“Who Are You Expecting?”
John 12:12-19
4/1/07
What was Jesus up to? If He was the Son of
God, why was He entering into Jerusalem this way, seated on a
donkey? Wouldn’t a horse have been a better choice?
After all, a horse was the animal a king would ride upon if he were
going to war. Wasn’t Jesus a King, and wasn’t He
going to war? Wasn’t He coming to overthrow the Romans and
restore the kingdom to Israel, ushering in another golden age of peace
in their history? This is what His own disciples thought He was
going to do. Even after He had been raised from the dead and just
before He was to ascend into heaven, they asked Him, “Lord, will
you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” The crowds
on Palm Sunday weren’t expecting anything less. They had
witnessed the power of Jesus to raise the dead in the case of
Lazarus. And earlier when they saw Him multiply bread and fish to
feed 5,000 they tried to make Him king right then and there. If
anyone could deliver them from their oppression under the Roman empire,
surely Jesus could. Their cry shows that they viewed Him as a
King and that they expected Him to deliver them. The word
“hosanna” means “save now!” And with the
words “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the
King of Israel,” words taken from Psalm 118, they were confessing
Him to be the Messiah. Even their use of palm branches showed
what they expected of Jesus. Palm trees were a symbol of life and
salvation. And so, by waving palm branches before Jesus, the
people were expressing their hope that He had come to bring them these
gifts. And He had! Jesus was just who they confessed Him to
be: He was their Messiah and King, and He was coming to save
them, but He was not going to be the Messiah and King they expected Him
to be, nor was He going to save them the way they expected to be
saved. And so, instead of riding into Jerusalem on a war-horse
with armed soldiers in His train, Jesus rode into the city on a donkey
followed by His little group of disciples.
We are often just like these crowds, confessing
correctly who Jesus is and what He does according to what we are told
in His Word, and yet we often have expectations of Jesus that are
completely contrary to His Word. Again, the crowds rightly
confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, the King of Israel. They
rightly cried out, “Hosanna! Save now!” But
they had the wrong idea about what kind of King Jesus was going to be
to them and how He was going to save them. By choosing to ride in
on a donkey rather than a horse, Jesus was teaching them that He
wasn’t coming to Jerusalem to overthrow the Roman
government. The donkey was a symbol of peace. Contrary to
the horse, a proud looking animal, the donkey (especially the colt of a
donkey) looked gentle, humble, meek, and lowly. Like the donkey,
Jesus came to Jerusalem the same way - gentle, humble, meek, and lowly,
not in order to wage war with a sword against any earthly powers, but
to use His own bloody crucifixion against the powers of darkness - sin,
death, and the devil. His throne was not going to be a throne of
glory made out of gold, but it would be a throne of shame made out of
wood; it would be the throne of the cross. There He would not be
crowned with jewels and precious stones, but with a wreath of
thorns. Yet through such a death, He was going to work both life
and salvation for all who trust in Him, so that all who live under the
reign of this King by faith in Him and His promises might live under
His kingdom of grace now in this life, and hereafter in His kingdom of
glory forever and ever.
This is the Messiah the Scriptures promised.
Even by quoting Psalm 118, a psalm that was sung at the celebration of
the Passover, the crowds were unknowingly confessing that just as
God’s people had been spared His wrath when they applied the
blood of a lamb to the door-frames of their homes on the night of their
Exodus from Egypt, so now they would be spared God’s wrath as the
blood of this Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world, would be applied to them at Baptism, their new Exodus from
slavery to sin, death, and the devil. And this is who Jesus is
for you. This is what He has done for you, too, saving you from
your sins, loosing you from the power of death and the devil, and
granting you life and salvation through His faithful obedience to
God’s commandments, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His
bodily resurrection. He has delivered this salvation to you
through your Baptism, sprinkling you with His blood, cleansing you from
all unrighteousness, transferring you from the kingdom of darkness into
His kingdom of grace.
And yet, sometimes, just like these crowds here on
Palm Sunday, we too have some wrong expectations of Jesus, expectations
of who He should be and what He should be doing for us that run
contrary to the Word of God. Jesus is not your personal genie,
for example, someone you can just rub the right way and get whatever
you want. Jesus is also not your personal therapist, someone
who’s sent to make you feel good about yourself. Jesus is
not a condoner of sin; He doesn’t give you permission to remain
in your sins, to remain unrepentant, to use His forgiveness as a
license to sin all the more. Jesus doesn’t promise not to
allow or even bring suffering into your life; He never says this life
is going to be easy for you or that He’s going to heal you of all
your illnesses or remove all your problems. He does, however,
promise never to leave you or forsake you and that His grace is
sufficient for you to endure whatever thorn He’s placed in your
side. He also promises that the glory is coming, a time when He
will wipe away all tears and sorrow and make all things new. But
for now we must deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow Him,
trusting in His mercy, hanging onto His promises.
