Easter 2022 2
Easter: Presence & Reign
(Luke 19.28-48, 22.14-23)
As most of you know, we’re in the second week of our Easter series. Last week Arnaud took us through the Passover, the festival that was at the center of Jewish life. We talked about what the Passover represented: both the just judgment of God against sin, and the refuge that God offers his people in himself.
The reason that background is important is because the Passover is a picture of what God was planning to do in Christ. Over the next three weeks, we’re going to be looking at the end—or in many ways, the beginning—of that plan.
The last week of Jesus was filled with important moments, and obviously we don’t have time to see them all. But today is Palm Sunday. So we’re going to jump into the story at the moment we celebrate on Palm Sunday: Jesus’s triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
Before we get into it though, we need to keep our eyes on two central ideas, which we see scattered all throughout the Old Testament.
Before we get into it though, we need some background of everything leading up to it. (For this background, I’ve taken liberties with an outline done by J.T. English.)
Background
In Genesis 1 and 2, at the very beginning of the Bible, God creates a perfect world, a perfect kingdom; and he creates human beings to inhabit that world. But they rebel against him (when we talk about “sin,” that’s what it means—rebellion against God).
Because of their sin, human beings are expelled from this perfect kingdom, and the world is plunged into chaos, infected by their sin.
But the Bible takes great pains (starting in Genesis 3.15) to show us that God is bringing his kingdom back; he is restoring what has been broken. And he sets his plan to do that in motion through the covenants he makes with his people.
In the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22), God creates a people for himself, with whom he dwells and rules, and through whom he promises to extend his grace to the nations of the world.
In the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 19-24), God refines his people, creating a nation of priests, to reign and rule with them, to extend his holiness to the nations.
In the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7, Psalm 89), God reigns and rules amongst his people in Israel, and sets up a king for himself, King David. God’s presence is with his people and his king.
So we have all the elements of God’s kingdom being established in Jerusalem: David is reigning on the throne in Jerusalem, his presence is with them in the tabernacle, and the people are (for the most part) living obediently to God.
So at this point, David asks God a question (2 Samuel 7): “I want to build a house for you. I want to make your kingdom permanent here. I want to reign and rule as your king, and I want your presence to dwell with us permanently.”
But God responds by saying, “You aren’t going to build my temple; your son will. You won’t be king forever; he will.”
So David’s son Solomon succeeds to the throne, and does indeed build a temple for God in Jerusalem; but we quickly see that he isn’t the “son” God was referring to; Solomon doesn’t reign forever. His son Rehoboam, who becomes king after him, reigns poorly, and as a consequence divides the kingdom in two: into the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah.
Soon after this, God’s people suffer the consequences of their rebellion: the Assyrian kingdom destroys the northern kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 17); the Babylonian king destroys the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 25). The people are sent into exile (much like we see in Genesis 3, they are driven out of the land God has made for them).
After 70 years in exile they’re brought back into the land, through the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. But the kingdom is not restored: there is no king ruling, and God’s presence is not restored in the temple. (We actually saw a couple weeks ago in the book of Micah.)
And during this time, through the prophets, we see that there needs to be a king who reigns and rules forever. God promises to send that King—the anointed one, the Messiah, who will be what Israel’s kings could never be.
So when we finally arrive at the New Testament, the question the gospel writers are trying to answer is this: How is God going to do that? How is he going to bring his kingdom and his presence back into the world?
And one of the main messages of the gospel of Lule is that God going to do it through Jesus.
Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah, the King whom God had promised and whom the people needed.
Here, at the end of Luke 19, the King comes home to Jerusalem, to claim the throne.
Reign: The Triumphal Entry (v. 28-40)
28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 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. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
I love this passage for so many reasons, the first of which is the simple oddity of what Jesus tells his disciples to do before he enters Jerusalem. He brings two disciples aside, and tells them, “Go into the village, and find a donkey.”
So he tells them to get the donkeys, and he tells them what to say if anyone objects.
And the crazy thing is, it works—they go in, they find the colt, and the owner says, “Why are you taking my donkeys?” They say, “The Lord needs it.” And apparently, the owner goes, “Alright then,” and lets them have it.
But why a donkey? This is called “the triumphal entry”—what’s so triumphant about a donkey?
We need to remember that the gospel writers were excellent theologians. They are careful to include details which will show that Jesus is fulfilling things God had said would happen around this Messiah figure.
In the Old Testament book of Zechariah, we have the Lord speaking through his prophet about the Messiah, this king God would send to his people, to establish his reign among them. The prophet said (Zechariah 9.9):
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
So that’s what Jesus is doing—he is taking pains to come to Jerusalem as this promised king, in the way God had said he would.
And the royal imagery doesn’t stop there. V. 36:
36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 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, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
So we have Jesus, riding into the city, with cloaks spread onto the road like a makeshift red carpet, and this group of disciples gathered around him, literally proclaiming him God’s King.
It’s a picture that reminds us a good deal of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the monarchy in England: crowds gathered around, celebrating the royal family. When we think of kingship, this is this imagery we think of.
