Well, good morning. It's good to see you all. I did want to follow up on Nick's announcement
about our upcoming sabbatical. One of the things I've become aware of is that I will be on
sabbatical in the season where Trinity says goodbye to a lot of people. And so I want to
invite those of you, if you are moving on at the end of this spring or this summer,
whether for work or for school, would love to just say goodbye to you before I disappear
and before then you disappear, and we don't have a chance to do that. So I did want to just
acknowledge that. We'll be at the potluck all day. So I would love to see you if you're here and are
able to do that. And then I will be here for the next two Sundays as well, just so you know.
Well, as Pastor Nick has said, today is Palm Sunday, the day that we remember back in the
first century when Jesus entered into Jerusalem to great acclaim where the crowds lay down their
cloaks before him and palm branches on the road in a royal welcome and cried out,
Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They welcomed him with great joy
because they saw a king.
Because they saw someone who could bring them hope. And they needed that king because they didn't have
one. You see, in the first century in the people of Israel, they knew because they had heard the stories
what the kingdom of David looked like and its greatness. And they had read the prophets and the
promises of a kingdom that would still come, a kingdom of righteousness and justice, a kingdom of peace,
a kingdom where the righteousness, the goodness of God would be exalted through a kingdom in the world.
But instead of that, they were experiencing almost the opposite.
They were not a sovereign nation state. They were oppressed in a vassal state to Rome.
They didn't experience righteousness and spiritual fervor, but instead had division and frailty.
And they longed for a king who would come to make things right and bring the kingdom that their hearts longed for.
And friends, we have a similar longing in our hearts, if we're honest, I believe.
Because we want that kingdom to come too.
We want a kingdom to come so that the world will be a place of righteousness and justice,
a place of prosperity and abundance.
And we want a place of peace and goodness and beauty.
And we struggle, don't we?
Because we feel hopeless with that longing.
We see the brokenness of politics and of social movements to actually right the ship and make it a better world.
We see the ongoing effects of sin and death and the ravages of war.
And we despair.
And not just globally and structurally, but personally.
Our own lives don't have the kingdom that we long for.
Our relationships are broken and strained and fraught.
And they fail.
Our souls are prone to wander from the things that we know are good and right.
And to love things that bring us destruction.
All for the sake of a momentary hit of pleasure.
We know as we gather here on Sunday that our worship is not as single-minded,
is not as wholehearted, is not as joyful as it could be.
And we want a king to come and to make it better.
We want a king to come to make it right.
This leads us to our passage this morning.
We're going to be looking in the Old Testament.
We're going to be looking in the prophet Zechariah.
If you're using a pew Bible, it's page 748.
And I'm telling you now, because Zechariah is one of the minor prophets,
it's not always easy to find in your Bible.
So you have a few minutes to look for it while we talk about it a little bit.
Zechariah was a prophet who prophesied after the Babylonian exile.
If you remember, King David, the pinnacle of the kingdom,
and then it all went downhill from there.
Divided kingdom.
The northern kingdom fell.
The southern kingdom fell into exile.
Seventy years of exile.
And then beyond that, then through God's miraculous work,
the Jews were able to return to Palestine and reestablish Jerusalem
and begin to build its walls and begin to build the temple.
But in that time, just like in the first century,
and maybe just like today, there was a longing
because it wasn't the fullness of the restoration of the kingdom
that they longed for.
Remember, the ESV Study Bible, which, by the way, is a great resource,
just a recommendation, that's a freebie.
But the ESV Study Bible gives this in its introduction to Zechariah.
It says, there was little evidence in 520 BC
of the kind of transformation of the state of things
that earlier prophets had anticipated,
whether externally in a restoration of Jewish sovereignty
or internally in a moral reformation of the people.
Instead of returning to Palestine gloriously,
they returned.
And if you remember, when they built the temple,
they wept because it was small and puny
compared to the glory of what they had seen before.
And they longed for the king to come
and to bring his kingdom.
And in the midst of that longing,
Zechariah, well, Zechariah, this is a big book.
There's lots there I'm not going to talk about.
