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If you've got your Jeremiah packet with you today, I would encourage you to open that up to page 29. You'll find our sermon outline there, some reflection questions that you can kind of take with you and continue to just receive everything that God has to give us. But uh today is Palm Sunday, obviously. It's a huge day for us. It's a it's a really important day in the church year. It's an important uh way to kick off Holy Week as Jesus rides into Jerusalem to give everything for us. Um and pretty much every year on Palm Sunday, we hear from the prophet Zechariah. Uh, but so far today's been a little different because we've been spending a lot of time with the prophet Jeremiah uh during this Lenten season, and he's been uh leading us over the course of these last several weeks to shed honest tears before God and to be honest with him about our sorrow, uh to cling to God's truth, even when nobody else is, and to trust in him entirely, to trust in the Lord, no matter what's going on. So, as a result, all of our Old Testament readings throughout this Lenten season have been from Jeremiah's book, including today's reading. And I'd like to get to what we heard in Jeremiah chapter 23 in just a second, but to miss out on Zechariah chapter 9 on Palm Sunday, I just can't do it. So, a reading from the prophet Zechariah, and actually I'm going to invite you to read these words with me, if you would, nice and loudly. 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. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope. Today I declare that I will restore to you double. Powerful words and fitting not just for Palm Sunday, but also because so many of these promises are directly adjacent to what we've been hearing from Jeremiah. The return of prisoners, such as those who maybe were in exile, freedom from the waterless pit like Jeremiah experienced last week, and today the coming of the one true king. Today, John has narrated for us in his gospel the events surrounding Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. You know, the large crowds, the Hosanna's, a royal mount. And as we consider the events of that day, Jeremiah directs our eyes from the swaying palm branches to a far greater branch, the one Jeremiah calls the righteous branch. On this Palm Sunday, Jeremiah leads us in our shouts of Hosanna by locking our gaze in on Jesus as our shepherd, our king, and our righteousness. This whole Lenten season, we've been seeing how the people of Judah were wandering about aimlessly like sheep without a shepherd. Sheep are famously dumb and dirty and defenseless. They wander into dangerous places without having a clue what they're doing. And in their injustice and idolatry, the people of Judah had done just that. They needed a firm and steady and yet gentle hand to guide them back into the truth. And in their leaders that God had placed over them, they were supposed to have it. God had commanded Israel's kings from the very beginning to meditate on his word day and night. He had established the priesthood to direct his people to repentance and to intercede with him on their behalf. He had sent prophets to speak his word clearly and faithfully. He had provided all of these as shepherds to help nourish and guide and rescue his people. But instead, Judah's shepherds had been fleecing the flock. The priests had not sought after the Lord. The prophets spoke lies that came not from Yahweh, but from false gods. Judah's shepherds led them astray. Rather than helping to heal or solve the problem, they exacerbated it greatly. They destroyed the people. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered. As we heard today in chapter 23, God says, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. God promises to deal with these so-called shepherds accordingly, and he does so through the Babylonians, through pain and destruction and exile. But God wasn't going to leave his sheep to their wandering. God's love was not going to be absent from his lost people. Back in the beginning of Jeremiah's ministry, he had promised his people through his prophet, I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. God was going to provide good shepherds to his people, and Jeremiah was one of them. And today in chapter 23, God declares through Jeremiah, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. That creation promise in there. Bad shepherds scattered the sheep. God is going to gather his people from the ends of the earth. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Today Jesus fulfills this scripture as he rides into Jerusalem. And good thing too, because we also are like sheep without a shepherd. Sheep are mentioned over 500 times in the Bible, far more than any other animal. The verse that always comes to my mind first is from Isaiah, where he famously says that we all, like sheep, have gone astray. And we sure have. We've had our fair share of bad shepherds too. Have you ever been let down by a leader who was supposed to be looking out for you? A politician you had supported and trusted. A boss. A parent, maybe even a pastor. Today, let the events of Palm Sunday remind you that there is only one shepherd who lives up to the billing. He is our good shepherd. And today the good shepherd rides into town to lay down his life for the sheep. That is why Jesus got on that donkey that day. So that it could carry him step by step closer and closer to the cross. John's Gospel has 21 chapters. Palm Sunday appears in John chapter 12. And then the crucifixion closes out chapter 19. A full third of John's gospel is pointedly focused on the events surrounding Christ, laying down his life for the sheep. Jesus is the shepherd prophesied by Jeremiah. He not only comes to his flock to gather us, he comes to die for us. He is a shepherd who restores, who comforts, who saves. Jesus is the shepherd we need. And today he comes for us. But of course, he's more than just a shepherd. Jeremiah, in prophesying about this shepherd, also says that he'll be a king. