Palm Sunday - Day of Celebrity

His nickname was Sparky. He was a quiet kid, not very popular at school. In fact, Sparky was surprised if the other students even bothered to talk to him. He didn’t have many friends. He wasn’t very handsome, he wasn’t very athletic, and he wasn’t very brilliant. He was just one of those awkward people that kids call a “nerd”.

During his high school years, Sparky never dated. He was afraid of being turned down by any girl he might ask. It wasn’t that the girls didn’t like him; they just ignored him. He never really enjoyed success in anything that he did.

There was one thing that Sparky liked to do, however. He liked to draw, and he did have a certain amount of artistic ability. Unfortunately, nobody else seemed to think so. He submitted some of his cartoons to his high school yearbook, but they were turned down by the editors. He sent samples of his drawings to Walt Disney Studios, but they rejected them, too. It seemed as though everyone felt that Sparky was a loser.

But Sparky didn’t let all that rejection discourage him. He used those painful experiences as the basis for a cartoon character whose life was a lot like his own—a boy whose kite would never fly; who sat for hours in the schoolyard thinking of ways to strike up a conversation with a little red-haired girl; a boy whose baseball team never won.

By now you’ve guessed who I’m talking about. The boy with the nickname Sparky was Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. His beloved cartoon character Charlie Brown was the boy he himself had been. Schulz took all the rejection, failure, and self-doubt that he had experienced, and used it to bring laughter and insight to millions of people. Schulz died this past February on the very day that his last Peanuts cartoon appeared in the newspapers.

Rejection can bring great blessing, and in an infinitely greater way, that was true in Jesus’ ministry. But the Week that Changed History didn’t start out that way.

Palm Sunday was a day of triumph, a day of rejoicing, a day of tremendous popularity in Jesus’ ministry. On Palm Sunday, the people of Jerusalem threw out the welcome mat. They were ready to give Jesus the key to the city. On Palm Sunday, Jesus met with universal acceptance.

If you had taken a Gallup poll of the crowd on Palm Sunday, you would have found that Jesus’ popularity ratings were off the chart. He was the man of the hour. He had the people behind him. They were rooting for him; they were cheering for him. They were waving palm branches in the air and spreading their cloaks at his feet. Everyone was scrambling to get on-board the Jesus band-wagon. He was on a roll!

But just six days later, there was nothing but silence. Jesus was dead in a cold stone tomb. Even most of his own closest followers had denied him and deserted him.

How could that have happened? How could these people have turned so completely against Jesus in such a short time? One word: expectations.

Jesus made it very clear that week to the people that he hadn’t come to be the Savior they wanted him to be; he had come to be the Savior God wanted him to be. He wasn’t interested in fulfilling their expectations; he was interested in fulfilling God’s. He wasn’t there to be a Palm Sunday Messiah; he was there to be a Good Friday Messiah.

And that raises an important issue for us today—the issue of expectations. What expectations do we have for Jesus? When I come to Jesus, what am I expecting him to do for me? What kind of Savior am I expecting him to be?

Turn in your Bible to John 11, and take out the sheet of sermon notes that you’ll find in your bulletin.

Let’s take a closer look at that Palm Sunday crowd for a moment. I’d like you to notice that there are some good things to be said about these folks. In fact, there are five positive things I want you to notice about them…

1. They took their religion seriously:

John 11:55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover.

The people who were in the crowd on Palm Sunday had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover Feast. Many had come from the outlying areas of Judea. Some of them had traveled from Galilee, which lay 150 kilometers north of Jerusalem. They had come on foot—a dangerous journey for anyone traveling alone. That is why the pilgrims tended to travel together in large groups.

Other Jewish pilgrims came from even farther away. Thousands came by boat from the lands around the Mediterranean. After a long sea journey, they would land on the coast of Israel at the port of Caesarea and make their way on foot inland to Jerusalem—a distance of about 80 kilometers.

The historian Josephus tells us that when all these pligrims arrived in Jerusalem, there wasn’t anywhere near enough accomodations for all of them. So they would set up tents on the hills surrounding the city. You could have upwards of 100,000 people living in these temporary campsites at Passover time.

Whatever else you say about these people, you have to give them credit for taking their religion seriously. They were devout, and they had gone to a lot of trouble to be in Jerusalem at Passover time.

2. They were spiritual seekers:

John 11:56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the Feast at all?”

These people had heard about Jesus, perhaps from the pilgrims who had come from Galilee. They wanted to see him. They wanted to get close to him. They wanted to know more about him. They were what we call today “seekers”.

John 12:1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

John 12:9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

These people wanted to see this miracle that Jesus had done. They were tremendously interested, they were curious. So you might say that Palm Sunday was a “seeker-sensitive event”.

3. They were biblically astute:

When they met Jesus coming over the Mount of Olives, and saw him riding on the donkey, many of them realized the biblical significance of what they were seeing, because they knew their Bibles. Back in the OT, in the book of Zechariah, there is a prophecy which says…

Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

That prophecy referred to the coming of the Messiah. Here was Jesus riding on a donkey colt. He was a great man. He was a great teacher. He could perform miracles. He had great power. Therefore, these people concluded that He must be the Messiah. All the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly.

And they were absolutely right because they were biblically astute. Jesus really was their Messiah. So they began to hail him by doing something else that was biblical. They began to quote Scripture. They cried out the words of Psalm 118: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!”

Psalm 118 is one of the “Hallel” Psalms which are read before the Feast of the Passover, and it refers to the coming of the Messiah. So we have to say in their favor that this crowd was a biblical crowd. They knew their Bibles.

