Doug McMasters: Our longest book study to date was the Gospel of Luke, which we did several years ago, and we finished that in exactly two years.
Doug McMasters: So we've still got a ways to go yet in Matthew.
Doug McMasters: This morning also brings us not only into a new era as a church over the past 11 years, but also into a new section of Matthew's gospel.
Doug McMasters: We commence our study this morning on the Passion Week of Christ.
Doug McMasters: That word passion comes from a Latin word, which means to suffer or to bear or to endure.
Doug McMasters: And so when we talk about Christ's passions, we're not talking about passion in the frame that we think of in our use of the term, but of his sufferings, of his sufferings, the week of sufferings.
Doug McMasters: It includes this triumphal entry, it includes uh his cleansing of the temple, it includes his anointing, it includes things like the Last Supper, his agony at Gethsemane, his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion, his death, his burial.
Doug McMasters: And all of the Gospels, as they weave that story together this last week, we call those the passion narratives.
Doug McMasters: And so we're going to look at Matthew's passion narrative, beginning with this triumphal entry.
Doug McMasters: As we look at this passage of scripture, we see that Matthew has designed this so that we could recognize from where we're at the distinct features of who Jesus is, so that we could recognize and respond to him as the promised King, that we would know that he is the one who's come in the name of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: So let me read this passage and then we'll look through it.
Doug McMasters: There's three things I want to do with this passage.
Doug McMasters: First of all, to give us very quickly the setting and the substance of the passage, and then to talk at length a little more length of its um significance.
Doug McMasters: So let's read it and then we'll look at the setting and the substance very quickly.
Doug McMasters: When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples, telling them, Go into the village ahead of you.
Doug McMasters: At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt.
Doug McMasters: Untie them and bring them to me.
Doug McMasters: If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them at once.
Doug McMasters: This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: Tell daughter Zion, see, your king is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the full of a donkey.
Doug McMasters: The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them.
Doug McMasters: They brought the donkey and the colt, and then they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them.
Doug McMasters: Very large crowd spread their clothes on the road.
Doug McMasters: Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.
Doug McMasters: And then the crowd who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven.
Doug McMasters: And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar, saying, Who is this?
Doug McMasters: The crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
Doug McMasters: Well, let's look at the setting very quickly here.
Doug McMasters: Ever since Matthew chapter 16, five chapters ago, when Peter and the disciples declared Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus has been explaining to his disciples that they were going to go to Jerusalem and something significant was going to happen there.
Doug McMasters: Matthew 16, 21, he says this.
Doug McMasters: He said, It's necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and to suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes to be killed and be raised on the third day.
Doug McMasters: This is something Jesus repeated again in chapter 17.
Doug McMasters: As they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus told them, The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men.
Doug McMasters: They will kill him, and on the third day he'll be raised up.
Doug McMasters: And then he tells them that again in Matthew chapter 20 and verse 17.
Doug McMasters: While they were going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve disciples aside privately and said to them, See, we're going up to Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death.
Doug McMasters: They will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised.
Doug McMasters: Now they are at the very outskirts of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: They're finally at the place Jesus has been talking about.
Doug McMasters: They're finally there.
Doug McMasters: But not only is the place significant as we get to this passage, the timing is significant.
Doug McMasters: The timing of the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem coincides with the Passover festival, which is a very significant part of the life of the Jewish people.
Doug McMasters: It's one of the great festivals of the nation.
Doug McMasters: And at this time, the population of Jerusalem would swell to a far larger size than it would normally be.
Doug McMasters: Every Jewish adult from about 20 miles around was called to come in, and many, many, many others from around there would make their journey into Jerusalem as well.
Doug McMasters: One scholar estimated the population of Jerusalem to be about 30,000 on a normal day, but with the festival, it would have increased fivefold up to 150,000 people.
Doug McMasters: You can imagine just increasing the population of a place that large.
Doug McMasters: William Barclay puts it at over a million people.
Doug McMasters: It was a lot of people.
Doug McMasters: The city was heaving with people.
