29 March 2020
FROM PALMS TO THE CROSS
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”
Matthew 17-28
Introduction:
Today is Palm Sunday, beginning what has been called the Holy Week. It will end in the triumphal opening of the tomb, for Jesus had risen.
We will take a comprehensive look at that Week this morning, as we want again to experience in mind and soul the central truth of Christianity — Jesus lives!
I. PRELIMINARY EVENT — THE TRANSFIGURATION
Matthew 17
Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a mountain where he was transfigured before their eyes. Suddenly there also appeared Elijah and Moses, and Peter, always the impetuous one, wanted to build temples for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah there. As he spoke, a voice came from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” They fell on their faces, getting up only when Jesus touched them. “When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.” Matthew 17:8
II. ADULATION — THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
Matthew 21:1-11 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
As the disciples and Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, He sent two of them to go into Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, to find a donkey and her colt tied there. They were to bring them back to him, telling anyone who might stop them that the Lord had need of them. When they returned, they spread their cloaks on the colt, and with Jesus sitting atop the animal, started into Jerusalem. Crowds gathered along the road, some going ahead of them and others following behind, all crying “Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Hosanna in the highest!”
As He entered the city, people wondered who He was. As He reached the Temple, He encountered the merchants, selling animals for sacrifices at outrageous prices. Righteously enraged, He turned over their tables, breaking cages and freeing many of the animals as He rebuked them, saying “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” He also healed the blind and sick who were brought to Him, while the Scribes and the Chief Priests were indignant and angry, not recognizing Him as the Son of God.
III. PREPARATION — LAST SUPPER AND GETHSEMANAE
Matthew 26:26-46 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
As the week continued, Jesus spent more time in the Temple and around Jerusalem and nearby Bethany, teaching and healing, preparing His disciples for His coming death. He spoke of His Second Coming and the Great Tribulation. Judas Iscariot became disillusioned with this young leader and went to the Chief Priest to bargain to turn Jesus over to them. Then he returned to the group to participate in the Last Supper they had together as Jesus broke the bread, symbolic of His soon to be broken body, and shared the wine, symbolic of His soon to be shed blood. He told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, acknowledging to Judas that He knew he would be the one. He also warned Peter that he would betray Him three times before the cock crowed in the morning. Peter, of course, denied that he would ever deny His Lord. Then they all went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray with Him.
Leaving them to pray, He went a ways away and prayed “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
IV. TRIBULATION — BETRAYAL, TRIAL, CONVICTION
Matthew 26:47-27:14
But the disciples’ eyes were heavy and they were unable to stay awake to pray and He sorrowfully said to them “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour [i]is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”
Moments later, soldiers arrived and Judas walked up to Jesus and kissed Him to indicate who among their number was Jesus. As the soldiers tried to take Him, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant. Jesus gently rebuked him and allowed the soldiers to carry Him before the High Priest, who sought for witnesses to testify against Him so they could have Him put to death. But none were found, so two men stepped forward and lied and at last Jesus could be convicted. Peter had followed them and during the questioning, he was asked three times if he wasn’t a follower of Jesus by others standing near him, and three time He denied it. Then he heard the cock crow.
V. CRUCIFIXION — TORTURE, AGONY, THE CROSS
Matthew 27:15-50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
Jesus was eventually turned over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who, though he found could find no fault in Jesus, feared the growing mob that was fired up by the Jewish leaders. He demanded of the crowd if he should release Barabas, a known criminal, or Jesus who had committed no crime. When the crowd repeatedly called for the release of Barabbas, Pilate, against his wife’s warning, ceremoniously washed his hands and claimed that the blood of Jesus was not on his hands. Then he turned Jesus over to the Jewish leaders.
With the help of Roman soldiers, they paraded Jesus through the streets, forcing him to carry the heavy cross upon which he was soon to hang. When he stumbled, a bystander, Simon of Cyrene, was compelled to carry it for Him. When they arrived at the hill of Golgotha (the place of the Skull), Jesus was nailed to the cross and set in the middle of two other crosses bearing thieves. One of them, recognizing Jesus, asked Him to remember Him when He reached paradise. Jesus told him that that day he would be with Him in heaven.
A small group including Mary, the mother of Jesus, John, and others stood nearby in anguish while the crowds mocked and derided him. Jesus, before dying, gave the protection and care of Mary into John’s hands. “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.” The soldiers, as night was approaching, broke the legs of each dying prisoner to hasten their death, but when they came to Jesus, they saw that He seemed to have already died, so they struck him in the side with a spear to see if he responded, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that said no bone in His body would be broken. At His death, a great earthquake shook the land, splitting in two the veil between the Holy and the Holy of Holies in the Temple and frightening the soldiers, many of whom decided that Jesus was in fact the Son of God!. Joseph of Arimathaea took the body to his own tomb and it was laid there, a stone blocking the entrance and soldiers watching the grave lest the followers of Jesus steal away His body to make it appear that he had risen from the dead.
In His death, Jesus fulfilled the words spoken by John the Baptist, who when Jesus approached him to be baptized in the river Jordan cried, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Conclusion:
We don’t like to think about pain, about death. We would rather dwell on the magnificence of rebirth, but without the agony of Jesus’ death on the cross, there can be no payment for our (read: for my) sins. We should bow in humble gratitude beneath the cross and thank God for His Son who died there.