Palm Sunday

Missed Expectations- Shattered Hope

Text: John 12:12-19

Hope is a powerful force! I believe that people yearn for hope: that suffering will be over, that life will be better; more than anything except love.

After WW2, the iron fist of Communism gripped Eastern Europe, squeezing freedom of expression nearly out of existence. For 50 years, it appeared that hope for freedom was gone, then with surprising speed, Communism crumbled. Valclav Havel, led a so-called “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia that overthrew the Communist regime at the end of 1989.

He writes about the power of Hope. Though he endured years of repression and obscurity while quietly resisting that godless and dehumanizing system, he kept the hope that truth and right would ultimately triumph. That hope allowed him to eventually to rise up to lead that nation through the turbulence of a revolution without bloodshed or violence. He says,

Hope is not the same as joy when things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something to succeed.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It's not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

It is the hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless. Life is too precious to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily, without meaning, without love and, finally, without hope.—

When a person loses hope, he becomes prone to sickness, depression, even suicide. A hopeless person merely exists and then in a darkened sad state. Ah, what a difference for the person with hope. Though his present situation is difficult, he ‘sees’ the better day ahead. He takes courage, presses ahead, and like Mr. Havel, emerges from the darkness to triumph.

But, we must wisely choose the foundation on which to build our hope.

∙ I’ve known people who buy $20 worth of lottery tickets each week hoping to win the Mega-Millions prize! Theirs is a vain hope with odds of something like 1 in 173 million!

∙ I’ve known others who buy into the lies of our sensual, materialistic culture who build their hope around experiencing ever more pleasures or accumulating more and more things. They hope to secure their happiness with a better portfolio, or a new possession, or a new hair-do...

Some of you have leapt ahead in your thinking.

“That’s right, Pastor, our hope must be in Christ Jesus.” And you would be correct.

Paul refers to the power of hope in Christ writing to some suffering Christians and remembering their

“endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess. 1.2

On which Jesus is YOUR hope centered in this morning? (PAUSE)

Startled by the question?

Of course, there is just one Jesus, but there are many perceptions of Him and many ways that we think of Him.

If you develop the wrong set of expectations about the Lord Jesus Christ because you misunderstand who He really is or what He has actually promised in the Gospel, your hope will be shattered.

Some believe in ‘Happy, Good Luck Jesus’ who guarantees a pass on all sadness and suffering in life!

Some believe in ‘American patriot Jesus’ who promises a privileged place in the world to the United States.

Some believe in a ‘Positive Gospel Jesus’ who will give us ‘our best life now.’

If those caricatures of the real Jesus are embraced it can only lead to disillusionment and disappointment. A Christianity based on extra-Biblical teaching about Jesus, IF it survives at all, will become a human organization that feeds a power structure, or a system of enslaving rules, or a duty-filled religion the vitality that is promised to those who live are Spirit-filled Believers.

Believer, I want you to know the lasting, solid, unchanging HOPE that Jesus Christ of the Gospels brings to those who love and serve Him.

Palm Sunday is the day when we remember Jesus’ triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem at the start of the final week of His earthly ministry. I am convinced that the people of Jerusalem that welcomed Him with a celebration were people looking for HOPE! And, to my point today, I also believe that they are a model of missed expectations and shattered hopes because they did not comprehend the truth about Jesus Christ.

TEXT - John 12:12-19 PB 1671

Headline! – Lazurus was dead for 4 days, but Jesus came and called him out of the grave!

The story spread rapidly. It was an exciting story, unbelievable but true! The event was witnessed by so many that the truthfulness of it could not be denied. A man dead for four days and sealed up in a tomb had been restored to life by the word of Jesus. Lazarus was alive in Bethany. The miracle worker who restored his life was on his way to Jerusalem. The people who were walking with Jesus were ready to tell anyone who joined the procession.

The story raced ahead of the group and spread through the crowds of pilgrims in Jerusalem for the Passover feast. A crowd surges out of the city. It was a crowd full of hope and expectation.

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This is where many, perhaps most, of the people that day went wrong.

“Surely,” they tho’t, “this man is God’s Messiah, the Deliverer of Israel. (which was true!)

And, it is the end of Roman tyranny, the dawn of the New Kingdom of David.” (Which was not true.)

Finally they believed they would enter into a time of prosperity and health for all. Just enough true prophecy was mixed into their excitement to make them sure of these hopes. They just ‘knew’ that Jesus was the national liberator they longed for.

The Romans were cruel, ruthless masters whose swords cut down many of the young men of Judah. The taxes of Rome drained the local economy. The might of Rome installed foreign governors that controlled their lives. God must come to the rescue of the children of Abraham and now surely He had with this man named Jesus.

Based on these nationalistic hopes, the rally became largely political. How do we know that?

∙ The palm branches they waved in greeting the Lord were a symbol of Israel’s national hopes. In a time of rebellion 150 years before the time of Jesus, the Maccabean brothers had led the Jews in a successful revolt against occupying armies. Palm fronds had been used to welcome the victors in their triumphal procession and had become the symbol of the Jew’s aspirations for freedom.

∙ Their shouts of ‘Hosanna!’ were a declaration of their mistaken hope that Jesus was the Liberator. The word come to be a form of praise for us, meant, “save now.” They added the phrase “King of Israel,” making it clear that they believed a revolution was in the making.

These were not wicked people out to twist the prophecies of Scripture to their own ends. They were mistaken people who thought that they understood everything because they had heard the prophets’ words interpreted in this nationalistic and political way for so long.

Jesus answered their erroneous expectations with a symbol of His own.