Doug McMasters: And in this moment, there is in all of this ingathering of people from all over, this rising expectancy, this messianic hope, that fervor of religion that kind of bolstered up.
Doug McMasters: I got to feel a little bit of that last year in May when I was in Jerusalem for their independence day, the 75th year of their independence.
Doug McMasters: And people came from all over.
Doug McMasters: And as I was walking around the old city of Jerusalem, there are families walking together, young people walking together, older folks walking together, many of them carrying flags and waving them around.
Doug McMasters: And in the evening, they would all gather near the western wall.
Doug McMasters: And a friend of my roommate and I decided we'd go there on our own.
Doug McMasters: So we did.
Doug McMasters: We made our way all the way down there.
Doug McMasters: And it was a heave of people dancing and singing and joyful and jubilant.
Doug McMasters: It was quite an exciting moment.
Doug McMasters: Jerusalem was filled with that kind of people, with that kind of mindset.
Doug McMasters: But the Passover is also a foreshadowing of the death of Christ.
Doug McMasters: When John the Baptist introduced Jesus to the world, he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Doug McMasters: The significance of the Passover wasn't passed over John.
Doug McMasters: He understood exactly what was happening here.
Doug McMasters: He knew the relationship of Jesus to that lamb that would be killed on the behalf of the people.
Doug McMasters: And so that's the setting that we come into this passage with: a bursting city, an expectant city, an anticipated arrival by the disciples, with a puzzling statement that it wasn't going to be all grand and glorious for Jesus, but rather very difficult.
Doug McMasters: Let's get into the substance of this.
Doug McMasters: And I just want to highlight a few things as we go through this part of it, and then we'll retrace our steps in a moment and go back to it.
Doug McMasters: But in verses one to three, we see, first of all, a major feature in this passage, Jesus' commandments.
Doug McMasters: In fact, a full third of this passage is filled with Jesus making very precise statements about what the disciples are to do and what they'll encounter as they go about that.
Doug McMasters: Two of them are to go into a village, and immediately they're going to find a mother donkey and her foal or colt, the male, the male donkey.
Doug McMasters: Those animals are going to find them tied up.
Doug McMasters: The men are to untie those donkeys and then bring them to Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And if anyone asks them, like, hey, what are you doing?
Doug McMasters: Or why are you taking those animals?
Doug McMasters: Or are they yours or whatever?
Doug McMasters: You're to simply reply, he tells them exactly what to say.
Doug McMasters: The Lord has need of them.
Doug McMasters: And then the person you say that to is going to make sure that you get them where you need to bring them.
Doug McMasters: A lot of detail there, right?
Doug McMasters: What's going on here?
Doug McMasters: Did Jesus prearrange all of that?
Doug McMasters: Did he sort of have a message kind of go out the back door and got it all prepared?
Doug McMasters: And the disciples just needed to know what the instructions were?
Doug McMasters: Did the owner of the animals understand what was happening?
Doug McMasters: Was it some sort of supernatural thing where all of a sudden people would awaken?
Doug McMasters: Was the word Lord some sort of like uh key word?
Doug McMasters: And once it was said, the guy would go, Aha, I know who you're talking about.
Doug McMasters: We don't know.
Doug McMasters: All we know is that Jesus laid this out very precisely, and they did exactly what he told them to do, and what that he said would happen happened exactly as he said it would.
Doug McMasters: Hold on to that because we'll get back to that in a moment.
Doug McMasters: The next thing that we see in verses four and five is Jesus' fulfillment, not just Jesus' command, but Jesus' fulfillment.
Doug McMasters: In verses four and five, this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: Tell daughter Zion, see your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Doug McMasters: It's been a long time since we've heard Matthew use these words.
Doug McMasters: This took place so that this might be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: In fact, it was back in chapter 13, was the last time he said that.
Doug McMasters: This is the ninth of ten of these statements that Matthew puts in his gospel.
Doug McMasters: It's been a long time since he said any of those.
Doug McMasters: And this way that it's written is written exactly like it's written at the announcement of Christ's birth in chapter 1 and verse 22.
Doug McMasters: And the sequence is the same.
