Palm Sunday For You

In this Lenten series, The Greater Jonah, we trace the familiar story of the reluctant prophet and discover how it ultimately points beyond itself to Christ. We’ll explore themes of running, mercy, judgment, repentance, death, and resurrection—seeing how the sign of Jonah finds its completion in the crucified and risen Savior. This is not just a story about a prophet and a fish. It is about the God who pursues the runaway, enters the storm, descends into the depths for us, and brings life where there was only death.

To follow along each day with the companion devotional, you can purchase it here:
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLJ635Z3?&linkCode=sl2&tag=jessicatschne-20&linkId=5f6b03b3594566f49a84144c1e011020&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Join us as we journey into the depths—and discover the mercy that meets us there.

Transcript

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In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple. To hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now here are the good news of Jesus for you. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. It's a loud day, not today, but Palm Sunday. It's a loud day. You hear it before you see it. You hear the crowds shouting. You hear the branches waving, the branches being pulled off the trees and thrown onto the ground. You hear the cloaks being taken off and thrown onto the road. You can hear it in the air. It's filled with celebration as the voices are shouting out. They're crying out. Which means God save us. It feels like a victory parade. Like everything is finally coming together. Like this is the long-awaited moment for God's people in history. And yet, if you listen closely, something is off. The crowd, yes, the crowd is celebrating. But they don't really understand what it is they're celebrating about. They want a king, to be sure, but they want the kind of king that they've been imagining for centuries. One that conquers Rome, finally, one that restores power to God's people, rightfully so. One that makes their life easier. They want triumph, but they don't see the need for repentance. They don't see the need to change anything on their end. They want victory, but there's been no battle, which means they want victory without any of the sacrifice that is associated with it. Now, the story of Jonah that we've been going through, the story helps us see what's happening here, and it helps us see ourselves in God's story and in this story. When Jonah walks into Nineveh, he preaches only eight words, and the people hear the word of the Lord and they repent. They don't argue, they don't try and negotiate, they don't assume, well, that's what just kind of Jonah's opinion. And they don't assume that they're doing just fine. No, they repent, they turn, they humble themselves before Jonah, before the Lord, and they cry out to mercy, cry out for mercy to God. And what does God do? He changes his mind, he relents. Now fast forward to Palm Sunday. It's a very different scene that we're seeing here. Jesus enters Jerusalem, but not with a word of warning, but something greater. Something greater. That something greater is standing before them. And what is it? Well, it's the fullness of God's mercy in the flesh, right before them. And yet there's no repentance. They don't see any need to change. And they're shouting the right words, Hosanna, which means God save us, and He has come to do just that, but they don't understand. They don't grasp what those words really mean. They're rejoicing in a Savior, but they don't recognize what they need to be saved from. They have high expectations for this Savior, for this Messiah. And they've already decided what those expectations are. They've already decided what kind of king he should be and what he should do, and how this should happen, and what this kingship should look like. Which means that they're not receiving him as a king as he is. They already assume. They assume they're on the right side. They assume they know. They assume they are already where they need to be. And so there's no urgency, there's no need for mercy, there's no need for repentance. And that's the tragedy. That's the tragedy of this moment. Because God's mercy is not distant, it's not hidden. It is standing right in front of them, riding into the city, coming closer every step of the way. And what do they do? They miss it. And not because it's unclear, because Jesus was incredibly clear during his ministry that he came in preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. And yet their hearts and their minds wanted something else, something different. A different Messiah, a different king, a different Savior. And we do the same thing. As the expression says, our hearts want what they want. And here's what that means: that means we end up wanting a king that fits our own minds. We reduce Jesus to what we expect, what we want him to be. Which means that when life is hard, our prayers aren't really requests, but they sound more like demands. Fix this, make this easier, take this away. I don't want any of that anymore. And then when God doesn't answer those prayers, those demands, we grow impatient. We grow frustrated. And not just with what's happening and with our circumstances, but