But in this passage today, Zechariah gives us a promise
that king is coming.
And he gives us a picture of what kind of king
God is going to bring to bring about his kingdom.
So that's what we're going to look at today.
Let's read Zechariah.
Zechariah chapter 9.
We're looking at 9 verses 9 through 17.
All right.
Here's our passage for this morning.
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 declare that I will restore to you double.
For I have bent Judah as my bow.
I have made Ephraim its arrow.
I will stir up your sons, O Zion,
against your sons, O Greece,
and wield you like a warrior's sword.
Then the Lord will appear over them
and his arrow will go forth like lightning.
And the Lord God will sound the trumpet
and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south.
The Lord of hosts will protect them
and they shall devour and tread down the sling stones.
And they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar.
On that day,
the Lord their God will save them
as the flock of his people.
For like the jewels of a crown,
they shall shine on his land.
For how great is his goodness
and how great is his beauty.
Grain shall make the young men flourish
and new wine the young women.
Let's pray together and ask for God's help.
Lord, we thank you for this word.
Lord, we thank you for the encouragement
and the hope that it brings us.
Lord, we pray that as we look into it,
this morning and consider what it means for us, Lord,
that you would open our minds
to understand your word,
that you would open our wills
so that we might submit to your word
and open our hearts
that we might delight in your word this morning.
We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
What kind of king will God send
to bring his kingdom?
Well, first, he is a king
who will come in humility.
In this first section,
we see in verses 9 through 9 and 10,
we see how Jesus comes.
And, you know, remarkably,
when you look through it,
particularly as you look at verses,
verse 10,
you think this is the king
that everyone wants, right?
This is a king.
He says,
this is your king.
He's coming for you.
He is a king
who will bring righteousness.
That means that everything he does
is going to be evidently true
and good and right.
It will be righteous
in the sense of just.
It will be righteous
in the sense of morally correct.
It will be righteous
in the sense of bringing order
in a good and life-giving way.
Not only does he have righteousness,
but he has salvation.
He will break the powers of oppression
and bring freedom.
He is a warrior king
who will come and make victory.
This is what verse 11 is telling us.
When you look at verse 11,
I'm sorry, verse 10.
Verse 10, he's saying,
I will cut off the chariot
and break the bow.
What he's saying is,
you, Israel,
will no longer need
to have your own weapons of warfare.
With Ephraim representing
the northern part of the nation of Israel
and Judah being the south,
saying none of you
are going to need your weapons anymore
because the king will come
and he will have all the power he needs
to bring the victory all by himself.
And so there is this,
and it says,
and when he comes,
he will bring global peace, right?
He will speak peace to the nations,
all of them,
and from one sea to the other,
from the river to the,
the whole world will be brought
under his rule in peace.
And this is a pretty awesome kind of king.
This is the one that we long for, isn't it?
Right?
And when you think about what,
in the first century,
what the hopes were of the people there,
they wanted a king
who's going to ride into Jerusalem
like the emperors of Rome
would ride into Rome
after a military conquest
on a great white steed
armed to the hilt
with an army at his back
bringing the prisoners in tow.
And it was a picture of power
and might and strength.
And yet,
this king doesn't come
on a great white steed,
does he?
Verse nine again.
Rejoice and shout aloud
because your king has come
riding on a donkey.
A donkey is a symbol of peace.
As a steed,
someone who would ride a donkey
would be a peacemaker.
And it's very clear from the text.
Humble and mounted on a donkey.
The king who comes,
the one who's going to conquer,
does not come like the kings of this world,
wielding a sword,
beating down his foes.
Now look,
let me just give a caveat
because we're in the book of Revelation
in our series.
And there is a day
when these victories will happen.
There is a time
when Jesus will come
and he's going to bring that,
right?
And the imagery in Revelation
points us and reminds us
that he does have power
and he can do those things.
And yet,
when he comes to do
his signature,
his key,
his most important,
the pinnacle of the work of redemption
that he's going to do as a king,
how does he come?
He comes on a donkey.
Humble.
