The Servant’s suffering and triumph

Posted on March 29, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Behold! My Servant! God says through the prophet Isaiah about the coming Christ. Nowhere do we behold the Lord’s servant like we do on Good Friday. Isaiah 53, and the final verses of chapter 52, unfold the events of Good Friday for us, both the “what” and the “why.” They talk about the suffering of the Christ, but their theme is His triumph over suffering and His exaltation after His humiliation. We begin with the last few verses of Isaiah 52.

Behold, My Servant shall prosper; He shall rise and be lifted up and be highly exalted. One could also translate that last word as “glorified.” “He shall rise and be lifted up and glorified.” Maybe that reminds you of what Jesus said about Himself just three days earlier on busy Tuesday: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…But if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” St. John tells us that this was a reference to the kind of death He would die, by being “lifted up” on a cross. So, you see, even this verse from Isaiah’s prophecy points, in a cryptic way, to the crucifixion of the Lord’s Servant. That understanding goes well with the next verse: Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.

Isaiah continues, So shall He sprinkle many nations. Moses, the Mediator of the Old Covenant, sprinkled the blood of the Old Testament on the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai. So the Christ will sprinkle the blood of His New Testament beyond Israel, on many nations. In other words, after shedding His own blood on the cross and providing atonement for sins, He will apply that atonement throughout the world through preaching, through the sprinkling of Holy Baptism, and through the meal of the New Testament which is His holy Supper.

But if He’s going to do that, He can’t remain dead, and we can see that here in Isaiah’s prophecy, too. My Servant shall prosper; He shall rise and be lifted up and be highly exalted. Those words can also point to Christ’s glory in His resurrection and exaltation following His death. It’s all there underneath Isaiah’s prophecy. And it’s there for you and me, so that we can see that this was God’s will all along, for His Son to suffer, die, and rise again, and then prosper in bringing people from every nation into the New Covenant in His blood.

Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. The word will go out of what He has done, and even kings will be amazed. They will be made speechless by this astonishing plan of salvation that no mind of man could have imagined. Many will believe!

But many will not believe, especially in Israel, as St. Paul explains the next words of Isaiah’s prophecy: Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? Even after all the prophecies fulfilled on Good Friday, even after the Lord’s resurrection, most in Israel would not believe. That unbelief is what led to Israel despising Christ in the first place. And that’s what we hear about in the next verses.

…He has no form or majesty; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Jesus never appeared regal, never looked like a king, much less like God Himself. But how much worse that became on Good Friday, after He had been abused and tortured. When Pilate brought Him out before the crowd in that purple robe, with the crown of thorns on His head and with all the blood and bruises from the blows He had received—truly He was despised.

Why? Was God really so angry with Him? Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Oh. That’s why He suffered. That’s why He died. Not because God was angry with Him. But because God was angry with us—with all sinners. We all have iniquities, we all have transgressions recorded in the books that will be opened at the Last Judgment. We have, every one of us, gone our own way, done things our way in this life. We all should have paid for those sins with our lives, with our eternal souls. But God’s anger against us for our sins was not as great as His love for us, not as great as His desire that we should be saved. So He caused His beloved Son to suffer the things we all should have suffered, to pay the price we couldn’t pay, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And the Son willingly obeyed.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. Jesus didn’t defend Himself before the Sanhedrin or before Pontius Pilate. Because His goal wasn’t to be released or to prove Himself right before men. His goal, all along, was to suffer and die for our sins.

By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. The death of the Christ is clearly prophesied here, and in the following words. And they made His grave with the wicked— but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. The innocent Christ had to die. And He had to be buried in the tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea. That small, small benefit had to be granted to Him, to be buried in an elegant, rich man’s tomb, because, although He was treated like a wicked man in His death, He was the only “unwicked” man who has ever lived.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By knowledge of Him My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.

