I. Every Other Promise Is a Sham 00:00
Lord, we just echo that prayer this morning: purify our hearts, set us apart, make us holy. Help us to surrender all of our desires and be wholly about doing your will. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Today we are not going to talk about that fabulous Gospel lesson. But I had to stop for a moment, because as I was reading it I was just struck by this idea in the temptations of Jesus. The devil, at the third temptation, shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and he says, “All of these things I will give you” (Matt 4.8–9). And every time I hear that, I’m like, “Well, it’s obvious the devil doesn’t have authority to give Jesus all of those things. That’s not much of a temptation. It’s a sham.”
But then God kind of convicted me, and he said, “If it’s so easy to tell when you’re being tricked, what’s your problem?” Because everything that we’re ever promised that’s outside of what God promises us is a sham. “Just work really hard at your job so you can afford that house, so you can be happy. The extra fifty hours a week that you’re working is worth it. It’ll pay off.” And then you get the house, and your wife leaves you, because you didn’t love your family at all. You put your entire life into a job to get a thing that you were promised, which was that beautiful, wonderful American dream of wealth and financial independence.
That’s just one example. But think of anything you’re tempted to do that you know is wrong. It’s always a sham. Whatever you choose that’s not God, the pleasure is temporary, and the pain, we’re told, is eternal. God’s promise is precisely the reverse: the pain is temporary and the pleasure is eternal. And that’s true joy. And not only that: when you pursue those things, not only does your life get better, everyone’s life gets better. It’s good all the way down.
II. Is This Real? 01:26
And that brings me to what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about Jesus’ journey in his last week on earth. We’re talking about it for the next few Sundays. What did Jesus talk about? What did Jesus do when he knew he would be crucified within five days? What is he doing? What would you do? You have a three-year ministry, you’ve been on the earth thirty years, and you know you’ve got five days left. What would you do to establish your kingdom? Now, of course, everybody’s saying, “Well, then he rose again, and he had forty, fifty days on earth before he ascended.” I know all that. But I want to just highlight what Jesus is doing in this little bit of time in Holy Week, because what he’s trying to do is teach us how his kingdom works. And it doesn’t work the way that we think it works.
There were a couple of examples from my life in the past couple of weeks that helped me as I was thinking about this message and this series, and they both come from my children watching TV. So, set the scene. Rowan wants to watch that Jesus movie that he saw pass by on Pure Flix. It’s a streaming service with all Christian stuff, and it’s a cartoon. And so I throw it on. It’s a little intense for a five-year-old, let me tell you. They tell the story as it is. They start with John getting thrown into prison on the island of Patmos, and the Romans are beating him up a little bit as they go, and Rowan’s eyes are big. He’s like, “What is happening in this story?”
And it’s all from John’s perspective. They go through John’s Gospel and they tell some of the key stories of Jesus. They have moments where he’s turning over the tables in the temple and he’s angry, and they portray it really well. And they have moments where he’s weeping over Jerusalem: “How long I wish to gather you under my wings” (Matt 23.37). All of that happens in the stories we’re going to talk about in this series. And Rowan’s question, time and again throughout this movie, was, “Dad, is this real?” And I said, “Yeah, this really happened.” Of course, he gets the point. This is a cartoon; that particular portrayal may not be what happened. But he’s like, “This really happened to Jesus?” It fascinated him.
And I just remember, when I was looking at this, I was like, let’s not treat this like a good moral lesson: “Oh yes, well, now that I’ve studied the story of Jesus, I understand how the world works.” No, that’s not it. This actually happened. This is real. And I hope, as we talk about this Holy Week, that it becomes once again real for us. That’s my prayer: that the Holy Spirit makes it real for us as we read through these stories.
And then they were watching this other movie, not quite as edifying, although it’s good, called The Princess and the Frog. And of course the great joke of the movie is that the princess kisses the frog (she’s not a princess at this point) looking for a frog prince, and instead she becomes a frog as well, and the adventures ensue. But there’s this great song… well, it might not be all that great, but Ruby seems to think it’s really great, and so I get to hear it about three or four times a day. And she sings, “I’m almost there, I’m almost there, people are going to be coming from everywhere, I’m almost there.” And it’s all about her dream to open this beautiful restaurant. She’s working her life to get to this point where she can open a restaurant. It’s this dream she’s moving towards.
And as she’s going through it, this whole movie happens in the space of about a week, because there’s a date that they have to match, and she’s almost there to get her restaurant. She gets the restaurant at the end. But don’t you know, her entire life is lived in that one week. Her entire life was just working. But then that week the spiritual forces of wickedness do not want her to achieve her goals. I’m spiritualizing here, but there literally is a spellcaster, and spirits, and all this stuff going on that she has to overcome.
