With their expectations soaring, people followed Jesus everywhere. In Jesus they saw someone who could change their lives and their world for the better. To them, Jesus was the real thing. He was their Christ, their messiah, their rescuer, their savior, their hope, their healer, their redeemer, their salvation, their deliverer, their king, and their knight in shining armor. In short, he was their ticket to paradise! To them, Jesus was the one person they could count on to liberate them from all of their personal, social, political, and spiritual ills.
And they had good reasons to think and feel such things about Jesus. It wasn't as if Jesus had been carrying out his ministry in total obscurity. For three years he walked through their villages and communities performing not one, but hundreds of supernatural life-changing miracles.
For example, study what the scriptures say about Jesus in Matthew 4:23-25 (NIV). We find Jesus, "healing every disease and sickness among the people." That includes those suffering from cancer, leprosy, infectious diseases, traumatic brain injuries, physical paralysis, and chronic pain. It also includes those suffering from incurable spiritual ailments like demon possession. Jesus confidently healed everyone who he came in contact with. Nothing was impossible for him. No one was too sick. No one was too crippled.
And just think for a moment about where Jesus was performing these miracles. He wasn't performing these miracles in Springfield, Illinois where people are so busy that they hardly know their own families, let alone their neighbors across the street. Jesus wasn't working these miracles in a highly transient community where people move in and move out, where there is almost always a house for sale in every neighborhood, and where phone books have to be updated each year to keep track of the rapid turnover.
Jesus impacted entire families and communities with a single miracle.
Jesus was ministering in close-knit, family-centered villages. These were villages in which everyone knew everything about one another. If you were sick, everyone down by the market heard about it. If you made a mistake, it became part of your reputation for life. Jesus ministered in communities where families lived together for a lifetime. These were communities where sons took on their fathers' businesses and where siblings and schoolmates lived in the same neighborhoods and shared in one another's lives until death. Jesus ministered in communities where people were interconnected and interrelated through sophisticated webs of relationships. These were places where there were no lone ranger, individualistic types. You needed one another just to survive!
The significance of this fact is that whenever Jesus would heal even one person, he would impact entire families and entire communities. When a man born blind received sight, the entire community gasped in awe. When a deathly ill child was restored to health, entire families celebrated jubilantly. When the limbs of paralytics were restored to wholeness and they started dancing in the streets, a hush swept over the medical community.
So powerful were the testimonies of Jesus' miracles that even secular historians during Jesus' day, like Josephus and Tacitus, felt compelled to mention them. Jesus' very personal, high-touch ministry sent shockwaves throughout all of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the sprawling Roman empire.
And so with their expectations soaring, the people followed Jesus everywhere. They saw Jesus as someone who could change their lives and their world for the better. To them, Jesus was the real thing. Jesus had shown himself to be the one person they could count on to liberate them from all of their personal, social, political, and spiritual ills. To them, it was only a matter of time before Jesus would march down to Jerusalem, declare himself the king of the Jews, and then establish his kingdom and throne. For the most part, the people of Jesus' day were totally missing the purpose of his ministry.
When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish and fed five thousand, and then later four thousand, they wanted to make Jesus the head cook. When Jesus calmed the ferocious storm on the Sea of Galilee and saved the disciples' lives, they wanted to make Jesus their weatherman. When Jesus healed the people's diseases, they wanted to make Jesus their physician.
In Matthew 17:27 when Peter caught a fish with money in its mouth, the people wanted to make Jesus their banker. And whenever Jesus spoke of the coming of God's kingdom, they wanted to crown Jesus as their king and make him the leader of their political revolt.
A mistaken assumption.
The people of Jesus' day had made the same mistaken assumption that many of us make today nearly two thousand years later. This assumption is that somehow God exists for us and that God is a means to our end. We have the assumption that God's one purpose is to advance our many purposes. We hold the assumption that God lives to satisfy our agendas and our goals and our desires. We make the assumption that God must somehow fit into our schedules, our routines, and our lifestyles, and that God must change or compromise himself to fit our expectations. We have the assumption that what we want and what God wants are one and the same.
Perhaps like the people of Jesus' day, we have become guilty of celebrating a Jesus who is less the Son of God and more a creation of our expectations. Perhaps like the people of Jesus' day, we stand to face disappointment when we realize that we don't have God wrapped around our fingers as we had hoped.
In Matthew 21 we find the inevitable collision between God's expectations and ours. With false expectations soaring, Jesus makes arrangements with his disciples to ride into Jerusalem one last time on a young donkey (a colt).
It's a Sunday and this day marks the first day of the last week of Jesus' earthly life. Jesus' timing couldn't have been better. He has arranged to return to Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. It is estimated that there were anywhere between two hundred thousand and two million pilgrims gathering in the city of Jerusalem during this time. If ever there would come a time to set the crowds straight, now was the time.
As word concerning Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem spreads, we find the crowds racing out to welcome Jesus. The people are ecstatic over the thought of Jesus coming to fulfill their expectations. We find them covering the sandy road with their cloaks, twigs, and palm branches. The throngs of people are chanting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" Matthew 21:9 (NIV). With their rhythmic praises reverberating throughout the hillsides, Jesus slowly makes his way to the front gate of Jerusalem. In Luke 19:37 (NIV) Luke is more exacting in his description of this event. "When he (Jesus) 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."
