Well, happy Palm Sunday.
Today is the beginning of Holy Week, Palm Sunday, and then we have Monday, Thursday, and Thursday.
That was when Jesus washed the disciples' feet.
And then we get Good Friday, the day of crucifixion, next Sunday, Easter Sunday, where we have Resurrection Sunday celebration.
Now, on Palm Sunday, faithful Jews from all over Israel would have traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival.
The city would have been packed with Jewish families that come there to pick a lamb that they would sacrifice the following Friday.
Now, if you were in Jerusalem and you're standing on the Mount of Olives, here's a picture of the Mount of Olives.
If you're standing on that Mount of Olives and you're looking across the way, you'd be looking over the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem itself, and you would see the Eastern Gate.
Here's a picture of the Eastern Gate.
Now, this gate that we see here was built in the 16th century, so long after Jesus, and then it was bricked up in medieval times.
But in 1969, archaeologists found the original gate that Jesus would have actually walked through underneath that gate, because that's what they did.
They demolished cities and built the city on top of the old city.
So the original gate is underneath that one.
Jesus would have entered there.
He would have come from Bethany, probably come over the Mount of Olives that we just saw, through the Kidron Valley, and through that gate.
Now, Christians call this gate the golden gate, but the Jewish people call this gate the gate of mercy.
Because the day that they sacrificed the lamb, they walked through that gate.
So the point is this: the God of mercy enters through the mercy gate.
Do you see the beautiful symbolism of there?
We could tie it back into Leviticus 16 if you want to dig deep this week.
Jesus is that final Passover lamb for us, and he is walking through the gate of mercy.
The God of mercy enters through the mercy gate.
And as Jesus enters, people are lining the streets.
But Jesus knows something that everyone else does not know, and that is that he himself, Jesus, will head to the cross to die.
He will be the final sacrifice.
Which means for you and I that we don't have to be our own sacrifice or sacrifice enough to be forgiven, or sacrifice enough to be loved by God.
God loves us first and provided that and cares for us lavishly.
Now our text is Matthew 21, 4 through 7.
Let me read that again.
This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a cold, the foal of a beast of burden.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.
They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
So I have three points for us this morning and four little prayers for us to read along the way.
Point number one is this God draws near to you in humility.
The story says when he rode into town, it was just crowds lining the streets to see him.
Now last week I drove to amazing Conyers, Georgia.
I drove down I-75 south on a way here laughing and then out I-20.
Exited in Conyers, Georgia.
I arrived into town.
I went into a gas station.
I bought an Alani because I'm a girl dad and I wanted a little energy, and it's okay.
I'm comfortable with that guy.
I'm comfortable buying an Alani and drinking it.
I can't tell you how much nobody cared that I was there.
Nobody cared.
Nobody I had arrived in a town, Conyers, Georgia.
Nobody cared.
Nobody.
Can't stress it enough.
Just like if you went to Conyers today.
Nobody cares.
You just show up, nobody cares.
That's what it's like for me and you to show up to a town.
But Jesus, it's like Justin Bieber shows up at the square tonight.
You would know pretty quickly.
Like that word would spread.
And this is what has happened with Jesus.
Word is out that there is a teaching rabbi who has performed miracles in town.
Everybody's showing up.
I gotta see this.
Just before he enters, he sends those two disciples, hey, go get a donkey for me.
And Jesus enters on a donkey.
So we have Jesus entering on a symbol of humility and peace, entering the mercy gate.
And the Augustine Ear Museum in Germany, there's a very old wooden sculpture, Christ on a donkey.
The sculpture is made in the 1300s.
It was made to be pulled behind a cart in a Palm Sunday procession.
Now, if we look at Jesus, his face in the sculpture, Jesus has a long, slender face.
And it was to symbolize his knowledge that a cross stood in his future.
That a cross stood between him and victory.
Priest and author Henry Nowen.
He spent an afternoon praying while gazing on this piece of artwork, and he wrote this.
I look and look and look, and I know that he sees the depths of my heart.
I do not have to be afraid.
See, because of Christ's love and humility, we can be fully known and fully loved, and we don't have to be afraid.
Well, happy springtime.
Great weather this week.
I hope y'all had.
Did y'all enjoy it?
You never knew what the temperature is going to be.
Walk outside.
It could be freezing, it could be warm.
You didn't know.
Several mornings this week I walked outside and it was just like, oh, this is so great.
Like birds are chirping.
There's some flowers.
And I'd walk my crazy puppy and he would bite me and he'd peeing everywhere.
And he's just, he's ruined my life, really.
There's a lot going on in our house right now.
But maybe you drove around this week, you had your windows down, playing Garth Brooks, Dave Matthews band.
That's my generation, my age.
I don't know what you were playing.
Pollen, just you know, in your hair, just.
Maybe life was good.
Maybe life is good.
It's very possible.
But for all of us, eventually something happens.
Like we mess up.
Say something, do something, think something.
Phone rings, something happens.
I just say that and say there's a lot we can be afraid of.
There's a lot we can be afraid of that something might happen, something could happen, or something might be known.
There's just a lot to be afraid of of our own mistakes or the possibility of a mistake or our past sins.
What an amazing picture we have on Palm Sunday.
The God of mercy enters through the mercy gate.
And that he knows all of you.
And we can look upon him.
And we don't have to be afraid.
There's no condemnation waiting for you.
All the holiness and justice needed is satisfied in Jesus Himself.
I love the scene in C.S.
Lewis's Narnia book, The Magician's Nephew, Diggory and Polly.
They're hopping between different worlds.
Eventually they end up in Narnia and ringing out is the sweetest sound they've ever heard.
