A Different Kind of Savior

This is the sermon given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, March 28, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 11:1-11.

            Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph.  He is riding a donkey, a donkey that he specifically told his disciples to get for him.  

            We might wonder, why a donkey?  But no one in Jerusalem on that day would’ve wondered about it.  This was a deliberate, direct reference to an Old Testament prophecy, the prophecy of Zechariah.  In Zechariah, Chapter Nine, Verse Nine, it says, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

            When Jesus arranged things this way, he knew exactly what he was doing.  Everyone in Jerusalem, and especially the religious leaders, knew it, too.  This was a deliberately provocative act on Jesus’ part.  By entering Jerusalem in this way, Jesus made it quite clear that he was openly claiming the title of king.

            And on that day, the people appeared to be quite willing to give Jesus that title.  You heard how they spread their cloaks on the road in front of him.  You heard how they spread the palm branches in front of him, too.  That was not a coincidence, either.  In those times, people would salute conquering kings by putting palm branches in front of them or waving them in the air.  Everyone in Jerusalem, and especially the religious leaders, knew that, too.   By using palm branches in this way, the people were open proclaiming that they accepted Jesus as their king.

You heard how they were shouting Jesus’ praises as he rode past.  We sometimes focus on how some of this same crowd would betray Jesus later in the week, and that’s a legitimate point to make.  But there’s no reason to think that, at this moment, the crowds were not entirely sincere.  They truly believed that Jesus had come to save them.  After all, that’s what the word “Hosanna” means.  It means “save”.

            The people knew they needed to be saved.  They had been waiting for someone to save them.  They’d had others they thought might be the one to save them.  Sometimes it looked like it was going to happen, but it did not.  Now, they hoped Jesus would be the one.  They wanted Jesus to be the one.  They convinced themselves that Jesus would be the one.  And so, when Jesus came in riding on a donkey, making a claim to be the one, they were overjoyed.  They thought their dream had come true.  And it had.  But then again, it hadn’t.

            We’re told some of the things the crowd shouted.  Now, obviously, they were not just shouting these things in unison.  This was a big crowd.  There was lots of noise, lots of confusion.  If you’ve ever been in a big crowd, you know how that goes.  But we assume the things we’re told they shouted are the most important things.  

            So what did they shout?  “Hosanna”, of course.  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Well, if they were looking to Jesus to save them, that’s a pretty natural thing to shout.  But they also shouted this:  “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.”

            That’s why I say that their dream had not come true.  King David was a conqueror.  He was a military hero.  He went out and attacked the enemies of Israel and Judah, and he defeated them.  He established an empire, an empire that ran from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Desert, and from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River, with Jerusalem as its capitol.  He had a huge army.  No one in the area dared to challenge King David, and no one dared to challenge Israel and Judah, either.  They were in complete control of the entire area.

            By Jesus’ time, of course, that empire no longer existed.  Israel was under the control of Rome.  The people dreamed of independence.  Every once in a while someone would lead a rebellion.  Sometimes they even succeeded in briefly gaining independence for Israel.  But it never lasted.  Rome would exert its might, and Israel would be under its control again.

            But the people never stopped dreaming, and never stopped hoping.  And they thought, in Jesus, they had their conquering hero.  He had already established that God was with him.  They knew he could do miracles.  They knew he could drive out demons.  If Jesus could drive out demons, surely he could drive out Rome, too.  The kingdom of David would be restored, and Israel and Judah would be returned to their former glory.

            And of course, that’s not who Jesus was at all.  Jesus had no interest in restoring the kingdom of David, or in establishing any sort of earthly kingdom.  He could have done it--Jesus had that kind of power, obviously.  But that was not why he had come.  As Jesus would tell Pilate, his kingdom is not of this world.  Jesus was about leading people to salvation and eternal life.  He was about gathering people for the kingdom of heaven, not about establishing a kingdom on earth.

            And maybe that’s why the people turned on him so quickly.  Maybe that’s why the crowd demanded that he be crucified.  They had put so much hope in Jesus.  And now here he was, arrested and found guilty.  Not only had he been arrested, he had not even put up a fight.  In fact, he had ordered people not to fight for him.  Even now, when he was facing the death penalty, he seemed to be just meekly accepting his fate.

            Jesus was neither the king nor the savior they wanted.  And so, they turned on him.  If he could not do what they wanted, if he could not establish an earthly kingdom, they had no use for him.  In their eyes, he was just another faker, just another failed rebel.  There’d be no point in having him released.  His usefulness to them was over.  Might as well let him be killed.

            But you know, the people in that crowd--the people who cheered him on Palm Sunday and betrayed him later in the week--they were not bad people.  I mean, maybe some of them were, but not most of them.  They were just people.  People who were doing their best.  But people who simply did not understand.

            They had the problem that people have always had in thinking of God.  Even the disciples had it.  Remember, on one of the times Jesus is trying to tell the disciples that he’s going to be killed, Peter tries to tell Jesus not to talk that way.  Jesus gets upset with Peter and tells him, “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

            Peter had human concerns in mind.  The crowd that cheered Jesus had human concerns in mind.  And far too often, you and I have human concerns in mind, too.

            We can be excused for that, to a certain extent.  After all, we are human--it’s pretty natural that we’d have human concerns.  And Jesus did not say human concerns were completely unimportant.  After all, what was the healing all about, what was the feeding all about, if not taking care of human concerns?  Jesus did care about our human concerns.  He still does.

            But as real as our human concerns are, they are not the most important thing.  Because no matter what we do, our lives are not long.  Maybe a little over a hundred years, at most.  When we’re young, that seems like a long time.  The older we get, the more we realize how short it really is.  And we also realize that it’s nothing at all compared to eternity.

            Jesus was a king.  But he did not come to establish an earthly kingdom.  He came to open the door for us and to lead us to the heavenly kingdom.  

            He tried in so many ways to show us the difference.  He said “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and forfeit their soul?”  He said “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”  He said, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.”

            The crowd did not understand.  The disciples did not understand.  And the truth is, you and I don’t always understand, either.

            But here’s the question:  not fully understanding, can we trust?  Can we have faith?  Can we trust that, as pressing as our human concerns may be, they are not the most important thing?  Can we trust that it’s worth staying faithful to God, even if it means trouble for us on earth?  Can we continue to believe in Jesus as the Savior, and make our faith in him our top priority, even if there’s a cost to us during our lives on earth?

            Jesus is the king, but not of an earthly kingdom.  He is the king of a heavenly kingdom.  He wants to take us to that kingdom.  So let’s shout “Hosanna!  Save us!”  And let’s keep our faith in Jesus, so we can have the kind of salvation that lasts for eternity.