This is the beauty,
my friends,
of the Christian gospel
is that when Jesus came,
he didn't come
with great fanfare.
He came in humility
and in weakness
and in obscurity.
and he didn't come
to the great people
and overcome them
or win them,
but he came to the poor
and to the outsiders
and he said,
you come,
follow me.
One commentator
on Zechariah
put it this way,
the lowly scene
verse 9 creates
encapsulates the nature
of the kingdom
that Christ established.
The suffering,
humiliation,
and death
that unfolded
on the palm-strewn road
he traveled
would eventuate
in the conquest
of countless human hearts
and in his ultimate rule
over a new heavens
and a new earth.
Little did the onlookers,
the triumphal entry of Christ
into Jerusalem
that first Palm Sunday
understand the full import
of what they were witnessing.
While many shouted,
Hosanna,
some must have looked
and wondered,
why is he riding
on a donkey?
But it shouldn't be a surprise.
Do you remember
what Jesus said
to his disciples
when they were fighting
over who gets to sit
at the right hand
and the left,
who gets the positions
of power with him,
who gets to ride
his coattails
into the White House?
Jesus called to them
and said,
you know that the rulers
of the Gentiles
lord it over them
and the great ones
exercise authority
over them.
It shall not be so
among you,
but whoever would be great
among you
must be your servant
and whoever would be first
among you
must be your slave
even as the Son of Man
came.
not to be served,
but to serve
and to give his life
a ransom for many.
So this is the first thing
that Zechariah points out.
What kind of king is he?
He is a humble king
who comes not in greatness,
but in weakness.
Of course,
we know that there's more
than this.
We know that he's able
to save.
We know that he's able
to deliver.
We've already seen it
mentioned in verse 9.
Verses 11 through 13
help us see more
of how he's going
to do that.
Verse 11, 13
tell us that he's going
to come to save us
through sacrifice.
Verse 11 gives us
the context
of our salvation.
He talks to us
as prisoners, right?
He says,
I will set your prisoners
free from the waterless pit.
Now,
if you've ever been
in the Middle East,
which I haven't,
but as I've been told,
they have these cisterns,
right?
They're big pits
that they do,
and they often
are filled with water
during the rainy season.
It's one of the ways
they keep the water,
and then they preserve it
and use it
as long as it's wet,
right?
But then in the dry season,
it's dry,
and it becomes
this earthen pit
in the ground,
and it turns out
it's a very useful place
to keep prisoners
when you don't have a jail.
And so,
the picture here
is people
who've been thrown
into an earthen pit
that they can't
climb out of.
Remember Joseph
when his brothers
threw him in a pit?
I think it's the same
kind of pit here.
So,
so,
so it's talking
about those
who are stuck
in a huge dry well,
left there
to suffer
and to die.
It would be
a terrifying place
to be.
I was reading
earlier this year
an account
of a man
who survived
the death camps
as a Jewish man
in the,
during World War II
in Germany.
and when he describes
the despair
and the hopelessness
of the prisoners
and many of them
who,
who literally died
from lack of hope
as much as abuse
or anything else.
I think this is what
Zechariah is speaking
to as he talks
about the prisoners
who were thrown
into the waterless pit,
longing for freedom
and wondering
how,
how are we going
to be freed?
How do we,
how do we get out
of this pit?
How do we get out
of this prison?
We can't save ourselves.
And friends,
before we go on
and talk about
how this passage
describes how the king
saves us,
let us recognize
that the Bible
talks about
a greater slavery
and a greater prison
that we all live in.
And this is the prison
of sin.
Since Adam and Eve
fell in the garden,
we have all been stained
and infused
with sin.
and it leaves us
helpless
to experience
and to know
the kingdom of God
as he intended it
in its fullness.
Sin robs us
in so many ways.
Our ego
and our self-protection,
our lust
for our own power
and glory,
our self-centeredness
and our selfishness
that exclude God,
our desire
to make God
serve us
and our agendas
rather than serving him.
This sin holds us
like a death grip
and our souls
are dead
because of it.
This is what
the Bible tells us.
