Sixth Sunday in Lent-Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-40

And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

In our text there are those who are saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”

But not everyone is saying it. Not everyone is pleased to call Jesus King.

Pharisees are in the crowd as well—those ones who are always looking to their own righteousness as what makes them fit for God’s kingdom. To the shouts of “Blessed is the King…” they respond to Jesus: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” They don’t want Jesus to be talked about with the same terminology that would be used to talk about the Messiah or Christ—the one God was sending as the savior.

Prior to our text in the same chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus had met Zacchaeus the tax collector who’d repented of his sins and even demonstrated it in pledging to make amends, and to whom Jesus pronounced forgiveness. Isn’t the Lord who does that, seen clearly in our lessons for today?

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah exhorts God’s people to rejoice and to shout aloud about this King Who comes to them righteous and having salvation, humble, speaking peace to the nations. Joy is the result of His rule. The people have everything good to look forward to, including the mercy that Jesus exhibits in His dealing with Zacchaeus.

St. Paul, in the epistle lesson, talks about the great humility of this King. He says that though He is in every way God, His objective in coming into this world, into human flesh, was to serve us—to put everything that would have happened to us because of our sins on Himself, to be brought as low as it’s possible to be brought. One of our Lenten hymns, “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” talks about the stunning visual of Jesus on the cross with Him groaning, with hands raised to wound Him and all the rest of it. But then he ends the verse saying, But the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that Justice gave—Justice capitalized, meaning it’s God that gave the deepest stroke. It’s talking about the kind of suffering that can’t really be shown in a movie; it’s what Jesus is describing when He says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He’s suffering hell for us when He says that.

That’s the serving-humility of this one that rides into Jerusalem in our text. It isn’t usually the way of a king; but it is of this one. It is of this one that you see kindly, mercifully dealing with the repentant sinner, Zacchaeus. He forgives him and welcomes him into God’s kingdom. It’s a beautiful moment that demonstrates why it’s so appropriate for people to shout, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

But we said not everyone is shouting that.

Going back in Luke’s Gospel again for a moment, that part about Zacchaeus: Pharisees who are there, grumble that Jesus is associating with this sinful man (Luke 19:5-7)—again, because they feel they themselves aren’t that (or, at least not so much that God would be concerned about it). They’re elevating themselves above someone who would be called a sinner.

After the brief account with Zacchaeus, Jesus had told the parable of the Ten Minas, about a nobleman going on a trip to a far country. When he came back, he’d be a king. Calling ten of his servants, [the parable goes] he gave [each of] them ten minas, [a certain amount of money that could be invested] and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ But it says that his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us (Luke 19:13-14).’

That’s kind of like what’s happening in our Palm Sunday text, right? Pharisees are telling Jesus to stop letting these people call Him king (and really they mean, stop letting them call Him Messiah or Christ [because, that’s what “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” means to them]). And as an expression of the inevitability of it (It’s going to happen; Jesus is the eternal King), He responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Of course, in the parable, the man returns as king, and its interesting what they find in him. In rejecting him, they’ve chosen badly. And the end isn’t good for them because they made themselves this one’s enemies. But before they’re dealt with in this way, we get a glimpse of what they could have had. The man returns ready to reward them for their faithfulness. He isn’t the monster they’ve made him out to be. He says to the ones who’ve been faithful with what he has given, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Isn’t it clear from the things we’ve looked at, that that’s the kind of King this Jesus is? His disposition toward you is generous and merciful and loving. He deals with you according to the reality of your situation (a reality the Pharisees in our text aren’t willing to accept). Zacchaeus was though. He’d taken a long hard look at himself and realized that the perfection that God requires could never be found in him.

He wanted the exchange that God offers in His Son. He wanted to trade his sinfulness, his guilt for Christ’s righteousness.

Don’t you want the same, dear sinner? You aren’t in any different a situation, are you? You have guilt like Zacchaeus had. You have that thing you’ve said to someone in the past that you keep thinking of, and that you wish desperately you’d never said (or did that you wish you’d never done). If you’re a parent, you wish you’d been more faithful in it, more patient, more attentive, more forgiving. As a child of your parents, you wish you’d been more respectful, more obedient, more empathetic. Don’t you want, like Zacchaeus, to trade everything about you that’s fallen short of God’s glory, that you regret so desperately, in return for Christ’s righteousness? That’s the trade that this humble King is offering. It’s worth being excited about, like those people were on Palm Sunday.

A number of times I have pointed your attention to this quote from Martin Luther, the priest from about 500 years ago that our church body is named after:

Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am Your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and have given to me what is Yours. You have taken upon Yourself what You were not and have given to me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.”

Dear friends, shout with the Palm Sunday shouters: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Shout it because you know who this King is, that He is the one sent from heaven to make you righteous. He is the one so humble as to die for you on a cross. He is the one so merciful as to hear your heartfelt confession and respond with forgiveness. You have sins for which you’re guilty—even of Pharisaical self-righteousness that has sought to elevate yourself above other sinners, above being known as a sinner;

Jesus has no such guilt of His own. We sing in the Lenten Hymn, O Dearest Jesus, these words: “Of what great crime hast Thou to make confession; what dark transgression?” The answer is none. No crime, no transgression. He has only perfect righteousness (including perfect humility) that has been put in the place of your guilt. That’s why we say, Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! God is at peace with you now, because of this humble servant King who has come, making payment for your sins. You are forgiven in Him. God be praised. Amen.