| What Did Jesus Want? |
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I. God’s Kingdom to come… For weeks now I have been asking the same question. It’s a question that I hope has been reverberating in our minds thru the week, a question that I hope has been shining like a searchlight into our hearts. What do you want? What do you really want? What hungers drive you? What desires shape your life? Each week, as we have looked at different biblical characters thru the lens of this question, I hope you’ve been asking yourself, Do I want what they wanted? Do I want what David wanted? Moses? Peter and Paul? The question this week is perhaps the most important question of all: Do I want what Jesus wanted? Do I really? In particular, do I want what Jesus wanted on that day 2000 years ago when he rode into the city of Jerusalem amidst the cries of Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord? What is it that Jesus wanted that day? Do you know? Did he want to be crowned as King? Did he want to bring God’s Kingdom to earth that day? Whatever else Jesus wanted I think it’s fair to say he wanted what he taught his disciples to pray: Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth…May I suggest that is a truly great thing to want? Actually, the greatest thing that anyone, anywhere could ever want. CS Lewis once said, Our problem is not that our desires are too strong. They are far too weak and rather small. We’re like little children playing with mud pies in the slums, he said. Unwilling to leave them behind, because we can’t imagine what is meant by the promise of a holiday at the sea. Can you imagine? Would you imagine with me for a moment, a world without war, without even the rumor of a war, or the possibility of a war. A world in which there are no armies, no navies, no military forces whatsoever. There are no military forces and no weapons because there is no need. Everyone everywhere does the will of God from their hearts. Rulers rule in righteousness and justice. People work with energy and joy and no one takes advantage of anyone else. Husbands and wives remain devoted to each other as long as they both shall live. Therefore, children grow up in homes filled with love and security and every opportunity to develop their full potential not just in one privileged corner of the globe, but in every tongue and tribe and nation on the surface of the earth. Everyone everywhere lives in harmony, in harmony with each other and in harmony with nature caring for all creatures great & small because they too are all God’s creation. You do realize, don’t you, that the prophets of old envisioned such a time as this. A time when everything would be born again, if you will, made new, a new heaven and earth. A time when people would beat their swords into plowshares and train for war no more. A time when the lion would lie down with the lamb and the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Ever since the days of creation there has a desire beating in the heart of God and in the heart of God’s prophets, ever since the fall, for a heaven and earth in harmony with each other; where there is peace on earth and good among men. That is what we pray for when we pray, thy Kingdom come Thy will be done....Which brings me back to Palm Sunday. II. Which Brings Us to Palm Sunday… For whatever else Palm Sunday is about, it’s about the people of Israel, at least some of the people in Israel, wanting God’s kingdom to come. That’s why they’re shouting Hosanna! God save us! That’s why they’re singing, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! That’s why they’re laying their cloaks in the road in front of Jesus and waving palm fronds in the air. They know the prophecy from Zechariah chapter 9. Behold, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on the foal of a donkey. They understand what this act on the part of Jesus might mean, that he is presenting himself as their long awaited Messianic King. They’re beginning to hope, maybe even to believe, that Jesus is the one, the one who would finally bring heaven to earth and sit on the throne of his father David forever and ever. But that’s not quite what happened, is it? No. In five short days this crowd of exuberant followers has all but disappeared, some running in fear, some weeping in horror, as Roman soldiers nailed their Messiah to a cross amidst an altogether different cry. Crucify him! Crucify him! the crowds in Jerusalem shouted. But Jesus knew. He knew it would happen. That is why, as he approached the city, with Hosannas ringing in his ear, he wept and He said, If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace. If only you had known. If only you had known. But they didn’t know. They didn’t understand what would bring true peace. Do You? Could we admit something to each other? (Something we may find hard to admit.) Jesus was confusing, at least to people who were looking for God’s Kingdom; and his way of bringing peace was hard to understand, too. On one hand, Jesus was so powerful. Just like what you would expect a Messiah to be. He could feed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two little fish; He could make the lame to walk and the blind to see. He could cast out demons with a word, and even raise the dead. There were such miraculous signs that Jesus was indeed anointed by God. Anointed is what the word, Messiah, literally means. Jesus was, on one hand, so powerful; yet, on the other hand, he was powerless. Jesus had no army to lead against Rome, or any earthly enemy for that matter. He had no wealth, no political connections, and no real position of authority. All the people of power and influence who knew about him were against him. Not only that, but Jesus wasn’t planning a rise to power. In fact, he seemed at every turn to be avoiding it. He told people to keep his miracles a secret; He stayed away from the major cities, the power centers, most of his life. Jesus spoke out against the use of force; he said those who live by the sword will die by the sword. He taught his followers about a kingdom that was not a kingdom of this world. If you stop and think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. How does a Messiah become King of the World and bring God’s Kingdom to earth, without exercising power, political power, military power, some form of power? The Jesus of the Book of Revelation, now, that makes sense. Riding into the world on a white horse, with a two-edged sword shining from his mouth. Hurling judgments on the world, like coals from a fire. Casting the beast and his evil minions into a lake of fire. But going silently like a lamb to slaughter while the crowd cries, Crucify him! Crucify him! How do we make sense of that? III. The Kingdom of God in Jesus Jesus once made a rather surprising statement about the kingdom of God. He said, The Kingdom of God is not the kind of thing about which you say, ‘Here it is” or “There it is;” because the kingdom of God is within you. Wait a minute! Didn’t we just say the kingdom of God is God’s rule and reign over all of reality? Isn’t the