Scripture reading: Psalm 118.

Sermon text: Luke 19:28-40.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

This quote came to me last week when I began working on today’s sermon. At some point in our lives, we’ve all settled for far less than we really desired. Even worse, in our more honest moments, we’d also admit we’ve settled for less than what God has really offered to us. Read Lewis’ quote again, and focus on the words “infinite joy.” Who among us can claim we’ve lived every moment in the reckless joy that belongs to every child of God as part of our inheritance?

The Jews in Jerusalem for Passover in A.D. 33 knew a special time had come in the history of their nation. On Wednesday night, we’ll examine how the Jews knew something momentous would happen by the end of the week. Anticipation crescendoed to a point where the Romans in the Fortress Antonia had joined with the Jewish leaders in expecting trouble. Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea, greatly preferred the Roman city of Caesarea Philippi to Jewish Jerusalem, especially during a Jewish festival. However, Pilate attended this year’s Passover festival, although he apparently hoped for a low-key affair. Events later in the week would drag Pilate into unexpected — and very unappreciated — prominence.

Jerusalem’s population, usually around 80,000 or so (about the size of the city of Tuscaloosa) would swell to more than a quarter-million during the week of Passover. The crowd would settle anywhere they could buy a spot to stay. Throngs of pilgrims would make a continuous trek to the Temple, where every Jew in the city would go to attend the Passover celebrations. Picture Tuscaloosa at Alabama’s Homecoming to get some idea of the excitement.

This year, however, Daniel’s prophecy (we’ll study this Wednesday night) would come to pass. Every Jew in town knew it. Daniel’s prophecies, written over 500 years before had never failed. Daniel had accurately prophesied the fall of Babylon to Persia, the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, and the rise of Rome. Now, Daniel’s prophecy regarding the “Anointed One” would see its fulfillment in this week.

With this background, we can now understand the stir among the Jews when word raced through Jerusalem about a man named “Jesus” appearing at a city gate. Most people in town had heard of Jesus, even if they didn’t believe everything they had heard. Many knew of His conflicts with the Pharisees, the self-proclaimed keepers of the Law. Others had heard that only a few days before now, Jesus had raised a man named Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, only a few miles from Jerusalem! This rumor packed a punch as people began traveling to Bethany to see a newly raised Lazarus.

Now, Jesus had arrived; not as He had ordinarily come into the city, but riding on a colt, fulfilling the words the prophet Zechariah had prophesied in c. 520 B.C. Now, everyone knew the Anointed One had come!

Suddenly, the gate where Jesus appeared became the one place everyone in Jerusalem wanted to go. All those who had come with Jesus to Passover began spreading their cloaks on the road for His entrance. Some people, caught up in the moment, began grabbing branches from nearby palm trees to add to the impromptu carpet. Others, remembering the hymns they had sung their entire lives, began throwing the cry, “Hosanna!” to the skies; the word which, in Greek, meant “Save us!” Perhaps some of the Jews had sung Psalm 118 that very day during their worship at the Temple. Finally, it seemed salvation had come!

We must ask ourselves a key question: From what did the Jews expect Jesus to save them?

For, to the Jews in Jerusalem, A.D. 33, “salvation” certainly needed to appear. The Jewish nation had suffered under pagan domination for centuries, excepting a brief but bloody century when the Jews finally threw the Greeks out of their nation and then spent most of their time killing each other. The Roman general Pompey had ridden into town in 63 B.C. to settle the civil war between 2 claimants to the throne, but in typical Roman fashion had left a contingent of soldiers behind to remind everyone who really controlled the area. The Romans later turned the Jewish kingdom over to the Herod family, leading to nearly 40 years of rule by Herod the Great and another decade under his worthless son Archelaus. The Romans Archelaus in Judea with a procurator in A.D. 6.

The Romans had run the place for close to a century now. The Jews, ever mindful of their history, considered the Roman presence a brutal reminder of the sins of their ancestors. God had promised this land to the Jews, but only if they remained obedient to the covenant He had established with them in the 15th century B.C. at Mt. Sinai. Every Roman soldier he encountered reminded the average Jew of the disobedience that brought the pagans there in the first place.

“Save us!” St. Luke didn’t record the cry, but St. Matthew certainly did. “Save us, O Lord!” The words of Psalm 118 became personal on that day.

Here, the Lewis quote gains even more power. “We are far too easily pleased.” The Jews of the day looked around and saw Roman power everywhere: In the Fortress Antonia that towered over the Temple, in the taxes they paid to the traitorous collaborating publicans, even behind the priests in the Temple. Before he could perform his Passover duties, the high priest had appeared before Pilate to request the ceremonial robes he had to wear to the festival. The Romans kept the robes locked in the fortress as a means of controlling the Sadducees, the political party of the priests. Ever mindful of the fist inside the glove, the Sadducees collaborated with the Romans as much as did the tax collectors. “Save us!” to most people that day carried the unspoken but palpable answer to our question: Save us from the Romans and their puppets.

As He rode into town that day, Jesus examined the crowd that day and saw that, in typical human fashion, they would settle for far less than God wanted them to receive. The people of Jerusalem would have fought for Him that day; they would have assaulted the Fortress Antonia itself as the Maccabees had overwhelmed the Greeks at the Fortress Acra in 141 B.C. The people would have gladly crowned Jesus, the Son of David, as king that day if He had only uttered the words they wanted to hear.

The Pharisees probably expected Jesus to do just this. Although they vehemently — and, at times in history, violently — disagreed with the Sadducees, the Pharisees in Jerusalem had as much to lose as the Sadducees if the Romans suspected trouble. Early in His ministry, most Pharisees who met Jesus expected Him to join their side in the fight with the Sadducees. This hope quickly turned to disappointment as Jesus unleashed His most pointed comments in the direction of the Pharisees themselves, condemning them for their hypocrisy and misinterpretation of the Law. Now, the Pharisees in Jerusalem had to contend with Jesus just as their spiritual brothers in Galilee had done. The Pharisees wielded power in Jerusalem as did the Sadducees, and they would tolerate no threat to their power.