What an amazing sentence! It pleased the LORD to bruise Him—to bruise His own beloved Son, and to put Him to grief, because it pleased Him to save us from our sins. And, because Jesus was innocent, because Jesus suffered not for His own sins but for ours, His resurrection from the dead is clearly prophesied here, too, as well as the success He would have in bringing many to faith in Him, by which He would justify them, save them, and make them children of God.

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

In the coming days, we’ll talk about that “portion with the great” that God the Father would bestow on His Son. For now, take comfort in the Son’s willingness to pour out His life unto death, so that you and I, who deserved death, might share in His life. Yes, stand in awe of the Lord Jesus Christ, for His willingness to be numbered with the transgressors, so that you and I, who are transgressors, might be numbered with the saints, through faith in His blood. Amen.

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Rejoice! Your Savior is coming!

Posted on March 28, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Isaiah 52:1-12

After hearing the whole story of the events of Holy Thursday, what can we say? The Scriptures lay it all out so plainly, all that Christ did and all that He endured, from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane to the court of the high priest. Of course, all that was still leading up to Good Friday, when the Author of our salvation would finish the offering of Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice of atonement. We’ll spend just a few moments yet this evening applying the words of the prophet Isaiah to these events, selected verses from chapter 52, which has chapter 53 directly in view, the chapter for Good Friday. As Maundy Thursday leads into Good Friday, as Isaiah 52 leads into Isaiah 53, the message of Isaiah for Maundy Thursday rings out loud and clear: O Church of God, rejoice! Your Savior is coming!

Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! Isaiah isn’t talking to unbelieving Jerusalem now—the Jerusalem that was about to put Jesus to death, but to believing Jerusalem, the “holy city,” to the believers in God’s Church who were yearning for God’s deliverance from their captivity, not only from Babylon, but from sin, death, and the devil. To the captives longing for their salvation to appear, Isaiah writes, Put on strength and put on your beautiful garments, because, through the suffering of Christ that Isaiah was about to reveal in chapter 53, through the suffering of Christ that would take place between Maundy Thursday evening and Good Friday afternoon, your Savior is coming!

For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. Never in history has this promise been fulfilled in a literal way for Jerusalem. Clearly it’s a spiritual promise, that, through the work of Christ, the suffering Servant described in chapter 53, God’s people would be protected, would be kept safe from the devil and his allies, even as Jesus protected His fickle disciples in the Garden and promises that He will give His sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

Shake yourself from the dust, arise and take your seat, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion! For thus says the LORD: “You have sold yourselves for nothing…

Sold yourselves for nothing—what did Adam and Eve get from eating from that forbidden tree and selling themselves and their children into the slavery of sin? Nothing. What did Israel get for trying to make alliances with Gentile nations and foreign gods? Nothing. What did Jesus’ disciples get for forsaking Him in the garden? What did Peter get for denying Him three times? What do any of us get for giving in to sin and temptation? Nothing.

But, by God’s grace, we also don’t have to pay anything toward our redemption. and you shall be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord GOD: “What have I here,” says the LORD, “That My people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail,” says the LORD, “And My name is blasphemed continually every day. Therefore My people shall know My name; Therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks: ‘Behold, it is I.’ ”

Redeemed without money, but not for free. Redeemed with the humble service of Christ Jesus, with His child-like obedience to His heavenly Father. Redeemed with the bloody sweat of the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Redeemed with the betrayal, abandonment, and denials He willingly suffered, with the blows He received in the high priest’s presence, with the condemnation that was pronounced upon Him by the traitorous leaders of the Church, along with the blood He shed on Good Friday. My people shall know My name, God says. And many in Israel did come to know it as they saw what the Lord Jesus willingly endured for them. We have come to know it, too, by watching (through the preaching of it) what Jesus did, said, and suffered on the night of Maundy Thursday, pointing ahead to the culmination of it all on Good Friday.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” … Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Isaiah is looking ahead to Maundy Thursday, and to Good Friday. And beyond! He foresees the Gospel going out, proclaiming the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and, of course, also Easter Sunday. The going out of the good news is essential. Because Jesus didn’t actually save you when He suffered and when He died on the cross. That was the cause of your salvation, but not the timing of it. The timing of it is tied to the bringing of the good news to your ears, the good news of God’s promise to deliver you, through faith, from sin, death, and the devil, on account of the suffering and death of His Servant, the Christ. Your salvation is tied, not only to Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, but also to hearing the good news, and to having water poured on you in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to eating and drinking the body and blood that were the price of your salvation in that Sacrament first instituted on Maundy Thursday evening.

Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing…For you shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

Depart! A command, a gracious invitation for the Church of God to leave behind its captivity, not only in Babylon, where Jerusalem was held captive for 70 years, but in the devil’s kingdom and in the grasp of sin and death. Because Christ, your Champion, is coming (from Isaiah’s perspective)! Has come, from ours. He went out into battle on that Thursday night, leading the way for His Church, defeating our enemies as He went. And then He became our rear guard also, making sure that we are kept safe from sin and from the devil all the way through this life, until, by faith in Him, we reach the heavenly Promised Land. Amen.

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The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Holy Tuesday

Harmony of the Gospels for Holy Tuesday

Holy Tuesday is often referred to as “busy Tuesday,” and I think we can all appreciate why, after hearing the extended reading this evening. For the most part, “busy Tuesday” was a final opportunity for Jesus to accomplish a few different goals: to teach the people who were willing to listen, to expose the lies, hypocrisy, and unbelief of the Jewish leaders, and to give His own disciples—and future generations—the instructions they and we would need to make it, not just through Holy Week, but through the coming years, all the way up until His second coming.

First, let’s run through the list of Tuesday’s events: (1) Jesus defended His authority before the Jewish leaders. (2) He spoke three parables against them: The parable of the two sons sent into the vineyard, of the wicked vinedressers, and the great wedding banquet for the king’s son. (3) He was tested by the Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar, by the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, and by the Pharisees concerning the Great Commandment. (4) Jesus then questioned them about the Christ as both David’s Son and David’s Lord, which put an end to all their testing. (5) Jesus gave a fire-and-brimstone-type sermon against the scribes and Pharisees, “Woe to you, you hypocrites!” (6) He was shown a ray of hope in the widow’s humble faith as she dropped her two little coins into the treasury, and in the desire of the Greeks to come and see Him. (7) He instructed His disciples about the destruction of Jerusalem, the end times, and His return for judgment, and then told them the parables of the Ten Virgins and of the sheep and the goats. (8) Finally, He prophesied His arrest in two days, which would be followed by His suffering, death, and resurrection. (9) And then Judas went to the Jewish leaders and agreed to sell His Lord for thirty pieces of silver.

What shall we say about all this? What shall we focus on in the brief time we have left together this evening?

Let’s focus on Jesus’ statement, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain… Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die.

Since the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus had been telling His disciples that His hour had not yet come. Several times people had tried to kill Jesus, even in His hometown of Nazareth. But no one could touch Him, because His hour had not yet come. Several times people had wanted Jesus to reveal Himself to the world as the Messiah, to draw all people to Himself. But He couldn’t. He wouldn’t, because His hour had not yet come. Finally now, on busy Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus knows that His hour has come, that it’s only two days away until the devil, the “ruler of this world,” will manipulate the minds of the men who belong to the unbelieving world to have Jesus seized and put on trial, that it’s only three days away until He is “lifted up from the earth.”

Will He shrink back from it? Of course not! This is why the Father sent Him. This is what He “signed up for.” And while He does not look forward to dying (as we see most acutely in His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane), He is able to see what His death will accomplish. It will “produce much grain.” It will make it possible for sinful men—for you and me—to be accepted by a holy God, who designed this sacrifice of atonement to be the sufficient payment for the sins of the world. The preaching of His death will change the hearts of millions as we are shown the extent to which God was willing to go to save us from the ruler of this world, by handing His beloved Son, His obedient Son, His innocent Son over to the devil and His allies among men, so that they might do to Him whatever they wanted.

