We have seen in recent weeks and months demonstrations of people power. There were the orange flags of the people of the Ukraine as they demonstrated to get an honest and fair election to choose their president. More recently we have seen the demonstrations in Lebanon where the people have come on to the streets to seek a change of government and an end to the domination of neighbouring Syria.

Today however, we remember a demonstration that happened 2000 years ago. Jesus arrives in Jerusalem to the popular acclaim of the crowds. It was an event that stirred the whole city of Jerusalem. No longer is Jesus withdrawing in response to the hostility of the authorities. No longer is he telling people to keep quiet about his ministry. Jesus is declaring his hand.

Whereas the demonstrations that we have seen on our television news, although they have had powerful impacts, will eventually fade into a distant memory or even be forgotten altogether. The demonstration of support for Jesus, that acknowledgement that he was the true Messiah, though no doubt by a far smaller crowd, continues to be remembered and celebrated the world over. It will continue to be.

Jesus has come to Jerusalem publicly for all the world to see. He comes to God’s people as God’s promised Messiah. No mistake about that. He knew he had come to fulfil God’s promise to his people. He had come as the bringer of God’s salvation; this was the climatic event of God’s great plan, the promise that God would come to his people. Notice some facts about this event:

Firstly, this event did not happen out of the blue. A great deal of divine preparation had preceded Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was of course the location of the temple, the place of God’s presence. It was the one focal point in the world to which people came to worship the living God. Even today, the grandeur of the ruins of the temple is impressive. Then there was nowhere else like it anywhere in the world. God had chosen the location.

God had also promised that the Messiah would come. The writings of the prophets time and again pointed forward to the Messiah’s coming. The Jewish people, the priests and scribes were expecting the Messiah. Another part of the preparation was the preaching of John the Baptist. John’s message could not have been clearer. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’, which was John’s call to repentance and baptism. Then there had been the ministry of Jesus himself. His teaching came over as having God’s authority. His miracles were further evidence to open people’s eyes to who he was. God had demonstrated in a way that was crystal clear to any honest person who Jesus was.

Sometimes people get the wrong idea about faith. Some people think that faith is really a matter of believing impossible things. Have you heard the schoolboy’s definition of faith? ‘Faith is believing what you know isn’t really true.’ But when God calls us to have faith, he gives us good grounds for believing. He did not send Jesus like a bolt out of the blue and expect people to believe him, God planned and prepared, he provided evidence.
Jesus answered people’s questions, Jesus has demonstrated the reality of God’s power in his miracles and God’s wisdom in his teaching, and so the crowd boldly proclaim him God’s promised Messiah.

Another important fact is the way that Jesus enters Jerusalem. He chooses to enter riding on a donkey. It had of course been prophesied that the Messiah would come riding a donkey, in Zechariah 9 v 9 to be exact. But the significance of the donkey is that, when a king comes to a city riding a donkey, then he comes in peace.

In spite of the fact that there have already been attempts to kill Jesus, in spite of Jesus knowing that they are going to have him crucified, Jesus comes on a donkey. He had the authority to march into Jerusalem on a warhorse with an army of angels. But he chose to ride a donkey.

The point is that Jesus did not come to coerce or dominate people. He came to offer God’s love and forgiveness. He did not come to deprive people of their freedom; rather he comes to offer people their freedom. In doing that Jesus took the risk that people would reject him; he made himself vulnerable. The gospel is a message of grace. Salvation is a free gift, not something that is imposed upon people but something they are free to receive or reject.

The world usually operates by oppression and domination. The people of Jesus day were under the domination of the Romans. Many of them were really hoping for a Messiah who would use force to throw out the Romans. But Jesus had come to call people to repentance. To turn away from a mindset that says that the way to live is by seeking to dominate others.

Jesus did however come to Jerusalem as one with God’s authority. He left no one in any doubt of that when he cleansed the temple. He did not come to dominate, but he did come to challenge men and women with the truth, and we find he particularly challenges those who represent God, he challenges the religious authorities to be true, he will not tolerate the temple being a place where people are exploited, the temple is to be a place where people can come to pray, the temple is a place where people can encounter God.

That is important for us to remember as a church. Jesus comes to us with God’s authority. We must not in any way hinder or obscure the truths that Jesus revealed. Rather we should seek together to live out the gospel. We should willingly accept and be open to Jesus’ authority. We should both obey and teach the truths that Jesus taught. Jesus has God’s authority.

Yet the problem today is similar to the problem of that first Palm Sunday. Although the crowds acclaim Jesus, yet there is another side to the story. There is also opposition and hatred. It will not be many days before there is another crowd, in Jerusalem. A crown that doesn’t cry ‘hosanna’, a crowd that cries ‘crucify’. The problem is that people do not find it easy to respond to Jesus. Human nature has a tendency to turn away from him. Our human pride, our self-centeredness wants to keep Christ at a distance.
Jesus tells two parables that illustrate that point. The first is about a man with two sons. The man asks each of them to go and work in his vineyard. The first one refuses. But later on he changes his mind and goes to work as his father asked him to. The other son says ‘yes’ when his father asks him to help. But then he doesn’t do as he promised. Which one has done the right thing? Is it the grumpy, uncooperative one, or the one who on the surface appears to be the good boy? The answer’s obvious.

But what does the story mean? Jesus makes it quite clear. He is talking about the way that people respond to God’s call to repent. The reality that Jesus points out is that the nice respectable religious people, although they said all the right things, were still not willing to really repent. They were not willing to acknowledge their sin and failure. In their pride they hid their sins behind a veneer of respectability. They were hypocrites.

Yet many of the undesirables, those whom the religious people looked down on, people like prostitutes, people like tax collectors who had sold out and gone to work for the Romans, had responded. They had repented. And they had gained admission to the kingdom of God.

Spiritual pride is a subtle temptation. It’s easy for you and me to trust in ourselves, to think we are a cut above the riffraff of society. We need to be careful; we need to remember that the only way into God’s kingdom is as forgiven sinners. We all stand in constant need of God’s mercy and grace. God’s acceptance of us as repentant sinners is conditional of our acceptance of others as repentant sinners too.

Then Jesus tells another story. It’s about a man who owns some land, and plants a vineyard on it. He puts some investment into this project; there is a watchtower, a winepress and a wall around the boundary. But the man doesn’t operate the vineyard himself; he hires it out to tenants. They have there a good business opportunity. Yet they prove to be treacherous characters.

They do not intend to pay one penny in rent. Now in a way, Jesus is not telling a new story. In Isaiah chapter 5, seven hundred years before the prophet tells the people of Jerusalem a very similar story. The religious leaders of Jesus day would know that story. The story illustrated the fact that God had given his people a great privilege, he had given them his law, he had made them his covenant people, and he had given them the Promised Land.

But he did expect to see something from them in response to his love, he wanted to see righteousness and truth, He wanted to see faithfulness. Because of their unfaithfulness in the time of Isaiah, the city of Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed and the people exiled to Babylon. Jesus hearers knew that.

But when Jesus tells the parable, he brings in a new aspect. He tells his hearers that finally the owner of the vineyard sends his only son in order to receive their respect and tribute. Jesus was God’s only son, he had come to God’s covenant people. He should rightly have received their worship and respect, but they crucified him.

At Easter we are reminded again that Christ comes to us. Do we give him what is his due? May we, with the help of God’s spirit give him the love of our hearts and the worship of our lives.
 

Amen.

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