The crowds had gathered hoping to see yet another demonstration of God's power. Their minds kept rehearsing the miracles Jesus had performed in their lives. Their hope was that Jesus would somehow leverage his power on that day, before their very eyes, to establish his throne and kingdom in the city of Jerusalem. The people so desperately wanted to be free from Roman domination. And who could blame them?
God has something greater for us.
I don't think it is always the case that our expectations are ill-intentioned. We are poorly informed perhaps, but not ill-intentioned. We genuinely believe that our expectations of God are in our best interests. We genuinely believe that our expectations of God are good for our families, our children, our marriages, our churches, our community, and our nation at large. But sometimes we need to stop and discover that God has something greater for us. The Jews wanted an earthly king who would rule by force and drive the Romans out. The Jews wanted an earthly kingdom through which they could finally dominate and conquer their Roman oppressors and the world. The Jews wanted an earthly deliverance that would enable them to plunder the wealthy Roman empire and then live in health and comfort.
But Jesus had something even greater in mind. Jesus was indeed setting himself up to be the king, but what kind of king? Jesus was indeed establishing a new kingdom, but what kind of kingdom? Jesus had indeed come to provide deliverance, but what kind of deliverance?
Jesus was promising a spiritual kingship.
First of all, Jesus was setting himself up to be a spiritual king. Jesus refused to be like the Roman emperors who ruled with coercive domination. The Roman emperors sought to control the people through oppressive legislation. For the Roman emperors it was do or die, obey or be eaten by lions. For the Roman emperors it was live by the sword and die by the sword.
In contrast, Jesus took the opportunity of the triumphal entry to display true kingship. Jesus approaches Jerusalem slowly and meekly, humbly and gently, riding on a donkey. There are no swords drawn, no chariots, no stallions, no weapons of war, no bows and arrows, no armor, no spears, and no spirited zealots to take up a battle. Jesus has come to rule through relationship, through his example, and through obedience to the heavenly Father.
I would suggest this morning that Jesus is just the kind of king we need. You see Jesus the King approaches us in the same way that he approached Jerusalem. He approaches us with gentleness, humility, and meekness. He doesn't force himself on us. He doesn't manipulate or coerce. Jesus doesn't establish his reign over our lives through oppressive rules and regulations. He establishes his reign by relationship. He is a spiritual king.
Jesus' kingdom was spiritual.
Second, Jesus is a spiritual King with a spiritual kingdom. See Matthew 21:6-8 (NIV). The Roman empire consisted of all the people the Roman empire was able to dominate. The subjects of the Roman empire served begrudgingly and out of hatred and spite. There was no relationship between the king and his servants. There was only fear.
But Jesus came to establish a different kind of kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. The kingdom of God consists of those who have a relationship with the king. The kingdom of God consists of those who serve God not out of coercion, but out of worshipful obedience. In Matthew 21:6 (NIV) when Jesus the King sends his disciples to fetch a young colt for his trip to Jerusalem, notice that the disciples obey out of love and respect. Matthew tells us, "The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them." Notice that there was no coercion. There was no hesitation on the part of the disciples. The disciples didn't ask thirty questions. They were glad to serve the king.
This morning I would suggest that the acid test of our kingdom membership is our attitude toward the king. Do we have a relationship with the king? Are we servants of the king? Does Jesus the king reign over our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls? Do we serve God out of worshipful obedience?
We are not part of God's kingdom by default. We are not part of God's kingdom by race, by gender, or by education. We are not part of God's kingdom by nationality or by geographic locale. We are not part of God's kingdom by family associations (to whom we are related). We are not part of God's kingdom by the coercive action of Christ the King.
We are part of God's kingdom only when we allow Jesus to be King of our lives. Kingdom membership is a choice that we make for ourselves and only for ourselves. The King Jesus doesn't force himself on us. You cannot force a relationship. The King Jesus comes to us in gentleness, meekness, and humility. He comes with a simple invitation. "Follow me."
Jesus offers a spiritual deliverance.
Third, Jesus offers a spiritual deliverance. The crowds were right in shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David." The word hosanna simply means, "God save us." They were shouting out all the right words to Jesus. They wanted to be saved. But the Jews were wrong in that they only wanted a political and economic deliverance.
Jesus the King had an entirely different kind of deliverance in mind. He wanted the subjects of his kingdom to thrive in peaceful harmony. He wanted them to have inner peace with themselves. He wanted them to have outer peace with their circumstances so that they would be free from the worries of the world. He wanted them to find contentment. He wanted them to have horizontal peace with their enemies. He wanted them to have vertical peace with God the Father.
In the gospel of Luke during Jesus' triumphal entry, Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem. In Luke 19:42 (NIV), Jesus says to the people of Jerusalem, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace-- but now it is hidden from your eyes."
On the day of his triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem, the prospect of people being blinded by their expectations reduced the King of the universe to tears. Jesus came to this earth to establish himself as the spiritual king of our lives. Jesus came to this earth to establish a spiritual kingdom consisting of all who follow him out of worshipful obedience. Jesus came to provide a spiritual deliverance, a deliverance of peace.
He invites each of us to discover for ourselves his spiritual kingship, his spiritual kingdom and his spiritual deliverance.