Doug McMasters: You've got the statement of fulfillment that comes along with a command of which the following of which will be the fulfillment of what's stated.
Doug McMasters: It's not looking back, but rather looking forward.
Doug McMasters: Just as the angel announced the birth of Christ was to come in fulfillment of scripture, so this too is about to happen in fulfillment of scripture.
Doug McMasters: Hang on to that a little bit because we'll go back to that in a moment, too.
Doug McMasters: Then we get to the reception of Jesus, Jesus' command, Jesus' fulfillment, and Jesus' reception.
Doug McMasters: And we see that some people are praising.
Doug McMasters: As he makes his journey into Jerusalem, a very large crowd is gathered.
Doug McMasters: They spread their clothes in front of him.
Doug McMasters: Some of them are cutting down branches and laying them down on the road, and they're shouting out that Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, quoting Psalm 118.
Doug McMasters: This psalm, Psalm 118, is one of those psalms that would be sung at every Passover, a song that would have been sung at every feast of the tabernacles, a song that would have been sung perhaps even at the dedication or even Pentecost.
Doug McMasters: This was a common song.
Doug McMasters: This was a song they sang a lot.
Doug McMasters: And it was a way of welcoming one another as they came from all of their places to the one place of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Listen to it in that context.
Doug McMasters: He who comes in the name of the Lord is blessed.
Doug McMasters: It's kind of a statement about all of us as pilgrims coming from our places to Jerusalem to come to this religious festival.
Doug McMasters: Blessed are all us who come in the name of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: They may not have thought it of anything more than just that.
Doug McMasters: From the house of the Lord we bless you.
Doug McMasters: The Lord is God and has given us light.
Doug McMasters: Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
Doug McMasters: Let the sacrifice be made so that our sins might be forgiven.
Doug McMasters: So they sang when Jesus came.
Doug McMasters: Some of them, however, questioned.
Doug McMasters: We see that in verses 10 and 11.
Doug McMasters: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar saying, Who is this?
Doug McMasters: Crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
Doug McMasters: Matthew uses a very specific word here to talk about the effect and the stir of the city of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: He adds a word that's more appropriate for an earthquake, seismo.
Doug McMasters: We get the word seismograph from it to measure earthquakes when they happen.
Doug McMasters: The city was indeed in an uproar.
Doug McMasters: The city was shaken, like it was shaken by an earthquake.
Doug McMasters: Matthew's used this term before, and he'll use it again.
Doug McMasters: He used it in chapter 8 when Jesus said to the sea, be still, and it was.
Doug McMasters: The answer is given.
Doug McMasters: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Well, yes.
SPEAKER_01: But is that all?
SPEAKER_01: Do you have anything more to say about him?
SPEAKER_01: Matthew just lets it hang there.
Doug McMasters: So that's the setting and the substance of this passage.
Doug McMasters: Matthew is crafting this in order that we might understand the identity of the king and the identity of the kingdom, the character of the king, and the character of the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: And he lays it out with all kinds of overt statements and hidden little nuggets that speak to anyone who has an ear of the Old Testament to realize just who this Jesus is and what he's about to accomplish.
Doug McMasters: They're pointers in there.
Doug McMasters: And like I said, some of them are like nuggets hidden in the ground that have to be dug out and looked for.
Doug McMasters: And then there's others that are just boldly staring you right in the face.
Doug McMasters: Well, the first one's just a little bit of an illusion of something that's about to happen, a whisper of ironic insight about what kind of reception Jesus is going to receive in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse one.
Doug McMasters: Verse one, we find that Jesus embarks on his journey from a place that is still difficult for us to mark on a map.
Doug McMasters: Bethphase.
Doug McMasters: It's on the Mount of Olives.
Doug McMasters: There's some idea of possibly where it might be, but there's still question marks about exactly what it was.
Doug McMasters: Why did Jesus take this obscure, unknown place and mark it out as the place from which he begins the journey?
Doug McMasters: Why didn't he just say the Mount of Olives?
Doug McMasters: We all know where that is.
Doug McMasters: Why did he have to mark out this spot?
