[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints, Jesus rides into Jerusalem, willfully, desiring your salvation.
And he goes to accomplish and to finish what he began.
As I have ministered to you and served as your pastor,
here, one of the things that I’ve been trying to do is to set you all free from the fear
of death, to be unafraid of the last moment when you breathe your last and close your
eyes in death and open them to see the face of Jesus.
The Bible tells us that the fear of death is bondage to the devil, and that the saints
that have gone before us did not love their lives unto death, but they knew that to live
is Christ and to die is gain.
And as I’ve been ministering to you, many of you have told me this, well, pastor, I’m
not afraid to die, I’m just afraid of the minutes beforehand.
I’m afraid of all that leads up to it.
I’m afraid of the suffering.
I’m afraid of the pain.
I’m afraid of the shame and the loss of control.
I’m afraid of everything that comes first.
Dear Saints, Jesus knew what was coming.
He knew that He was going to Jerusalem not just to die, but also to suffer, to be mocked,
to be ridiculed, to be beaten, to be stripped, to have the crown of thorns
pressed into his head. He knew that not only was he dying, but also all the
things that were gonna lead up to that death. I don’t wonder, can you imagine it
like this, as the palm branches are waving around Jesus, that he sees in
them a shadow of the whip that would be raised to lash his back, or as the mouths are open
to sing, Hosanna to the Son of David, that he sees in those open mouths a shadow of what’s
coming, crucify him, crucify him.
Or as they lay their jacket, their coats on the streets that the donkey can walk across,
that he has a shadow of the soldiers gambling for his garments as he hangs from the cross naked,
that the triumph of Palm Sunday would quickly be the sorrow of Good Friday.
Jesus knew it was coming, and still he mounts that donkey and doesn’t turn and head for Jericho,
which I think is what I would have done, but rides into Jerusalem.
And even more, can you imagine, even more, Jesus as he looks over Jerusalem, he begins
to weep, and he doesn’t weep for himself, he doesn’t weep because he’s afraid of the
things that are going to happen, or because he feels sorry for himself and the pain and
suffering that he’s about to endure, no, he weeps over Jerusalem because he knows that
Jerusalem does not now recognize the hour of their salvation, that Jerusalem doesn’t
recognize that He’s coming to save and to bless them, but rather they miss it.
And they’re going to miss the life that Jesus comes to bring.
And He’s weeping for that reason, sorrow, not for Himself, concern, not for Himself,
but out of love for those He came to save.
Jesus sets His face, it says in Isaiah, like flint.
In fact, the Isaiah text is the promise that is fulfilled today.
It says, I was not rebellious, I turned not backwards, I gave my back to those who strike
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard, and I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
Again, Jesus, out of obedience to the Father and out of a desire to win our salvation,
hands Himself over to all of this suffering.
Now, the danger here for us, and I suppose the danger of this week, of Holy Week, is
that we hear of these things and we become indignant and angry.
How could those people do such things?
How could Pilate not let him go?
He released Barabbas, a criminal, couldn’t he have released Jesus?
Or how could the Pharisees have done such a thing, to cry for this innocent man’s death
and to have him all night through this trial and accusing him of all these wicked things?
How could the soldiers have stripped him and put on this scarlet robe and pressed the crown
of thorns into his head and to beat him with a stick as they mocked him, hailed, King
of the Jews and blindfolded Him, and who struck you, and even the indignity of the people
walking by the cross, they’re wagging their heads and they’re mocking Jesus, even the
criminals crucified with Him are joining in the whole thing, and we say, how could they
do it?
But this is the point.
It’s not for us to be indignant at all those that cause the suffering, because, dear saints,
The suffering that Jesus endures is caused by your sin.
It’s not their fault that Jesus suffers.
It is yours and it is mine.
Jesus hands himself over to the torture of crucifixion and the agony of Good Friday because
Because He is taking your place under the wrath and righteous anger of God.
Do you wonder why Jesus doesn’t answer a single accusation?
They’re accusing Jesus of all these ridiculous things that He never would have committed.
Oh, you’re a blasphemer, you’re a murderer, you’re an adulterer, you’re a liar.
And Jesus does not answer a single word.
The sinless Son of God doesn’t say a single thing to defend Himself.
Why?
Because all of your blasphemy and all of your adultery and all of your murder and all of
your lies and all of your deception and all of your sin is on Him.
He is becoming guilty of things that He never did.
He who knew no sin became sin for us so that Jesus, in fact, is standing before Pilate
as the guilty one, as the Lamb of God who bears all the sin of the world.
Do you remember how it was on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament where the priest would
take a ram and he would lay his hands on him and he would confess his sins and he would
confess all the sins of the people?
And now on the scapegoat are all the sins that he⦠that scapegoat didn’t do anything.
He just sat there eating grass or whatever like goats do, and now he has to be punished
for all the sins of the people.
people.
Jesus is this Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who takes our place under
the wrath of God.
There’s a danger for us because when we think of the suffering of Jesus, we’re most
often drawn to the physical agony of it, and that’s no doubt gruesome.
I mean, the Romans, remember, were experts at inventing different ways to make people
suffer and crucifixion was the height of their glorious invention.
We think of the nails and the agony and the drowning in your own, you know, fluids and
all this sort of stuff, that’s bad.
But that’s not the real suffering.
The Gospels focus on the shame of the cross, in fact Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured
the cross despising the shame, that he was mocked, that he was naked, that they were
taunting him.
In fact, I think that the blow that must have struck Jesus the hardest was when they’re
mocking Him and they say, he trusted in God, let God deliver him.
In other words, it was a mockery of God and I think that Jesus probably hurt worse to
hear His Father being mocked than to hear Himself being mocked.
But that’s still not the whole deal.
The physical suffering, the emotional suffering, the shame of the cross, that’s not yet it.
There is a suffering that is, dear saints, so profound and so deep that we can’t even
begin to comprehend it, and that suffering comes when Jesus says, my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?
That the one who dwelled in eternal love with God the Father and in perfect harmony with
God, that this one is now forsaken, and more.
Isaiah says it’s not just that God forsook Christ, but that God smote him.
We considered him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
That the Lord takes His holy and righteous wrath that we deserve for breaking His law,
He takes that, and instead of putting it on you and putting it on me, He puts it on His
Son.
and that is the true suffering of the cross which Jesus endures for you
because he would rather suffer it than you because he would rather be forsaken
than you be forsaken because he would rather die so that you can live forever
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
We know the answer to that holy, sacred, and most precious question.
He was forsaken so that we would not be.
He was abandoned so that we would be adopted.
He was forgotten so that you would be remembered.
He was thrown out so that you would be welcomed. He endured God’s wrath so that
you can have God’s eternal life and smile and hope and peace. When Jesus sets
his face to go to Jerusalem like Flint, when he gives his back to the one who
strikes, and his beard to the one who pulls, and his face to the one who spits.
He does this, all dear saints, because he loves you. And he cannot imagine anything
better. He cannot think of anything more beautiful. Ride on, ride on in majesty. In
lowly pomp, ride on to die. And just like every Sunday is Easter, so also we
rejoice that every Sunday is Palm Sunday because the same one who rode in
humility into Jerusalem now comes to us in humility to save and bless. So we join
now, and every week when the Lord calls us to stand before his table, we join
with the crowd of children and people in Jerusalem and say, blessed is he, blessed
is he, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
Hosanna in the highest, because Jesus who came to die still comes to save, to
rescue, and to forgive all of your sins.
Dear Saints, this is our unending hope, our unassailable joy, and our unwavering confidence.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Amen.
