Palm Sunday
Speaker
Pastor Jacque Clowers. Juniper Church - Knoxville, TN.
Scripture References
Mark 11:1-11, Zechariah 9:9, Luke 19:41, Mark 14:13-16
Key Takeaways
God may not always meet your expectations because He has a plan that you may now know about yet.
Jesus is Lord and under no obligation to us – we think that if Christ doesn’t fit our expectations then we often reject him.
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God's Story, Palm Sunday. So part of God's story happened on a day we call Palm Sunday, and it begins like this. Remember how God sent his son Jesus to rescue us? Well, not everybody believed that Jesus was really God's son and the rescuer, but the ones who did believe in him did something pretty cool on Palm Sunday.
It started just like any other day for Jesus. He was heading into Jerusalem with his disciples, but before they got there, Jesus did something surprising. He stopped and sent two of his disciples to go get a young donkey from a nearby village.
He even told them exactly where the owner had last tied it up. They weren't sure why he needed the donkey, but they obeyed him. Kids, would you be willing to obey Jesus even if he asked you to do something you didn't understand?
Anyway, when the disciples got back with the donkey, they threw their coats on its back like a saddle and Jesus climbed up. Pretty soon, the disciples saw why Jesus needed it. See, crowds of people came to the road and started laying coats in tree branches to make a path for Jesus.
When this happened, many people recognized that Jesus was a king. Only kings came into a city like this. So Jesus rode the donkey like he was a one -man parade and the crowds praised Jesus by yelling things like, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord and peace in heaven and glory in the highest because they believed Jesus was the rescuer.
But remember how some people didn't believe Jesus was God's son? Well, they told Jesus to make everybody stop yelling. They didn't think Jesus deserved to be treated like a king. You know what Jesus said?
He told them, if they keep quiet, the rocks will cry out. Well, the people who didn't believe in Jesus didn't like thinking about people or rocks praising him. And that made Jesus sad. He actually started crying and not just crying, weeping.
Here, the people were standing next to the rescuer they'd been wanting and waiting for their whole lives and they were missing it. But even though Jesus cried, Palm Sunday isn't a sad story. Easter is all about Jesus' amazing rescue and Palm Sunday is a reminder of just how special that rescue is and how much Jesus loves everyone.
And that's the story of Palm Sunday. So in case you missed it, here's the quick version. Jesus was traveling. He sent his disciples to get a donkey. People spread coats and branches on the road. They praise Jesus.
Some people didn't recognize that he was the king. That made Jesus sad. He had come to rescue them. A few days later, he would show just how much he loves us. And that's a part of God's story.
I figure we're all kids, right? We're all kids. And I thought, thank you, John. And I think what a better way to go into Palm Sunday thinking that he is our rescue. He's our rescue. And so I'm gonna just address not the elephant in the room, but the kids in the room.
Because really, what is church without the future generations? What is church without life and laughter and joy and noise and mess and people? And I just want you parents, I see a little bit of anxiety when I was walking around like, they're being loud, they're noisy, they're kids.
And maybe that's why I'm here today, because I love kids and I don't mind the noise. And I think I've structured my talk in a way that it's okay if there's interruptions. We're all gonna learn, I think, about Palm Sunday.
So I do have a question here. Is there people in the room who don't really know what all the days of Holy Week are about? Are there anyone in here who doesn't really know? Okay, so that's what I thought.
So let me open us in prayer. Lord, I'm so humble, humbly. I just feel so inadequate sometimes that I'm called to this and I thank you for this opportunity. I thank you that I get to have the amazing job of sharing your word this morning.
And I pray that the wonder of this Holy Week comes alive in our hearts before we leave this building today and we take it with us. We take you with us. In Jesus' name, amen. So I wanted a couple of things about Palm Sunday is in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It's mentioned in all four Gospels. And I watched a couple of videos about Palm Sunday. I always think of my son, Reese, in this, because Reese really loves facts. He really loves history. He really loves truth.
Do we all sometimes wonder, is the Bible even true? Do we all, we've all wondered it. And if you say you haven't, you're probably fibbing. I mean, there could be spiritually so mature people in here.
But some of my mornings at 5 .30, when I'm sitting on the couch in my little office space, sometimes I'm crying out, God, are you real? Are you real? Am I just doing this because it feels good? But what I love about this Easter story, let's take Jesus being our rescuer and our salvation out of it.
