Palm Sunday Sermon 2021

 

Palmarum – Matthew 21:1-10

St. Andrew’s Lutheran, Laramie, WY

28 March A+D 2021, Pr. Mark Preus

 

In the last days of David the king, he called to himself Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and said to them, “”Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon.  There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king of Israel; and blow the trumpet, and say, “Long live King Solomon!” Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place.  For I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah.

 

And Benaiah said, “Amen! And may the Lord make Solomon’s throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.

 

This is a picture of Christ’s own triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  He is the Son of David, as Solomon was. As the angel Gabriel told Mary, “He shall sit on the throne of his father David,” so the people sing, “Blesses is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord! (Mark)  Hosanna to the Son of David! (Matthew). 

 

But his throne is greater than His father David’s.  David only ruled Palestine, but Zechariah  (9:10b) prophesies,

 

“He shall speak peace to the nations;

His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,

And from the River to the ends of the earth.’”

 

And so Jesus comes to be king of all the earth, as He later used all authority in heaven and on earth to send out His disciples, “God and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them.” 

 

David’s kingdom is an earthly, worldly kingdom, and therefore temporal and passing away, but Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, a spiritual kingdom, which is eternal, as the prophet Daniel (7:27) prophesies, “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” And Isaiah (9:7) says the same thing,

 

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

 

 

David was merely a man, but Jesus is God’s “Son…our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” as the sons of Korah prophesy in Psalm 45(:7),

 

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;

A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.

 

Therefore Christ’s is a divine kingdom, against which no earthly ruler or power can stand. 

 

And Jesus’ name is greater than the name of his father David.  Many nations bowed the knee to David, but, as it is written about Christ (Phil. 20), “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.” 

 

But most importantly, many came to David for help from earthly troubles, and he helped them, but only Jesus fulfilled the words of Psalm 118 which we sing and celebrate today with great joy, “Hosanna!” Save now, I pray, O Lord!...Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed You from the house of the Lord. 

 

Brothers and sisters, a greater than Solomon is here, and as He entered Jerusalem to the songs of the faithful crying out for mercy, “Hosanna! Save now!”, so we poor sinners cling to these same words to claim the Wisdom of God, the King of Israel, His Church, because He comes in the name of the Lord to save us, and be enthroned in our hearts as our Lord over sin, doubt, grief, pain, and death itself.  Let us pray.

 

I lay in fetters groaning,

Thou com’st to set me free;

I stood, my shame bemoaning;

Thou com’st to honor me.

A glory Thou dost give me,

A treasure safe on high,

That will not fail or leave me

As earthly riches fly.

 

It is a great shame that the devil has led so many Christians astray by teaching that Christ’s kingdom will come to earth visibly for a thousand years, where the ungodly will be suppressed everywhere, and we have to wait exactly a thousand years before we are rid of all sin and woe.  Christ already came visibly on earth to save us and to deal with all wickedness in mercy.  When He comes again visibly, He will judge the living and the dead. 

 

The teaching of millennialism, that John in Revelation means a literal thousand year reign of Christ visibly on earth, is a teaching that distracts from the fact that Jesus rules now in the same manner in which He came into the Jerusalem to save us from our sins.  Listen again to how Jesus comes to save us.  The prophet Zechariah explains it very well,

 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your King is coming to you;

He is just and having salvation,

Lowly and riding on a donkey,

A colt, the foal of a donkey.

 

He is righteous and having salvation.  He is lowly and riding on a donkey.  He comes with salvation, and He comes lowly.  He comes to lowly sinners as a lowly Savior.  He comes to those humbled by the knowledge of their mortality and weakness as one who tasted death for all men when He was humiliated on the cross. 

 

Just as you cannot be exalted unless you are first humbled, so you cannot understand the glory of Jesus kingdom apart from His humiliation.  Jesus’ humiliation is when He does not always and fully use His divine powers.  This is what St. Paul describes in Philippians 2,

 

“Being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.”

 

He was in the form of God.  He looks like God.  He has the appearance of God, so to speak, although no one has seen God at any time.  This of course assumes that Jesus is God, but that is not the main point here.  The main point is that He had all the glory and beauty and goodness, the form of God, but He does not show that and vaunt it and boast about it.  He has a different attitude than a sinful world. 

 

We cannot grasp equality with God.  That is the devil’s promise and he lies.  “You will be like God, knowing good and evil, if you grasp, take this fruit.”  This is the lie of works righteousness.  I can think the right thing, do the right thing, feel the right thing, and grasp equality with God.  I can buy a stairway to heaven.  I can exalt myself.  But Jesus, who is exalted, in the form and beauty of the eternal and holy God, does not exalt Himself. He humbles Himself. 

 

“But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave, and coming in the likeness of men.”

 

A better translation is “He emptied Himself.”  This doesn’t mean He emptied Himself of His divinity.  He can’t do that.  God can’t deny Himself.  It means that He emptied Himself of any demand for us to do anything for Him.  He came not to be served, as was His right, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. 

