Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : April 1, 2007

Theme: See Your King!

Church year occasion: Palm Sunday

Some blind men examined portions of an elephant and were asked to describe what an elephant looked like. The man who had examined the elephant's leg said that the elephant must look like a tree. The one who had felt the elephant's torso said that the elephant must look like a wall. Another had felt its trunk and thought it must look like a snake. They all were wrong, of course. Because they knew only one part of the elephant, they had distorted images of it.

The same is true in general of how God's Old Testament people viewed the Christ who was to come. They liked to focus on Jesus the conquering King but often failed to see him as the suffering Servant. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This morning we look at the prophecy in the Old Testament fulfilled on Palm Sunday by Jesus. The Prophet Zechariah gives us an accurate picture of who Jesus would be and what he would do, and he encourages you to See Your King! He was a different kind of King who would rule over a different kind of kingdom.

Zechariah was one of the prophets God sent to his people after they had come back from their exile in Babylon. He prophesied about 500 years before Christ came. He returned with the other exiles to a land that had been devastated 70 years earlier. The city of the Jerusalem and the temple still lay in ruins. When God's people returned from exile, they had an idea that God would restore their former glory that they had experienced under David and Solomon. They also probably had an idea that it was at that time that God would finally send the Messiah. But when they didn't see the Messiah, when they looked around them and saw more powerful nations ruling over them and enemy nations surrounding them, they became discouraged. It wasn't like they thought it should be. After all, they were God's people. Eventually, they forgot to look to God for their deliverance and instead looked to themselves. Their hearts fell into despair and apathy for the Lord's work. They built houses for themselves while God's house, the temple, still lay in ruins.

They had lost sight of the big picture of what God was accomplishing -- preparing to send his Son into the world. We can often do that, can't we? We can get caught up in the things of this world and what the thing of this world offer us, that we lose sight of who we are as God's chosen people and what we're here for -- to be witnesses of Jesus so more can know him as we do.

So Zechariah is speaking to you as well as he was speaking to the people of God in the Old Testament. He told them to look to God. And he definitely gave them something to look at. "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation." Zechariah told the people to look up from their own ruined city and gaze into the distance. As they stood among those broken stones and ruined timbers that echoed their broken lives, they could see something in the distance that would make them shout for joy -- they could see their King coming. He tells you to look up from your everyday lives and see what is most important -- see your king! But this King is certainly a different kind of king than we're used to from history or from fairy tales. He wasn't what the Old Testament believers expected, either. He wasn't an earthly king like David and Solomon had been. He was their heavenly King and is ours, who came with righteousness and salvation for them.

For the people at Zechariah's time, the coming King was still very distant -- 500 years away. And many of the Israelites had unrealistic expectations. For the most part they were waiting for the King who would ride in on his white stallion with an army at his command, ready to give the enemies of the Jews what they deserved -- punishment for daring to stand up against the people of Israel, God's chosen nation. They were ready for the kingdom he would establish -- the everlasting kingdom God had promised to David and to them. On Palm Sunday, they saw Jesus as that promised Savior. They shouted, "Hosanna to the 'Son of David.' " They marvelled at what was said about the carpenter from Nazareth -- some said he healed the blind, others were eyewitnesses of him casting out demons or even raising the dead. They had heard of his authoritative message pointing to himself as the Savior and God's own Son come to save his people and the world. Their conquering hero had come, so they threw their cloaks in his path, a parade fit for a king, and cut down palm branches, a symbol of a conquering hero, and laid them in front of him. Everything seemed to be right again. Finally, finally, things were going to be right again.

But there was just one problem: He didn't look like much of a king. In fact, just the opposite -- he came in as a humble man of humble origins -- a carpenter's son more used to holding a saw than a king holding a scepter; not riding a white stallion, but riding on a lowly donkey. Some knew why, but most did not. In fact, even Jesus' own disciples didn't understand fully what Jesus had come to do. Yes, he had come to destroy their enemies, which Zechariah himself had prophesied: "I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling...I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves." (Zechariah 12:2-3,5) He had come to destroy their enemies, but not the enemies they thought. Not the Romans, but the devil himself. Not a physical, worldly enemy, but a being far greater and more deadly -- Satan, an enemy who would take them to hell if he had his way.

How would Jesus conquer the devil? Not as the conqueror, but as the one who was seemingly conquered. Not as the one who commanded death not to come near him or his followers, but as one who himself fell prey to death. That is the picture of Zechariah's prophecy: "See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Jesus fulfilled that prophecy on Palm Sunday. No one could have expected this kind of king. He would conquer through humility -- humbly submitting to God's will and living under his law. Not only did he humbly submit to it, but he humbly and perfectly fulfilled it.

But his humility would go further. Instead of taking the eternal life which he had earned for himself -- he gave that eternal life away. And, strangest of all, he gave it to arrogant, self-centered sinners -- he gave it to you and me, who so often lose our way in this world and live for ourselves instead of for our King, often serve ourselves instead of serve others as our King has commanded us. Yes, he came with righteousness, but that righteousness he earned he simply gave to us. Not because we were good. In fact, the very opposite -- because we were completely worthless and helpless in sin and doomed to death. Even though we have so often focused on ourselves and our wants and forgotten God and the big picture of why we're here, he never forgot us. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He gave us his righteousness when he also gave up his life to take our sins away.

That's how great this king is -- willing to sacrifice himself so we could go to heaven, which is ours simply by believing what Jesus did for us and trusting him to get us into heaven. No one could have expected such a king. Yet that is the King we see, who has now risen from the grave and lives and rules eternally. He certainly is a different kind of king. And he rules a different kind of kingdom.

Today we are blessed to live in a strong country -- in fact, the strongest in the world. But imagine living here 200-300 years ago, when this land was very much up for grabs, a battleground for whoever was strongest. This country, like every other country in this world, was built on warfare and bloodshed. And when we get weak again, don't think for an instant that someone won't try to take what we have for themselves.

Christ's kingdom is also built on bloodshed -- but in an entirely different way. Jesus shed his blood so that our warfare against God would end. He conquered the devil so that we wouldn't have to battle him, for we would surely have lost if left to ourselves: "I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken." Jesus' kingdom is now one that gives peace to every citizen. There is no reason to fight any longer because the fight has already been won by this King. But that peace wouldn't be only for Jews. "He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth." David and Solomon's earthly kingdom had extended from sea to sea and the from the Euphrates River to Egypt. But Christ's spiritual kingdom would extend to the ends of the earth. The peace he would earn would be for all the world.

Because Jesus made the perfect sacrifice, God's anger against sin is gone. Every time we have failed to look at the big picture in our daily life, every time we have failed to follow Jesus as our King, those things try to disrupt that peace. But the peace Christ bought for us with his own blood lasts forever because it is all-encompassing, free, unconditional.

As members through faith, now, of Christ's kingdom, we rejoice. We become unlikely servants of a very different kind of King. We, who are sinners still, can tell others of the marvelous kingdom of God. We help spread it from "sea to sea." We also live no longer for ourselves but for him who died for us and was raised again. With such a king, how can we focus on earthly things? If we have troubles and difficulties, our King says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) Instead of focusing on making ourselves comfortable with material possessions, we seek to put God above all and spend our resources to tell others about Christ. Then we hear our King say, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33) Instead of seeking our own glory, we seek to give God glory in everything.

Yes, Christ is a different kind of king with a different kind of kingdom. But by God's grace you know Christ as your king and live in his kingdom. Now let your life reflect your King. Amen.