Transcription of the Video: The Lamb of God

The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence of the greatness of what God did in that country, a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible.

Following in the footsteps of Jesus on his way from Jericho to Jerusalem, knowing that ahead of him was a cross, is a powerful experience for the modern disciple of Jesus. In this barren wilderness, with it's many opportunities for escape, Jesus made a decision to continue walking, to go to the city, and to face the cross. 

It's in this wilderness where Jesus is tempted for 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus came through here on his way to die and passes through the same desert in which he was tempted. And he had to be thinking, "Isn't there some other way?" So in a sense, he's even facing a temptation of what should he do. I like to think of those three temptations by the devil were all temptations to Jesus to choose a different battle plan than God's. But the only battle plan was for him to go and to give himself. 

The road Jesus took from Jericho to Jerusalem leads through the Judea Wilderness. It comes out of the wilderness on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives. On the Sunday before Passover, this road was thronged with people, for this day was a special day. It was Lamb Selection day. It was the day people came to choose a perfect lamb for the Passover that would soon follow. And among the crowd, riding on a donkey that day, was a Lamb.

It must have been a day, not too one like this day, when Jesus came down the side of this mountain on what we call Palm Sunday or Day of Triumphal Entry. So here we sit on the side of the Mount of Olives - the beautiful sunshine, valleys spread out below. And there's that whole city, just a bustling, active city. 

So let's refresh our memories. Jesus' last teaching to his disciples at Caesarea Philippi had to do with Jesus saying to them, "We need to confront the very gates of hell." From there, he turned his face to Jerusalem. In other words, his focus from that point on was going up to Jerusalem, which would result eventually in his crucifixion and his resurrection and his Ascension right here behind where we're sitting. 

He came down across from the Jordan, and then walked that very narrow canyon road there on the way up from Jericho, on up to Bethany, and then to this place. I'd like to set the stage for you. According to the book of Exodus, the Sunday before Passover was a very special Sunday. It wasn't just an ordinary Sunday. In a sense, that Sunday was the day that people began to celebrate Passover, we might say. So you have to imagine crowds of people streaming down this hill on their way to Jerusalem, because the following week was going to be Passover, and people started arriving already on that Sunday.

But what made that Sunday important according to Exodus 12 is that that was the day that each Jewish family picked the lamb that was to die on the following Friday suggesting, I think, that Jesus descent into Jerusalem along the road here on the side of the Mount of Olives was not simply coming as a triumphant king on a donkey. But it had to do with Jesus showing up to go up to this city to die on the day the lamb was picked. It's almost as if God said to the world, "Here's my lamb. Will you choose him?"

I think that's very significant, because one aspect of the faith lesson here, to me, is Jesus' very clear statement by the day he chose to come into Jerusalem is to say, "Have you recognized who I am?"

But there was something else we need to realize. Passover season was the season of freedom. It was the season that Jewish people celebrated their being liberated from their imprisonment and their bondage in Egypt. And that made it a time when often incidents occurred. Josephus records incidents right here on the Mount of Olives where someone would come, declare himself to be Messiah, and on Passover season, would come into the city and cause a riot or a stir, resulting in the Roman garrison coming down out of the Antonia and a slaughter occurred. 

So Passover was a time when the Romans brought in extra troops. The people thought extra about the fact that they wanted freedom. They hoped for the Messiah. In fact, there's even a rabbinic tradition that says the Temple door was left standing open that day, just in case that's the day the Messiah occurred.

And with that in the background, we could turn to the story as it's told in Luke (19:28-37). "He approached Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, and he sent two of his disciples, saying, '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. If anyone asks you, "Why are you untying it," tell him the Lord needs it.' Those who were sent ahead, went and found it just as he had told them."

"As they were untying the colt, it's owners asked them, 'Why are you untying the colt?'"

"They replied, 'The Lord needs it.'"

"They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When 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." Maybe particularly the raising of Lazarus.

But I want you to notice something. The way Luke writes here, the crowd was quiet. It says, "When they approached, they began to celebrate loudly," implying that prior to that, they had not been celebrating loudly. 

Now the impression is that these pilgrims descended into this city in almost silence, maybe simply because of the danger that if they raised too much of an outcry about their happiness about being here, it could cause an incident with the Romans. But here comes this Jesus, this Galilean Jewish Rabbi that people had been asking, "Is this possibly the Messiah?" 

He comes here and, "the disciples began, joyfully, to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen." I want you to feel what a risk that was. On the day the lamb was picked, leading up to the feast of celebration of freedom, in anticipation that the Messiah might come, that suddenly these disciples begin to sing and to cheer and to celebrate that Jesus was the one.

Matthew tells us what it was they said. Two things Matthew says. One, they shouted, "Hosana." [Hosanna] Now when we sing Hosana in our churches, we imagine Jesus coming down and this whole crowd going ahead of him shouting, "Hosana to the son of David, Hosana in the highest," that sounds like something very nice to say. 

But Hosana was a political statement more than a religious one. Hosana meant, "Deliver me. Give me my freedom." So here are these crowds chanting to Jesus not Hoshana - "This is the Son of God who came to die for our sins." But rather, "We're sick of these Romans. Hosana. Save us! Deliver us. Give us our freedom." And that was about as political as it gets. 

Now it's in that context that the leaders of the people said, "Will you hush these people up? Do you realize what could happen if we let them cheer this particular thing? We could be in big trouble."