 

And though He was in the form of God, that is, He had the beauty and glory of God, yet He takes the form of a slave.  He is among us as one who serves.  He takes off His cloak, and kneels down and washes our feet.  And He does not show us God in His bare glory, but shows us God in the likeness of men.  He shows God to us as we are. 

 

This is how God thinks.  He wants us to view Him always in this humble slave-man.  That is our king who came triumphantly into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, and that is our king who comes triumphantly to this place today in the Gospel and sacraments.  It appears all lowly and humble because He hides Himself from the glory of men, and reveals Himself as one who serves us. 

 

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

 

Paul emphasizes this point again and again because the Gospel emphasize it again and again.  He appears as a man.  You cannot find God except in appearance as a man.  You cannot find the High and Holy one of Israel, unless you find Him humbled, not using all of His glory and divine powers, at least not outwardly.  You cannot find the God who justly demands obedience from you except in the obedience of Christ on the cross.  You cannot find the living God apart from the dead man Jesus Christ. 

 

And this remains true until Christ comes again.  There will be no so-called “rapture” of believers into heaven before Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead.  There is only Christ’s kingdom of grace here on earth until we are transferred to His kingdom of glory in heaven, which is the same kingdom. 

 

And this means that we have a different attitude than the world.  We recognize how much we need this king coming to us righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey.  Every day we struggle with a mind that is different than Christ’s.  Every day we meet a mind that wants to exalt ourselves instead of humbling ourselves.  It is the mind of the flesh.  It is the mind that considers equality with God something to be grasped, earned, won, deserved by us.  It is the mind of the devil that infected Adam. 

 

And so we learn from this beautiful story of Jesus how to greet our King.  We join the Church that gathers to greet Christ.  We don’t hold on to grudges against each other.  We forgive, as Christ comes to forgive not just me, but my brother who has sinned against me.  Jesus gathers sinners together, and so we welcome sinners and join sinners who desire Christ as their King.

 

The people took off their outer garments and threw them down before Jesus.  So we repent of our sins.  As Ephesians 4 says, “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts.”  And Colossians says the same thing, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.” 

 

In other words, we repent.  We see Christ coming, and we know He is God.  He comes to do away with sin.  Do you want to keep your sin?  Then you do not want Jesus, because He comes to take it away.  Repent, and throw it off, for your King to trample on it. 

 

And we give to Him all glory.  We do not try to be better than we are for Him to come.  Instead we cut off the palm branches and lay them before His feet.  The palm branches are our glory, our accomplishments, our pride.  Palms were used to signify victory in battle.  But Jesus alone wins the battle.  He alone goes to fight against our sins and conquer them.  He alone is righteous and having salvation.  And so do not be afraid to give to this lowly King all glory.  Do not think that you must keep some ability, some accomplishment, something to-do as your own.  Cut off the branches and lay them at the feet of the one who is the Vine, from whom you will grow as true and living branches that bear fruit from Him alone. 

 

We repent, we give to Jesus all the glory, and finally, we sing the greatest praise to Him that can be sung.  We trust in Him.  We sing Hosanna!  Save now!  Faith asks Jesus to save us.  Faith is the highest praise of God because it recognizes God’s greatest work, which is that Jesus suffers under the Law for us and redeems us, rescues us from all our sins, crushes the devil’s head, takes death from him and conquers it, and calls to every one who has no strength and righteousness of his own, “Come to me! I am righteous and having salvation, having forgiveness, having peace and rest for your soul.  Eat, and you will not hunger.  Drink, and you will not thirst.  Believe, and you have everlasting life, because you will have my mind, my attitude, which is God at peace with you through My death.”

 

A greater than Solomon is here.  Solomon was deceived by his many wives. Jesus lays down His life for His one bride.  Solomon was wise in earthly matters; Jesus is the heavenly wisdom from above that shows us His glory in suffering and dying for us.  Solomon divided his kingdom because of his sin and his sons lost it.  Jesus unites all nations into one kingdom and His sons inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.  Solomon’s glory was not as beautiful as a lily of the field, yet lilies fade and wither like I do, but Christ’s glory is on the dry stem of the cross, and as Aaron’s staff budded, so that cross buds blooms that will not wilt, but grow into the fruit of the tree of life.  The Queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but Christ has gone to the ends of the earth to seek and to save that which was lost.  Hosanna! To the Son of David!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord to claim me as His own, to strip off of me what harms me, and to clothe me with the righteousness I need; to take the false peace of the world and its pride away, and to impart to my broken and sullied heart the peace that surpasses my understanding, the peace of being washed in His blood and made His own dear child. 

 

Dear Jesus, I have nothing to offer you.  I will cast off all my righteousness, and count it all but loss, if I may gain You, and be found in You, not having my own good works, but having your obedience and suffering and blood, because in them I am unashamed, I am clothed with what shines before God as purity and holiness and goodness.  It is in Your humility that I find my glory.  It is in Your lowliness that I am lifted up from sin to live a life of faith in you.  Give the assurance of Your salvation in Your holy Word, in the sacrament of Your body and blood, and in my baptism every day.  Teach me to live a life of good works, and finally, lead me to that eternal glory which Your Father has prepared for all those who love You.  Amen.