It is a fact that this happened. It is a fact that the man called Jesus walked in and the people worshiped him. They had these palm branches and they laid their coats out because they had been waiting for 500 years for their Redeemer to come and he came and they believed it.
And it is proven in history, take it out of the Bible. It's written in other books, it is proven. And that was exciting to me that this is a true story. It's not made up just to feel good for us to have a happy holiday with some bunnies and eggs.
And I love all that, but this is a true story. I wanna read, I'm only gonna read out of one book today, but it's in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But I'm gonna read out of Mark. So I wanna read together Mark 11, one through 11.
And I know that's quite a few scriptures, but let's read them. And Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem. and they came to the towns of Bethaphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. So Jesus sent two of them on ahead said go into that village over there and he told them as soon as you enter it you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden untie it and bring it here and if anyone asks what are you doing just say the Lord needs it and he will turn it soon and you know what I want to say there Jesus knew this was going to happen and he had a donkey prepared already this wasn't a surprise Jesus wasn't going what am I supposed to do today he had a donkey prepared for this entrance that's big it's big to think about that let's keep going verse four so the two disciples left found the colt standing in the street tied outside the front door and as they were untying it some bystanders demanded what are you doing untying that colt they said what Jesus had told them to say and they were permitted to take it then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it and he sat on it many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him others spread leafy branches they had cut in the field Jesus was in the center of the procession and the people all around him were shouting praise God blessing on the ones who come in the name of the Lord blessing on the coming kingdom of our ancestors David praise God in the highest heaven so Jesus came to Jerusalem went into the temple after looking around carefully at everything he left because it was late in the afternoon then he returned to Bethany with his 12 disciples so I wanted to stop there and I want to look at holy week so number one we're just going to talk about the book of Mark so I don't know if you realize this but the week between Palm Sunday and Easter goes through chapters 11 through chapter 16 in the book of Mark it's not something that just happened in one chapter so this is a story that goes from chapter 11 to chapter 16 and in this week I want us to leave today thinking what Jesus felt important to share with us the last week of his life might be some pretty important things right so let's say I find out today that I have a diagnosis and I'm only going to have one week do you think I'm going to waste any time with anything that doesn't matter don't you think I'm going to spend every moment of that week sharing what is important right that's the week this was for Jesus he knew it he knew he had one week left as man on earth a couple of things he talks about her faith forgiveness this is where the scripture that says the greatest of all commandments is love to love me and to love your brother that's found in this week giving he talks about giving to the church he talks about paying taxes he talks about practical things so I'm going to encourage you at the end of this message to take this week and to read some of these things so that was one thing I wanted to say I also wanted you to think about this week that Jesus was human so Jesus was giving human emotions while he was on earth now he's God he was always God but he also came to us as human so that he can understand us you know and I was thinking about him yesterday as I was knowing I was going to speak today and have you ever had like a hard thing that's on its way like maybe a court date maybe your boss had called you into the office because you you knew maybe you had done something wrong maybe you had to have a frank conversation with your parents maybe you had to give somebody forgiveness or vice versa and you get this pit in your stomach feeling right like you know it's coming and I just was thinking about Jesus yesterday I was weeping like the Saturday before Palm Sunday you know if he was human do you think he was like God in his private prayers I know it's coming and he was you know I'm sure he was anticipating this week and what it means for all eternity so I just want you to think about that so what we're going to do is we're going to go through this week.
And so we have day one, which I think there's some graphics to go along the way, which is Palm Sunday. So that's today. This is day one of Holy Week. So I've already said it that this week doesn't take Jesus by surprise.
He already had that donkey ready. He knew he was coming in. And I also want to say this, that he was fulfilling prophecy that had been written some 500 years before. And this is found in the scripture Zechariah 9 9.
And I want to read Zechariah 9 9. So you think this is before Jesus was on earth. And it says, Rejoice, O people of Zion. Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem. Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey's colt.
So the people were waiting on this king. So there were thousands of people at this time also traveling, traveling here because it was the time of Passover. So this was a celebration time. So they were already coming, all of these people, and Jesus knew that this is when he was going to make his entrance.
You know, a couple of things too about the scripture I read earlier, it mentions Bethaphage and it mentions Bethany. And you know, Jesus's friends lived in Bethany. So Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And if you've been, you might not know who those people are, but if you read the scriptures, the gospels, you will learn about them.
