Jesus Christ

9A large crowd therefore of the Jews learned that he was there, and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead. 10But the chief priests conspired to put Lazarus to death also, 11because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. 12On the next day a great multitude had come to the feast. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13they took the branches of the palm trees, and went out to meet him, and cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” 14Jesus, having found a young donkey, sat on it. As it is written, 15“Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King comes, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” 16His disciples didn’t understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him.

Because Jesus offered himself as an atoning sacrifice, you and I can worship God today.

People look at their parents differently as children and as grown adults. In the same way, the more your faith grows, the differently you will see the love of a Jesus who is entering Jerusalem to take up the cross. Riding into Jerusalem on a young donkey, Jesus took up the cross himself, for a kingdom where everyone could live only if he died. Knowing that once he entered Jerusalem he would become the Passover lamb and there could be no turning back, walking toward death of his own accord was never an easy choice. To fulfill God’s will Jesus chose the road of giving up his own life and atoning for sin. Just as the almighty Jesus gave himself up, people have to be able to give up their own righteousness in order to be saved.

Have you ever gone down into the humble place of sacrificing yourself in order to live by God’s will? Think of the apostle Paul’s confession that he dies daily, and you see how much effort he put into overcoming sin. People watched Paul preach the gospel and knew how much he loved God, and they recognized his humble faith. He had the experience of visiting heaven and the power to save a life, and even so he wanted to be lowered day by day for the sake of an honest faith. Paul’s faith is the picture of a humble believer who takes up his own cross and follows Jesus to Jerusalem.

If the Lord invited you to enter Jerusalem with him, what would you decide? If he said, take off that worldly coat you treasure most and spread it on the donkey, and come with me to Jerusalem to take up the cross — would you hesitate, afraid to take off the worldly coat? He tells you that whoever puts a hand to the plow must not look back, and calls you to come to the cross; are you stepping backward instead? Faith like that is the unbelief that hesitates even to put the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts. Look at your own faith and ask whether you are running away like the disciples at the Lord’s word that once he enters Jerusalem he will work no more miracles for you. Once the Passover has gone by, there is no more lamb’s blood to put on the doorposts.

John 12:13

13they took the branches of the palm trees, and went out to meet him, and cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”

When Jesus went into Jerusalem, many people waved palm branches and welcomed him as the king of the Jews who had come. The people of Israel at that time were expecting a Messiah with strong power who would free them from their suffering under Rome. The reason is that the Jews thought they were a people specially chosen by God, and that salvation had already been given through the law. The prophets of the Old Testament had preached again and again that a Messiah would come to atone for sin, and they were waiting only for a king of this world.

They took the Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a young donkey for a king with power as great as David’s, and so they cried Hosanna and welcomed him. They are crying out that Jesus is the king of the Jews out of human greed. What they are crying with one heart now is only an earnest wish that he save them from their suffering in the world; it is not praise of a Jesus who would set them free from sin.

In what spirit are you worshiping today? What would you do if God said to you here and now that he will give you not one bit of worldly power, and asked whether you would still believe in him to the end? Could you make the confession that you will serve Jesus Christ alone, and worship in truth and in the Spirit?

The disciples spread their coats on the donkey Jesus was riding. And the crowds welcoming him likewise took off their coats and spread them on the road, resolving to serve Jesus alone. Taking off your coat is a confession that you will give everything you have. The disciples and the people are singing Hosanna and waving palm branches without knowing what this conduct of theirs means. The disciples did not know then why all these people were cheering Jesus, or why their own hearts were so high and glad.

Later, thinking of the people who shouted for Jesus, the Passover lamb, to be killed, they must have seen what a great sin they had committed against the Jesus who was headed for Jerusalem to atone for sin. Only after the resurrection did they know that these people had welcomed him so warmly out of greed, because they could gain a great deal if Jesus became king of the Jews.

But the disciples were no different at all from these people. They had heard Jesus’ word for three years, and because they did not see the world through the truth they too betrayed him. This is how people are deceived by their own feelings, according to situation and circumstance. The people had seen the dead raised, the blind and the paralyzed healed, and had had the experience through the five loaves and two fish of not needing to worry about food, so they were high with the joy of thinking that if Jesus became king they too could have power. They looked at Jesus expecting to gain power and live well, and that is why being in the crowd was itself a matter of pride and excitement and feeling. The Hosanna sung by that enormous crowd gave the disciples and the people a confidence and an assurance that ran like a shiver through them.

They resolved to die for Jesus, and that resolve did not last, because it was a feeling produced by their own greed and it deceived them. Welcoming Jesus carried the meaning of resisting Rome, so it could be frightening. That is why the greater the number of people the bolder they grow and the more the fear disappears; and that is exactly the psychology of people with no wisdom. People think that being in a big organization gives them power even when they do nothing; but if numbers really were strength, Jesus would never have taken only twelve disciples with him and taught them the Word. God’s kingdom is not a kingdom that judges faith and wisdom and ability by numbers of people or by how much is owned.

