Palm Sunday 2023
Introduction
Jesus is Lord. When He entered Jerusalem, Jesus didn’t avoid the problems of his day. He addressed them. He confronted them. The world today wants a Jesus who doesn’t confront evil. They want a hippie Jesus who is nice to the corrupt temple leaders and the cripple beggars alike. They want a Jesus who is nice but powerless.
I heard a story this week about a protestant church in Germany during the Nazi regime. The church house stood yards away from the train tracks. And every Sunday cars and cars of Jews were shipped to a nearby camp. The church could hear their screams and cries, so they would sing louder. When God’s covenant people ignore the evil right beside them, tables will be flipped over.
The Text
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.”
And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. Matthew 21:12–17
Explanation of the Text
God made temple to reveal His presence to His people. Each sacrifice taught the worshipper about God’s goodness and His authority.
Overtime, the priests, Levites, and Pharisees abused people through the temple. For years, the temple leaders acted like the mafia. They charged extra for their services. For example, the law allowed provisions for the poor when offering sacrifices. When Jesus was circumcised as an infant, his parents couldn’t afford a lamb, so they purchased turtle doves for the sacrifice (Luke 2:24). The temple leaders likely made Joseph pay double the price he should have to sacrifice the turtle doves. If a worshipper wanted to worship God, he had to first be extorted by the temple mafia.
In the OT, the priest inspected people, clothing, and homes cursed with leprosy. In Leviticus 14:34-42, if there’s an unclean house, the priest should instruct the owners to remove everything in the house for his inspection (Leviticus 14:36). After inspecting the leprosy, he waits one week before inspecting it a second time, if the leprosy spread, then the house was to be demolished and no stone left on another, and a new house built in it’s place (Leviticus 14:39-42). Jesus comes on the scene as the true high priest ( ). Early in his ministry, Jesus enters the temple the first time. In John 2:13-16, He clears and overturns the table. The people ask him in John 2:18 what is the sign of his authority, and he responds in verse 19 like the priest in Leviticus 14, “I will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.” When we get to Matthew 21, I believe this is the second time Jesus inspects the temple. After a three year wait, Jesus returns as the high priest and the king, and the sin is worse than earlier. So, he clears out the temple again and quotes from Isaiah (56:7) and Jeremiah (7:11). In Isaiah 56, God promised that one day people from every nation will gather at His temple and worship Him. But in Jeremiah 7, Jeremiah stood at the gate of the old temple rebuking the people for convenient idolatry. They were worshipping Baal, committing adultery, and murdering (7:9) all while claiming they were worshipping at the temple of God (7:4). But like the leaders in Jeremiah’s day, Jesus’ prophecy falls on deaf ears.
But the blind and cripple came to him in the temple, and he healed them (Matthew 21:14). And the children in the temple began singing from Psalm 118, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” Hosanna means, “Save us we pray O Lord!” Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to save them. But the Temple leaders were offended and interrogated Jesus as to why the children were praising him (v. 16). And he quoted the first half of Psalm 8:2 to them. The part he didn’t quote was that the praise of babes makes the enemy and vengeful cease. Jesus was telling them that the praise of children was also a rebuke of them. They were His enemies. Jesus loves. But notice, He loves by honoring God, overthrowing evil, and restoring sinners.
Today’s Pharisees Blaspheme God
We live in a world with a new religion, a new temple, a new priest, and a new king. The new religion is secularism, the new temple is transgenderism, the new priests are oppressed women, and the new king is the state. This new religion has two axioms: hate God and everyone made in His image.
Secularism promises freedom from God and His law. The only price of admission into this new religion is to destroy anything and everything that God made. What secularism doesn’t tell you is that everything God made is good. So, when you buy into this religion you must destroy God’s good gifts. God gave your wife as a blessing, so you must neglect her for your work. God gave your husband as protector, so you must resent him for it. God gave you work to make this world into a glory, now your work remakes you into a cog for a machine. God gives us babies as a handmade gift, so we murder them in hopes to get a promotion at work—the same work that will fire you when you become obsolete. God gives us children to train into godliness, so we send them off to be trained by people who hate God. God gives us teenagers to be the future leaders for His kingdom, so we castrate them and confuse them. God gives us churches to proclaim God’s law, His gospel, and administer the sacraments of grace and truth. Instead, churches avoid God’s law, confuse His gospel and administer the sacraments of secularism. God gave us governmental leaders to praise what is good and to punish what is evil, but our leaders praise what is evil and punish what is good.
Palm Sunday today in 2023 and Palm Sunday 2023-years ago have much more in common than we think.