Doug McMasters: Well, this little spot, Bethphage, is a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic phrase which means the house of the unripened fig.
Doug McMasters: The house of the unripened fig.
Doug McMasters: And it refers to a type of fig that would grow and appear to be fruitful, but never actually came to fruition in its ripeness.
Doug McMasters: It looked like it had life, it looked like it could be plucked and enjoyed, but it never got there.
Doug McMasters: It was more ornamental fig than an edible fig.
Doug McMasters: Well, when you drop down to verse 18 of this very same chapter, early in the morning it says, as Jesus was returning to the city, he was hungry, and seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves.
Doug McMasters: And he said to it, May no fruit ever come from you again.
Doug McMasters: And at once the fig tree withered.
Doug McMasters: Jesus embarks his journey into Jerusalem from a place that's going to be a signification of the reception he's about to have.
Doug McMasters: It's a little nuanced whisper of what to expect.
Doug McMasters: The second thing I want us to notice here by way of significance is this sort of detailed, almost excruciatingly detailed and minute discussion about getting these animals.
Doug McMasters: All the details are there.
Doug McMasters: Who's to go, where they're to go, what they're to find, what to do if they're questioned, where to bring the animal, what kind of animals they're going to find?
Doug McMasters: All of that's there in the detail.
Doug McMasters: And if anyone asked them the question, what are you doing?
Doug McMasters: They're to say the Lord needs these animals.
Doug McMasters: Well, that's a strange question, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: It's a strange response.
Doug McMasters: Does the Lord need a female donkey and its its male colt?
Doug McMasters: What's happened to Jesus' legs?
Doug McMasters: I mean, he's been walking up and down Galilee.
Doug McMasters: He's been walking all over the place.
Doug McMasters: He's been walking miles.
Doug McMasters: He's walked up from Jericho, which is like 2,500 feet of elevation gain.
Doug McMasters: Why does he need it?
Doug McMasters: Is he worn out?
Doug McMasters: No, no, it's not because he's got an extra load to carry, or he's got weakened legs, or he's just feeling tired, or any of that sort of thing.
Doug McMasters: He's asking for these two animals because he's got something to show.
Doug McMasters: He's got a prophecy to fulfill in every single little detail.
Doug McMasters: We're even told that these animals are going to be tied up.
Doug McMasters: They're not inside maybe a a pen loose and walking about.
Doug McMasters: They're tied up.
Doug McMasters: Why are we told that?
Doug McMasters: Why these details about the donkey and its full?
Doug McMasters: Well, when you look back in the Old Testament, you realize that Matthew is pulling in a couple passages from the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: And he's reaching to two very different places.
Doug McMasters: And he's bringing them together to show us something.
Doug McMasters: Here he's bringing us Genesis chapter 49 and verse 11.
Doug McMasters: And he's bringing in Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, You see the connection with these two, and you see the connection with what's happening?
Doug McMasters: Let me tell you what I mean.
Doug McMasters: In Genesis chapter 49, right before he dies, before as he's leaving the promised land, Jacob gives a blessing to all of his sons.
Doug McMasters: It's a blessingslash prophecy.
Doug McMasters: And when he gets to Judah, his son, he makes this proclamation about him in chapter 49, verses 10 to 12.
Doug McMasters: The scepter will not depart out of Judah.
Doug McMasters: Now Judah was not the firstborn, or the secondborn, or the thirdborn.
Doug McMasters: He was the fourthborn, but yet he's the ruler, and the scepter will not depart from there, or the staff from between his feet, until he whose right it is comes, and the obedience of the people belongs to him.
Doug McMasters: Verse 11 What's going to happen with that one who comes?
Doug McMasters: He ties his donkey to a vine and the cult of his donkey to the choice vine.
Doug McMasters: Well, that's interesting.
Doug McMasters: Matthew just said that Jesus needed a donkey and a and a foal.
Doug McMasters: The prophecy about a coming king talks about a donkey and a foal.
Doug McMasters: But this one's tied up.
Doug McMasters: Jesus asked for his to be untied.
Doug McMasters: Then you get to Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion.
