The Gospel of Luke 19:28-40 – The Triumphal Entry
Luke 19:28-40 · Vern Peterman · Jun 19, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 74
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492653518837

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. We're going to be taking a look through this Luke 19, 28 through 40 that Courtney has just read for us. It's going to be along a little different pattern than we've typically had. This I'm going to call a donkey's tail. And by the way, that's T-A-L-E, an accounting, not tail like, you know, pin the tail on the donkey. And by the way, never try to pin a tail on a living donkey. They won't let you do it. If you happen to succeed, they won't let you live through it painlessly. Anyway, so, back to this thing. It's tough being a Jewish donkey. You've got to realize that. It's really difficult.

Moses actually wrote quite a bit about donkeys. Here's all the references about donkeys just in the Law of Moses and just starting in Exodus. Lots and lots of laws about donkeys, if you can imagine that. He wrote about them quite a bit. And of course, you can imagine being a donkey, a Jewish donkey, is really tough. In addition to all the Mosaic laws about donkeys, you also have things like traffic laws to have to add to that, you know. So it gets tough. In addition to that, you know, you got not just traffic, but you know, speeding problems. So anyway, so you got lots of issues to try to contend with.

Aside from that, you know, they never let the donkeys, you know, have a break. They don't get to lay down and just, you know, rubber themselves around the dirt. They don't get to just sit by the trail and just rest there a while. They got to keep them busy all the time, right?

So it's rough being a Jewish donkey. And they may even overload you, see? So you do have to sympathize with these Jewish donkeys. Moses even wrote about a donkey that talked to its master. You know, that Balaam account there, and what a huge hee-haw that was.

So anyway, it's tough being a Jewish donkey. This morning I'll be speaking for the donkey. since the donkey was not given to talk this time around, at least not to the bunch of you. But I do have some experience with donkeys and, you know, maybe even sort of a donkey whisperer, whatever that means. Okay. It all seems, and it all seems the Jews didn't believe that donkeys can read, so they just don't get any respect.

So, when we get to the four Gospels about this what is often called the triumphal entry, right? also sometimes named, you know, Palm Sunday or whatever. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are like four-channel stereo vision because they all include something about the account. So all four Gospels have this, whereas there are parts of both Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John that are unique to those Gospels. This is one where they all have something about this particular event So it was very memorable, but they also add something to it. So we're going to be looking not only at Luke, but passages in Matthew and Mark and in John as well. We get an extraordinary depth of vision for being able to see all four of these accounts at once.

Matthew writing from a generally more Jewish perspective, Mark writing more from a Roman perspective, And Dr. Luke writing from the perspective of a God-fearing Gentile, and John speaking more kind of globally. And so we have this kind of four-channel stereo, quadraphonic stereo, as we look at these accounts.

So they've been blended and interwoven here to give a full perspective of the events of this day, the day that we've come to call Palm Sunday, when actually I'm Meaning more and more towards this is probably donkey Monday, but anyway and the event called the triumphal entry So now let's pretend you're a flying donkey, okay?

If we look towards the east overlooking here's the old city of Jerusalem okay in the foreground and looking towards the east you can see the Dead Sea off in the distance there and So here would be the Temple Mount, which during the time of Christ would be where the temple was located for the Jews.

And this would be the area where Christ would come into the temple at the end of his travel from a little farther to the east. Here would be the Mount of Olives. just a little farther to the east and visible from places along the Temple Mount and visible from some of the gates, particularly Lion's Gate in Jerusalem. Farther along there would be Bethany on the backside of the Mount of Olives and just basically a village at the time, but it was a place where Christ stayed. And then we have, whoops, And then we have this location here, between Bethany and the Mount of Olives, where the donkey and the colt would be picked up for Jesus' triumphal entry, as it's called.

One other thing to keep in mind, they were going up to Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus and the twelve disciples have been traveling up to Jerusalem from Jericho. It was the custom of many thousands of Jews. Many of them would prefer to go that route rather than to go through Samaria. And so this was Passover, the celebration of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. over 1,400 years previous, given initially in Exodus chapter 12, the original account. And the initial Passover was eaten standing. Subsequently they allowed them to sit, but the first one they were to eat standing.

Here would be the path from Jericho to Jerusalem. And so going straight, that is as the donkey flies, would be about 12 miles, right? So here we have kind of a diagram to show us we got sea level, which is like Mediterranean over on the coast of Israel. And now Jericho is hundreds of feet. hundreds of feet, and of course there's different elevations, but somewhere around 800 feet below sea level. So way below sea level. It is from Jericho up to Jerusalem about a 3,000 foot climb, and because of the windy road between them, about 23 miles distance or 12 miles directly as the donkey flies.