And it reminded me of what’s going on here in Holy Week. We like to read our Gospel readings like Jesus just walked around doing whatever he wanted, and people were just confused in the background, and Jesus just knew what he was doing. There was a war going on. There was a war for the hearts of men, and Jesus came to save the world from the spiritual forces of darkness. And so as we read this, not only do I want you to think of it as real, as we look at these stories, I want you to think of it as Jesus attacking and overcoming the spiritual forces of wickedness to lay claim to his world and his people. If you think about it that way, it takes on a little bit of a different urgency. And that’s what happens in Holy Week. In fact, John’s Gospel is like fifteen chapters of Holy Week, because what happens in that time is so important. That’s why they call it the passion Gospel: it really focuses on the suffering and death of our Lord and what was going on theologically in that time.
III. He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem 07:49
All of that was the intro. Now we get to start the full sermon. I’ll reset my clock here. No. The main thing I want you to walk away thinking today is this: as we go through Lent, let’s focus on what Jesus was trying to accomplish. What is the point? And what are we doing to line up with what he’s doing in our midst?
So let’s start in Luke chapter 9, verse 51:
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. Luke 9.51
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, that is, on the cross, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. Now, there’s a whole arc to the Jesus story that I think we sometimes miss, because we so often just read it piecemeal. He does these things where he’s establishing his bona fides and bringing the kingdom to earth, and that leads to this great miracle of feeding the five thousand. He has all these miracles, and by his actions and by his words he’s basically proclaiming, “I’m the Messiah. The kingdom of God is here.”
And then we get to this beautiful moment where Peter confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. He says, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter says, “You are Christ the Lord” (Matt 16.15–16). And then we get the higher moment of the Transfiguration, which, if you remember, we just had last week. They set it up that way. The Transfiguration was: God is among us in the person of Jesus Christ. And then Jesus started to change his message a little bit. He started to tell his disciples, “And yes, I am all those things. I have all the power. I’m bringing the kingdom to earth. And they’re going to beat me up and crucify me.” And the disciples are like, “Wait, wait, what do you mean?”
It’s like he spends two years, a little bit more than two years, establishing that the kingdom’s here: “I’m healing the blind, I’m raising the dead.” All of this stuff is happening, and they get ready to go. And then all of a sudden it’s like, “And in order to fulfill my mission, I’m going to be crucified, and everybody who follows me is going to scatter.”
IV. I Have Set My Face Like a Flint 10:08
And that brings us to Lent. That’s what Lent is really all about: this preparation that Jesus makes in his disciples and in his followers for the way that his kingdom comes. Because he had to teach them; otherwise they would have missed it. In fact, as you probably know, they still missed it. It took quite a while for them to go back over what Jesus said and did to realize what he was talking about.
So he sets his face towards Jerusalem. And actually, that phrase is from a messianic prophecy in Isaiah chapter 50, verse 5. So we’ll read through this real quick here, and you can see what Jesus’ mindset is as he’s heading into this Holy Week. It says:
5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. 6 I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. 7 But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. 8 He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. 9 Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? Isa 50.5–9
Now imagine: Jesus knew these prophecies, and he knew at this point they were about him. And he’s going in knowing he’s going to be disgraced, spit upon. But it’s got that hope in it: “Who’s my adversary? Come near. God will vindicate me.” And yet he knew, unlike his followers, that that vindication was only coming after the grave, after the cross. And he tried to teach them.
V. The Path Through Is Down 11:24
And the prophecies actually provide Jesus’ playbook. As you look at what he does, he actually fulfills the prophecies as he goes along, as he’s walking out God’s will, and he does it intentionally. So when we talk about what he’s doing today, where we’re starting, we’re starting on Sunday, Palm Sunday of Holy Week. What is he doing there? He’s acting out the prophetic vision for the coming of the kingdom of God. But what Jesus knows is that the path through is down. The path through is down.
And for many of us, the thing that we’re facing, the thing that we’re striving for, that we are hoping for, the path through might be down. And we need to open our eyes and our mind to what God is leading us into. It might not look the way that you think. In fact, we’ll see in this next passage (Jesus predicts his death to his followers three times to try and get the point across), and this is literally right before he tells them to go get the donkey. The next morning he’s gonna tell them to go get the donkey for Palm Sunday. He says this to them in Matthew chapter 20:
17 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” Matt 20.17–19
Once again, it was so impossible for his disciples to believe that that was what Jesus wanted to do that it took them till after the events took place to go back and say, “That’s what he meant. He would be flogged and crucified.” When he said it, they’re like, “Okay, he’s saying there’s going to be opposition. He’s saying that there’s going to be hardship.” But Jesus knew his mission, and he set his face like flint in spite of that.