Doug McMasters: Shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Look, your Lord is coming to you.
Doug McMasters: He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey.
Doug McMasters: On a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Doug McMasters: Matthew 49 and Zechariah 9 tie together.
Doug McMasters: They both talk about a donkey and the colt.
Doug McMasters: And that's also mentioned in Matthew.
Doug McMasters: The three are interconnected.
Doug McMasters: And then Genesis 49 and Matthew 21 speak about the tethering of these two animals.
Doug McMasters: What's the significance of all this sort of rope, this macrame of messages in these different passages?
Doug McMasters: We're getting an echo out of the Old Testament of something about the life, the identity of Jesus, the identity of his kingdom, the character of Jesus, the character of his kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Not only is this connected, Jesus coming, riding the very animals that the king who holds the scepter of Judah would have.
Doug McMasters: But there's also a dramatic contrast.
Doug McMasters: Genesis talks about a royal figure who is just like a king would do, full of royal surplus and royal bounty, ties his animals to the vine and fills himself, satiates himself with all the fruitfulness that he deserves as king, so much so that even his garments are stained.
Doug McMasters: There's such a bounty of food.
Doug McMasters: But this figure, this Matthew figure, no less royal, but instead of tying his ropes to the vine to take his fill, asks for his mounts to be untied so that he could suffer, so that others might be full.
Doug McMasters: Again, just a whisper, but a whisper of something that is about to happen.
Doug McMasters: And then not only do we have all these details about these two animals and where they're tied and where they're at and how to get them and where to bring them and all of that, we also hear these words about his disciples uh taking taking their clothes off and laying them on the animals.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus sitting on the clothes.
Doug McMasters: And then people taking their cloaks off and laying them on the ground, people cutting down branches and laying them down.
Doug McMasters: We're talking about the eternal God come to earth and Matthew stuck on clothes and where they're at.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: You have to ask why.
Doug McMasters: Again, Old Testament echoes, little things that come flying out of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: Second Kings chapter 9.
Doug McMasters: Jehu is inaugurated as king.
Doug McMasters: And he speaks to all of his men.
Doug McMasters: And they're asking him what's been said to him.
Doug McMasters: And Jehu says, Well, he talked to me about this and that.
Doug McMasters: And this is what he said.
Doug McMasters: The Lord says, I anoint you as king over Israel.
Doug McMasters: He's gone from being the military commander to being king.
Doug McMasters: And then it says in verse 13 of 2 Kings chapter 9, each man quickly took off his garment and they put it under Jehu on the bare steps.
Doug McMasters: And then they blew a trumpet and proclaimed, Jehu is king.
Doug McMasters: The king doesn't sit on the dirt.
Doug McMasters: The king sits on the clothes.
Doug McMasters: My clothes sit on the dirt.
Doug McMasters: These men take their clothes off, their coats, and they lay them on the beasts, because Jesus is about to be proclaimed King.
Doug McMasters: King.
Doug McMasters: And then we have these clothes laid in front of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: All these pilgrims taking off their cloaks and laying them on the road, and people cutting down branches and laying them down.
Doug McMasters: Let me repeat what Bob read from Isaiah chapter 62.
Doug McMasters: Build up, build up, clear, clear away, clear away all the stones.
Doug McMasters: Well, if you've ever been to Jerusalem, it's a little hard to clear away all the stones.
Doug McMasters: I mean, they're literally everywhere.
Doug McMasters: But the one thing you can do is you can cover them up.
Doug McMasters: It's as good as clearing them away.
Doug McMasters: Build up, build up, build up, clear away the stones, raise a banner.
Doug McMasters: Look, your salvation comes.
Doug McMasters: Another echo.
Doug McMasters: Another statement out of the Old Testament that's literally being fulfilled before the very eyes of all the people that are watching this happen.
Doug McMasters: Some of them perhaps not even really aware that they're living out with these whispers of the Old Testament that speak of the identity of Jesus, the identity of his kingdom, the character of Jesus, the character of his kingdom.
