Luke 19:28-44 • The People of No Name
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Thanks to our musicians and many, many volunteers who went the extra mile through the weather this morning to enable us to have a beautiful Palm Sunday. It's really special to be able to worship with you today and to honor what the Lord did so long ago as people honored Him, not fully understanding why.
Let's remind ourselves, I'll ask that you look in your Bibles at Luke 19, Luke 19, verses 28 through 44. Jesus has just alerted His disciples to the ultimate victory of His kingdom. It must seem unlikely to them and yet for just a moment they get a glimpse at the glory to come as He enters Jerusalem in honor
for just a moment. Let's stand as we honor God's Word, Luke 19, verses 28 through 44. As Jesus has told His disciples of the kingdom, Luke continues, "And when He had said these things He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When He drew near to Bethphagi and Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples saying, "Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a cult tied on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you why are you untying it, you shall say this, the Lord has need of it." And you know they do just that, they bring the donkey back and Jesus rides it down the Mount of Olives into the city. Verse 37, "And 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, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest." And some of the Pharisees and the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered,
"I tell you if these were silent the very stones would cry out." And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation." Let's pray together. Father, may we know the time of your visitation. By your spirit and word even now, you come to our hearts telling us for the honor of your son given so long ago, but barely the honor he deserved, of what you even now call your people to do, to recognize Him, the glory that is His and the peace that He offers to the people who do not deserve it, could not bear it if they even tried, and yet He came for us. May we recognize the day of our own visitation, we pray, as you by your spirit minister to us through your word, in Jesus name, amen. Please be seated. Who would have thought that two obscure California kids named Steve would come up with an idea for hooking a keyboard to a television, and one would sell his VW bus and the other his Hewlett Packard calculator in order to fund an idea that would become the foundation of one of the world's most powerful corporations named Apple. And who would have thought then an obscure college dropout would have the savvy and the moxie to take an idea about a digital student directory and turn it into a social media phenomena that apparently can sway elections and be a weapon for political enemies and national foes and angry grandmothers. And who would have thought then an obscure bookseller named Amazon and an almost obsolete DVD rental service named Netflix would generate more viewers and program and income than all the movies that Hollywood can put together combined. And who would have thought that an obscure dead boy from Syria washed up on the shores of a beach resort in Turkey would awaken the world to the largest refugee crisis in all of history and some would do a little bit to try to save a few. And who would have thought that an obscure itinerant Jewish rabbi riding a donkey into a backwater town in the Middle East 2,000 years ago would be the savior of the world and
would be able to secure your destiny and my soul forever. Who would have thought it even possible.
But the moral of all the accounts of God's using the obscure for glory is do not count out the obscure too soon for you may have to count on them for far more than you ever imagined. We tend only to think that the rich and the powerful and the famous call the shots but God has determined from the beginning to confound the wise of the world with the foolish things that he provides. The weak to throttle the strong. The 16th seed to beat up the number one seed. To take the praise of children and use it to herald the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It seems so improbable, so unlikely, so impossible and yet God is reminding us over and over that he can use what apparently is the most obscure to bring about the greatest declarations of the glories of his grace. You see it right in this passage that we know so well as the people who are framed are so obscure. After all just think of it over and over again we have people mentioned but the account is so familiar to us we don't even notice what is missing. What is missing in the familiar account? No names, not one. All the people who seem to have some role to play, not one is named. Verse 29, "He sent two disciples into town to collect the donkey." Who are they? No names. Verse 33, "The donkey owners question why the disciples are taking the donkey just as Jesus prophesied but even though they question we don't have the names of the owners and we don't have the name of the donkey either."
Verse 36, "A few of the disciples like a poor man's red carpet put their clothes on the ground in front of Jesus as he is going down the Mount of Olives." Who are they? No names. The whole multitude ultimately begins to sing and say, "Hosanna, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest." Who sings it? No idea.