Kingdom the time and place when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, the time and place when God’s Messiah sits on God’s Throne and all is finally made right with the world? Yes, it is. But that’s not how it begins. Before God’s kingdom comes and God’s will is done everywhere on earth as it is in heaven, God’s kingdom must come and God’s will must be done here in my heart, and your heart, and his heart, and her heart. The Kingdom of God is God ruling and reigning over human life, yes. But God ruling and reigning from within, from the heart, not from without, by force of arms at least not yet. That is what the crowd on that first Palm Sunday didn’t quite understand. They didn’t understand that Jesus came to change their hearts. They didn’t understand that until human hearts are changed, from the inside, there will be no peace on earth. Until our hearts are changed, God’s kingdom will not come, nor God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is the first thing they didn’t understand about what brings peace. The Second thing they didn’t understand was that Jesus’ commitment to the kingdom of God would cost him his life and so might theirs. Have you ever thought, long and hard, about the dilemma Jesus posed for the Jewish leaders or the powers of Rome? They had a real problem on their hands. Jesus came into their midst preaching about the kingdom of God, about God’s rule and reign over all of human life and Jesus embodied that Kingdom. He lived, every moment and in every way, according to the will of His Father in heaven. He didn’t just live that way; he insisted that God’s people live that way as well. So he went into the temple, right after the triumphal entry, and cast the money changers out, demanding that his Father’s house be what it was supposed to be, a house of prayer. Then He stood in the temple courts, all week long, calling the Scribes and Pharisees blind guides and hypocrites, false teachers of the worst sort. The people were flocking to him; they were being convinced by his word and miraculous deeds so the leaders of Israel were faced with a stark choice. Either bend the knee to Jesus, admit that he was sent from God and speaks for God; or opposes him. Defeat his arguments and in that way shut him up; if that can’t be done, then get rid of him which is what they did. But here is the amazing thing: Jesus let them do it. Jesus let them get rid of him. He didn’t fight against them. Yes, he spoke out against them but he didn’t take up a sword or lead a rebellion. He didn’t even slip away into the crowd; go into hiding to fight another day. He stood there, confronting them, teaching the truth, living the truth, being the embodiment of the truth. The truths he taught were in direct opposition to their way of being in the world. The result? Jesus was crucified. Jesus allowed the princes of Israel and powers of Rome to nail him to a cross. He could have called 10,000 angels; he could have destroyed his enemies with the sword of his mouth but he didn’t. Why didn’t he? You ready for this answer? Are you really ready? Because God the Father didn’t want him to. Jesus stretched out his arms and received the nails in his hands in obedience to his Father in heaven. Philippians chapter 2: Jesus humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. It was Jesus’ absolute commitment to the will of God that led him to the cross. Make no mistake: it was the greatest struggle of his life. Actually the greatest struggle in all eternity. We catch a glimpse of it’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sweating drops of blood, under such emotional stress that his capillaries burst, Jesus falls to the ground and cries out, Oh Father, let this cup pass from me…Oh Father, I do not want to drink it…Oh Father, if there is any other way…any other way to bring your kingdom to earth…But apparently, there was no other way. No other way but the death of the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. No other way but the suffering servant showing us what it means to love the world and live in complete submission to God. So Jesus ends his prayer, Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. What did Jesus want? What did he want that day he entered Jerusalem to the cries of the crowd? Surely He wanted God’s kingdom to come. He wanted God’s good will to be done everywhere on earth as it is heaven. He wanted sin and death to cease; he wanted hearts to be changed; He wanted the world to be saved; he wanted everything finally to be made right. He wanted it so deeply, so absolutely, so completely that he was willing to die. IV. What do you want? So, what do you want? What do I want? There are many way to respond to the events of Palm Sunday. But may I suggest three. Three prayers that we should learn to pray and not just pray, but live. The first one is the one Jesus taught his disciples to pray, everyday, in what we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer. Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Phil 2 says that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus has died, Jesus has risen and Jesus is coming again. So God’s kingdom shall come, God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven and there will be peace on earth, not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of everything that makes life beautiful, good and true. What we want, what we have all been waiting for and praying for and hoping for and working for will finally and fully come to be and Jesus shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! But until that day let us also pray, Lord, let it begin with me. In my heart. In my home. In the private places of my life and the public as well. May your kingdom come, may your will be done in my heart, your home. Reign in me. Reign in me until I love your will above all other things. Reign in me until knowing and doing your will becomes the deepest desire of my heart. Reign in me until I become like Jesus, your son, who lived and died and lives forevermore. Finally, may we learn to pray, not my will but thine be done. If only they had known what would bring peace that day, everything would have been different. Have we learned what brings peace in our day? What brings peace in our hearts and in our families, in our churches and in our land, in every corner of the globe? What brings peace is knowing and doing the will of God from our hearts but sometimes in this life submission is quite a struggle. Sometimes it leads into our own Garden of Gethsemane, where all we can honestly say is Lord, please, take it away. Lord, please, if there is any other way…any other way but through this valley of the shadow of death; any other way but through the weakness of my body, or the loss of my job or suffering at the hands of those who are hurting me. Lord, please, if there be any other way that through this sacrifice, through this trial, this tribulation, to this loss or this pain. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Let us pray. |
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 April 2011 12:28 |