Doug McMasters: The palm branches would have been a great remembrance for people who knew their Jewish history in that triumphal celebration when Simon Maccabeas was brought into the city of Jerusalem with great fanfare, with people waving palm branches as he was victorious in the overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes and the cleansing of the temple and the restoration of the worship.
Doug McMasters: But what Matthew is laying out in these small details is like Jehu, he's a king.
Doug McMasters: And like Maccabees, he's a rescuer.
Doug McMasters: But he's not a military general like Jehu.
Doug McMasters: And he's not a revolutionary like Maccabeas.
SPEAKER_01: He's a different kind of king.
Doug McMasters: And then there's the cries of welcome.
Doug McMasters: All these things are pointing us a direction to Jesus.
Doug McMasters: This loud proclamation, Lord, save.
Doug McMasters: Like I said, comes from Psalm 118.
Doug McMasters: And it was kind of a greeting to one another.
Doug McMasters: Just like we might say goodbye to each other, God be with you.
Doug McMasters: And we don't really think about saying, God be with you, we just say goodbye.
Doug McMasters: So this could have been a hello, with the same sort of lack of really full understanding of what's actually been said, and yet enough of the saying for it to be true.
Doug McMasters: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and especially when you tie it with the Son of David, it they may not have known what they were speaking, but what they were saying was very, very true.
Doug McMasters: Their salvation was coming.
Doug McMasters: The one who is coming in the name of the Lord is here, and they should shout with joy because their deliverance is here.
Doug McMasters: Doesn't identify the figure, but in Psalm 118 and verse 10 to 14, we find that he's the destroyer of nations in the name of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: He faces death and yet is delivered by the Lord's hand in verses 17 and 18.
Doug McMasters: That he's righteous in verses 19 and 20.
Doug McMasters: And then in verse 22, a puzzling statement.
Doug McMasters: Jesus, just a few verses later, in verse 42 of the same chapter, will take up Psalm 118 and that part of it, and talk about himself.
Doug McMasters: So all these things, the town, Bethphage, the command that Jesus gives, the animals that are there, the clothes that are in this context, the welcome that he receives, brings us to the largest part, the prophecy that's fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: As I said, there's expectancy in the air.
Doug McMasters: This whole stream of people lining the way leading up to Jerusalem, and Jesus with his animals stepping over the cloves and the branches.
Doug McMasters: All in, as Matthew says, in fulfillment of a passage that comes out of Zechariah chapter nine.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion.
Doug McMasters: Shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Look, your king is coming to you.
Doug McMasters: He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a donkey.
Doug McMasters: Even before the time of Christ, Jewish interpreters saw this as a messianic passage.
Doug McMasters: But Zechariah is talking about more than just an earthly deliverer, more than just a Davidic king, even a great Davidic king.
Doug McMasters: Because that phrase, the king of Zion, is a statement that was very rarely, if ever, used about earthly kings.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 48 praises Yahweh as the king of Zion.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 149 and verse 2 identifies the king of the children of Zion as Israel's Maker.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 42 and verse 23 says that the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies, will reign as king on Mount Zion.
Doug McMasters: Jeremiah 8 asks the question: Is the Lord no longer in Zion?
Doug McMasters: Her king, not within her?
Doug McMasters: In Zechariah 9, when you look around Zechariah 9, you see exactly what this phrase is talking about, because in verse 16, he talks about a diadem that belongs to the Lord himself, the crown.
Doug McMasters: In verses 9 to 17, he describes this king of Zion as a great warrior who defends his people, leads them into battle.
Doug McMasters: Zechariah 14 and verse 9, he says very directly, on that day Yahweh will become king over the earth.
Doug McMasters: Yahweh alone, his name alone.
Doug McMasters: What is Matthew telling us here?
Doug McMasters: Matthew is saying, look, your king is God.
Doug McMasters: You're looking at a man on a donkey.
Doug McMasters: Looks a little silly.
Doug McMasters: Because he's not on the female donkey, he's on the colt.
SPEAKER_01: But he's God.
SPEAKER_01: And he's your deliverer.
Doug McMasters: He's your king.