There are no names. And when the enemies of the glory question Jesus saying, "Rebuke your disciples,
there is not a single enemy who is named. We simply do not know who is in the account except for one name." Only one is identified. He is in verse 38. Remember the crowds are saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord." It's strange to us because even Jesus is not named in this passage as though his earthly name, the name given to him by his mom, cannot get in the way of the reality of who is on display. Every other name is obscured. Every other face is ultimately forgotten so that the spotlight will find its way only to one person and he is the Lord. He is Kyrie, the New Testament for Jehovah. It is Jehovah God who is here. And even Jesus cannot contain all that that is to be. It is the Lord who is present. It is God who is named. And every person, every face, every individual is background to the glory of Christ on display. As much as it may seem to obscure us, it is actually meant to give us great encouragement as if the apostles are making known to us in the writings of Luke that what we must know is even if you are not named, even if the world does not recognize you, you have a role in the glory of the King. You have a place. You have a purpose. Even those who are not named are being used by the writer of Scripture to say, "Jesus gets the glory and there is purpose and there is wonder in that that we are supposed to know." I mean, just recognize the process. If a president or a pope or an Olympian or a movie star were to come to town, we would all name the names. Bill shook his hand.
And Maria Martinez knit the banner that he held and proclaimed his glory.
And Dan's darling donkey service provided the ride and… No. Even those unrecognized only give glory to him in God's great plan. There are no worthless players. There is no bench. There is no sixteenth seed. There is no right fielder. Everybody is equal in providing the means for Christ himself to get the glory.
I think of the meaning as I think of how God takes those who are obscure for his glory over and over again to give us hope that there is purpose and meaning for our lives even if the world doesn't recognize it. I think of the writings of Mark Clark, founding pastor of the Village Church in Vancouver, who has recently written The Problem of God, a book for this generation of skeptics, which he himself once was, and how God seemed to pluck him from obscurity. And by the very obscurity that he would claim has made him credible to a generation to say, "Even though you may not be able to defend God, to recognize what he's done, his work in the world, let me tell you his work in my life to show you that even in obscurity there can be glorifying purposes of God." Mark Clark writes, "My father was a classic deadbeat dad. He couldn't hold down a job. He divided his time between drinking and yelling at football games on the TV. He died of lung cancer when I was 15. 18 people came to his funeral. I was obscure and unnoticed as there can be in the world. No one cared, not even I."
But he writes, "When I was 17, I met a former drug dealer at my school who had become a follower of Jesus. Since I was starting to sell drugs myself, I was intrigued by his life, his questions, his passion for God. Everything that he had, he was laying down for Christ like a disciple putting his clothes on the road. We met in woodworking class. And there he challenged me to examine my doubts, to read the Bible, to pray, to think of what I believed about life and about God. In that crucible of events created by a deadbeat dad in a drug-dealing friend and woodworking class, I began to recognize that the little faith that I had gained at a summer camp long ago was either going to die or in this moment it would explode as the most important feature of belief in my life." He writes, "The darkness exploded and changed me. And I will tell you through him, this obscure child of a deadbeat dad, literally thousands of young people are seeing some meaning in the provision of Jesus Christ for them." It makes no sense out of obscurity, out of nothingness, out of wrongness, out of what we would say is the most disadvantaged of backgrounds. God is saying, "I reach into the obscure and bring out glory. I am changing through ways that that you cannot imagine the world in you and the world around you." Just think how we are seeing it again as children come in and we smile and we giggle and we love it when they carry their palm branches. Nonetheless, is it just the message again that God could take that which does not have dignity and esteem and honor and importance in the world and it's reflecting His glory? And what does that mean for the rest of us? I mean, I think of just the examples that are happening right now in our midst. I think of the families that are going to the most populous nation in the world to take children of disadvantaged bodies out of orphanages and to recognize that when those families from this church go to that nation, they are totally obscure. There is nothing the world would say is important that they are doing and the people they are rescuing not important at all. And yet they come to this place and what God is doing by those families who would take and provide for those who cannot provide for themselves is demonstrating the glory of Christ. And eternity is changing for the souls that are being rescued by the work of people in this place. I think of those of you who work in neighborhood Bible studies to some of the disadvantaged children of a city that is known as the worst city in America for people of color and you give of yourselves for those who the world would say are nondescript and not worth helping and people in this church help and souls are changed and families are rescues and futures are maintained. And people who will go to the schools and nobody knows your name and doesn't recognize you're doing something significant. When you tutor children and nobody recognizes it, it's obscure. I recognize that there are those among you
who even this day on the way to church stop by the home of a homebound senior
just so their voices could join with our voices in singing "Hosanna to the Son of David."