This gives you an idea, this is an old photo, what it would have been along that old road. And you can see it's very windy, very steep, quite a climb to come up there. And the donkeys would, of course, prefer an arrangement more like this. But at any rate, that rarely happened.

OK, so here's Mark 11, 1 and 2. So as they approach Jerusalem at Bethphage and Bethany, of course, we saw the pictures of that. near the Mount of Olives He sent two of his disciples and said to them go into the village opposite you and immediately as you enter it You will find a colt tied there on which no one yet has ever sat untie it and bring it here So here's Matthew 21 3 4 & 5 reports this if anyone says anything to you you shall say the Lord has need of them and immediately He will send them that took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet and this is the prophet Zechariah Zechariah 9 9 say to the daughter of Zion behold your king is coming to you gentle and mounted on a donkey even on a colt the full of a beast of burden so this is what Matthew reports and quotes from Zechariah John 12 16 reads this way But these things his disciples did not understand at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him." So the Gospels make it clear that the disciples had not a clue what was going on here, and only later did they come to understand.

So here's Matthew 21.6, and you have a slightly different arrangement on your handout. I just put the text there. So the disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them.

And then in Mark 11.4, And they went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street, and they untied it.

And Luke 19.33, As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, Why are you untying the colt?

Which, of course, is a reasonable thing for them to ask. And so Jesus had already told them what to say, and they spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. So, no, it wasn't like, wait a minute, Jesus said we could take this. No, you can't, right? So it was exactly as Jesus told them. So here's Matthew 21, 7 and 8, and the two disciples.

Mentions to otherwise brought the donkey and the colt and laid their coats on them and he sat on the coats. Okay, so It would put you know coats on the donkey and then as we'll see other coats in front of the donkey, right? Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road. Ah, so you would have coats initially on the donkey to sit on and then you would have a Coats laid down on the roadway, and that is more generally what would happen.

And the cutting of palm branches, which would make a big deal of, is something only mentioned once. And we'll see, this isn't like just an oak tree branch or some other branch that everybody would trip over. You'll see they kind of lay down flat. And others were cutting branches from the, and we put in there palm trees from John 12, 13. spreading them on the road so they weren't just cutting down tree branches and putting them on the road that would be something that the donkey might not be able to get past but these palm branches end up laying quite flat right and so you could walk over them and it turns out Tamar who was the one sister of all the sons of Jacob means date palm and And the date palm ended up being kind of a national symbol for Israel. So laying the palm branches on the ground was not just to put something on the ground, but this was about Israel.

It was a symbol that was used on the Jewish coinage. And that's what we have a picture of there. It was used in some of the synagogues and other carvings. And this is from the Capernaum. synagogue, where they would put palm branches there. So the idea is you would have these palm branches be a picture of Israel, and that's why they would go on the road, not just to put something down. but this is specifically Jewish and related to Israel.

Here's Luke 19.37, as soon as he was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.

In Matthew 21.9, the crowds going ahead of him and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Oh, save us to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is Psalm 118, 26.

Hosanna. Oh, save us in the highest. And that's something that, you know, we have we have words that we use and don't necessarily know exactly what it means. Hosanna is actually a It's a contraction of different words. Osevus and then we beseech you is also built into that word. Hallelujah. Hallel means praise. Hallelujah means praise the Lord. And that's another kind of word that goes along with this sort of an event.

So as the Jews would walk towards the city of Jerusalem, including the steep part going from Jericho towards Jerusalem, As they would get closer, they would sing songs back and forth in alternate verse to one another. So you'd have one group would start singing the psalm, and then they'd stop, and then the other group would sing the next part, and then they'd switch back to the first group, and they'd go back and forth like that. It was a song of ascents as they were climbing this very steep route from Jericho up to Jerusalem.

And so that was the custom to go through Psalm 113 through 118. That was called the Hallel. And they would also include Psalms 120 through 34 in that. The Psalms are Israel's national hymn book. And so it was traditional to sing from these particular Psalms as they were going up and going back and forth between various groups as they went up.

So here's Psalm 118.22-29, that's one of the key passages from the Hallel, which is Psalm 113-118.

And so we see in Psalm 118.22, it says, The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Can you imagine, here are the Jews and they're going up the hill, going up the mountain, making this climb up to Jerusalem, and Jesus is with them, and many of them don't understand this verse that they're singing.