God’s kingdom is a kingdom measured by who lets go of more greed and more human righteousness, a kingdom where salvation and reward are received according to who did God’s will in faith. However much worldly power and property you hold, it has nothing to do with salvation, and worldly possessions cannot obtain God’s inheritance. Even a man as rich as Solomon found that when he was drunk on worldly pleasure, God would not receive even his life.

If Jesus had given the people cheering him so warmly the wealth and power and health they wanted, they would have stopped him from taking up the cross in order to hold on to that power. If Jesus took up the cross and died he could not work for them, so they would have blocked God’s plan in order to keep Jesus alive and themselves alive. This is the judgment and the decision of a wicked life, and you and I are exactly these foolish people.

However wise and clever a person is, God does not use anyone who will not let go of human righteousness in the work of salvation. God is almighty, so if you have a patient, truthful and humble faith he will entrust you with a calling even if your wisdom is thin. Raise people up a little and they try to rise above God. But God needs people who obey the Word, not people full of worldly cunning. Simply obey as he has spoken, and the Creator God will fill you by grace without your wishing for it or hanging on him.

The church now has abandoned God and fallen; its wrongdoing is passed around in the media, and the judges of this world are trying and ruling on the church’s problems. A church that ought to judge and discern and rule the world is being judged and mocked and ruled by it instead. A church is a place ruled by God’s law, not by the world’s. And that church has coveted wealth as the world does, coveted power, and fallen sexually, so it has thrown away its own light and knelt to the darkness. He told us that a dark world can never overcome the light, and the believers holding the light have put their own light out. Because they do not stand straight spiritually, pastors and believers are at odds, and they lean on worldly strength and power to solve their problems. The Word is not taught to believers, so they never see that they are sinners, and they have sunk into being a laughingstock to the world. Do not spread your coat for worldly possessions; carry your calling in the spirit of sharing in his suffering. Then God will bind in heaven what that believer binds on earth, and loose in heaven what they loose on earth.

Jesus is giving up his own life, and if we spread our coats on top of that death for the sake of the world and sing Hosanna and wave palm branches, the God watching cannot help being angry.

What was the praise you offered just now meant to gain? You know all about the suffering of the cross and Christ’s resurrection; what is the prayer you offer for? May the praise and the prayer you offered be faith offered with an honest heart.

The disciples forgot everything Jesus had told them, joined the crowd singing Hosanna, and swelled with pride as though they would sit beside the king that very day. Jesus taught them about sin and repentance and taught them heaven and hell in detail, and they did not believe that the Word gives eternal life. However much of the Word you learn, if the Word does not become one with your life, the Word stays the Word and you live like the people of the world. The Word the disciples had learned came alive when they passed through suffering; when they came to see that the Word is living and sharper than a two-edged sword, power began to appear.

After entering Jerusalem the disciples and the people felt fear as a situation unfolded that was nothing like what they had imagined. Surely with Jesus there a miracle should happen and the Romans who oppressed them should withdraw, and Jesus, far from a miracle, was preparing to die. The fear became reality, and Judas Iscariot and a crowd came with swords and clubs to arrest Jesus as though taking a criminal. Watching the crowd that had cheered Jesus now shouting for a Jesus of no use to the world to be killed, the disciples too had to make some decision. While the great crowd cheered Jesus, that crowd was their strength. Now the crowd shouting for Jesus’ death had become the object of their fear, which is why they made the choice of abandoning the Lord in order to preserve their lives. The world is a place that moves this thoroughly around the self.

In Luke 22:61, only when Jesus turned and looked at him did Peter remember the word that before the rooster crowed today he would deny him three times. Peter, who had been frantic to save his own life, met Jesus’ eyes and only then remembered what Jesus had said. When the rooster crowed loudly, Peter’s heart dropped. When Jesus had said that he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed, Peter had confessed that he would never deny him, even if he had to die.

While Peter was denying and cursing, saying he did not know this man Jesus, his eyes met the eyes of a Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and bleeding. What can Peter have thought in that instant their eyes met? And what can Jesus have thought, watching the disciple he loved so much curse and say he really did not know him, in order to live? If you were the Messiah, would you want to die for a man like that?

We make false promises that if he will only solve this one thing we will live for Jesus from now on, and God is taken in every time and answers us. If, while we run off into the world in high spirits at having deceived God, we met the eyes of a Jesus wearing a crown of thorns for our sake, we would see that God knew everything and let himself be taken in. Peter wept aloud out of hatred for the man who had to run from Jesus’ eyes. We too know how deep a love God’s grace is, and so we will hate ourselves for being unable to let go of the world.

Only after Jesus rose did Peter see that his coming to Jerusalem on a donkey was to atone for their sin. The word he could not believe while worldly greed blocked his view came to him as a deep understanding when he had betrayed, when he was persecuted, when he was alone without the Lord, when he watched the Lord ascend. However much of the Word you learn, it is no use unless you live it out.