And there are others of you who at midweek will stop by an apartment building and you will gather people of other faiths and other nations and other clothes and you will bring them here to learn English as a second language and nobody notices and nobody says it's important and yet what is happening is people are being prayed for and learning to pray and learning the scriptures and by God's grace learning a Savior. God just takes the things that seem to mean nothing to us and is doing more than we could ask or even imagine. I think of just a week ago when I got a letter from a friend who asked for prayer because there's a church planting team in Marseille, France and what they are doing is they are just right now they are going through the streets of three neighborhoods on prayer walks asking that God would give them direction on planting a church and the prayer that was asked for in my friend's letter was simply "would you pray for us that in the world's most secular nation God would find some means of letting us take hope."
And then I hear just over the weekend how there's another hostage taken and a terrorist attack and a policeman gave his life in exchange for the hostage to rescue and how the nation of France is saying something has happened that we don't understand why would someone give himself for the sake of another and you think are there people in the states who are praying for what they cannot even imagine is the hand and the power of God to break through the hearts and to get the message to people in ways we could not imagine as a church planting team is now ready to say what the gospel means as Christ would give himself for the sake of those who were hostage to their own sin.
Kevin King and I were in Florida teaching Hispanic pastors this last week and on the last day a man who is not in our class came up to me and said are you from Grace Church in Peoria? I said yes he said I'm the founding pastor of a church in Guadalajara Mexico and your church sends young people every summer to our area and our people have hope because your people are giving us hope and your willingness to support he said just can't like I was so discouraged
until your young people came to help us how does that happen nobody knows we pray on the stage here just because it's you know kind of traditional and sentimental for some young people a team going to Guadalajara and what is God doing he's using our prayers and our young people in obscure part of the world to to encourage a pastor to build a church that is preparing pastors now that will go train others for the work of the gospel. God takes the most obscure and he is making his glory known as he is saying I get the praise I get the glory when everything that you have and everything that you are doing is being devoted not to your glory but to Christ himself. Why would we do that for the Savior? Because in the same passage we learn his obscurity is telling us of the value he puts on us. I mean Christ's obscurity is as plain as the obscurity of the people who hail him. How is Christ known to be obscure in this passage you know verses 30 and 31 Jesus says to his disciples go into the village in front of you get a donkey and if any of the owners say don't take that say oh no the master has need of him. We know the story but we forget how humiliating it is. Oh yes go get the donkey it will be unbroken never been written and you know there's something to be said for a pristine ride no ashes in the ashtrays you know no candy wrappers between the seats
but it's a donkey and even the prophet Zachariah who prophesied it 500 years previous said this is because your king would come humble and riding on a donkey. This is disgraceful. This is obscure. He's apparently giving away his glory and not only is he just riding a donkey he is he is riding to fulfill a long forgotten prophecy. Oh we wonder at it Zachariah said 500 years before that the king would come riding on a donkey into Jerusalem but even the religious leaders have forgotten those who study the Bible those who are so intent on discovering how their righteousness would be maintained because they know the Bible better than anybody else.
Even they do not recognize this Jesus and not only does he ride an unbroken donkey in a forgotten prophecy he rides into a condemned city. We don't like reading the words of verse 43. "The days will come upon you Jerusalem when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground you and your children and they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not recognize your Messiah was coming you turned from him who could deliver you to your own devices and what is the consequence the Romans will come 70 years later and they will decimate the city they will level it to the ground and all the Jews had hoped in by their own will power and presence is for naught and Jesus rides into that city for his glory which he knows will be condemned." What honor is that?