And that’s essentially what’s happening—the crowd of disciples are gathered around Jesus, inviting him into the city, celebrating him as King.
These proclamations from his disciples, and the manner in which Jesus enters the city, infuriates the religious authorities. In v. 39 we read:
39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
In other words, “You’re not who they say you are; make them tell the truth!” But Jesus says (v. 40),
40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
He says, “They know something you don’t know; for all your knowledge, these commoners—and the very earth itself—know more about me than you do.”
So we have this incredible entrance of Jesus as King in Jerusalem; it is one of the first instances, in all of the synoptic gospels, of Jesus approaching his kingdom as a king taking up his throne. And yet this royal imagery is juxtaposed with things that seem to clash with the occasion.
Kings ride horses, not donkeys.
Kings welcomed by the whole kingdom, not only by those close to them.
Kings ride on a ground covered by royal-colored carpets, not the cloaks the commoners have taken off and spread on the ground.
And this odd juxtaposition will continue all throughout Jesus’s time in Jerusalem...
Jesus’s royal garb is a blanket taken from a horse, and placed on the open wounds on his back.
His crown is a crown of thorns.
His throne is the cross to which is nailed.
The kingdom of God is fundamentally different than the kingdom of men. In God’s kingdom, what seems to indicate poverty actually indicates royalty. What seems to indicate weakness actually shows superiority. What seems to indicate defeat actually indicates victory.
Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem in a totally unexpected way.
Presence: the Temple (v. 45-48)
Hop down to v. 45. Jesus has entered the city as King; through him, God is bringing his kingdom and his reign back to Israel. But God wasn’t only bringing his kingdom; he also needed to bring back his presence among his people.
Jesus—as we saw at the angels’ announcements to Mary and the shepherds in Luke 1-2, as we saw in the transfiguration in Luke 9—is God. He is the second person of the Trinity, the Son, God made man.
So of course, when God finally comes to establish his presence on earth in bodily form, he goes to the place where God’s presence had historically dwelt with his people—he goes to the temple.
Jesus brings the presence of God back to the temple in distinct two ways—and the first is always surprising, no matter how many times you read it.
The temple is where sacrifices were offered to God; and apparently some enterprising minds had realized that instead of making people bring their animals to sacrifice with them, they could just sell animals directly in the temple. It would make life easier for the people, and the vendors could make a lot of money doing it.
So that’s the situation when Jesus enters the temple in v. 45.
45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Now, we often misrepresent what is happening here. This is not a temper tantrum. Jesus is not being unreasonable, and he is not losing control of himself. He is doing the perfectly appropriate thing. What is surprising, in fact, isn’t that Jesus manifests his anger, but that he hasn’t done it sooner.
Jesus is a perfectly holy God, and during his life on earth that didn’t change; in the person of Christ, God had the unique experience of being surrounded by sin, surrounded by assaults on his holy character, all the time. Every moment of every day, he suffered assaults on his holiness by the sin of the people around him, against which his righteous anger burns constantly.
And yet, with only a couple of very rare exceptions, Jesus always reacted with patience and grace and understanding.
He reacts differently here because he has come to re-establish the presence of God in the temple—and he would not do it in a temple which was being tainted by self-interest or exploitation. His presence was pure, and he would only establish his presence in a pure place.
So he gets rid of it all, and he does so aggressively. In John’s gospel (John 2.13-22) we see Jesus flipping over the tables of the money changers and driving them out—and again, here we see not only Jesus’s authority as priest, but his authority as King. He drives them out for their sin—just like God drove Adam and Eve from the garden, just like the exiled Israelites were driven out of Israel and into Assyria and Babylon.
That’s the first thing he’s doing: he cleanses the temple, so that God’s presence can dwell there again.
The second way in which he establishes God’s presence in the temple is by teaching in the temple. And we see that his goal is not simply to impart wisdom or give moral counsel to the people listening. V. 47:
47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
The sovereignty of God is on clear display here; Jesus is calmly and patiently moving the chess pieces where they need to be.
Jesus has cleansed the temple, effectively rebuking the religious authorities for letting it happen, and he is teaching in the temple, displaying his superior authority over even the religious authorities.
Have you seen those clips on YouTube, where someone will start a marble rolling on a board, and that marble will hit a pencil, and that pencil will knock over a domino, and that domino will set in motion a long series of intricate movements which will end in a spectacular way? Those contraptions are called Rube Goldberg Machines (and they are some of the coolest things you can see on YouTube).
Up until now, Jesus has been setting up his Rube Goldberg Machine. He has been getting all the pieces in place.
This is the moment when he starts the first marble rolling down the board. So this is the moment when the religious authorities have really had enough. They can’t do anything about it yet, because the people love what Jesus is saying, but now they are actively looking for a way to kill him.
And what we know in the follow-up to this passage is that in order to get him killed, they will do the unthinkable. The only thing the Jewish authorities hated more than Rome was Jesus. So they’ll decide to partner with Rome to get Jesus out of the way.
In cleansing the temple and teaching in the temple, Jesus gets the ball rolling on the events which will in short order bring him to the cross.