And by giving His life into death for our sins, the Lord Jesus would cast out the devil, the ruler of the world. The strong man would be bound by the Stronger Man. The devil’s ability to accuse believers would be nullified. His ability to drag us to hell would be removed. And one day the devil himself will be taken completely out of the picture because of the victory of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus sees what will happen when He is lifted up from the earth onto a cross. He sees the countless numbers of men from all over the world who will be drawn to Him, drawn to know God through His sacrifice and to trust in Him as their Savior and King. It’s what kept Him going through that Holy Week, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.

And you are part of that, part of the reason why Jesus allowed Himself to be lifted up on the cross, part of the joy that sustained Him through the agony and the pain, part of the purpose of all His busy-ness on busy Tuesday, that you might know everything you need to know and believe everything you need to believe in order to be saved. Take that knowledge, take that faith and let it determine how you live from now on, that the life you live in the body you no longer live for yourself, but for Him who loved you and gave Himself for you. Amen.

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The events of Holy Monday

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Holy Monday

Harmony of the Events of Holy Week for Monday

Not much is recorded in Scripture for the Monday of Holy Week. Just two events: The cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple. These are the things the Holy Spirit has revealed to us about the Lord Jesus four days before His crucifixion. Let’s consider them both.

As Jesus was making His way toward Jerusalem on that Monday morning, He noticed a fig tree. And He went up to it to inspect it, to see if it had fruit. It had leaves, but no figs at all. So He cursed it. Not the kind of curse where you use foul language, but the kind of curse where you express a wish for harm to come upon someone, or, in this case, something. May no one eat fruit from you ever again! And, as we heard in our reading this evening, by the next morning, that fig tree had withered and died.

Peter was amazed that the tree could wither like that so quickly. And we wonder how he could possibly be amazed after Jesus had calmed the storms and walked on the water and changed water into wine. Maybe his amazement had something to do with the fact that he had never seen Jesus destroy anything before. Every other miracle Jesus had done was to help people. This is the first and only time in His life, as far as we know, that Jesus wished harm upon anything. So we have to ask, why? It seems like such an unimportant thing, to find a fig tree without fruit, especially when it wasn’t even the season for figs.

To understand this event, we have to look back to a parable Jesus had told earlier in His ministry: He spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, good. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ ”

The fig tree in the parable represents the people of Israel. God had given them time to produce fruit in keeping with repentance, as John the Baptist had begun calling on them to do some four years before Holy Week. For three years, although God certainly found some within the nation who repented, He found no repentance in the nation as a whole. The vast majority worshiped Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. Jesus is like the keeper of the vineyard who pleaded for a time of grace, for one more year before God should cut the nation down. And He worked tirelessly to turn people’s hearts to God. But now, as of Holy Week, that year had come to an end. And still the nation of Israel, as a whole, stood in rebellion against God. They had produced no fruit. They were about to put God’s own Son to death, and Jesus knew it. And so, as Jesus speaks a curse upon the fig tree, He is essentially indicating that the time of grace for Israel has ended. During Old Testament times, Israel often fell away and then repented and returned to the Lord. That pattern had repeated many times. Not anymore. From then on, Israel, as a nation, as a people, would never come to repentance. They would never be allowed to produce fruit again.

That curse didn’t prevent individual Jews from coming to repentance and faith in Jesus as the Christ, as we see from the Day of Pentecost onward. Some did, and some still do today! But never again would the whole nation return to the Lord. Never again would God consider Israel to be His “chosen people.” Israel would be expelled from God’s Holy Church.

This event is a stern reminder that, while God’s patience is long, it is not unlimited. The same Jesus whom we know to be the Savior of the world, whose chief purpose in coming into the world was not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him—that same Jesus will also be the Judge of mankind. The same Jesus who allowed unbelievers to torture and kill Him will one day sentence those who remain unbelieving to eternal torture and death. If you would know Jesus rightly, then you must know Him both as Savior and as Judge. But know also that His fervent desire is to save men, not to judge them. So don’t despise this time of grace that you’ve been given to turn from sin and to find full and free forgiveness and salvation in the Lord Jesus!