And like prisoners
in the dry well,
we can't make ourselves
alive.
But Jesus is your king
to set us free.
And we see in verse 11
the means of it.
Because of the blood
of my covenant
with you.
This is how God does it.
Now,
we need to stop
for a minute
and think about covenants.
Covenants are promises.
They're typically agreements.
They have different
kinds of forms.
Some covenants
in the Bible
seem to be conditional.
Something like
the Mosaic law.
If you obey my law,
then I will bring
blessing.
If you disobey my law,
I will bring cursing.
But we also see
other kinds of covenants
like the covenant
that God made
with Abraham
in Genesis 15.
I don't know
if you guys
know this story,
but God comes
and he says,
Abraham,
I'm going to make you
the father
of great nations.
And I'm going to bless you
and I'm going to bless
the world through you.
And then he does
this ritual.
Do you remember
this ritual?
It says,
take three animals,
cut them in half
as a sacrifice.
And then Abraham
falls asleep
and he has this vision
of a pot
that goes back and forth.
Because in the old days,
these covenants
would be made
where there would be
agreement.
You do this,
I will do this,
right?
And in this case,
God was commanding Abraham
to be circumcised
as a part of the covenant
agreement.
But it wasn't
a conditional one
because typically
the two parties
would cut animals
and then they'd come together
and walk through it together
and they would say,
may this and more
be done to me
if I break the conditions
of this covenant.
Right?
But what happened
in Genesis 15
is Abraham didn't walk
between the animals.
Only God did.
God said,
I will make a covenant
with you.
I will do this
and I will do everything
that's necessary
for you to fulfill
this covenant
so that it cannot
be broken.
And I believe
this is part
of what God,
I'm not sure
whether Zechariah
is referring
to the Abrahamic covenant
or to the Mosaic covenant
or to the Davidic covenant.
I actually think
he may be weaving a rope
and saying,
it's not one of those,
it's all of those.
I'm building towards
a new covenant.
I'm building towards
a greater covenant
that will fulfill
all of these promises
and I will do
what is necessary.
And this is what we see.
Jesus,
who walked into Jerusalem
on Palm Sunday,
four days later,
sat with his disciples
in the Passover meal
and said,
this covenant
is a new covenant
in my blood.
Shed for you
for the forgiveness
of your sins.
Do this
in remembrance
of me.
Like a Passover lamb,
Jesus goes
and says,
I will be the substitute.
I will die
for the firstborn.
I will die
for you
because of your sin
so that you
don't have to.
so that you
can come
and simply
receive by faith
the blessings
of the promise
and entrance
into the kingdom
that I've established
through my sacrifice.
So this is
what Jesus does.
He comes
to establish
his kingdom
through his death
and through
his resurrection.
through his blood
sacrifice
for us.
And friends,
we look around
and we think,
but that happened
2,000 years ago.
Where is
kingdom today?
Well,
the good news
is
that the new covenant
that was established
through Jesus
will one day
bring a new heavens
and a new earth.
We know this,
that Jesus
will come.
We know
that when he comes
again,
he will bring
all of these things
to fullness
and fruition
and we will
experience
the greatness
and the excellence
and the completion
of his kingdom.
For those of you
who want to stick around
for the rest
of the spring
as we preach
through the rest
of Revelation,
we're almost there.
We're in chapter 19.
Chapter 19 and 20
is all about
the victory over evil
and chapter 21,
oh my gosh,
it's such a beautiful vision.
It's such a compelling
hope
that we know
that Jesus the king
has already
fundamentally won
and he will
one day
bring it to fruition.
And this is
our great hope,
hope,
that the lamb
who is slain
will be the one
who will be worshipped
as king.
So Zechariah
tells us
that the kind
of king
that God
is going to send
will be a humble king
and he will be
a king
who will give himself
up in sacrifice
to save his people
and finally
he will be a king
who will come
to help us
flourish
in his beauty.
This is what we see
in verses 14
through 17.
And we need to acknowledge
that there is a picture
here of
the military victory,
right?
14, 15, 16.
