Why Didn’t Jesus Give Them What They Wanted?

I would invite you to turn in your Bible this morning to Luke 19. The story of Palm Sunday is a familiar one to most of us. It is a story of triumph and tragedy. The crowd that cheered so loudly for Jesus on Palm Sunday, waving palm branches in the air and casting their cloaks at his feet, jeered just as loudly for his execution on Friday.

We all know that people can be fickle. But what made these people in Jerusalem turn so decisively against him? The answer is found in this chapter. And the answer reveals something about ourselves today, 2000 years later. Let’s read, beginning at verse 41…

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

The first thing that we notice is that the crowd was cheering. Why were they cheering? Because they were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. They had several good theological reasons for believing this:

1. Jesus had done many miracles. They had seen them. They had seen him heal the sick and feed the multitudes. They had seen him cast out demons. They had even seen Jesus raise a man from the dead (or if they hadn’t seen it, they had heard of it, because everyone was talking about Lazarus.)

The prophet Isaiah had written that when the Messiah came he would preach good news to the poor, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and release people who had been in the chains of bondage. They had seen Jesus do all these things.

2. They had heard Jesus’ teaching, and it was teaching such as they had never heard before. They were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, not as the scribes and the Pharisees, who were always arguing and debating over the Law. The Messiah was not only a healer, he was a great teacher.

3. That Sunday morning, Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. “So what?” you say. Well that was extremely significant to the Jews. As hard as it may be for us to understand nowadays, the donkey was, in those days, an animal that symbolized two things: royalty and peace.

In the OT, when a king came in peace, he didn’t ride a horse, he rode a donkey. King Solomon—whose very name means “shalom” - “peace”— rode a donkey when he was presented to Israel as their new king.

During the time between the OT and the NT, Judas Maccabeus, the leader of the Jews, rode a donkey into the city of Jerusalem to cleanse the Temple which had been desecrated by Antiochus. This is where the Jewish feast of Hannukah comes from.

The prophet Zechariah, in chapter 9:9, says that when the Messiah comes to Israel, he will come riding on a young donkey. So here is Jesus, seated on a donkey, riding into the city of Jerusalem. It didn’t take much convincing for the crowd to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

They began to shout and praise God. They cried out “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

But we also notice that, in the midst of all this cheering and excitement, Jesus started to weep. Now ordinarily, grown men don’t just burst into tears, especially not in public, and especially not during festive occasions such as this.

Why was Jesus weeping? He was weeping because the people had accepted him as Messiah on the wrong basis and for the wrong reasons.

The crowd was expecting Jesus to go into the city and overthrow the Roman occupation. They were expecting Jesus to set up a political kingdom. Even his own disciples had been arguing and bickering about who would have what position in the new administration.

They all thought that peace would come when the Messiah set up a new political system. That is what they wanted, but that is not what Jesus had come to do. He didn’t give them what they wanted, because that is not what they really needed.

Jesus said “if you only knew what would bring you peace.” A new government, a new political structure, a new party in power wasn’t going to bring peace to Israel in 30 AD anymore than it will bring peace to America today. Because the problem of peace lies much deeper. It lies in the heart of each individual.

Jesus wept as he looked at Jerusalem and said “if you only knew what would bring you peace.” And as he looks at America today, he would say the same thing.

People are still looking for peace today—inner peace. They’re looking for it in a lot of different places.

1. Some people think that they will find it in prosperity. So they give themselves to accumulating things. But they find, amidst all their affluence, that their souls are still empty. Because having more things doesn’t give you inner peace.

2. Some people think that they will find inner peace in the pursuit of pleasure. So they turn to the world of experience, looking for that elusive “high” that will give them ultimate satisfaction. But they never find it. Because pleasure is transient—it doesn’t give you inner peace.

3. Some people turn to learning. They think that if we can just achieve a deeper level of understanding of ourselves and of the universe in which we live, our souls will be at peace. But no amount of education, or scientific knowledge, or psychological insight brings inner peace.

4. So some people try to find inner peace through intimacy, through relationships. And they give themselves to building deep, caring relationships with other human beings. But ultimately, they find that no other human being can quite fulfill that deep inner longing of their soul for peace.

When Jesus said “If you only knew what would bring you peace…” what was he getting at? What is it about peace that we don’t understand? Why is it “hidden from our eyes”? Why can we never seem to find it, no matter how hard we look?