In Jerusalem, the temple leaders worshipped money at the expense of God’s house and the people made in God’s image. In America, people care less for worship and family but more for money. According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll covering responses from 1998 to 2023, American’s value in religion declined from 62% to 39% and America’s value in having children decline from 59% to 30%. During that same amount of time, our value in money has increased from 31% to 43%. America has more in common with Jerusalem than we think.
In Jerusalem, the temple leaders pushed family members against one another. In Mark 7, Jesus rebukes people who refuse to take care of their elderly parents because they invested their money in the temple. Jesus rebuked his disciples for despising children (Matthew 19:13-14). And Jesus rebuked the practice of no-fault divorce that many in Jerusalem practiced to cover for their rampant adultery (Matthew 19:1-12). In America, you’re likely to see bumper stickers that read, “spending my child’s inheritance.” You’re more likely to hear people complain about their kids than praise God for them. We have more in common with Jerusalem than we think. Jerusalem needed saving and so do we. We need Jesus to save us.
So, on Interstate 385 in Gray Court we’ve all seen the sign that reads, “Rejoice, God loves trans kids.” I believe that sign has troubled many of us. We want to do the right thing. We want to worship God. Remember the temple leaders in Jeremiah’s day said, “continue worshipping in God’s temple” while God’s prophet said, this temple blasphemes God. Remember the temple leaders in Jesus day questioned him on Palm Sunday, “who are you to receive worship from children” while Jesus responded, “you are my enemies for abusing these children.” Do we think that a secular culture who hates children more than it did twenty-five years ago actually cares about children? Do they care that after a so-called sex change surgery the recipient has to spend the rest of their lives taking powerful antibiotics, which shorten their life span? They do care about the billions of dollars the medical and pharmaceutical industry makes off their suffering.
When we see this sign on 385, most of us think things “what would my granny think if she saw this” or “what do those trans kids think if they see this.” But who has asked the question, what does God think about it? People are invoking God’s approval on the butchery of children made in His image. Can you think of anything more blasphemous than that?
Hosanna
So, what does all this have to do with Palm Sunday? We worship Jesus who saves sinners, defeats evil, and honors His father.
Salvation comes through Jesus—the God man—who kills our sin and gives us new life in Him. He was butchered for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5). So, when this secular religion promises salvation in the scars from a surgeon’s knife, they are preaching a different gospel. Salvation comes through the nail scars of king Jesus. By His wounds he are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
Jesus defeats evil. He will defeat all evil, sin, and suffering (Revelation 21:4). But how? How will He defeat secularism? He already did. He won by dying. You see all evil will either burn in hell or die on the cross. The call for this secular nation is repent or perish.
Earlier last week a woman walked into a school and killed 6 Christians at a Christian school. Their names are William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak. They died for being with Christ. That means they are martyrs and heroes of the faith (Hebrews 11:37-38). And they died more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). We honor Christ and our holy father by living by faith and dying by faith. Palm Sunday isn’t about palm branches as much as it’s about God saving His people and God’s enemies wanting to stop it.
Application
Brothers and sisters, Palm Sunday is not a sentimental story. It’s teaches us how to live for Jesus in a time and place that hates Him. How do we deal with secular paganism on Palm Sunday?
First, when you experience sin, evil, injustice, and sorrow, sing to Jesus and pray to Jesus. The joy of the Lord is our strength at all times. God tells us that vengeance is His, not ours (Romans 12:19). He will take care of all evil either on the cross or in hell.
Second, if you’re living in unrepentant sin, turn to Jesus and find freedom. If you’re a Christian, you should be praising Jesus in Jerusalem asking Him to save us. But many of us hide in the shadows. Why? Because we’re ashamed of our failures and sin. We tolerate this world’s sin, because if we were to share God’s law and God’s gospel, they will just remind us of our internet history. Remember, Jesus came to Jerusalem to save sinners. You being a sinner doesn’t surprise Jesus. Give up your sin and live free from your sin. If you’re not a Christian, you have nowhere for your sin to go except with you to hell unless you let go of your sin and hold on to Christ. If you have any questions about what it means to turn from your sin and trust in Christ, please talk with me after the service.
Conclusion
Look at verse 17. After Jesus enters Jerusalem as king and after he rebukes the temple leaders, where does he go? He goes to Bethany, a small village just on the outskirts of the city. Why does He go there? Because Lazarus was there. If you look at John’s account of Palm Sunday, the reason there’s such a crowd waiting on Jesus is because everybody can’t stop talking about Lazarus, the dead guy whose no longer dead (John 12:17-18). When your neighbor’s sick, you avoid him because you’re afraid you’ll get what he’s got. When your neighbor walks out of his own tomb, you visit him so that you’ll get what he’s got.
Jesus entered into the problems of Jerusalem. He didn’t ignore them. He didn’t make excuses for their sin. He entered into Jerusalem to conquer sin and death.