After cursing the fig tree, Jesus and His disciples made their way to the temple in Jerusalem, where we’re told that Jesus taught daily. But before He could do that teaching, He had to take care of something first.

The temple area was littered with tables and chairs and people using them to buy and sell and change money. But that was never God’s purpose for the temple. This was to be the one place on earth where people could come to find God, to pray and to know that their prayers would be heard favorably, to hear the Word of God, as Jesus was able to hear it in the temple when He was twelve years old. This is where God commanded sacrifices to be offered, and where mankind could find atonement for sins and forgiveness through that atonement. It was supposed to symbolize Christ Himself, in whom alone God is pleased and through whom alone people can find a reconciled God. It was to be a house of prayer for all nations. But they had made it into a noisy den of thieves.

So Jesus, the Temple’s true Owner, used His authority to cleanse it. Zeal for God’s house consumed Him. Zeal for God’s honor, and even more, zeal for God’s people consumed Him. God’s people needed this temple, needed this place of prayer, and sacrifice, and the preaching of the Word of God. So, for their sake, Jesus cleansed the temple of all the distractions, even as He had done on another occasion, at His first Passover after beginning His ministry. That’s when He had made that cryptic statement to the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it,” referring to the temple of His body. In fact, that was the very charge that the false witnesses brought up at Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin (although they misquoted Him even then), and it may well be that this cleansing of the temple caused them to remember what He had said when He cleansed it the first time a few years earlier.

Yes, in these early days of Holy Week, we find Jesus putting on full display God’s anger against the unbelieving Jews—which is what makes it all the more striking that, on Good Friday, not a drop of that anger would be poured out on the wicked. Instead, it would all be poured out on the innocent Son of God, which is the ultimate testimony that God does not desire the death of the wicked, but has given the wicked every possible opportunity to turn from their wickedness and be saved.

That’s why Jesus kept teaching daily in the Temple during Holy Week. And notice, it was not without effect. The people hung on Jesus’ words, and the children sang to Him the very praises they had heard the day before, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Because it’s only by the word of Christ that sinners, both Jews and Gentiles, both children and adults, will be brought to repentance and faith, will be cleansed and made into pure temples of God the Holy Spirit, and will be enabled to produce the fruits of faith that God seeks from all the fig trees in His Holy Christian Church. Amen.

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The events of Palm Sunday (and the day before)

Posted on March 24, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Palm Sunday

Philippians 2:5-11  + Harmony of the Gospels for Palm Sunday

And so it begins, our annual walk with Jesus through this Holy Week. We don’t pretend that the events are happening all over again. Jesus didn’t ride in on a donkey today, nor will He be crucified again on Good Friday, nor will His body return to the tomb for the great Sabbath rest. So there’s no need for us to be overly somber or mournful this week. Holy Week isn’t for reenacting these events from Jesus’ life. It’s for remembering—or, if necessary, learning for the first time—what that special week was all about, the lessons Jesus taught, the things Jesus suffered, and the reason why He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. As Martin Luther wrote in his order for the German Mass, “Lent, Palm Sunday, and Holy Week shall be retained, not to force anyone to fast, but to preserve the Passion history and the Gospels appointed for that season…Holy Week shall be like any other week save that the Passion history be explained every day for an hour throughout the week or on as many days as may be desirable, and that the sacrament be given to everyone who desires it. For among Christians the whole service should center in the Word and sacrament.” And so it shall.

Just about everything that took place during that first Holy Week took everyone by surprise, except for Mary, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus. Mary knew, at least in a general way, how that week would end. That’s why she poured out all that expensive oil on Jesus’ head and feet, to anoint Him for His burial, which would take place within a week’s time.