we grow frustrated with God Himself. And instead of trusting, we begin to judge him. What does he know about my life and my circumstances? What does he know about the world? And so instead of receiving him as he is, we shape him into what we think he should be. The kind of king we think he should be. And likewise, we don't think we really need mercy. We say those words of confession, but we don't actually confess in our hearts and our minds, and we don't really desire to change our ways, which is what repentance is. We compare ourselves to others, and when we do that, we feel safe. And because of that, we excuse our impatience and our harsh words and our bitterness and our choices. And we just say, well, that's a part of life. Everybody is that way. And we stand before God, not as beggars, then, and beggars in need of mercy, but as people who are, for the most part, okay. We want grace. We love grace. We rejoice in grace. But we want it for ourselves and not others. And when that happens, we justify the way we treat other people, our lack of mercy, the grace that we claim to love so much, we struggle to give out to others. We want glory. We want glory from the Messiah. And we want glory without the cross, especially. Glory without suffering. Nobody wants to suffer. Glory without repentance. We want all the benefits of following Jesus without any of the cost that's associated with it. We want to grow in our faith, but we don't want to change as we grow. We just want to grow. We want a beautiful life, a wonderful life, the life that Christ has in store for us without denying ourselves. And so we resist him. We resist him by holding on to these things that we love so much, which also happen to be the very things that he's trying to take from us because it would be better for us. We, like the crowds, can be right there. Right in the presence of Christ, the presence of his mercy and miss him. We can hear his word and sing his praises and receive his gifts and yet not hold on and receive what he's giving. And see, here's the thing: if that's true, if we resist him and if we reshape him into the kind of king we think he should be, and we assume that for the most part we're pretty good people and we're doing just fine, then we're not just like the crowds on Palm Sunday. But we're the very reason that Jesus can't stay there. We're the very reason that Jesus must continue on, that he must go to the cross. You and I, we're the reason that he has to go to the cross. The crowd on Palm Sunday, their story doesn't end there, but it continues on. It ends with rejection. It ends with those crowds, four or five days later, shouting, crucify him, crucify him. And whether we realize it or not, that's where our sin leads to. Our sin leads not always by our choices, not always knowingly, but our sin leads to us just like the crowds a few days later shouting, crucify him, crucify him. That's our desires. That's our choices, our thoughts, our actions. It leads to the crucifixion of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. But here's the good news. When Jesus looks at the crowds on Palm Sunday, and he sees their smiles and their laughter and their joy as they pull palm branches off the trees and they throw them on the road because they think finally their lives are about to be different. Their lives are about to change. And Jesus knows that they don't really want what he's come to bring. He sees all of it. And he goes, anyway. He continues on anyway. And as Jesus looks at you and me, and he sees the pain, the pain that we have, the pain that we cause others, he sees our choices and the results of those choices and the sins that we hold on to and the sins that we commit and the things that hold us captive and hold us down. He sees the things that we think about and the things that we focus on and how we worry about so many of the wrong things. He sees the desires of our hearts. And here's the thing: he should turn back. He should plead with the Father and say, you don't know what they're like. They don't deserve this. It's not worth it. These people aren't worth it. But he doesn't. He continues on. He goes anyway. Jesus goes knowing where this road is leading. He rides into Jerusalem under this guise of misunderstanding so that he will eventually be rejected. Not crowned, but crucified. Not avoiding judgment, but taking all of it. He keeps going so that he can bear sin, the sin of the crowd, the sin of the disciples, the sin of the world, your sin, my sin, all of it. Jonah entered Nineveh and preached. And God's God God relented as the people repented. And the whole town, the whole town was forgiven. And Jesus said, something greater than Jonah is here. And here's what that means. In Jesus, God doesn't show up and simply announce that mercy is about to take place. It is. But in Jesus, God accomplishes mercy. He accomplishes the saving of the world. He takes all of it upon himself. And that means that this story, this story about Jesus, is for you. This Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter, including Monty, Thursday, and Good Friday, we're going to focus on just those two words. For you. All of it is for you. Those two words mean everything. We say them at the Lord's Supper, week in and week out. The body of Jesus for you. The blood of Jesus