The second thing Matthew mentions is that they wave palm branches. The coins of the last time that the Jewish people had been free, the time we call the Maccabees or the Hasmoneans, used as their nationalistic symbol a palm branch.

Palm branches had nothing to do with peace and love. Palm branches were, to a Jewish person of the time, what the stars and stripes are to Americans. It was a way of saying, "We want our freedom. We want deliverance."

Let me just reset that, because I want you to feel that because that becomes so important to what we come to next in Luke. The crowd is silent. Why? Because it's a dangerous time. And here comes this Jesus. The crowd sees him, recognizes him as the miracle worker of the Galilee, and begins to chant. "Hosana! Save us! Deliver us! Hosana! Hosana! Son of David! Messiah!"

Of course, Jesus coming from the appropriate direction of east fit that expectation. But the kind of deliverance they're cheering for is not the Lamb Selection day deliverance. But rather the political kind of deliverance that comes from the king. And then they way palm branches, almost glorifying the fact they were looking for a national deliverance.

"And the Pharisees said, 'Jesus, shut these people up.'"

"And Jesus said, 'I tell you the truth. If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'" (Luke 19:39-40)

It strikes me that as this Jewish man walked through his life, he had all of the feelings and the attitudes and actions that we do - without sin of course. And one of the things he did is he cried. And twice in the Bible, we have the record of Jesus crying and right in the same geographical location. But if we look at the two times he cried, they're really quite different. They happened the same week. The first time is just over the back side of this hill at Bethany. And he comes to this little town, and as he comes, his friends come running out to meet him - Mary and Martha. 

"'Lord,' Martha said to Jesus, 'If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I now know that even God will give you whatever you ask.'"

"Jesus said, 'Your brother will rise again.'" (John 11:21-23)

Then comes Mary. Mary comes running out to meet him. "She fell at his feet and said, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved and troubled."

"'Where have you laid him,' he asked."

"'Come and see, Lord,' they replied. Jesus wept." (John 11:32-35)

This Greek word for weeping means to sob quietly without any sound. And here was Jesus. He already had announced he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. And he stands with his grieving friends, and he looks around and he sees the hurt, he sees the anguish, he feels the pain, and he begins to cry quietly. But the tears run down his face. 

And I want you to think of Jesus as that kind of a God. What does God do at funerals? He cries. His great heart feels the hurt that you feel, that I feel. In the ancient world there was a custom that at funerals you would pass around a little bottle. You can see them sometimes. And each mourner would put a tear in the bottle. And when each mourner had put a tear in the bottle, you'd seal it up and you'd put it in the tomb with the dead person. Then in the next life, the god or whatever could look at the tear bottle and see all the sorrow that had accompanied this person's death. 

David says in the Psalms, "God, I'm in anguish. Let me put my tears in your bottle." God comes to you in hurting times with a bottle of tears. He cries. And I love that image of Jesus in anguish at these poor friends who had lost their dear brother - two unattached sisters apparently who had no one in this society to care for them, and, now, their one male means of support is gone and weeping at the loss of this beloved Lazarus. And Jesus stood and cried. And a week later, he came down this hill. 

In his ears, he could hear the Hosanas. "Save us." With his eyes, he could look around and see the happy, excited people waving palm branches. And it says he wept aloud over it. Somewhere here, he stopped and began to cry aloud. You can imagine what that crowd thought. "We just proclaimed this guy king."

Listen to what he says. "'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace,' - shalom - 'but now it's hidden from your eyes. The day will come upon you when your enemies will build a bank around you, encircle you, and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground - you and the children who are within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize God's time of coming to you.'" (Luke 19:42-44) 

Now why did Jesus weep? Maybe he looked out here and he knew some people would believe in God and some didn't. So he wept that people weren't saved or born again. But I don't think that's the focus at all. I think Jesus came here and he looked at those crowds and he heard the hosanas and he saw the palm branches. And he looked into the future and he knew that if they looked for peace in that direction what was going to happen right down here. And he cried out loud that people sought peace in that way.  That's not where it is. 

And yesterday, we walked through the Herodian mansion and saw the burn marks on the floor. Today, we stood by Robinson's Arch among the debris of the fulfillment of that prophesy. If people had recognized Jesus' battle plan and had risen up in force and began to bring that kind of love and peace to the people of this city and this community and this country, that may not have happened. 

Now here's my very personal thought for you and for me as part of this faith lesson. How does Jesus cry for you? Because in a sense, he cries for everyone. If you love him, if he's your friend, he cries with your hurt. If you don't know him, he weeps out loud because you don't know who he is. Why does Jesus cry for me? Does he cry because I hurt, because of my grief at the loss of someone I love? Or does Jesus weep bitterly for me because when he came as the Lamb of God, I missed the point?

Let's think about what the faith lesson here would be for us as we look at this event in that particular time and setting and cultural place. Could you accept a Messiah whose kingship, whose kingdom came by being a lamb? That, to me, is the key issue. He came on the donkey and people say, "Hosana," which is a political thing. "We want a king." They wave palm branches, which is a way of saying, "We want a king. We want a deliverer." 

But Jesus came on Lamb Selection day as a way of saying, "Yes, I am the king. But my kingship is going to come like I just told you on the road down there by my being a servant. I'm going to go and give my life, and that will usher in my kingdom."

And that brings us back, I think, as part of our faith lesson to say, "If we hope to be those who implement the kingdom of Jesus in the culture we live in, there's the method."