Luke 19:28-40
The Triumphal Entry (or "The One Mighty King who was Humble")
Ross Tenneson / General
Summary
Exegetical Main Point: Jesus enters Jerusalem to begin his reign with all authority and all gentleness, making him worthy of all worship.
Sticky: We must worship the one mighty king who was gentle.
Introduction
In our modern world, some things are easier than ever and some things ar harder than ever. It’s easier to get food than ever, easier to get shelter than ever, easier to get education or access to technology than ever.
On the other hand, it’s harder to guard your attention and focus than ever. Even twenty-five years ago, there was not widespread cable television with any kind of channel for every kind of person. Fifteen years ago, there was not computers in our pockets programmed to consume as much of our attention as possible. They’re so addictive we can spend hours on them a day (and many of us do).
In light of this age of distraction and diversion, I want to ask this morning: what does our worship of Jesus look like on a day to day basis? Am I hungry for him? Am I seeking him? Am I praising him both regularly and spontaneously? The Scriptues are calling us into a whole life of worship (not just on Sunday mornings, but daily). And in some ways, in our modern world, this is harder than ever. So, let’s go into our text and see what kind of heart the Scriptures are calling us to have towards Jesus.
We have been on a journey with Jesus together for the last two years. In our text this morning: he arrives at his destination, the capitol city of Israel: Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, he is going to accomplish the most important deeds of his life— and of all history. These deeds are at the center of what he came to do and give meaning to everything else he did and taught.
Revelation
Luke 19:28 (ESV)
28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
The last several chapters of Luke captured a couple years of Jesus’s life as he journeyed around the Judean countryside, teaching and performing miracles.
In these remaining chapters of Luke, narrative time will slow way down as they focus almost exclusively on the last week of Jesus’s life before his death and resurrection. The slowing down on his death and resurrection is saying to us: this is what matters most.
For these events to unfold Jesus must first enter the city of Jerusalem. It sounds rather routine to enter and leave cities: we do it all the time. I can hop on 35W and be outside of Minneapolis in about twelve minutes.
Yet, what we are witnessing here is not so ordinary. You see, Jesus has this title in the gospel of Luke that starts with a “C.” We tend to think it’s his last name but it’s not. Does anyone know what it is?
Christ means “messiah.” The “messiah” is the king like David who is going to defeat Israel’s enemies and rule from Jerusalem. Jesus’s disciples are making these connections. Later in this passage they call him a “king.” In Israel, Jerusalem was the city where the king ruled from. Jesus is not just any old guy entering Jerusalem. He’s doing so as the rightful ruler of Israel and Jerusalem is the seat of power where the king rules from. What we are seeing here is Jesus is taking steps closer to beginning his rule by taking steps toward Jersualem.
There’s a sense of tension as he approaches the city. Jerusalem and her people have not been loyal to him or his father for generations and generations. As we have travelled through this gospel, one thing we have seen are that the religious and political rulers of the people remain opposed to Jesus (even in this story the Pharisees oppose him as king).
What typically happens to people who oppose kings who come into their city to rule? It doesn’t take long for them to find their way into a dungeon or onto a nuse. Yet, what we will see in this story is this is not how Jesus acts at all, and it’s going to reveal something precious about his character. So, let’s keep reading and see what we learn about Jesus,
Luke 19:29–35 ESV
29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples,
30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here.
31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ”
32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.
33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”
35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
First, Luke shows us a picture of Jesus’s authority. He sends two of his disciples to villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He is just arriving at the mount of olives, a mountain that sits just East of Jerusalem and looks down upon it.
He tells his disciples to go into the village ahead of him and where they will find a colt tied up (basically a young horse or a donkey). From other parts of the Bible, it’s pretty clear that the animal Jesus rides is a donkey.
He says “no one has ever yet sat” on it, which could point to the purity of his mission.[1] He also gives them authority to retrieve it from their owners: all they need to say is, “the Lord has need of it.”
Then verse 32 says, “So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.”
Events like these show that our Jesus has all authority: no questions. What’s distinct about a king is that others obey his words. He commands and others obey. Yet, this King’s words go beyond those of mere earthly kings. He commands not only people to obey, but all of creation and different circumstances. He can command his disciples to fetch a colt from those who had never met him, and they will obey. More than that, they found things just as he told them. In all that we are about to witness in Jesus’s life, we should not fail to see that he always has all things in control.
Moreover, this interaction shows us all of our possessions are just on loan from him. When he asked for this donkey, he was only asking for what was already his own.
Church, you should be prepared: at any time Jesus may tell you to do something or require something from you. You belong to him and so do all your possessions.
So, his disciples go and find the colt Jesus had told them about. The owners of the cold ask, “why are you untying our property?”
They reply, “the Lord has need of it.” And it works: they hear that and release their colt. While I wouldn’t recommend you trying this, “the Lord has need of this,” we should have the same trust God can give us anything we need when we need it.