But there it is, and Isaiah 28, 16 and Zechariah 10, 4 relate to that. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in those passages that we give in the handout, are also related to that. The Apostle Paul quotes and makes reference there in Ephesians 2, 20 through 22. And 1 Peter 2, 6 and 7 also makes reference to that. So it's from the Old Testament on into the New. This is a common theme. And the apostles, you know, they finally got it, but not this day. Not this day. And it says, this is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. Translation, it is stunning, right? It is stunning to see what the Lord has done. And then here's one that you're going to recognize. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

We sing the song like this, right? Here's the way we've even sung it this way in Holly Hills. We say, this is the day, meaning this day, right? This is the day that the Lord has made. We'll rejoice and be glad in it. And so that's what we sing. But in the original context, This specific day of the triumphal entry, anticipating Christ's second coming, is the day, the singular day, a specific day, that the Lord has made.

We'll rejoice and be glad in it. O Lord, do save. We beseech you. That's Hosanna. Actually, Hos is save, and we beseech you is Anna. So Hosanna. Lord we beseech you, so it would be Anna again, and do send prosperity. And blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord and all four gospels. Quote that. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. And who is that?

Christ. Right? Christ. So the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is Christ. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. The day of the triumphal entry, anticipating the second coming. And blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Christ. All four gospel writers got that. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord, and where is Christ headed? To the house of the Lord, right?

And the Lord is God, and he has given us light, and bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I give thanks to you. You are my God, I extol you. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting.

Okay, so now, we have Luke 19.38, which is basically a quote from Psalm 118.26.

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And Mark 11.10a, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David, people are saying here. And then John 12.13d, even the king of Israel, And that's in reference to Isaiah 44, 6. Let's take a look at that in Isaiah 44, 6 through 8. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. And this King of Israel phrase shows up in the Gospel of John 1, 49 and 12, 13. I am the first and I am the last, which we see quoted in Revelation 1, 17, 2, 8 and 22, 13. I am the first and I am the last.

There is no God besides me. By the way, little side note. So does the Mormon teaching where a man can become God match with this? No. No. Who is like me? Let him proclaim and declare it. And the idea that there isn't anyone. And there's not going to be anyone.

Yes, let him recount it to me in order from the time that I established the ancient nation, which is Israel, right? The time that I established the ancient nation, let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. Do not tremble and do not be afraid. Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are my witnesses." By the way, that's the key theme verse for the Jehovah's Witnesses, right? But, you are my witnesses is written to who? The Jews, right?

Is there any God besides me or is there any other rock? Is there any other rock? No. God has called the rock multiple times in the Old Testament. Here's what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, 9, For they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Is Christ deity? Yes, Christ is deity. Is there any other rock? I know of none, but Christ is deity.

Here's John 12, 17-19, So the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about him. For this reason also the people went and met him, because they heard that he had performed this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are not doing any good. Look, the world has gone after him. And so the Pharisees are distressed here.

There's even elsewhere talk of, you know, we need to kill Lazarus. You know, what's really striking to me as I read accounts like that, instead of the Pharisees saying, wow, he raised Lazarus from the dead, he must be something from God if he can do that. Instead of coming to that conclusion, let's kill Lazarus. That's just stunning that they could come to that conclusion, right? Here's Luke 19, 39-40. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. But Jesus answered, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. So we have some questions to ask here.

Were the leaders of Israel accepting Christ as their Messiah and King? Not doing that, right? We know that there were secretly a very few. We have Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as two, but we have no other names, only those two. So now, and this is getting into next week's passage, which will address some different things, but I think it's a good introduction. It completes it for us.

Luke 19 41 through 44 when he approached Jerusalem he saw the city and wept over it saying if you had known in this day even you the things which make for peace but now they have been hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side and they will level you to the ground and your children within you and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

What was Jesus' attitude during this triumphal entry? He wept. He wept. He saw what nobody else did. You saw what was going to happen to this very temple, to these people, to the city of Jerusalem. Why? You didn't recognize the time of your visitation. Was Christ behaving as if he was coming in victory over the Holy City? No. No, he was not.

Here's Matthew 21, 10 and 11. When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth and Galilee. So though the crowds of Jews recognized Christ as a prophet, did it seem like they all recognized that He was their Messiah and King? No. The crowds. The crowds. He's a prophet. didn't recognize fully who he was.