Doug McMasters: So by this prophecy being fulfilled, it not only signifies the identity of Jesus, it signifies the character of Christ in his kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Zechariah speaks about it, and he says that he's righteous and he has salvation.
Doug McMasters: He's victorious.
Doug McMasters: He's come to deliver.
Doug McMasters: Zechariah envisions this king not riding on some glorious steed, but on the fold of a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: Humble, mounted on a donkey.
Doug McMasters: I don't know about you, but uh I like watching Braveheart, you know?
Doug McMasters: I like watching those sort of rallying, sort of victorious triumphs that it coming out of despair, where all of a sudden the strength of a small group wins over the day.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing like this in Zechariah.
Doug McMasters: I mean, this ought to be you're behold, rejoice, daughter Zion, your king is coming on a war horse, on a glorious steed.
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: Not even on not even on the mom.
Doug McMasters: He's on the little one.
SPEAKER_01: This is no misprint.
Doug McMasters: This is no mistake.
Doug McMasters: This is the prophet telling us what our king is like.
Doug McMasters: And when he says he's humble, it's not just talking about his humility, even though he's full of his humility.
Doug McMasters: The word humility carries with it the idea of being lowly or bowed or suffering.
Doug McMasters: In contrast to arrogance, strength, might, vigor.
SPEAKER_01: He comes poor and afflicted.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he's the sovereign Lord.
Doug McMasters: He's Yahweh.
Doug McMasters: But he's also the suffering savior.
Doug McMasters: The world's never seen the like of it.
SPEAKER_01: The world couldn't dream of this.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to that little donkey.
Doug McMasters: From the time of Solomon on, when they started to breed these animals for use of the horses or use of the kings.
Doug McMasters: There's no example anywhere in the Old Testament of some royal figure riding around on a donkey.
Doug McMasters: You could read ancient Near East literature and not find any king riding on a donkey.
Doug McMasters: The only place you'll find it in any of the Old Testament era literature at all is Genesis 49, where the king ties up his donkey.
SPEAKER_01: It's laughable.
Doug McMasters: Straddling some slow, dirty, undignified beast of burden.
Doug McMasters: When the king comes to town, the king should look proud.
Doug McMasters: The king should have an animal befitting to his station.
Doug McMasters: The king should be at the head of the parade.
Doug McMasters: The king should be with all of his decorated troops, and they should have their best on.
Doug McMasters: Just like Alexander the Great did when he marched into Jerusalem about 300 years earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Not going to happen.
Doug McMasters: All of this nationalistic hope for freedom and redemption is not going to come from might and strength and power and vigor.
Doug McMasters: It's not going to come through the weapons of warfare.
Doug McMasters: I'm sure the people of Israel would have loved for their Messiah to have a beast like that, but not like this.
Doug McMasters: He's going to be meek.
Doug McMasters: He's going to be suffering.
Doug McMasters: He's going to be untying his donkey so that others might be full.
Doug McMasters: Rather than tying his donkey to a vine so that he himself could eat.
Doug McMasters: Hundreds of years passed from the time of Zachariah's writing.
Doug McMasters: Hundreds of years passed since that writing of promise.
Doug McMasters: Hundreds of years passed until we get to the life of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus asked for two animals.
SPEAKER_01: And he gets exactly what he asked for, exactly the way he wanted it done.
SPEAKER_01: And he comes into Jerusalem in such a humble, lowly way.
Doug McMasters: Let's bring this all together.
Doug McMasters: Jesus has arranged, and it's obvious from the way Matthew's writing this, Jesus has arranged every single detail of all of this.
Doug McMasters: He's determined every step along the way.
Doug McMasters: He's decided to ride this slight beast into Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: He's mounted that animal to make a bold statement about himself.
Doug McMasters: Jesus rides into Jerusalem on that very first Palm Sunday, announcing that he's the Messiah, just as like Zachariah said, their Messiah would come.
Doug McMasters: And by announcing this, he is saying, if you want to know who the prophet is talking about, it's me, Jesus is saying.
Doug McMasters: Always looking out for the poor and the blind and the people that are in places of weakness and neglect.