If Jesus asked you what choice you would make, watching the disciples and the people who had welcomed him so warmly betray him in a moment, what would you answer? If he said, I will go to Jerusalem to take up the cross knowing that you will betray me, so do not use me for the sake of the world — what would you answer?

If he asked me, I would want to answer this way, because I too, like Peter, might betray him out of fear of death. Even if I were rebuked by Jesus as Satan, I would want to stop him and tell him not to go to Jerusalem. However many the crowd singing Hosanna, I would want to stand in front of the donkey and kneel and block his entry into Jerusalem. The reason is that even if Jesus takes a cruel beating for me and bleeds and wears a crown of thorns and gives me life, a human being like me does not change easily. It is that I am a human being far too worthless for the holy Lord to die in place of.

When he says he loves me, and that if I only follow this road he walks I too can live in God’s glory, I nod because I like the sound of receiving glory; but if he says let us take up the cross together, I will plainly run. It is because the world with its power looks more likely to save me than a bleeding Jesus, and the world looks more comfortable than spiritual suffering. I am exactly the sort of person who could throw away, on the spot, a Jesus who says on the cross that it is finished and lets his head fall. How can it make any sense to ask him to die for someone like me? I look as though I am praising Jesus and singing Hosanna, but I will betray him if my property is taken, and turn away if my health weakens; and so I would stop him from dying for a worthless human being who deceives him constantly.

But the one who says that even if you block the road I walk, even if you abandon me, I love you and so I have to go and die, is exactly Jesus. And he would say that he must take up the cross in order to fulfill God’s plan. The one who says to us, who betray him, that the place out there is dark and evil lies in wait, so do not go too far but come back and stay in the light, is exactly the Jesus Christ who died for you and me.

When the apostle Paul met Jesus and his human righteousness and pride were broken, he came to see what a small and unremarkable human being he was. That is why he confessed that he was the least of the believers and the chief of sinners. By the world’s standard the apostle Paul lacked nothing, and once he had thrown all of it away as refuse, he found that what remained to him was sin and nothing else.

You too can repent, sorry and asking forgiveness, only when you know that you are a filthy and shabby sinner. Only those who see their own sin can be forgiven, and only those who are forgiven can live as believers born again. If sin blocks the heart, you will not see how wicked a sin this singing of Hosanna is, and you will not see how treacherous that voice crying to Jesus that he is king really is.

Acknowledging the Jesus who carries the cross could cost you your one life, so not one person came out to the cross. Where are all those people now, who spread their coats for Jesus? Where are all those who waved palm branches and cheered now hiding, while Jesus dies on the cross? And where are you and I? Why can you and I, who praised and worshiped in order to get worldly wealth and solved problems and power and honor, not be seen beside the cross? Jesus is pouring out water and blood to the last, and still he looks at us and says do not worry, you can live only if I die; so why are we avoiding those eyes and looking somewhere else?

If you do not let go of worldly greed you cannot help welcoming a Lord entering Jerusalem, and if you do not let go of human righteousness you cannot help betraying him in the end, like Peter, even while looking into Jesus’ eyes. The disciples too, while they were with Jesus, drove out demons, cared for the poor and healed the sick. But once they were bound by the thought that death is frightening, they denied Jesus.

If you have truly met God, you must move from the world’s seat to the seat of faith, from the seat of disobedience to the seat of obedience, and from the seat of complaint and grievance to the seat of thanksgiving.

However much you may want to be martyred, it is not something you can do as you please. When people came to the garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, the disciples are exactly the ones who threw away the love of a Jesus who pleaded that since they had taken him they should let all the others go. Knowing that not one of them would stand as a witness for him, Jesus loved and protected those who betrayed him to the end. You must be born again so that the Jesus who loved souls and loved them to the end does not sigh over you. You must make yourselves clean and become believers who are no shame to Jesus.

When Mary pours out the perfume, may you pour out the perfume of faith as well; and when you meet Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross against his will, may you carry the cross with him even against your will. Simply follow what a brother ahead of you in faith does in faith, and you too will become a mature believer standing on the road of faith.

May you give your life and your heart and your mind entirely to God. The love of the Christ who gave his life is a deep love that never changes. If you want to receive that love, believe that the Word is a living, working power, and try living by it.

I want to put a question to you who carry the name of believer: what will you do for Jesus, and what are you interested in and working on right now? In this rotting, foul-smelling world, please wrestle with what choice you must make and what life you must live for God’s kingdom.

A faith that believes with the mouth alone is a lie. A faith that compromises and hides when the world persecutes is a lie. The time to resolve has come very close beside you now. Do not lean to the left or to the right; offer God a true faith.

Only the Jesus who took up the cross is your life. May you take as your pattern that love, which gladly took up the cross for sinners who had to die, and become true believers who are always loyal to God.