Ever mindful of the famous Roman intolerance for revolts, the Pharisees in Jerusalem ordered Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” Today, we’d say, “Tell them to shut up! Don’t you know that the Romans have spies in the crowd?”

Jesus’ words gave them no comfort: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” Jesus, too, knew something time-shattering would happen this week. Jesus, too, understood that history would change this week. Jesus, more mindful of the effects of the weeks events than any disciple or Pharisee could fathom, knew that this week would change everything.

Jesus looked at the crowd, but He also looked beyond the crowd and the city itself. He couldn’t have seen it for the walls of Jerusalem, but Jesus knew His life would end on a hill to the northwest of the Temple, almost due north of Herod’s palace on the other side of the city. In His death, Jesus would do far more than saving the Jews from the Romans would ever accomplish.

As I studied for this sermon this week, another passage came to mind that should explain the enormity of Jesus’ death that we’ll commemorate this Friday. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul wrote:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:19-22)

The people may have missed it that day, but Jesus’ arrival at Jerusalem signaled the end of a far more brutal reign that the Romans ever dreamed.

This week’s events remind us of the reality of our situation in life. I lost an uncle last week to an accidental fall; I couldn’t attend his funeral because I was recovering from surgery. A friend died last week because of cancer. I saw addictions rip families apart this past week. Everywhere I looked, I saw the beauty of God’s creation as spring arrived in Alabama, but I also saw the effects of humanity’s rebellion against our Creator. Our ancestors, Adam and Eve, lived in a beautiful garden especially designed for them by Almighty God. Their rebellion cost them the Garden, their relationship with God, and their chance at immortality on earth. Every death, every disease, every insult or act of brutality we’ve inflicted on each other since resulted from that rebellion.

Yet, in our human shortsightedness, we keep crying for someone to save us from the effects. “Save my job.” “Save my family.” “Save my nation.” “Save my life.” I can condense most of these cries to, “Do what it takes to make me happy and keep me that way.”

Happiness. “We are far too easily pleased.”

Jesus’ death on the cross, St. Paul went on to tell the Romans, “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). Jesus died for us; we’ll commemorate His death on Good Friday. However, next Sunday, we’ll celebrate Jesus’ resurrection on Easter.

Jesus’ resurrection brought far more to us than merely an intercessor before the God who created us and against whom we rebel with every selfish action we commit on a daily basis. Jesus’ resurrection signaled the end of sin’s domination of Creation itself. Jesus’ resurrection brought hope to a creation marred by sin, to a humanity doomed to eternal death. St. Paul also told the Romans, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

This, you see, is true salvation. In some mystical way, Creation understood the significance of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem on Nisan 10, A.D. 33. Had the people not cried out in celebration for their salvation, Jesus told the Pharisees, Creation itself would have shouted for joy.

In our case, Jesus’ death and resurrection paved a way for us to return to the God against whom we’ve rebelled. Jesus’ blood, Scripture tells us, made a way for us far more durable than the temporary carpet of cloaks and palm branches on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem. “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Jesus’ blood serves as the atonement for our sins against God and one another.

When we confess Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection, we receive peace with God. We receive a new relationship with God. We receive forgiveness of our sins, we receive far more than mere happiness; we receive joy, “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9).

That, Reader, is worth celebrating.

Yet, I see Christians living with the effects of sin on a daily basis. It occurred to me last week that although I’ve lived in the peace of salvation for most of my life, I still have remained far too shortsighted in my attitude toward God. I’ve carried my problems to Him — my desires, my sins, my failures — and asked for forgiveness, only to then remain mired in my own guilt. I’ve spent far too much time in my life destroying my own worth before God when He wants me to enjoy the peace of my relationship with Him; to live in joy, not mere happiness. It occurred to me that if inanimate, lifeless stones could understand the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I have no business settling for less than infinite joy.

I decided this week to silence the stones in my life. I confess that old habits are hard to break, as the saying goes, but I’ve decided to stop focusing on my own failures and instead to focus on the sacrifice Jesus willingly gave for my eternal life and infinite joy.

Last Wednesday, I awoke early to a spiritual moment in my life. I sensed God helping me to silence stones I had carried for most of my life, including a stone or 2 from my preteen years. (Yes, I can remember that far.) Today, I encourage you to do the same. I encourage you to realize today that Jesus died for you to have infinite joy in the freedom from guilt. I encourage you to realize that Jesus’ death for you has paid the penalty for your sin and pave the way for you to enjoy peace with God. I encourage you to take the stones of guilt, despair, and everything else that has weighted you down and prevented you from living joyously in God’s love; take those stones, and silence them.

In 16 years of ministry, I’ve never done anything like you’ll see in New Hope’s service on this day. Every member of the congregation today has received a stone before the service. I want each attendee to look at that stone. Then, hear these words:

God’s love for you, displayed on a cross in A.D. 33, has brought you forgiveness and promised you joy.

Silence the stone. Never again let guilt cost you a moment of joy. Silence the stone. If you wish, bring the stone forward to the Communion table, and hear anew the words of forgiveness. If you carry the stone from this service, promise yourself that, at some point during Holy Week, you’ll silence your stone. Realize that God has answered your true cry for salvation; He has silenced the stones of guilt, despair, and ultimate eternal death.

And, in this week, the holiest week of our year, renew your commitment to Jesus as Lord of your life; experience anew the joy of your salvation.

Join me in joy — and silence the stone.