And those were dear friends of Jesus. So it's really believed that Jesus stayed with them in Bethany during this week. So that's really why that was mentioned because that's not where the story takes place, but he took time to mention it.
And I just think that's interesting. So at the end of that original verse that I read to you too, it said it was close to the end of the day. And I wonder what Jesus was thinking as he went into his temple.
And all he does is look around. He just looks around and then he goes back to Bethany to spend the night with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And I want to read this out of the book of Luke and it's Luke 19 41.
And my little cartoon mentioned it and I just couldn't ignore it. And it said, but as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. You know, and what a savior that we serve who knew what was coming.
He knew what was ahead of him and he looked at people and instead of being angry, instead of being mad that they didn't listen, instead of being just self -righteous, he wept because he knew that they were without a savior.
And to me, that strikes me. I know we talk about it all the time and this isn't even on my notes. I'm going to the park this week and she had my we all know Toby, right? Okay, so Toby is a lot of energy.
Toby loves to run to the end of his leash. Aaron's been helping me like he's got a harness now. Like we're going to train Toby. Well, we're failing. We're failing. So this lady literally like cusses at Caitlin like keep your dog and he she put lots of colorful words away from me.
And I love the thought that instead of getting angry at her, right, because it's easy to get mad at somebody like how dare you. We can say, man, it's sad that she gets that angry over this, which was nothing.
Toby, Toby did not even get near them. She he's a good boy. Then he's not like he's this giant dog. But you know, it's just this is how our savior lives. He wept for these people who were going to crucify him shortly and he knew that.
So that's day one. Day one is this triumphal entry. It is the prophecy from 500 years coming true. So then we go into day two, which is Monday. In day two, Jesus doesn't just walk in that temple and look around.
It does say he's hungry on the way to this. I was like, maybe Jesus was a little hangry here, but he came into this temple and he cleared it. He said, you are not living up to my standards. You are using this as a den of thieves.
You are making money. Remember, all of these people are coming to Passover. And back then we didn't have Jesus who was our sacrifice. You had to sacrifice doves and you had to sacrifice lambs and you had to sacrifice bulls.
So this temple was selling this stuff and they were selling the broken birds and they weren't selling their best. And so they were taking advantage of his people who were coming to do Passover. So that's really what Jesus was so mad at were these people making money off of these people coming.
And it was righteous anger. He might've been hangry too because he had cursed that olive tree. There's a lot that happened in this week. And at the end, I hope you want to go read some of it for yourself.
So at that moment though, I believe when he cleared that temple was when these leaders began to plot how they can kill this man called Jesus. This is when it was settling in them like this man called Jesus is disrupting to our political party, to our life.
And so this is when on day two, they really began to plot this. So then we go to day three. Day three is when Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives. So this is where all of those, a lot of the things that I talked about earlier, this is where Jesus teaches.
So think about it again, if this was your last week on life, this is your last opportunity for your disciples to hear you. So he's teaching on this Mount of Olives. He's teaching on faith because he knows his disciples are fixing to have to walk a hard road of faith.
He taught on love. And this is also the day at the end of the day when he's anointed with oil. When Mary breaks that expensive perfume on his feet and cleans his feet with her hair. And that is when that happens when, and Jesus says he's preparing me for my burial.
It's like a symbolic preparing me for burial. Well, that happened in Holy Week. That happened on day three. Then we go on to day four, which is Holy Wednesday. And really the Bible is pretty silent about day four.
So did he rest possibly? You can only imagine the fatigue that Jesus felt. It does talk about that that's the day that greed probably caught up with Judas. That's the day that he made the agreement to betray Jesus with a kiss.
And Judas was the treasurer, so he handled the money. So I would say that whole love of money greed had gotten into his heart. And again, maybe Judas wanted a political platform. Maybe he wanted to be known as great.
And all of a sudden he realized, wait a second, there's nothing about Jesus that's gonna make me the greatest. And so how can I betray him? So that settled in, it says on Wednesday. Which, how sad is that?
Then we have Thursday, which is the Last Supper. So the Last Supper, again, I wanna talk about, let me just read verse, it's Mark 14, 13 through 16. So this is them going ready to get ready for the Last Supper.
So Jesus sent two of them, two of them being the disciples into Jerusalem. And with these instructions, as you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him at the house he enters, say to the owner, the teacher asks, where's the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?