Mary knew. And, of course, Jesus knew. He knew everything, even where His disciples would find a pair of donkeys tied up, a mother and her colt. And still, knowing how the week would end, He sent for the donkeys. And He got up on that young colt on which no one had ever sat. It had been reserved in God’s master design for this sacred use by the Son of God. Not that He needed it to get to Jerusalem. He had always walked to the city before. No, He needed it to send the intended message—a message which even His own disciples didn’t fully understand until after the fact. It was the message God had sent to Israel hundreds of years ahead of time, through the prophet Zechariah: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The message was that Jesus was the promised Christ, that He was the true, eternal King of the Jews, that He had come to bring salvation to His people, and that He had come to do it first in a spiritual way, not as a glorious champion, but as a humble one, not as a commander of armies riding in on a horse, but as the Commander of angel hosts riding in on a donkey, not as a king sitting on a throne, but as a King hanging from a cross. He would bring salvation to His people, not by seizing power, but by allowing Himself to be seized. He would bring salvation, not by punishing the guilty, but by bearing the guilt of all men, not by ushering in an age of justice among men, but by suffering the most terrible injustice at the hands of men. The One who occupied the highest place of power and glory, together with God the Father, would humble Himself down to the lowest place of shame, disgrace, and death.

And yet, for all His humility, He welcomed the praises of the people that day. They weren’t the empty praises of flatterers. They were the genuine praises of people who knew they needed saving somehow, and who believed that Jesus was coming to save them somehow, although they didn’t know what kind of saving they actually needed or how Jesus would accomplish their salvation. They didn’t realize that the devil was their greatest enemy—a far greater enemy than poverty or than social injustice or than political oppressors—the one who had approached the first human beings in a garden and overcame them by convincing them to rebel against God by eating from a forbidden tree, whence death arose. They didn’t grasp how big God’s plans were, that He had ordained the salvation of mankind to come from another tree, from the tree (or the wood) of the cross (listen for a reference to this later on in the Proper Preface before Communion), so that people might “eat” from that tree and live forever. How? By believing in the crucified Christ, who was delivered up to death for our sins and raised again to life for our justification, that we might be justified by faith in the One who willingly made His way to the cross for us, through all the opposition that He faced during Holy Week, through all the suffering He endured from the Garden of Gethsemane up to the great “It is finished!”

The people of Jerusalem couldn’t fathom all that Jesus, their true Passover Lamb, would endure on their behalf during that Holy Week. And yet they still went out to meet Him and sang His praises with joy in their hearts. God the Father had ordained that Jesus must receive this well-deserved praise as the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Yes, the Father insisted on it, so much so that, if the people had remained silent, then the stones themselves would have had to cry out in praise of Jesus, the King of the Jews, as Jesus told the angry Pharisees.

But the joy wouldn’t last, at least, not for most of Jerusalem. Jesus foresaw that and wept for the city, for the people whom God the Father had invited ahead of time to His Son’s banquet of salvation. He wasn’t weeping for what the Jews would do to Him on Good Friday. Yes, their behavior would be wicked and appalling, but they could have been forgiven for that. Jesus was about to give His life to make atonement for all the wickedness of men, even the wickedness of crucifying the Son of God. But there is no forgiveness, only condemnation, both temporal and eternal, for those who refuse to repent of their wickedness, who go on living in it, who are proud of their sins, or who try to make up for them in some other way than by trusting in Jesus Christ, whose blood alone can reconcile sinners to God.

But you are here today as those who have repented of your wickedness, who do repent of it, and who recognize the Lord Jesus as your King and your Savior. You know that He came to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to spend the week there fighting for you, suffering for you, and teaching you the things you need to know for your salvation. So may the Lord bless our meditations this week as we hear large portions of His inspired Word. May God bless our learning and our remembering, and may He grant us the spirit to hear and to listen, to thank and to praise, to love and to appreciate Jesus, our Savior and King, and to rejoice in Him and in the peace of His kingdom. Amen.

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