Even as we mark the obscurity of his journey we should note at the very same time there are marks of great glory that coincide. Christ knows the future. He knows the donkeys in the town ahead. That's just a few hours away. He knows the destruction of Jerusalem decades before it's going to happen but more than that he knows what will happen to him only days in the future and still he keeps coming. What will happen? He has said it three times in the book of Luke the last time Luke 18 verse 31 and taking the 12 he said to them, "See we're going up to Jerusalem
and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished
for he will be delivered up to the Gentiles and will be mocked and scornfully treated
and spat upon and after flogging him they will kill him.
Three days later he will rise." Jesus knows it. Not just about a donkey, not just about the destruction of a city. He knows about his own death. He prophesies it. He says it's coming and still he keeps coming. Why do we need to know that? Because we recognize it's the final sign of glory being sacrificed for obscurity. He deserved the city's honor. He deserved to be made king of kings not in the mocking of a sign upon his cross but in reality and he gives it all up for whom? From the nameless, faceless, forgotten people who are hailing him just for a moment.
He knows and still he loves them and weeps for them. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets. How I long to gather your children under my wings like a chicken gathers her chicks but you would not and still he keeps coming. What it ultimately says is the beauty and the value of those who are being saved by one who would give up glory for obscurity in their behalf. A younger generation says it well for us as casting crowns writes of it in the song "Who Am I?" Who am I that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name,
would care to feel my hurt? Who am I that the bright and morning star would choose to light my way for my ever wandering heart? I am a flower quickly fading here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. Still, Lord, you hear me when I'm calling. You catch me when I'm falling and you've told me who I am. I am yours. Who am I that the eyes that see my sin would look on me with love and watch me rise again? Who am I that the voice that calmed the sea would call out through the rain and calm the storm in me? He is the one who said, "Peace to the wind and the waves," but he also says, "Peace to my heart when I'm torn apart by my sin and my weakness and my betrayal and my obscurity." He is the one who says, "But I know you, and even when I know the worst about you, you are mine." And that reality and that goodness of the one who would give up glory for obscurity is telling me how precious I am to him that he would do all of that in my behalf. In the strange inversion of the Gospels, suddenly I learned that I am the pearl of great price, that he would give up his all to claim me, even as though when we understand who he is, we would give up all our all for him. But he went first. He's the one who sacrificed his glory for me, and I'm to learn from that what he actually expects of me. After all, what is the hidden glory highlight about heaven's provision? The fact that he would hide his glory away, that he would put it aside so that he could suffer for me. What is that ultimately telling me? That he wants me to claim the peace that he offers.
That what Jesus did was he was not just making a way for himself, he was making a way for me that I'm supposed to claim. Verse 38, we read it so fast, "The children are singing, the crowds are shouting, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest." Now this is Luke. This is the same one who wrote the nativity accounts that we love reading about at Christmas time. Do you remember what the angels sang? Glory to God in the highest? Same words. "Peace on earth, good will toward man." No, this is not peace on earth here. It's still glory in the highest. But now the people, not the angels are singing, and the people sing, "Peace in heaven." As though it is this ride, this journey to the cross that is connecting heaven and earth, as though the ride that began in the battle hymn stable
is now being fulfilled before a cross and a donkey who takes him there. And what ultimately happens is that peace on earth and peace in heaven are pulled together. It's what you and I are supposed to know that what Christ does in the ride, in the journey, in the giving, in the suffering, is He is connecting our peace to heaven's peace. We are made right and we're to understand that what Jesus was doing was saying, "You are so valuable to me, so precious to me that despite your sin, your weakness, your obscurity, you count yourself out, but He would give Himself for you." He says,
verse 42, "You did not recognize the day of your visitation in the things that would bring you peace." What are those things? But His humility, in His suffering, in His death, and His resurrection.
These are the things that we're supposed to understand and to receive. He gave Himself for me despite my obscurity, despite the fact that my sin ought to push me far out of His attention, out of His way. He kept coming and gave Himself for me, whose name He knows He gave Himself for me.
