Theme: Who do we rely on ?

NT reading: Luke 19: 28-40

Have you ever watched these movies where close to the end of the film the fate of the hero hangs by a thread ? The very purpose of the mission stands on the edge of a knife. In the Lord of the Rings the hero of the film Frodo is hanging on to some small ledge of a rock  just about to fall into the deep when his friend Sam comes and gives him his hand to lift him up again from below. In the end of course he succeeds and the hero of the story is safe and sound- how much we like a film to have a happy ending !

Well in Jesus’ case it wasn’t quite the same. It looked quite promising still a few days before his death. People were welcoming him as king as he was entering Jerusalem. They were praising him still on Psalm Sunday but the praise held only for a short while because five days later he was to be sentenced and crucified in the midst of the same crowd that has praised him.

Jesus had no one to rely on when his death sentence had been pronounced, not even his closest friends who ran away or even betrayed him. There is a lesson to learn from this and we can ask ourselves this question: who do we rely on in our lives ?

1.The last part of the journey

Jesus knew what was going to happen in Jerusalem. His whole mission was to come and fulfil the Scriptures who had foretold that he was to die for mankind.

He knew what was going to happen. This last part of the journey must have been quite weary and hard-going for Jesus.

I remember travelling to the United States many years ago when I was still a student. I had about three months holidays and so I booked the return ticket to New York with fixing exact dates when I was to return back to Europe which was the cheapest way to travel to the US.

Everything went quite well and my money lasted for some time but then on the 8^th of October the only money left I had - after having paid the youth hostel for spending my last two nights there- was the money I needed for food and these were just about 6 Dollars. The last part of my journey was hard-going. Finally I could buy some fruits and so survive the last three days of my journey.

I wondered if I would make it but at the same time shortly before the end I knew that the end of this journey was very close and that I am going to make it somehow. That’s why I was still hopeful and even joyful.

Maybe this explains why Jesus was joyful as he entered Jerusalem receiving the praise of the people. He knew his journey on this earth would come to an end soon and he would have fulfilled the mission he was sent for.

But his last part of the journey was also a very ambiguous one, knowing that those people who praised him now would turn against him later and also that his friends would deny him and run away. It was a very difficult last part of the journey.

After the verses we have read, for the second time in the gospels we see Jesus weeping, this time he weeps over Jerusalem. Jesus is not loosing himself in self-pity here but he weeps because of his love  for the city and the people of Jerusalem.

When have you last wept or felt touched by the misery of the people around you because they are lost and in trouble and because they don’t know Jesus and because you that he could help them only if they asked him ?

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the misery in some people’s lives and their unwillingness still to turn to God, their only hope !

The last part of Jesus’ journey was the most difficult thing that was happening in his life as yet but Jesus took it joyfully upon himself- he knew that it had to happen so that mankind could be saved and that he would finally complete his journey and his purpose in life.

2.The king is coming  

It had been prophesied in the Old Testament that the king of the Jews will be coming to Jerusalem riding on a colt. The exact same thing happened as Jesus was entering Jerusalem. One more of the Old Testament Scriptures had been fulfilled.

It’s hard to say what people thought about Jesus on Psalm Sunday except that they were welcoming him and that they really praised him as the king.

Sometimes we just understand some spiritual truths. The Holy Spirit shows and reveals them to us. Maybe that is what happened on Psalm Sunday. The people understood something about who Jesus was. But though they did, they still had wrong ideas about his kingship. Most of the Jews living in those times were waiting for a king to save them from the tyranny of Roman rule. They wanted a political not a spiritual Saviour. As the winds changed and their religious leaders turned against Jesus, the crowd also turned against him. After all, he was not the Saviour they had expected.

But Jesus knew that one should never rely on man. Man is fickle and changing moods, one day they praised him, the other day they will hate him.

Yes, the king was coming, but as John’s gospel  says: “he came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him.” The king was coming but the people of Jerusalem truly did not understand his mission.

And is it not the same today? People deal differently with problems. Some people will never consider turning to God even if they are in big trouble. If you went there and told them that Jesus could help him, they will just look strangely at you strangely and think you are out of your mind.

“It’s much easier to rely on my own strength than to rely on God. I will succeed if I do everything what I can. I can find a way out of the trouble.”

But what happens if I don’t find a way. Will I still hold on to my own solutions which usually are not helpful or leading far enough to change situations or will I finally rely on the living God who has promised to be a help in all our troubles and problems ? As Psalm 46:1 says: “God is an ever-present help in trouble.”

That promise doesn’t mean that all our troubles and problems will always go away. Jesus never promised us to have an easy life where no-one will ever bother us, where we will live always at ease with no pain or sorrow or sickness.

No-one really knows what awaits him in this life. But one thing we can be sure of : we will never be left alone by God whatever happens to us. He will carry us through and give us his peace in the midst of the greatest turmoil.

Maybe we also have wrong conceptions about God, maybe we think as  Christians everything should go well. But then we have misunderstood God’s purposes in our lives as Christians. In the New Testament there are also statements like the following:

Tim. 3:12 “Everyone who wants to lead a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  and  1.Cor. 10:13 “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful: he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted he will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” And Hebrews 12: 4: “ In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood…”

Yes, the king is coming even into our lives but the question is will we like it when he comes and sets things right in our lives and when he sets our thinking straight, when he teaches us to think spiritually the way God thinks ?

3.Praise and rejection

Once I had a secret fan who was praising me every time I was preaching. In the beginning I was quite glad to receive this praise. But then my fan started getting moody and each time after the service he started picking on me. He always found new things to pick on me. I just couldn’t believe it how someone could change like this ! Sometimes people are like that, they just give you praise in order to manipulate you and then they expect you to do everything they say. If you don’t, then you fall through and they can become your worst enemies.

In my case the whole thing ended when I confronted this man and questioned his motives by asking him why one Sunday he was praising  me and the other Sunday he was just criticising me, and that maybe he should make up his mind what he actually wanted to do ! Have you come along people like that ?

Jesus knew that the praise will finally end in rejection. Still he was enjoying the moment when the crowd understood at least something about him. He knew it was just another step to getting to know God. He also knew that the suffering and the death on the cross were unavoidable and that it was the only way to save man from being lost and estranged from God.

How hard it was for Jesus to suffer rejection from man whom he loved so much ? Not only did they reject him, but they mistreated him and beat him until he was so weak that he could not even carry his cross. And finally they crucified him. I don’t know what hurt Jesus more: the physical pains of being crucified or the attitude of the fickle crowd who on Psalm Sunday had called him the king and then a few days later they were demanding that he should be crucified. The rejection of man was hard to take for Jesus. But much harder to take was the rejection of his own Father in heaven. Never before or ever after had there ever been a time when Jesus had been rejected and totally abandoned by God the Father. But at the cross he was ! The Son of God – lost and struck by God for sins which he had never committed- the innocent one taking your and my sin upon him, dying in our place !

There is an old hymn which expresses quite clearly what Jesus has done for us:

“Rock of ages, cleft for me .” Here are some of the words :

 1.Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee; let the water and the blood, from thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double cure; save from wrath and make me pure.

2.Not the labours of my hands can fulfil thy law's demands; could my zeal no respite know,could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone;thou must save, and thou alone.

3.Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Saviour, or I die.

Jesus’ rejection brought us peace and life ! What is there we can bring him now? What can we give him for what he did for us when he died for us ?

The only thing we have and we can give is our lives. The highest call in this life is not to live our lives for ourselves but to live our lives for Jesus- the only one who we can really wholly rely on ! Praise his name ! Amen