What does Jesus mean by, “the Lord has need of it?” Was Jesus tired of walking, did he need a beast to carry him the final leg to Jerusalem?
I doubt it. The necessity for the colt was not so much for any inability or lack Jesus had, but rather to communicate a message.
What message is he communicating?
First, it is common for kings to ride on beasts of burden and for their animals to carry them places. A young colt or donkey isn’t the only animal Jesus could have chosen. Yet, Jesus’s choice of a young colt is meant to communicate something incredible to us about his character:
What is it showing us about his character?
First off, when Jesus comes back soon, he won’t be riding a donkey. Revelation 19:11 says,
Revelation 19:11 ESV
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
Jesus will be riding a great war horse. His war hourse symbolizes that he will come to bring righteous and final judgemeng against sin.
Yet, that’s not what our king chose to ride as he enters Jerusalem in his first coming. Rather than a war horse, he came on a young, gentle, peace-time animal. The prophet Zechariah captures what Jesus is signalling to his people by riding this colt. Zechariah 9:9
Zechariah 9:9 ESV
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
When Jesus comes not on a mighty war horse, but on a donkey. Zachariah uses the word “humble” to describe him. That word also means “without property” or “poor.”[2] Jesus does not come to Jerusalem seeking wealth, prestige, or power. He does not come seeking to associate with powerful people. He comes as a poor man for poor men. The cloaks thrown over the donkey would have been how the poor would have made a saddle.[3]
What does Jesus’s humility change about the way he approaches the city?
In humility, this king does not come to immediately assert his complete rule and judge his enemies. Instead, he comes to serve and help needy sinners. There’s a character trait that goes along with deep humility: gentleness. Jesus pairs these ideas together in Matthew when he says he’s “gentle and lowly in heart.” Pride leads us to be brutal and impatient with others, especially our adversaries. On the other hand, Jesus has a patience and gentleness with people that’s unmatched.
Kings with unquestioned authority fill history: yet few if any of them were ever gentle. Brutal, merciless rulers fill the pages of the Bible (as we studied the book of Daniel we saw that being proud and being violent went hand in hand). Yet, there was one king with all authority who somehow also possessed all gentleness: Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one mighty king who was humble!
So, when he came into rebellious Jerusalem, the city that had spurned his and his Father’s rule for centuries, he came not to tear it to the ground brick by brick and destroy its people. He would have been righteous in doing so, yet his character is humble and gentle. He came to the city of Jerusalem not to kill his enemies, but to die for them to make them friends instead.
Friends, this is unspeakably good news for us. Like the people of Jerusalem, we have lived with opposition and defiance against the rule of God in our lives. We, like the people of Jerusalem, deserve the sentence of death. And yet, this morning, Jesus comes to us just as humbly. As I speak, he is inviting you to come to him as the one who shed his blood for you so that he could forgive all your sins and welcome you as a son or daughter. If you don’t know him yet, he is welcoming you this morning to turn from your sin and trust him. Because Jesus is a gentle savior, we as sinners can flee to him rather than fleeing from him. Whether your just wanting to start following him this morning or have followed him for decades, you can flee to him rather than from him because of his humble heart. Here’s what Dane Ortlund writes,
“When we sin, we are encouraged to bring our mess to Jesus because he will know just how to receive us. He doesn’t handle us roughly. He doesn’t scowl or scold. He doesn’t lash out, the way many of our parents did. All of this restraint on his part is not because of a diluted view of our sinfulness. He knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do. Indeed, we are aware of just the tip of the iceberg of our depravity, even in the most searching moments of self-knowledge. His restraint simply flows from his tender heart for his people.”[4]
Now church, we love to hear messages about Jesus’s gentleness and humility. We love far less being humble like he was. Yet, the Lord’s call on us to be gentle like Jesus is never more important times like ours. We live in a time of harshness and impatience. We tend to see those we disagree with not as friends with different perspectives, but foes. Yet, situations where we disagree with another or feel hurt by another test our gentleness like nothing else.
I tend to be gentle with others until I believe I’m clearly in the right and they are clearly in the wrong and I have the “right” to overpower them. To my shame, I remember evangelizing once in a park and talking to some kids about Jesus. A man came up and threatened to call the police on me if I didn’t stop. Instead of a humble approach to him like Jesus, I asked him if he had ever read the bill of rights. As I’ve reflected more on this incident in the years that followed, I’ve seen more and more how in the wrong I was to be harsh with this man. Even though legally I was “right,” my heart and my manner before the Lord was dead wrong! In any dispute, the person you are in conflict with is more important than winning. And even if we “win” an argument, yet do so in an un-christ-like way, we lost.
And never is our gentleness more important church than when we disagree with each other. How is our church family any different than the world if we are harsh with each other or avoid one another and relational divisions separate us?