Here's Mark 11, 11. Jesus entered and came into the temple, and after looking around at everything, he left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. Back to Bethany with the twelve. Back to the place where he would return just a few more times.

So were the people in the temple area more occupied with Christ as their Messiah and King, or with all the ongoing activities of the temple? They were really preoccupied with all the ongoing activities. Christ coming in to the temple area was, to them, not that big a deal. One of the things that's very interesting is, and we will go into this more next week, I just want to touch on it here.

From Artaxerxes' decree, Daniel's 69 weeks begun on March 5th, 444 BC, and that's recorded in Nehemiah chapter 2, starting with verse 1. It says 69 weeks of years, that is a week of years is seven years. 69 weeks of years until the Messiah will be cut off. That would make Christ crucified April 3rd, 33 AD, three days after Daniel's 69th week ended. So Christ's crucifixion is predicted and his coming in, this triumphal entry, took place on March 30th, 33 AD.

So we'll touch on that more next week. So what do we do with the triumphal entry that's not all that triumphal after all? We're left with Jesus weeping and worshipers who kind of melt away and don't keep on worshiping as they get to the temple. Since the Pharisees never do seem to come around, with a rare exception, what are we to make of Jesus' anticlimactic temple entrance? Since some of the crowd seems to understand that Jesus is a prophet, but not their King and Messiah, what do we think about that? Where are we to think about it? This is about the gospel of the kingdom, isn't it? The gospel of the kingdom isn't directed to you and me. It's primarily directed at Israel.

In just a few days, Jesus would die on a Roman cross. taking upon himself the debt of the sins of the whole world of mankind for all, for all of time, voluntarily. Jesus was not a victim. When he went to the cross, he wasn't saying, no, no, you've got it all wrong. Instead, he acted as if, let's do this. Let's do this. Then, after the preparation for the burial in a tomb, Christ would rise again from death, not to a life like this present one, but one new and kind. So for the cross it was a payment made. He was up on the cross.

He said one word right towards the end to tell us it's all paid permanently. All paid off permanently. Is there anything left for you to do? No. Is there any payment you have to make? No. The payment is all made by Him entirely and completely. The Father is completely satisfied with the payment made by His Son. You and I get to look at the gracious side of the cross, because the father was exacting in what he had the son pay. No sin of any kind was left unaddressed on that cross. The payment was completely and entirely made for every single sin.

His body was laid He was most certainly and assuredly dead. He was given a king's burial after being given a criminal's death. A hundred pounds of aloes and spices and cloth. That was a king's burial. But he would only be in there a few days because he was forever raised from that tomb.

Thank God. We have baptisms, and we hear the word baptism, and we recognize that and often think of being baptized in water. However, that's a more recent recognition. In biblical times, the word baptism was used for other things. Some examples here, cloth was baptized into a vat of dye to color it purple or red.

So they would have this very expensive dye. Dye was gotten from shells of the Myrrex shells. It took about 10,000 shells to make an ounce. It was more expensive than gold per ounce. Also from a crimson worm, and you'd have to collect a lot of crimson worms in order to get that color.

It would go in one way and come out another, and it would be completely and totally changed with the technology of the day. Completely and totally changed by that baptism. So when we are baptized into Christ and into His death, then it was a complete change. So our water baptism is indicating that complete immersion and change. Another was that a sword was heated, baptized into water to treat it and make it harder. And so it would be heated to white hot and then plunged into a vat of water in order to case harden the outside and make a sword. So we were baptized into Christ, into His death, soon-happening death here.

We were baptized into Christ to indicate a complete and total immersion and change. So it's nothing partial, it's nothing percentage-wise, no grayscale, completely baptized. Those who have believed in Christ and are therefore saved have been spiritually immersed into Christ and are permanently and most substantially changed by that immersion. Scripture connects that baptism into Christ with being united or identified with Jesus Christ specifically in his death, burial, and resurrection.

And therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. So when you believe that Christ, the Son of God, died for your sins and was buried and rose again, God says, that's it, I'll take it from there. And He does everything else, including our baptism into Christ's crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. It's God's doing. It's His accomplishment. All we did was believe, and we didn't even understand all of what God did from that moment. that we believe, but we spend the rest of our Christian lives catching up to what he's accomplished.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this entry that we tend to call the triumphal entry, and yet in the end Our Savior wept. In the end, as we'll see, He saw horrible things happening because they didn't recognize who He was. And Lord, we thank You that You've revealed who You are and that we not only can, but are intended to know You and to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. And we just give You thanks, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.