As far as their history could recount, Israel longed for a king:
One who would restore them,; set things straight and redeem God’s people.
For years, thousands of years, the Israelites longed for this expected One.
The One who would save them. As much as God wanted to be the ruling force
in the life of Israel, the people grew weary and insisted on having a human
king just like everybody else. Despite God’s pleading with them, God
finally told Samuel to give the people what they wanted. Having a king to
rule over them would come with a cost, but Israel insisted. God gives them
a king.
Israel had their ups and downs: they experienced good times
when a king who followed God ruled; they experienced bad times, when kings
reigned who insisted on doing things their own way. Israel found themselves
taken over again and again by other countries, by other armies. But in all
of these kings, Israel never found what they were looking for--salvation.
Between the end of the activity of God in the Old Testament
and the birth of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, God was silent for 400
years. Israel wanted to do life their way--God let them. For 400 years the
mouth of God was shut. All this time, Israel longed for a king who would rule
with power and force and might. They desired a king who would put together
strong armies and rule with such force that every other country would fear
the Israelites, not touching them with violence. But after these lengthy,
muted 400 years, the silence was broken: a baby boy named Jesus was born in
a little town to unknown and insignificant parents. This boy was the long
expected One, the Messiah, the King. On this Palm Sunday, this King enters
Jerusalem. Salvation has finally come. Is this Jesus what Israel was looking
for? Is this Jesus what we are looking for?
We all want salvation, from something. Whether it is from our
past mistakes; the job we are in; the relationships we have wounded; the failures
and frustrations of life, we all want salvation. We all want things to be
just a little bit different than they are right now. We for someone or something
to come into our lives and make it all better. Most often, we look to the
wrong things for salvation. A stiff drink; a better high; a new car; a better
job; a new relationship when the current one just isn’t doing it anymore.
We search for something or someone to make it all better. And just like Israel,
we miss it. We miss salvation because we are looking for the wrong thing.
Salvation does not come with an expensive price tag. Salvation doesn’t
come with power and might. Salvation doesn’t look like a mighty warrior
riding in on his fancy white horse to save the day. Salvation looks like a
regular guy from Nazareth riding on a smelly donkey proclaiming the year of
the Lord’s favor.
The world tells us that the strong and mighty will make it.
The world tells us that it is only the strong who survive. Yet, God turns
everything upside down when He sent Jesus to proclaim salvation. In our Palm
Sunday text, we celebrate that Jesus is God and yet He is just like one of
us. He is God, but He grew up just like the rest of us. He was born to ordinary
parent in a stable next to farm animals. He had to learn to walk and talk
as a toddler. This image continues on in the triumphal entry. Jesus, the King,
the Promised One, the long-expected One comes riding into Jerusalem on a smelly
donkey--the animal of the common people. This tells us a few things about
God: 1) we can all come to God; salvation is not just for the best and the
brightest; 2) salvation does not come in might and power and strength--salvation
comes when we give up our right to be right and begin to live for others and
Jesus did and 3) we might miss our salvation if we are looking in all the
wrong places--for God seems to always work in the unexpected.
We must confess that all too often we miss out on God because
we are looking in all the wrong places. Just as we have a tendency to look
for love in all the wrong places (to quote the Waylon Jennings song), we also
look for salvation in all the wrong places. Our world values the strong, mighty,
powerful and rich. It comes with no surprise that we, who live in this world,
would seek to find our salvation in these places as well. Throughout Scripture,
God uses the weak, ordinary, meek and poor to bring salvation to the world.
We see this in the triumphal entry of Jesus. We must begin to see life not
as the world does, but as God sees it. If we use the world’s eyes, we
will miss God. For Jesus just might ride in on a ordinary smelly donkey and
you and I might miss the whole thing.
(For the full manuscript
of this sermon go to www.preachersmagazine.org and click on “Sermons.”)
The triumphal entry is a wonderful passage that exposes the
difference between the world and the Kingdom of God. The world values wealth,
power and might. The Kingdom of God values the weak, humble and the one who
lays down their life for the other. Jesus makes His triumphal entry in the
most unexpected way--on a smelly donkey.
This text tells us something about God. God comes in the most
unexpected ways. We may miss God if we are looking in the wrong places, for
the wrong things. If we are looking for God in the big, in the best and in
the brightest, we just might miss God riding in on a smelly, untrained donkey.
We just might miss God if we are looking for God in all the wrong places.