How many of us can say the same? How many of us, when we see the hardship coming, find a way to make it easier on ourselves, find a way to duck aside? I say all this not to say “You bad people,” but to say, “Hey, maybe God’s purposes are actually right on the [other] side of that challenge that you don’t think you can overcome.” Maybe God’s healing and resurrection and power is right through that situation that is crippling you with anxiety or fear.
VI. A Colt on Which No One Has Ever Sat 14:28
Okay, let’s go into our main story for today. It’s very brief. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on it; we’re pretty familiar with this one. We’ve got Mark chapter 11, beginning in verse 1:
1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. Mark 11.1–7
So, Bethphage and Bethany. I just want to highlight that Bethany’s where Lazarus was. That’s his main base of friendship and support. And so he’s established his base outside the perimeter of Jerusalem, where he’s going to now launch these spiritual attacks into the heart of what the enemy wants to do in Jerusalem. So we can think about it that way.
VII. Humble and Mounted on a Donkey 15:29
And his first attack is to ride a donkey into Jerusalem. What? Why? I think we lose some of the comedy here. It’s like, you know, the president shows up in the black cars, the Escalades, the limousines, the blacked-out, rigged-up… It’s like if instead the president showed up in a Smart Car, lime green, the windows open, and he’s kind of crawling out of the Smart Car; can’t quite fit. That’s what it’s like with Jesus. Because he’s not only riding a donkey, he’s riding a young donkey, so his legs are hanging. They’re probably just a few inches off the ground. He’s just kind of moseying along. And that’s the picture of the Conqueror who’s going to rule the world? No way.
But once again, Jesus had a playbook. He had something he was following in the Scriptures. He had a God who was leading him. It was intentionally humble. Let’s look in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, where we get this. It says:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zech 9.9
God uses the foolish things to confound the wise (1 Cor 1.27). He needed everyone to know, from then till eternity, that his way was not to meet satanic power with satanic power. His way was weakness, God-ordained weakness. Because you know what? There’s no fight between the enemy and God. God created everything, including the enemy. And so he doesn’t have to fight him on his terms. Instead he can demonstrate his love for us, his absolute humility, in coming in the form of a servant who dies on a cross (Phil 2.7–8).
And yet we go out into the world like, “Man, I need to earn as much money as I can so I can accomplish my will in the world.” Maybe God has called you to make quite a bit of money so that you can further his kingdom. But let’s do it his way. God is trying to establish that his way is not cool. It is not more powerful in worldly terms. But it is right, and it is good, and it is humble.
VIII. Hosanna, Then "Crucify Him" 17:52
Okay, let’s keep going. Mark 11, verse 8:
8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” Mark 11.8–10
And everybody in his following gets it. They finally see: “This is the Christ. We’re gonna go on and we’re gonna conquer the world.” And yet all of us think in our head, “Yeah, that same crowd in a week is going to be crying out, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’” What is happening here? Well, I mean, at the very least, the fickleness of crowds. We know how that works. We see it every day on the internet, on Twitter. You’ve got one day, “This is the great evil! Everyone go crucify them!” Then this person’s the savior. The next day that person needs to be crucified: “Let’s put in a new savior.” I mean, this is a part of human nature. So absolutely, that’s what’s going on.
But there’s another layer that’s a little deeper here, and that is that when Jesus goes in and he has the hosannas and the Davids, he spends all week teaching them that they may not want to follow him. Because they think he’s coming in to be a really religious ruler who will make sure that the Jews are the dominant force in the world once again. And all week long, as you’re going to see through this series, he’s teaching them over and over again, “That’s not why I’m here.” In fact, he goes into their temple, the heart of their power, and throws over all the tables, throws it out, and calls it a den of thieves (Matt 21.12–13). And he starts going after them. He starts showing them what is wrong in their own heart, and they don’t like it. In fact, by the end of it they don’t like it enough that they’re willing to go along with the crowd and say, “Crucify him.”