How do I respond? Not only claiming His peace, He's the one who makes the way for me, but ultimately echoing His praise. It's the thing that the enemies don't want to happen, right? Don't let the children praise Him. Don't let your disciples praise you, Jesus. And Jesus says, "If they don't praise me, even the stones are going to cry out." It's the recognition that He must be praised. If we recognize the journey, if we recognize what He is accomplishing, we recognize that our lives must be given in His behalf so that others will know to sing His praise as well. What difference does it make? A few months ago, I told you of a friend in Australia
who not so long ago won the World Architecture Award soon after committing his life to Christ. Oh, well, that makes sense. You commit your life to Christ. He gives you what you want.
Not so simple. Not so fast. My friend wrote of the turmoil that came into his heart when he recognized that God had provided for him far more than he deserved. What he could never have earned or gained on his own goodness, God had provided as the mark of a greater grace that he could even imagine at this young stage of his life. And instead of it giving him satisfaction, it began to tear him apart. He wrote, "What now is my calling? Architecture? In an industry so broken
or ordained ministry, even though I'm not academically gifted. I felt that if my unbelieving parents and colleagues wanted me to use my architecture gifts and their motives are not God's motives at all, then I needed to stop architecture and pursue ministry.
Then I came to understand that my work and my life experience were like God loading up an artist brush with paint to create the beauty of his purposes. God is using all, not only the easy moments, but the hard so that I can contribute to redeeming the glorious ruin that is this creation. God was loading me up with gift and talent and concern so that in the way that he had made me, I could offer it all to him. This was the redeeming glory that God was putting into my life. That people and places are for his glory and he's bringing about the glory through us. We have purpose, we have hope. My work is contributing to the realigning of creation for God's purpose. That's not just for an architect in Australia. If you believe that what God has done by taking you and claiming you and calling you his own is he's now taking all that you are and he's like loading you up as a brush for an artist to be used for painting his glory into your life for your purposes, not just in the easy moments, but in the hard things too he is loading you up
so that the purpose of praising him and bringing praise to him is not just the purpose of architects but artists and engineers and teachers who give hope to kids in the classroom and moms who nurture souls inside diapers and drool and dads who provide strength of character to carry another generation to God and politicians and policemen who bring healing to a city when they operate according to God's principles. Over and over God is saying you are my brush and I'm loading you up with talent and gift, good things, hard things, all bringing the message of the glory of God to the undeserving using the obscure for greater purposes than they could possibly imagine as God is bringing about his work into our lives. Why should we do it? Why should we give our lives to him, the one who went into Jerusalem so long ago and died? Because he rose again and he is coming again, this king of glory, to claim his own and to harvest the fruit of our lives into his own purposes for the glory of the kingdom that we want to name as we too say Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest because what I ultimately understand is that while the rocks did not cry out in this account they will one day for that Jesus will come again and when he does it will not simply be the voices of children with palm branches that sing his praise but he will come with the shout of the archangel and the trumpet call of God and his feet will again touch the same place that he went down the mount of olives and when his feet touch the mount of olives the mount will split east and west the north moving away from the south and the people of God seeing that he can break a stone in pieces will be delivered by the grace and the glory of God as once the people of God went through the waves to their salvation we will actually go through stone as he will say stony heart or stony land it does not matter when the king of kings come he will be declared ruler king glory shall be his and our hearts will say as we have lived for him now hosanna to the son of David hosanna in the highest blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord hosanna hosanna hosanna in the highest Jesus is my king hosanna praise be to God father
so teach us that he came for such as us that when we believe our own lives don't matter when we believe there's not a purpose for us that even the people of no name are the very ones you have chosen to display your glory you even use them as you are using us child and parent politician policeman engineer artist you are loading us up paint into our brush that you might paint with us the glories of the king of kings so use us we pray as we claim the peace that you have made with us so that you would fulfill the purposes that you design for us use us we pray hosanna we praise in Jesus name amen