But all of this—his triumphal entry, his prophetic prediction of the sacking of Jerusalem, and his actions in the temple—is not just a means to an end, to get him to the cross. As Kyle Worley noted, this is Jesus, in a profoundly visible and visceral way, establishing his kingly authority in a way we haven’t see yet.
So far the disciples have seen Jesus’s power on full display. They have seen his kingly, cosmic authority over the most chaotic things they can imagine—water; wind; sickness; death; demons. They have experienced his authority in gut-punching, mind-blowing ways.
But he hasn’t yet displayed his authority over the human, religious establishment in Israel, on that same visceral level, until now. His actions against the religious authorities have not reached the same gut-punch level as his healings or exorcisms before. THIS is the moment when that happens.
And that moment would soon come to fruition, when Jesus, as high priest and King, would take on himself the sins of his people, and be punished in their place, and give his Spirit to his people to dwell in them.
God has sent his King, and his King has established the reign of God, and the presence of God, among the people of God.
Presence and Reign: The Last Supper (22.14-23)
Now, we’re going to make a big jump. We’ve been in chapter 19—go over to chapter 22.
Jesus has been teaching for two and a half chapters, and the Passover has finally arrived. Jesus has asked his disciples to make the arrangements for the Passover meal, and they find themselves now in a room together, at the dinner table: the last meal he will eat before his death.
14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 21 But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. 22 For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” 23 And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.
In chapter 19, we saw Jesus enter the city as King, and establish his authority to teach in the temple. These were signs that God was bringing his reign and his presence back to his people.
But they were just signs. They were pictures of what it might look like.
Here, at the Last Supper, we see how God is going to do it.
He takes the bread, and breaks it, and gives it to them, and says, “This is my body.” He takes the cup and gives it to them and says, “This is the new covenant in my blood.”
From the very beginning, as we saw before, God established his presence with his people through covenants. And now, Jesus does it again: he establishes a new covenant with his followers. This covenant is not commemorated in the temple; the remembrance ritual he gives his disciples—the taking of the bread and wine—happens for the first time in an ordinary room, in an ordinary house, with a group of people gathered.
When God brings his presence to his people permanently, through the new covenant, his presence dwells not in the temple, but in his people.
And as God brings his presence back to his people, permanently, he also brings his reign.Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man” in v. 22—it’s his favorite title for himself, and it is taken directly from Daniel 7, which describes the Messiah, the future King whom God would send to save his people.
And how would God’s King establish his reign? “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you.”
God’s King would establish his reign by dying for his people. He would not exact tribute from them that he would not pay himself. He would not demand obedience of his people that he would not do himself.
He would take the rebellion of his people on himself, and suffer the punishment they deserve. God’s King would serve his people, rather than demanding they serve him. Who wouldn’t want to follow such a King?
I hope you can see where all of this is heading. The cross was not a defeat for Christ; it was a coronation. When God’s King was nailed to the cross, he was taking up his throne. He was leading the charge against the enemy of his people—sin, and the death that resulted from it. In his death, he defeated death for his people, declared his victory over sin, and established his sovereignty over all things.
his Presence & Reign Over Us
God has established his presence and his reign among his people.
His reign among us means we don’t have to reign over ourselves. It is exhausting to try to control our own lives, because we are cruel masters. Have you ever noticed that we are far harder on ourselves than anyone else is? We mess up, and we beat ourselves up over that mistake, because we know we were made for better. But God doesn’t look at our mistake; he looks at his Son, who died for that mistake. And he declares us righteous, no matter how unrighteous we may act.
Because God reigns, we never have to be afraid of doing a bad job reigning over ourselves—we will do a bad job. And that’s why Jesus came: he reigns for us.
Now some of you will identify with what I said about being hard on yourselves; for others, that will go in one ear and out the other, because you’ve somehow convinced yourself you’re better than you think you are.
God’s reign is good news for you too, because it means God isn’t just your Maker, he’s also your Master. Which means he expects you to listen to what he says and obey him, to submit to his reign. That may not seem like good news to you at first, because it means you’ll sometimes have to deny yourself and go against some of your natural desires. But in the long run, if you’ll believe it, you’ll find that denying yourself and submitting to God’s reign is far better than trying to reign yourself—because losing everything, but being with him, is infinitely better than having everything your heart ever desired, and being without him.
God has brought his reign among his people, which means we don’t have to try to reign over ourselves. And he has brought his presence among his people, which means we don’t have to work to find him.
People often talk about “searching for God”. That search is lost from the beginning, because the only way to find God would be to become as holy as he is, and none of us can do that. So rather than making us search for him, he came to us. He lived and he died and was raised, and he established his presence among his people, so if we are here, we never have to look for him again. He’s always known where we are, and he came to us. And now that he is with us, he stays with us.
God’s presence dwells among his people. So whether you are a believer or not, if you’re here, you can know that God is here too. We don’t need to look for him; we never need to look for him. We just need to turn to him. To acknowledge him as present, and ready, and able, to be our God and our Savior and our Master.