He will take you upstairs to a large room, listen to this, that is already prepared. So again, it doesn't take him by surprise. The room is already set up. And that is where you should prepare our meal.
So the two disciples went into the city, found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there. At this Passover meal, Jesus washed the disciples feet, even Judas, even Judas who he already knew was betraying him later that night.
They took communion together. It's really the first time that communion is talked about in the way that we see communion today. Jesus exposes Judas as the betrayer. He also exposes Peter that you're going to deny me here in the next 24 hours.
It's like Jesus is getting, I believe it's in love. He's getting Peter prepared that you're still a man and you are weak and you are going to fail. And then Jesus goes to the garden to pray after this dinner.
So then I'm going to quickly move to day six, which is Good Friday, which is the trial, the crucifixion, death, and burial. It's a lot, right? So the same people who were laying down palm branches on Monday or Sunday, the same people who were shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, are the same people shouting, crucify him, crucify him.
In seven days, they went from Hosanna to crucify him. How quickly in our lives when things don't go the way we want, do we switch? Do we go, God's not good. He's not even real, right? We're no different than those people.
And I'm just here to encourage you that he still died for us. And it's just, man, it hit me. And at this point, the Bible says all the disciples had scattered. I always want to take up for Peter. I love Peter.
I think he's my favorite disciple and he gets a bad rap, but it clearly says all the disciples deserted Jesus. So he's alone. History says that Jesus died around 3 p .m. Again, I really dug into some history.
That's just a really cool fact that at 3 p .m. is the same time that the priest would do the Passover sacrifice in the temple. And I don't thank God he had it all planned. And Jesus is our ultimate sacrifice.
He's our ultimate, ultimate sacrifice. So day seven is where I want to pause for just a second. And Pam, if you want to come on up Saturday, Jesus is in the tomb. And I felt like I was supposed to say to you today that if you are in your own waiting season right now, if you're in a season that you feel as hard, if you're in a season that you feel like you're waiting for joy to come back, if you're waiting for anxiety and depression to leave,
if you're waiting for forgiveness to be given or you need to forgive, if you're waiting so debilitated with hurt, I'm just here to tell you that just like Jesus back then was in the tomb, he wasn't just laying there.
He was working. He was working on our behalf. And I'm here to tell you that Sunday's coming. It's coming in your life today. And if you're, I just felt like there are people sitting in here today that you're in a dark, dark waiting point in your life.
And you're questioning, is my savior even real or is he just a story? Is it just a story that I was told and I'm supposed to believe. And I felt like I was supposed to tell you, if it's silent, he is still working on your behalf.
He is still working for you every single day. You are who he weeps for and Sunday's coming. You know, we often start excited like those people with the palm branches. And then when life hits us, we do our own thing.
If Christ doesn't fit our expectations, if the answer that we prayed for didn't come, often we reject him. We all do it. I'm not talking to people, not having done it myself. We put him in our box and he's not in our box.
I just felt like I'm supposed to tell you to not give up, to not give up, to keep believing, to keep it. So there's a final and Tim, if you want to come on up, there's a final graphic I want to pull up.
And what this is, is a week long, a week long gap. So this is observing Holy Week. And I want you to know that number one, this is on our website. So if you don't scan this QR code, it's on the website to where you can find it.
And Tim, Caitlin is also going to be putting it on our social media throughout the week. So I feel like I'm supposed to challenge you this week. I talked to somebody this week and they said there's dust on my Bible at home.
I'm here to challenge you this week to dust your Bible off. If you can't do it for any other week of the year, you could do it for this week. And we are giving you, if you scan this, you'll see it. It goes through every day of Holy Week and it gives you the scriptures that correlate with what happened on that day.
And it also gives you a short prayer. We're talking five minutes. But I think if any week of the year that we can do this, we could do it this week. And I just want to encourage you. And also, I wish Caitlin, not my Caitlin, she's my Caitlin too, but the other Caitlin was here because this was really hurt.
She did this and it's really beautiful. And I want you to observe Holy Week this week. And I know it's a little bit noisy and it's been a little bit different flow, different building. But I hope you leave today just realizing and remembering that if your life is in a hard spot, Sunday is coming.
Just because Jesus was in the tomb, it doesn't mean he wasn't working for us. It doesn't mean he was doing nothing. He's working behind the scenes for us in our lives. And I just wanted to encourage you in that.