the shoes of everyone and anyone in order to understand them. Apparently that rule doesn’t apply to first century Galilean fishermen or tax collectors. Their voices are dismissed almost immediately and entirely as fabricated even though what they record made total sense in that time and place.
Their voices are, in fact, dismissed today for the same reason they were dismissed by many of their contemporaries. They are dismissed because they claimed that Jesus was the Christ promised by God. Their voices are dismissed because, as Lucan scholar Darrell Bock put it, “in this regal figure, God is reconciling Himself to humanity and reasserting His rule.”
Palm Sunday is not merely a date on our calendars. A day like Halloween or Valentine’s Day can come and go with no real impact. On this day, however, Jesus of Nazareth declared himself to be the one through whom God would reconcile Himself to humanity and reassert His rule. That is something you either submit to or oppose.
That message is dismissed. It is dismissed because if Jesus is God’s way to reassert His rule that means that we are not in charge. It is dismissed because if Jesus is God’s way of reconciling humanity to Himself that means that we must have done something wrong to necessitate this reconciliation.
Now you weren’t in that crowd on Palm Sunday. You don’t know whether or not you would have joined the celebration. You do, however, have a choice to make and you must make it. You must decide whether or not you think Jesus was who he said he was when he was paraded around. He either was and is the reassertion of God’s rule and God’s way of reconciling Himself with humanity or he was poorly mistaken about his own identity.
The disciples thought he was who he said he was and so they acted appropriately. They paraded him around. They paraded him down the Mount of Olives, which is where Zechariah said God, or his Christ, would reveal himself.
They disciples saw themselves as living history. They were fulfilling prophecy in this parade. That is why they quoted Psalm 118, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” According to Darrell Bock, Psalm 118 depicted, “the king leading pilgrims to the temple.” The disciples understood Jesus to be the king and themselves to be the pilgrims travelling to the temple with him. That does describe the Palm Sunday parade route.
The disciples recognized this moment for what it was, and they celebrated. That raises a question for your worship. Is it ever celebratory? Yes, there are times to confess and there are times for lament, but there are certainly times for celebration. I do wish we were together today because this is the morning when the children enter with palm branches and kids get it. They aren’t self-conscious in the same way we adults are. They worship a good deal more like David did when he danced before the ark. They are willing to be undignified for the sake of his dignity.
We adults are too often concerned about what others might think about us. It reminds me of Jernigan’s song, “with our hands lifted high we will worship and sing, and with our hands lifted high we come before You rejoicing. With our hands lifted high to the sky and when the world wonders why we’ll just tell them that we're loving our King.” In a few minutes we will see the Pharisees wonder why the disciples are celebrating. Jesus’ response certainly ran along the lines of that song; “they are just loving their king.”
Now there is another aspect to this parade, and it is an unusual one. Solomon’s parade and Jehu’s announcement were filled with the powerful. Jesus’ parade was filled with the lowly. He didn’t even have a saddle for his donkey, so he rode on top of some clothes, “which was a mark of mean and disgraceful poverty,” as Calvin put it. Calvin wrote that this parade was filled with those who were, “from the very poorest, and from those who belong to the despised multitude. One might think…. that [Jesus] intentionally exposed himself to the ridicule of all.”
There truly was also something quite pitiful about this parade. No newspaper would make much of this it. “A small gathering of powerless, disenfranchised nobodies accompanied a Galilean carpenter down the Mount of Olives yesterday proclaiming him king.” It was the fulfillment that we’ve seen but it was not the sort of photo op that any normal leader would choose. This parade made Jesus look rather pathetic and considering that he was walking into Roman controlled Jerusalem with a small group of day-laborers, the fact that he considered himself king was like taking a tweezers to a gun fight. You can clearly see the result on Good Friday.
It was laughable, but it was laughable in the eyes of the world. The laughter of the world is laughable in the eyes of God. ‘The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His Christ, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.’
There are two parties laughing on Palm Sunday. First, the powerful are laughing at this rather pathetic display of support for Jesus. Second, God was laughing at their laughter. You need to decide whom who are laughing with. Don’t call pathetic, pointless, or meaningless what the world calls pathetic, pointless, and meaningless. You might not have been all that impressed with what those disciples offered on Palm Sunday. Jesus was. He wasn’t embarrassed to be crowned their king. You need to ask yourself if you are willing to give Jesus the sort of support that the world might laugh at. You need to ask yourself if you want the sort of king who would have followers like the disciples. You need to ask yourself if you want the sort of king who would have followers like you.
The disciples cheered Jesus on. The Pharisees, however, rained on the parade. That is our final point: raining on the parade. Not everyone was cheering for Jesus as he came down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. Some were rather alarmed by the whole production. As Luke put it in verse 39, ‘Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”’
It is possible that the Pharisees spoke out of concern for Jesus and themselves. After all, if Rome caught wind of another Jew claiming to be king, they would clamp down hard on Jerusalem and that would be bad for them as well as Jesus.
That’s possible, but it seems far more likely that their desire to rain on his parade came from a much uglier place. These Pharisees had the tiny scraps of influence that Rome allowed them, and now Jesus was claiming to be the king sent from God. These Pharisees were the religious gatekeepers and this Jesus who had no professional training was outshining them and the comparison wasn’t even close.
The Pharisees spoke out of envy and pride. It’s not a pretty place if you remember how we began this sermon. They couldn’t stand to see this wild and frenetic celebration for this man whom they considered little better than a peasant. They couldn’t stand to see these honors which they craved heaped upon Jesus’ head. They couldn’t stand to be themselves while he was himself.
The Pharisees demanded that Jesus rebuke his disciples. Jesus, of course, would have none of it. He would have none of it because they were speaking the truth. He was the king. He, after all, had started this parade. Now the crowd might have been getting a bit carried away but they were getting carried away about God and that’s a hard thing to fault anyone. Jesus wouldn’t rebuke David for dancing before the ark of God. He wasn’t going to rebuke his disciples for celebrating God’s king on earth.
Jesus’ response to the Pharisees was, as always, masterful. “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Jesus was making clear that there was nothing wrong with his disciples; rather there was something quite wrong with these Pharisees. Even stones could see that this was a reason for celebration. Apparently, the stones were more spiritual than the Pharisees.
Your willingness or unwillingness to celebrate Jesus says a good deal about you. Now your unwillingness to celebrate Jesus might look difference from what we see in the Pharisees. You might not envy him in the same way that they did, but you might envy him. After all, he is perfect, and you are not. He always says the right words at the right time, and you do not. He shows you what a human should be and, as a result, makes clear that you are not what you should be. It is very possible that you would hate Jesus if you didn’t grow up being told that you are supposed to love him. It’s worth considering whether you really do want to celebrate Jesus today or whether you would rather rain on his parade because it isn’t your parade, life isn’t your parade.
You will either join his parade or rain on it. If you don’t want to join it, please consider what it is that you are raining on. You are raining on a parade for a man has done far more for the world than anyone watching this online. He has done far more for the world than the sum total of everyone who has ever been online, or everyone who has ever lived. You are raining on the parade of a man who loved you enough to die so that you might live. You are raining on the parade of a man who, is, in fact, God. You don’t want to find yourself raining on God’s parade. Repent. Join Jesus’ side. Live like you are on Jesus’ side. He lived and died like he was on yours Amen.