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely. Now, remember, in Jeremiah's day, the line of the shepherd king David had kind of petered out, and eventually in Jeremiah's lifetime, it will basically be snuffed out. The good king Josiah died in battle against the Egyptians, and his son Jehoiakim fell far, far from the tree. He was as unrighteous a branch as they come. Last week in Bible study, we saw him cut up the scroll of God's word and burn it in the fire line by line. He would end up dying while Jerusalem was under siege during the second of Babylon's three invasions, and his son Jehoiachin, after, quote, ruling for three months, was deposed by the Babylonians and taken off into exile. Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, was put in place as Babylon's puppet, and his short reign was marked by wishy-washy ineffective leadership and unfaithfulness to God and to his word. And in the end, Babylon comes and just puts a brutal end to the monarchy altogether. But Jeremiah knows that David's line is not broken forever. And though the word king appears 223 times in Jeremiah's book, the prophet boldly asserts that there is only one true king, a king whose rule is everlasting and is marked by justice and righteousness. And today we witness that king riding into Israel's capital city, hailed as royalty by the crowds. And this king is wholly unlike the kings of Jeremiah's day. Unlike Jehoiakim, who rejected God's word, this king is the word of God in the flesh. Unlike Jehoiachin, this king will never be deposed, but his reign will last forever and ever. Unlike Zedekiah, this king will never waver, never falter. This king has the cross atop Golgotha firmly locked in his sights. This king comes to lay down his life for us to make us citizens of his eternal kingdom. This is the king in whom we can trust without reservation or hesitation, whose gracious rule lasts forever and encompasses all, whose death has secured our place in his eternity. Palm Sunday is not really his coronation, but it's the road to it. The crown will come later in the week, twisted together from thorns. His throne will be the rugged cross on which he will be hung, and the everlasting decree of his might and glory will be the tomb he will leave behind in a week's time. Jeremiah saw it all, and he proclaimed it in both chapters twenty-three and thirty-three of his book. Chapter thirty-three says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called. Jesus is the king we need, and today he comes for us. And as we just heard, this shepherd king comes also as our righteousness. Judah in the days of Jeremiah was the picture of unrighteousness, idolatry, corruption, child sacrifice. As Jeremiah had said in his temple sermon, and actually, as Jesus will directly quote on Palm Sunday, the people had made the house of God a den of robbers. There was no justice anywhere. Wrong was overcoming right all over the place. Judah's northern neighbor and their brother, the nation of Israel, had been judged by God for these very things as they were conquered by Assyria and taken off into exile and just destroyed and scattered. And witnessing all of this, instead of repenting, Judah doubled down on their sin. So much so, to the point that God said, Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Yikes. God's people were in a deep, dark hole, entirely of their own making. And so were we. Our sin, the corruption of our hearts and our whole being, had left us in a hopeless place. We were faithless and we were lost. We were treacherous and in dire need of salvation. Now, this Lenten season, Jeremiah, has been inviting us into repentance, inviting us to acknowledge our sin and to turn to the only one who can take it all away. And on this Palm Sunday, our cries of Hosanna, Lord, save us. They're an acknowledgement that the Lord is our righteousness. We have none other. We have no righteousness of our own. On Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem as the only righteous one, surrounded by unrighteous crowds, enveloped by our unholiness. As he rode through the waves of people that day, I wonder if he thought of Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah, and the exiled, the heavy cost of the sins of his people. I wonder if he thought of your sins and my sins. I think he did. Because that's why he was there. And by the end of the week, our unrighteousness will nail him to a cross. King Zedekiah's name means Yahweh is righteous. But the bearer of that name never really lived out that reality. But Jeremiah says that this better king who is on the way is called Yahweh is our righteousness. Oftentimes when you go to parades, those processing by deliver you gifts, candy usually, right, if they're allowed to. But at this glorious triumphal procession on Palm Sunday, Jesus came to dispense something far sweeter, far greater. He came to dispense righteousness, to distribute freely the goodness of God that overcomes our wickedness, to pour out the right that triumphs over every wrong, to bestow justice and holiness and peace. It is because Jesus came into Jerusalem to die that you have all of this and so much more. It is because Jesus rode that donkey into town that you have been declared righteous and freed from all of your sins, every single one of them. It's because Jesus came to save you that you have all you need for all eternity. Jesus is the righteousness we need. And today he comes to us. So Jesus is our shepherd. Jesus is our king. Jesus is our righteousness. All three of these truths are incredibly good news for us. And they prepare us well for the final legs of our journey to the cross and to the empty tomb. On Palm Sunday, that is exactly where Jesus is headed. And so are we, with Jeremiah as our guide. This coming Thursday, we will hear Jesus unveil the fulfillment of the new covenant that he had promised through Jeremiah as he gives us his own body and blood for our forgiveness. On Friday, we'll watch as the suffering and death of Jesus prove to be the culmination of all the suffering of Jeremiah and of the whole world. Then on Easter Sunday, we'll we'll greet the morning with joy at our sunrise service outside, and then we'll gather for our festival service a little bit later, where Jeremiah will lead us into shouts of joy and resurrection. Today is where all of this begins. Jeremiah 23 is about God intervening to save his people. And so is Palm Sunday. And the rest of this week we will experience Jesus as our shepherd, our king, and our righteousness. Hosanna, Lord save us in Jesus' name. Amen. May the peace of God which transcends our understanding guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ our Lord now and forever. Amen.