4. They were enthusiastic:

There is nothing worse than apathy in worship. These people who cheered for Jesus on Palm Sunday were anything but apathetic. They were pumped! They were excited! Matthew, Mark and John tell us that they didn’t mumble Psalm 118 under their breath, they shouted it at the top of their lungs! Luke says…

Luke 19:37 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:

They must have made a lot of noise, because even more people came out from the city to find out what was going on. So you had a crowd around Jesus, a crowd behind Jesus, and a crowd on the road in front of Jesus, and they were all shouting “Hosanna”, and breaking every noise ordinance in the books. It’s no wonder that the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jerusalem were upset about all this uproar.

John 12:19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

This crowd took their religion seriously, they were seekers, they knew their Bible, they were enthusiastic, and…

5. Their devotion was costly:

We read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the people took off their cloaks and laid them in the road in front of Jesus. Now a cloak in those days was a lot more valuable than you might think. It was the main outer garment that a person wore. During the day, your cloak would protect you from the fierce rays of the sun. At night, when it got cold, you would sleep with your cloak wrapped around you.

A man’s cloak was regarded to be so valuable that he could even use it as collateral to secure a loan. In fact, the Law of Moses prohibited a lender from keeping a borrower’s cloak after sunset - because then the poor man would have nothing to wrap around himself as he slept.

In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus taught about going the second mile, he said

Matthew 5:40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

So a man’s cloak was a very important piece of personal property.

Now look at what these people did. They were so caught up in the excitement of this parade for the Messiah, that they did something very sacrificial. They put their cloaks down on the road to serve as a carpet for the king. Now remember, Jesus was riding on a donkey, and I want you to appreciate the significance of what they did.

A long time ago, when I was a child growing up in Montreal, I remember going to see the Santa Claus parade. I think it was held some time in November. Anyway, it was a typical parade—there were floats and clowns and marching bands. And of course, the climax of the parade was the last float on which Santa Claus sat on a throne in all his splendor.

But you know what the high point of the parade for me. It wasn’t Santa Claus. It was the horses. The Montreal Police always had a mounted detachment in the parade. And as those beautiful horses cantered along the street, they would do what horses often do in parades. (I don’t want to be indelicate here…) They would relieve themselves.

And for a young boy of 7 or 8 years old, the high point of the parade was when the marching band that was coming along behind the horses would have to march right through the warm fertilizer that was now on the road. And it was always the bass drum player who would step in it, because he couldn’t see where he was going.

Getting back to Palm Sunday—when the people laid their cloaks down on the road for this donkey to tread on, they were putting their cloaks in harm’s way. They were saying “Jesus, you can have my most valued possession. I’m laying it down at your feet and I don’t care what happens to it.” That’s quite a commitment for them to make.

They were…

1. they took their religion seriously

2. they were spiritual seekers

3. they were biblically astute

4. they were enthusiastic

5. their devotion was costly

But just five days later, their cheers turned to jeers. The cry of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” turned into “Crucify him! We have no king but Caesar.”

How in the world could that have happened? How could Jesus have had them in the palm of his hand, so to speak, on Palm Sunday, and lose them entirely by the end of the week?

Because he refused to live up to their expectations. The crowd was looking for a political Messiah. They were looking for a supernatural problem-solver. They wanted somebody to kick out the Romans, restore the monarchy, straighten things out economically, bring in a golden age of wealth and prosperity. They wanted the good life.

And all those things are very nice except for one thing—they don’t have anything to do with the real problem. Jesus came to deal with the real problem—the problem of sin. The problem that resides in the heart of every man, woman, and child. The problem of being separated from God. And in order to deal with that problem, he had to willingly lay himself down as a sacrifice. He had to go to the Cross.

The crowd wanted Jesus to be a Palm Sunday kind of Savior; but Jesus came to be a Good Friday kind of Savior. And they didn’t want that.

Just this week, I was channel-surfing when something caught my attention. There was a ruggedly handsome young man on stage holding a microphone. He was very well dressed—stylish Armani suit, designer silk tie. He was giving his testimony of faith in Christ. He was telling how Jesus had changed his life. He was confident and relaxed as he spoke. And he looked vaguely familiar. I said to myself “Where have I seen him before?”

And then it came to me—this was Kurt Warner, the quarterback of the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams. The man who was the star of perhaps the most remarkable Cinderella story in football. As little as four years ago, Kurt Warner was a complete unknown—he was working as a stock clerk in a grocery store. Today, he is the MVP of the NFL and the star quarterback of the Super Bowl Champions. He has a multi-million dollar contract. He makes millions more in product endorsements. He has it all.

Now I don’t have anything against Kurt Warner. I’m thrilled that he’s a Christian. And I’m sure that Kurt would tell you if he lost everything, he would still belong to Jesus.

But I thought: What are we communicating to people when we put a guy like that up front as a spokesman for Christianity? Are we somehow conveying the idea that if you receive Jesus, you’ll become a success; you’ll become a winner like Kurt Warner?

That’s what the Palm Sunday crowd wanted. They wanted to be winners. And they wanted Jesus to be a winner. But Jesus said “No. In order to save you, I need to lose. I need to lose everything—I need to lose my life. And in order to be saved, you need to lose, too.”

Jesus said “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

The Palm Sunday crowd didn’t want to take up a cross, they wanted to take up a palm branch. They wanted a conquering hero, not a suffering Savior.

And the question is: What kind of Savior do you want? What are your expectations of Jesus? Are you willing to lay down those expectations? Are you willing to lay down your demands? Are you willing to let him open you up and work on what really needs to be fixed in your life?

Are you willing to let Jesus be who He really is so that he can make you into the person He wants you to be?