for you. When we talk about the cross, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Jesus, we say the same thing. Jesus died for you. Jesus rose for you. Everything that happens this week is for you. And even before this week, all of Scripture, the whole of Scripture, is written for you. So that you'd hear it. So that you'd learn it. So that you'd learn about yourself. So that you'd learn about the nature and the character of God. We see that in the story of Jonah. Jonah is a miserable, miserable prophet. And he runs from the presence of the Lord. He wants nothing to do with the Lord. And God pursues him. There's God's character. And then when he spits him out of the belly of the fish, and he goes and he preaches to the city of Nineveh, and they repent, Jonah's angry. We see ourselves in Jonah. But then we also see God's compassion. That he is slow to anger. He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. All of that was written for you. So you'd see yourself in that story. But also so that when we come to Palm Sunday and Monty Thursday and Good Friday and Easter, the character of God and the kingship of Jesus doesn't surprise you. Because this is who God has always been. So every moment of this processional of Jesus journeying to Jerusalem and eventually to the cross is for you. On Monday, Thursday, he'll take bread and wine and he'll say the body and blood of Jesus for you. That's meant for your ears. And on Good Friday, he stretches out his hand and he gives up his final breath and he dies for you. On Holy Saturday, when all the earth is silent metaphorically, that's for you. And on Easter Sunday, when they go to the tomb and they find that Jesus isn't there because he's alive. That is for you. Palm Sunday shows us that we would never choose this story. We would never choose that the saving of the world would take place like this. And how do you know that's true? Just look at the crowds. They're confused. They misunderstand Jesus. So much so that it only takes them a handful of days to figure out that this isn't the king they want. And yet Jesus rides anyway. And he rides in on a donkey, not a war horse, not with an army, not with force, but an animal that's meant to show peace. And if the donkey wasn't enough, then the rest of the road will show the way, because that road will lead to betrayal and suffering and rejection and death. That's how God's going to save the world. And Jesus' ministry, it happens awful slow, if you really think about it. It takes him three years to accomplish all this. And the crowds, they want immediate satisfaction, and so do we. We want our problems to be solved immediately, right now, today. And when that doesn't happen, well, they turn on him really fast. But Jesus rides anyway. And this king, this king, his kingship is awful costly, more than we could imagine, except it doesn't cost anything. Costs nothing for you and for me. We didn't wage a war on the battlefield. No, he did. He took this whole war upon himself. And he took this battle between between Satan and God, between us and God, this separation that we have between us and God. So that would never be the case. And he goes all the way to the cross for you and for me. Because here's the thing about this king. This king, unlike any other king, this king does not come to take. But he comes to give. To give all of himself for you, all of his righteousness for you. All of his suffering for you. His life for you. And because he gives everything, there's nothing left to be done. That's what we discover on Good Friday. That your sin, it's been answered for, it's been paid for. Your guilt. It's not just hanging out there, it's not lingering, it's been forgiven, it's been removed. And your future is safe in Jesus. All of this, all of it is for you. And so today, we get to join with the crowd. We get to wave palm branches and sing and shout and say, Hosanna, save us, God. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Because now we know what those crowds didn't. That this king has not come to meet our expectations. And there's a little disappointment in that for us as well. Because we still do have a bit of, here's what we expect from King Jesus. But truthfully, he's come to exceed those expectations. Because he's come to save us from the belly of the fish. Jonah says, salvation belongs to the Lord. Dear friends, it's not in your hands. It's in Jesus. And in his hands, it's safe and it's secure. He's doing the saving. And so as you picture in your mind Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, see the wheels of salvation in motion. Jesus is going to the cross for you. Remember, it's all. All of it. It's for you. And so watch him go forward. Watch him stop at nothing. Because he will. He will stop at nothing until sin and death and the devil have been defeated. Once and for all. And so let the palm branches wave and sing praises and shouts of Hosanna. But don't sit here in this moment in the excitement of Of Palm Sunday, because we're not meant to, because Jesus is not meant to, because he continues on, he moves forward. Because you and I, we we get it. We get it. That Jesus has come to bring salvation. And that happens through the cross. And there's nothing that will stop him. Because he'll go anyway. In the name of King Jesus. Amen.