It's creation itself.
The world is being created.
And they realize this sound is coming from a someone, not just a somewhere.
And then we read this.
They made you feel excited until you saw the singer himself.
And then you forgot everything else.
It was a lion, huge, shaggy, and bright.
It stood facing the rising sun.
Its mouth was wide open in song, and it was about 300 yards away.
Then a couple chapters later, Diggory gets up the courage to ask something of this lion, this fierce, powerful creature.
And Diggory's scared to death to make this request.
But please, please, won't you?
Can't you give me something that will cure mother?
Up till then he had been looking at the lion's great feet and the huge claws on them.
Now in his despair, he looked at his face.
What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.
For the tawny face was bent down near his own, and wonder of wonders, great shining tears stood in the lion's eyes.
They were such big, bright tears compared to Diggory's own, that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.
What a beautiful image.
It's a Palm Sunday image, a fierce and powerful creature that's gentle and compassionate.
That's what we have in this Jesus the Christ, fierce and powerful, and yet wants to be known to us as compassionate and gentle.
Back in our text, Matthew quoted the prophet Zachariah.
Can you imagine?
The king's coming.
The boss, the authority.
It gets this feeling like we're gonna get caught.
You know, we're gonna have to pay the price.
Like he's coming.
Better get your act together.
Do you remember the movie?
Remember the Titans?
I love that movie.
Denzel Washington movie.
It's a bit older.
It was placed back in the 70s where Denzel Washington, as a coach, a black coach, gets assigned to coach a mixed team.
And the whites don't like the blacks, and the blacks don't like the whites, and they're all being horrible to each other.
And Coach Boone is committed.
He's gonna get this team to be united.
And there's this moment in training camp where they're all horrible to each other.
They're all horrible.
It's horrible.
And you kind of get the sense like the next morning they're gonna get it.
Like, coach is gonna show up and they're gonna get it.
They are gonna pay the price.
But coach shows up and it's not what happens.
He doesn't let them have it.
He gathers them together and he calls them to a higher way of living.
And what's clear is that he cares about who they are becoming more than just punishing them.
See, when we're exposed, we expect punishment or condemnation from God.
Surely God must condemn me, be disappointed in me.
We brace for condemnation, but we receive compassion.
We expect a powerful king.
That we receive a savior on a donkey.
We all know that God is approaching us and pursuing us.
Do we need to be afraid?
Is he gonna zap us?
Or does he welcome us?
Palm Sunday tells us that the lion, the coach, is strong and mighty, but he is good and loving.
And the prayer is this, and you don't have to bow your head, you can just read it just as I read it.
Lord Jesus, help us receive you as you are, gentle and full of mercy.
That would be a prayer we could pray all week.
Jesus, help us receive you as you are, gentle and full of mercy.
Matthew 21, verse 8.
Most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna on the highest.
And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?
And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilea.
Point number two is this we misread who God is and what he is doing.
That's our depravity.
So Jesus is on a donkey, the people are lining the streets, they're laying down their cloaks, they're laying down those palms on the street, they're singing a song that's from Psalms, Hosean on the highest.
You have to imagine 200,000 Jewish people in this city, these Jewish pilgrims, here for Passover.
Many are in debt, many or all of them are overtaxed.
They have had it.
So they're ready.
And they are laying down these palms, which were a nationalistic symbol.
So for many of these people, they're saying, save us from Rome.
They're saying, Jesus, I think you're going to be our political savior.
You're going to march in Jerusalem.
You're going to overthrow the Romans, and we're going to have a Jewish leader.
Like you're going to save us.
But Jesus wasn't about that kind of empire kingdom.
He was about their hearts.
Everything he'd been telling them was about their hearts, the core of who they are.
And the prayer is this Lord, expose the ways we reshape you into our own image.
Rescue us from our small hopes, and give us yourself.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12, 9 through 11, but he, so this is Jesus, said to me, Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for my powers made perfect in weakness.
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Last point is this God loves us all the way to the cross.
We can finally admit the thing we've been avoiding, so afraid of.
And he deems us righteous, not by our work or your record or your resume, but by his work for you.
That's imputed to you from the cross.
So the prayer is this Jesus, give us the grace to trust the way you work.
Through weakness, through surrender, through the cross.
Teach us that your love is greater than our mess ups and our pain and even our own plans.
After Jesus is in the city, he enters the temple.
That's where he throws over the tables, the merchants that were selling stuff.
He's so frustrated that people are making money.
They've made this holy spiritual place money-making.
He's furious.
The next morning he returns and begins to teach parables.
All the religious people are asking questions.
And just before leaving, he teaches one last short parable about God as a mother hen.
Matthew 23, 37 through 39.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings?
Right?
I mean, you see that image of compassion, of love, of protection.
And you are not willing.
See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Even the confusion of the crowds wasn't enough to throw off Jesus' mission and the faithfulness of God to provide for us.
And the prayer is this, Father, anchor our hearts and your promises.
When life feels uncertain, remind us that your story, your redemptive story, is not fragile and our place in it is secure and safe.
Church, this week begins with Hosanna, and then the people yell, crucify him.
And then on the cross, he says it's finished.
And the next Sunday we'll gather to celebrate that he is risen and in Jesus we have a new life.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, so thankful that you love us even while we reshape you, even while we have false expectations of you, even while we're apathetic, even while we're rebellious.
Thank you that you know us and love us, and in Jesus, we are your beloved sons and daughters, fully righteous, fully secure, and fully safe.
Help us to trust all the more in Jesus and to celebrate and enjoy the forgiveness and the new life we have in him.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.