Some Christians, being ignorant of His promises,
expect Jesus to be completely the opposite of what He is. Instead
of seeing Him as their gentle and humble Savior, they see Him as a hard
and exacting tyrant, especially when they’re going through tough
times. Maybe you’re one of those, always thinking Jesus is
punishing you and pounding you over the head for your sins. And
so you live in fear of Jesus.
But maybe you’re one of those who
doesn’t expect anything of Jesus. Maybe you don’t
even pray to Him, because you think He’s not interested in
hearing you, that He won’t answer you, or that He doesn’t
care about you. Maybe you no longer expect forgiveness from Him;
now it’s all about living a godly life, showing God what you can
do for Him. Maybe you’re one of those who believes you may
have been saved by grace, but now you live like you maintain that
salvation by your works. Maybe you think Jesus is appeased by
your twice-a-year appearances during Christmas and Easter, or even your
weekly church attendance, yet you don’t listen to His Word during
the week, thinking He has nothing more to say to you. Maybe
“Jesus is Lord” is no more than a bumper sticker on your
car.
Such expectations about who you think Jesus ought to
be and what He ought to be doing for you must be repented of.
These kinds of expectations are the result of ignorance of God’s
Word. If the crowds had known God’s Word better, they would
have known more clearly who Jesus was and what He had come to do and
they wouldn’t have rejected Him. It was because they were
expecting a different Jesus on Palm Sunday that the crowds called for
His crucifixion on Good Friday. If we are expecting a different
Jesus, we like them will reject the true Jesus and exchange Him for a
Jesus who will fulfill our expectations. The more you know His
Word, the more you will know more clearly who Jesus is for you and what
He does for you, the less you will reject Him when He doesn’t do
what you expect Him to do. Ignorance of Jesus and His Word is not
safe, because it robs you of the true Jesus. If you have the
wrong expectations of Jesus - who He is and what He does, you have a
wrong Jesus, and you will not be receiving the gifts that the true
Jesus has to bring you - the forgiveness of your sins, life, and
salvation. Or if you expect nothing from Jesus at all, then
nothing is what you’ll get from Him. Or if you expect Him
to be a harsh judge, then a harsh judge is what you’ll get from
Him. In the end, you get the Jesus you expect. If you
won’t receive Him as your gracious Lord, who has answered for all
your sins, appeased God’s wrath, and redeemed you to be His own
with His blood, then you will receive Him as the wrathful Judge you
always believed Him to be.
But Palm Sunday reveals the truth about who Jesus is
and what He came to do for you. The Word about Him from
today’s Gospel text does away with your false expectations of Him
and shows you what you can truly expect from Him. He is the King
of Israel, who came in the Name of the Lord, riding on the colt of a
donkey, to take His seat upon the throne of His cross in order to go to
war for you against your enemies and to overcome them. That He
came in the Name of the Lord means that He was there by the command and
authority given to Him by His Father; all that Jesus did was done
according to the will of the Father who sent Him. That this King
rode in on a donkey symbolized that He had not come to war against
earthly authorities, nor had He come to judge you in His wrath, but
that He had come in humility to lay down His life to save yours.
And so the message goes out to you:
“Fear not, daughter of Zion...” You don’t need
to be afraid of this King. He doesn’t come to condemn you
or throw you into prison, but to save you. The Name in which He
came He has given to you in your Baptism, where you were made children
of God. You are the daughter of Zion, you are the new Jerusalem,
you are the Israel of God, and you live under a King who rules you not
with an iron fist, but with a shepherd’s staff as you live under
His grace, mercy, and peace. “Hosanna! Save
now!” we say. And He does just that: He saves you
from sin, death, and the power of the devil, granting you eternal life
and salvation. And today once again He is delivering these gifts
to you through the eating and drinking of His body and blood which He
gives you in His Holy Supper here at His Table. This is what you
can expect of this King, because these gifts are promised to you in His
Word. Use Him, then, for who He is to you, and meet Him today
with the palm branches of your confession that Jesus is your gentle and
humble Savior, who has reconciled you to the Father with the shedding
of His blood on the cross of Calvary. “Blessed is He who
comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
Amen.