It's remarkable,
isn't it?
This king comes
and he has an arrow
that's like lightning,
right?
And he will sound
his trumpet.
Remember the trumpets
that sounded in Jericho
and the walls fell down?
Trumpets have this great,
we actually talked about
trumpets in Revelation.
Trumpets are signs
of military force
coming to victory.
He will blow his trumpet
and he will march forth
with the whirlwinds
of the south.
There's a,
south of Israel,
there are commonly
these extremely strong
windstorms.
And Zechariah's pulling
on that imagery
to say,
he's going to come
like a hurricane.
He's going to come
and he's going to
blow you away.
And in the midst of it,
he's going to protect
his people,
right?
And his people
will overcome,
right?
And they will devour
and they will tread
down the sling stones,
which means that
even though the trebuchets
may be throwing
big rocks at them,
it won't hurt them.
They will tremble
over them like pebbles.
And they will roar
in victory.
Verse 16,
On that day,
the Lord their God
will save them
and the flock
of his people.
For like jewels
of a crown,
they shall shine
on his land.
For how great
is his goodness
and how great
is his beauty.
Grain shall make
the young men flourish
and new wine,
the young women.
This vision
of this king
who comes
ends in this picture
of flourishing,
of abundance,
of richness,
of joy.
The kingdom
that the king comes,
and again,
there are images here,
right?
The images
of the grain
and the wine
are images
of a healthy harvest,
a kingdom
that's flourishing,
a land
that is producing
abundantly
for those
who are young
so that they
would have joy
in the land
that they live in.
And what he's saying
here is the goodness
of God
and the beauty
of God
will feed our souls
better than wine
and grain
and we will flourish
as we gaze
upon the beauty
of this king
who came
humbly,
who came
in sacrifice,
sacrifice.
This is where
his beauty
is most fully seen.
I know,
Isaiah says
he had no beauty.
He had no human beauty,
but the beauty
of his sacrifice,
the beauty
of his love,
the riches
of his grace,
the depths
of his mercy,
this is
the goodness
and the beauty
of the king
who has come.
And friends,
we have the privilege
now to taste
of it
because Jesus
is risen
from the dead
and he is calling
his people
and even now
we can take hold
of the foretaste
of the fullness
of the kingdom.
them.
And this is why
Zechariah begins
with rejoice
because friends,
we are to have joy,
joy on this Palm Sunday
that our king
has come,
joy on this day
that our king
will come again
and that the promises
are secure
and that his work
is finished
and that he is
a savior
who is unlike
any other
who has come
to save
not the way
we think
we would want
to be saved
but the way
he in the riches
of his mercy
and grace
and his unfathomable
wisdom
the way that
he has come
for us
on that day
when the Lord
returns.
Revelation 21
says this,
and he who is
seated on the throne
said behold
I am making
all things new
also he said
write this down
for these words
are trustworthy
and true
and he said
to me
it is done
I am the alpha
and the omega
the beginning
and the end
to the thirsty
I will give
from the springs
of water of life
without payment
the one who conquers
will have this heritage
and I will be
his God
and he will be
my son.
oh friends
this Palm Sunday
let us rejoice
we have a great king
a king above all kings
let us worship him
let's pray together
Lord we do confess
that there are times
when it's hard
for us
to rejoice
in the midst
of the trials
and the brokenness
of this world
Lord when we see
that the darkness
seems to prevail
when we think
that
the rulers
of this world
will continue forever
Lord when we struggle
in our own hearts
and souls
against our sin
and the darkness
that creeps in
Lord help us
to see you
in all of your beauty
help us
to see you
who
didn't count
equality
with God
something to be grasped
but humbled himself
made himself
a servant
took on human flesh
and became obedient
even
unto the
death
on a cross
Lord help us
to see you
exalted
as the
one who died
and who lives
again
who now
is exalted
to the right hand
of the Father
the one who reigns
the one whom
one day
every knee will bow
heaven and earth
and confess
that you are Lord
Lord
restore
our hope
and renew
our joy
this day
we pray
in Jesus name
Amen