He rode into the city on a young donkey!

Were he a conquering King coming to take a throne, he might have ridden on a horse or been borne on the shoulders of slaves as a conquering liberator might. But instead he came riding an ordinary donkey that was used by common men. He chose the donkey to show them He was the gentle King of peace promised by Zechariah 9:9-11

9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. 11 As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.

But the people did not see Him in that light. They only saw a political Liberator who would make their everyday lives easier. They missed the significance of the moment. Luke tells us that Jesus’ heart was broken as he saw the future devastation that this political fervor would bring down on the city. Luke 19:41-44

41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Jesus knew that the true peace and prosperity of Jerusalem was not to be found in a political liberator. A people may know political freedom yet remain slaves to sin and the Devil. He wept that they could not understand that truth. Forty years later, in 70 AD, the Roman legions moved in and destroyed Jerusalem, wiping out the nation with a slaughter of horrible proportions, burning the city to the ground.

John’s Gospel tells us that even the disciples did not understand what was happening that day. They started to dream about power and influence they would enjoy as members of the royal court in the new kingdom! It made them bicker over who was really greatest, who was actually closest to Jesus!

Only after His death and Resurrection, after the birth of the Church – did they understand fully why Jesus chose to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey and why he had identified himself with Zechariah’s Messianic prophecy. He was not the King of Israel only; He was the King of Kings, the Lord of all of Creation!

Jesus had not come merely to liberate a generation of people from the tyranny of an oppressive government. The raising of Lazarus was not a signal of new life for a nation. Jesus, the Christ, was the King of all the earth, come to declare the liberation of humanity from Satan’s tyranny. His healing touch of Lazarus was the sign of new life for those dead in their sins. He is the the King of a Heavenly Kingdom that reaches to all nations, to every race, for all times!

When the people of Jerusalem saw Jesus in shackles later in the same week, beaten and bloodied by Roman cruelty, their disappointment turned into despair and then to anger - and they were swayed to cry for His blood - “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” They did not realize that the kingdom was being birthed before their very eyes, that the processes that would lead to the defeat of sin and Satan were engaged, that a cosmic battle for their souls was joined!

It took six weeks for Jesus to die, to be raised to life, to appear to His disciples, and then to ascend to Heaven, so that the Holy Spirit would come and bring into existence the lasting Kingdom of God, of which we become a part even today when we are born again! And, I believe that there were some who had waved palms and shouted, “Hosanna,” who had also given vent to their disappointment by screaming, “Crucify Him,” who were among the 3000 converts on the Day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church!

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Friend, on this Palm Sunday, I want to challenge you to take another careful look at the expectations and hopes that you have pinned on the Lord Jesus Christ. A half knowledge of the truths of the Word can be just as spiritually deadly as no knowledge. IF you allow your circumstances to form your understanding of Jesus, you will likely come a place of missed expectations and shattered hopes.

For far too many of us, Jesus’ promises are confused with the American dream. Jesus exists, at least in our minds, to be a Divine Customer Service representative, delivering God’s goods to us when we place an order with the supermarket of Heaven!

We expect that He exists to make our lives more comfortable, to be on our side when we are in a tough spot, and to make sure that our kids grow up richer than we were, knowing few problems in life.

Like the Jews who shouted His acclamations on that first Palm Sunday, we know enough of the Scripture to make us believe we are thinking Biblically. But when Jesus doesn’t come through for us according to those expectations, we end up embittered just like those people in Jerusalem who shouted for His coronation on Sunday and for His crucifixion on Friday!

Shallow gospels of self-indulgence are being preached across this land today. Don’t be taken in by them. Listen carefully to the Spirit of God as He unfolds the word of Scripture to you. Be a diligent student so that your expectations of Him will be sound and your hope will strengthened.

Wait out the struggle! Don’t be disillusioned when the battle rages, when trials and suffering enter your life! God sees more than the next day, He plans for eternity. Paul acknowledges that "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." (2 Corinthians 4:17, NIV)

In conclusion today, let’s take a look at what the Bible says about Jesus!

Colossians 1:15-23

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

What a Savior. What promises!

Jesus is God, in flesh, came to reclaim His rightful place at the head of human nations.

He is the One whose command keeps the universe in order.

He is the Reconciler, who restores the fallen Creation to a right relationship with the perfect God.

He makes it possible for us to KNOW God in a peaceful, hopeful relationship.

He will bring us to Eternal Life, perfected in the Presence of God forever.

This, the Bible says, is THE Gospel!

Build your EXPECTATIONS and HOPE on this sure word. It is a true representation of Jesus Christ, true for all times, all people, in all cultures! Don’t make this world your hope. Instead, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:1-2

Don’t make the mistake of making Jesus Christ into who you think He ought to be. In full surrender of yourself, allow Him to make you who He desires you to be. In this, there are no missed expectations and shattered hopes!

Will He meet you where you are in life? Absolutely. He’s a healer of broken hearts, a mender of broken lives who understands the unique needs of each and every person who comes to Him. So reach out to Him, but openly allowing Him to meet the need you bring in HIS way, not necessarily in the way that YOU believe He must.

That first Palm Sunday the crowds saw a King, but did not understand the nature of His Kingdom. Nor did they grasp that between their King and His throne stood a Cross. They would not understand that the road to the Right Hand of God ran through the horror of Hell. So consumed were they by their own culture and their own needs, they could not see that He was the Liberator of Humanity, whose victory would be won in deepest suffering.

They were blinded to His true Majesty by their preconceived ideas. Don’t make that mistake today.

Open your heart to the King today. Crown HIM Lord of ALL.

Amen