It’s because our inner peace is directly related to what Jesus had come to Jerusalem to do at the end of that week.

You see, the crowd was right about the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. But they were wrong about what he had come to do. He had not come to set up a new government. He had not come to kick out the Romans. He had not come to rearrange the political landscape. He had much bigger fish to fry.

Jesus had come to die for the sins of all mankind. He had come to lay down his life for you and me. He had come to pay the penalty for the sin that separates us from God.

If you don’t have inner peace today , it is because your soul is at war with God. You are separated from him; you’re in rebellion against him. And that situation would be permanent except for the fact that Jesus wrote a peace treaty. He wrote it in his own blood.

We read in 2 Cor.5:19 that when Jesus died on the cross, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.”

Colossians 1:20 (through Christ God) reconcile(d) to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

That is the key to finding inner peace. It’s coming to the foot of the cross and saying “I believe that when Jesus died, he died for me. He died for my sins. There’s nothing that I have ever done, or could ever do, to make peace with God. Only Jesus could do it. And when he died, he did it.”

Coming to the place where you can honestly acknowledge that is an act of faith. It means that you’re turning your back on all your own efforts to make yourself acceptable to God.

It means that you’re willing to take off the meager cloak of your own self-righteousness, and reach out your empty hands to God. Faith is all you’re left with. But that’s good…

Romans 5:1 Therefore, being justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace with God is the answer. Knowing that things are right between you and God—not because of anything you’ve done but because of what Jesus did—that is what brings that incredible inner peace that everyone is looking for.

There is a small, remote island in the Philippines called the island of Lubang. In 1974, something amazing happened there. A Japanese soldier walked out of the jungle and surrendered.

The Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, when the Japanese government officially signed a surrender document aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. On that day, the gunfire stopped, the troops laid down their arms. The bloodshed was over.

But for Lt. Onoda, in his remote outpost on the island of Lubang, the war went on. He refused to believe the reports of peace that he heard on his radio. He thought it was all an American trick to lure him into a trap. So he continued his one-man war for the next thirty years. He simply refused to surrender.

He was pursued by Filipino soldiers who tried to find his hideout. But they could never track him down. He was as elusive as a shadow. He became an expert in jungle survival. Every day, he would climb a tree and scan the horizon with his binoculars to see if the Japanese Navy would return and help him to recapture the island.

But finally, after 28 years of disappointment, Onoda simply gave up.

The Second World War had been over for decades. The Korean War had been fought and finished. The Viet Nam war was over and done with America and Japan were now allies. But that stubborn Japanese soldier didn’t benefit from that fact.

To finally be at peace, he first had to believe that a peace treaty had, in fact, been signed. Second, he had to personally accept it by laying down his arms and giving up his life of resistance. It took him twenty-eight years to finally get to that place.

Spiritually speaking, that fanatical Japanese soldier is a lot like many people in their relationship to God. A peace treaty has been in effect for 2,000 years. But they’re still fighting. They refuse to believe it.

Jesus’ death on the cross doesn’t bring you peace with God until you believe that it is true, and accept it as personally applying to you. That’s a choice that only you can make. You can choose to go on fighting and running and hiding from God like a fugitive. Or you can lay down your arms and accept the peace.

Prayer:

Perhaps you’ve been fighting your own private war against God. And you are so conscious, deep down in your soul, that you’re not at peace. Are you tired of fighting and running? Would you like for the war to be over?

As far as God is concerned, the war IS over. The peace treaty has already been signed—signed with the blood of Jesus. And now God is waiting for you to accept it.

You can accept it right now, by faith. In the quietness of this moment, just say to God something like this: “Lord, I’ve been going my own way—trying to live my life in my own power—and it just isn’t working. I don’t have that inner peace that only you can give.

“I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he died for me. He signed the peace treaty between you and me, God. And I know that there’s nothing I can do but accept what he did. And God, this morning, I want to tell you that I’m accepting it. I receive Jesus as my Savior.”

If you have said that to God this morning, I’m going to ask you to do something that you might find difficult to do. I’m going to ask you to indicate to me that you’ve made that decision by raising your hand, so that I can pray for you.

I know that it’s a private decision between you and God, but the Bible says that going public with it will help to seal it in your mind and heart. Will you raise your hand if you prayed to receive Jesus this morning?