So keep that in mind. In fact, I think our journey through Lent may sometimes mirror the crowds. “We’re going to be so holy this Lent. I’m going to give up all my vices, and I’m just going to walk into Lent with such a holy perspective.” And then by the end of Lent we’re like, “Ah, this is not fun.” I didn’t realize that just giving up food every once in a while, or giving up alcohol, or whatever it is that you gave up for Lent, wasn’t all God wanted to do. In fact, oftentimes through Lent I think he tries to highlight for us things that are further than what we thought we needed to do. I already know this. I’m just telling you, this is from personal experience. In the first three days… I was just telling Haley the other day, “It’s already hard. I’m three days in. What? That doesn’t make any sense.” Maybe the problems in me are a little deeper than I like to think. So just be open to that this Lent. Let’s not turn into the crowd who cries out, “Crucify him.” Let’s accept what he’s doing in our midst. It’s going to shake things up. It’s going to change the way that we view the world, if we let him. That’s what he’s about.
IX. The Very Stones Would Cry Out 21:51
Okay, then the Pharisees want to get their piece in. Luke 19:39–40:
39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” Luke 19.39–40
Sick burn, Jesus. There’s a real power and an authority in that statement. And yet we read it like, “Oh, he’s just quoting Scriptures.” No. He’s telling them, “No longer am I disappearing when you guys want to kill me. I’m standing straight and tall and telling you what I’m about, because it’s time.” I’m referencing the time he was doing stuff they didn’t like, and they tried to stone him, and he just kind of walked away, because it wasn’t time. It wasn’t time for him to die on the cross. But this week he’s going to tell them what God wants to do and what God wants to change, and it means their end, the end of the pharisaical spirit that had taken hold of their religious organization.
Okay, the Pharisees need one more day in court before we judge them all and throw them into the basket. They had a realistic concern that if people are lauding a king of Israel, the Romans were going to kill them all. Do you know why I know it’s realistic? Because forty years later that’s what they did. Everyone who lived in Jerusalem forty years later died. Everyone. Because the Romans came after them, because somebody else said, “I’m the king of the Jews.” So let’s give the Pharisees one more consideration. They do have a point. You don’t want somebody saying there’s a new king of the Jews when the Romans are around. Keep that in mind.
But there’s a deeper problem in the Pharisees’ heart as we see the week unfold. And I’m going to tell one last story, and we’ll be done this morning. It comes from Dostoyevsky, this brilliant piece of writing. You know, I just wanted to say “Dostoyevsky” so I could sound learned and smart. No, it’s this simple story, this fable in the middle, that you can miss going through it too fast. He talks about Jesus coming back today, which for him was a couple hundred years ago. He says, okay, if Jesus were to come back today, what would it look like? And he talks about Jesus: he’s healing people, the rebels are following him, all the poor people and sinners are clinging to him, because he’s proclaiming their life and resurrection and sin being forgiven. And the church officials have him arrested. Lo and behold, they throw him in prison, and the Inquisitor comes in there, and he goes, “Jesus, what are you doing? We’ve got it all figured out. You didn’t need to come back. You’re ruining our plan to save the world.” Literally, that’s like the whole text of this thing. He’s telling Jesus, “We’ve got it. The last thing the people need is somebody stirring up unrest. The last thing people need is somebody throwing a wrench in the works. We’ve got it, Jesus.” And in this harrowing moment Jesus just walks up, gives him a kiss on the cheek, and walks out the door. That’s the end of the story.
But there’s that conviction in us: what would you do if Jesus started to interrupt your life? God gave us that same call last week: what would you do if he showed up and demanded something of you that you didn’t like? This is a Lenten message through and through, guys. I’m not letting you off the hook. God wants something from us because he wants something for us.
And so as we look at these things and we look at the Pharisees, what was the problem? The problem was they had it all figured out, and then Jesus showed up. So if you’ve got Christianity figured out today, if you’ve got your life plan figured out today, look for Jesus to show up. You don’t want to miss it. I know many times where I’ve given Jesus that same speech in my heart: “God, don’t interrupt here. I’ve got it figured out. What are you doing? I’ve got my life figured out.”
X. Easter Is Coming 25:16
Okay, John tells us that his disciples didn’t understand all these things (John 12.16). We’ve been hitting that all day. And then we see the ending of this story today, Mark 11:11:
11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Mark 11.11
So it took him all day, because of the crowds and the questioning and all the things that were happening, to finally get to the temple. And it was shut down and late, and he looked around, and he thought, “I’ll be back.” That was all he needed to accomplish that day. And he went to Bethany to regroup with his followers. And next week we get to hear what he did the next day.
I’ve got one invitation for us this Lent. In our march (pun intended; it’s March coming up), in our march towards our cross, let us remember that Easter is coming. God has purposes to fulfill in your life this Lent. How much are you willing to let die? He is more than willing to redeem, restore, and resurrect. Amen.