The one mighty king who is gentle, the Lord Jesus shows us, this is the way.
And now as we get to these last verses, these poor disciples who follow Jesus are going to show us what a proper response to the humility and authority of Jesus:
Luke 19:36–38 ESV
36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,
38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
“they spread their cloaks on the road.” These disciples at this moment are showing the reverence to Jesus that he is worthy of. He is riding on a young colt, with nothing but a cloak for a saddle (this would be how the poor would ride their animals). Around him, are all kinds of poor folks and outcasts who had begun to follow him.[5] We are seeing here a clear picture of the Christian faith: a king with all authority who has humbled himself to be a poor traveler and the poor and outcasts surrounding him to give him worship. He’s the king who is vastly above all, yet somehow all are welcome to come and adore him.
We see in verse 37 that he’s approaching Jerusalem, riding down the mount of Olives toward it, and expectation is building. The disciples at this time remember all the mighty things king Jesus had done, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead. To what degree they understand that Jesus is going to become king by giving his life (rather than taking the lives of others) is unknown. Yet, their response is still right and appropriate for this moment:
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
The earthly presence of God’s king turns their worship and praise upward to God in the heavens. Because of the gift of Jesus, they can’t help but praise God. This is what experiencing Jesus intimately should produce: passionate worship for God. As we experience this human king who brings the presence and rule of God into our lives, and does it so patiently and lovingly, the only proper response is worship. “Peace in heaven” means that the kingdom of heaven is now at peace with God’s people on Earth because of what Jesus will do.[6] Church, our main point this morning is, We must worship the one mighty king who was humble.
As the next verses show, when we worship Jesus passionately as he deserves, it will make people uncomfortable and even offend them. The Pharisees won’t acknowledge that Jesus is this worthy of worship, so they oppose those who do:
Luke 19:39–40 (ESV)
39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
First point here: never fail to worship Jesus passionately because you think you will make someone else uncomfortable. When we pray and sing, raise your voice loud and give him the worship he deserves.
I think Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees underlines this very point: he is worthy, deserving, and due all worship. To be the one king with all authority who is also humble puts Jesus in a category of his own and demands that we respond to him with worship.
“I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” That means, Jesus will inevitably receive the worship he is due. You can silence these particular people here and now, but make no mistake, there will be passionate worshippers of Jesus. And we can see this in history, after two thousand years of persecution of the true church, Jesus is still receiving passionate worship from all kinds of people. The last thing we want is to be silent and not praise king Jesus and for mere stones to out worship us!
Church, we should feel a deep burden to worship Jesus because we are aware of his worth. Sometimes we can love our spouse or our child so much it hurts in our guts. We should feel this way about Jesus, and I confess that many times I don’t and need God to keep changing my heart! We should sense he is so worthy of worship that even the stones would have to praise him if we don’t.
Application
I’m sensing a tension in my own lives and ours as a church family: While Jesus is completely worthy of all our worship, we struggle to passionately praise him daily as he deserves.
What do I mean by passionately praising him daily? Worshiping Jesus looks like reading Jesus’s words, praying to to him, singing to him, and thinking about him (he should be on our minds). You may be thinking that I’m talking about duties you should do just because they are the right thing. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about ways to spend time with the one your soul adores.
If I were to say, “here are some sweet ways to connect with your spouse or your best friend.” You wouldn’t think, “Great, another to-do list!” But, “that’s exciting to me because I want to find ways to be closer to that person.” My plea is that we would daily take advantage of these different ways Jesus gave us to know him!
This will mean finding out what idols or distractions are getting in the way. We can’t both worship Jesus daily as he deserves and spend hours on apps, streaming, and media. We can’t both worship Jesus and watch endless sports or movies. None of these things are wrong on their own, but when they consume large chunks of our schedule, they become our priority and choke out our greatest priority: worshipping Jesus.
My plea this morning is that as you see a king who is so mighty yet so gentle and therefore so worthy of worship that we would give him more and more of our daily attention, more of our focus, and more of our hearts.
Psalm 119:20 says,
My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules at all times.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 119:20.
In a holy heart, there is a burning and a yearning for God on a daily basis. I’m not there yet, and I believe many of us are not there yet.
Right now, Jesus is coming to us humbly through the preaching of the gospel and presence of his Holy Spirit. Let’s respond to him with the hearty worship he is worthy of!
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:17 PM February 2, 2022.
[1] Bock, D. L. (1996). Luke: 9:51–24:53 (Vol. 2, p. 1554). Baker Academic.
[2] Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 856.
[3] John Calvin, Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, trans. David W. Rev. William Pringle, vol. 1, Calvin’s Commentaries 23 Volume Set (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2009), 447.
[4] Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Crossway, 2020) 54.
[5] John Calvin, Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, trans. David W. Rev. William Pringle, vol. 1, Calvin’s Commentaries 23 Volume Set (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2009), 447.
[6] I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978), 716.