Doug McMasters: But one thing they don't realize is just how absolutely arrogant this sounds if it isn't actually true that Jesus is the very fulfillment of Old Testament scripture in every little detail.
Doug McMasters: If somebody walked in here and said that, there's a half a dozen of you that would be on him before I could even say, go.
Doug McMasters: And you would have that person out the door and to a place of help.
Doug McMasters: But here's Jesus coming into a city and shaking it.
Doug McMasters: Shaking it.
Doug McMasters: Claiming to be the Messiah, claiming to be the fulfillment of Zachariah's promises.
Doug McMasters: And when people in Jerusalem are feeling the reverberation of the waves of excitement and energy coming their way, they start to ask who is this?
SPEAKER_01: Who is this unsettling presence?
SPEAKER_01: Does anybody know who this actually is?
Doug McMasters: If they'd thought about it, they would have said something far different than just, oh, he's the prophet Jesus from Nazareth, the Galilee.
Doug McMasters: If they'd been able to pay attention to Scripture, they would have realized he wasn't just a prophet of God, he was the God of the prophets.
Doug McMasters: And that his name is going to tell them what he would do.
Doug McMasters: Yahweh saves.
Doug McMasters: That he is Emmanuel, that he is the light that is dawned in the world.
Doug McMasters: And that light was going to shine upon those people who would see him as he is and believe on him.
Doug McMasters: And that he would be a light to the dawning of the Gentiles, too.
Doug McMasters: Something we're celebrating even today.
Doug McMasters: And as Matthew brings this little account to a climax, he brings it to a climax with a question.
Doug McMasters: Who is this?
SPEAKER_01: Some people think they have an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Some people that just have a question.
Doug McMasters: But once you see what Matthew has to say, would you say more than what the people did on that day?
SPEAKER_01: He's the prophet Jesus from Nazareth, Galilee.
Doug McMasters: Or would you say what the scriptures say?
Doug McMasters: He's Emmanuel.
Doug McMasters: He's God with us.
Doug McMasters: He's the one who's come to save.
Doug McMasters: He's our king.
Doug McMasters: Would you be willing to call him your king?
Doug McMasters: Would you be willing to bow to him as your Lord and your Savior?
Doug McMasters: Would you be willing to say, I'm going to identify not with the strength and might and vigor of this world, I'm going to identify with the lowliness and the death of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go to the foot of the cross because that's the only place I can go.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to beg for mercy.
Doug McMasters: Because I find there the Lamb of God who's taken away the sins of the world.
Doug McMasters: And I'm going to lay my sin there in the hope that he might forgive me of mine, like he's forgiven others.
Doug McMasters: This is what Matthew's saying to us.
Doug McMasters: All of these details, some of them very overt, strong statements, some of them little nuggets, like I said, even buried, little whispers, but all of them pointing to Jesus, the identity and the character of the king, and the identity and the character of his kingdom, his rule.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for our Savior.
Doug McMasters: We thank you, Father, that he removes from any of us any sense of righteousness, strikes down pride and arrogance at its root, lays us all in the dust where we belong, because it was to that very dust that he came.
Doug McMasters: Not to judge us, to belittle us, to shame us, but to save us.
Doug McMasters: He was willing to let go of all the prerogatives of glory in heaven, the worship of the angels, the reception of all that praise, the declaration of his sovereignty without any any sense of it not being deserved.
Doug McMasters: In order to come to this earth, to take on dirt for people who are made of dirt, to walk on dirt because we do, to be humble and lowly, to come in his inauguratory entrance on a beast that had never been ridden before, too young to carry a person.
Doug McMasters: What a wonder it is, Father, that you would grant us a savior like this, that you would give us a life through the death of your son, that you would make him the means by which we are delivered and forgiven.
Doug McMasters: That you would show us that all of our self-effort and all of our sense of worth really means nothing in the eternal day in light of what Christ has done for us.
Doug McMasters: I pray, Father, that we might understand just who Jesus is, and we might display him better in our own lives as you bring us into a greater degree of likeness of him, as we behold his glory and the glory of your word, and we're changed and transformed by the Spirit into that very same image from glory to glory.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.