Read Mark 11:1-11
Jesus
walked 120 miles from Capernaum to Jerusalem to attend the Passover feast in
Jerusalem. He walked south down the east
side of the Jordan River, crossing over and heading toward Jerusalem through
Jericho. The gospel writer Mark tells us
in chapter 10 of His account that as Jesus left Jericho there was a large crowd
following Him.
The large
crowd and commotion drew the attention of a blind man named Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus shouted out for Jesus, and Jesus
stopped and healed Bartimaeus.
In addition
to healing Bartimaeus, Jesus performed many miracles during His 3 year
ministry. Just a short time earlier, He
raised Lazarus from the dead. He healed
every kind of sickness, and Bartimaeus was not the only blind person to receive
sight.
From that
day to this, people have sought out Jesus for their own reasons. Some want healing for sickness. Some want deliverance from slavery or bondage
to habit. Some want wisdom and direction
for life. Some want health and happiness
for family and/or friends. Some want
political and economic solutions. Some
want power, peace or prosperity.
We all need
hope. We need hope that life is worth
living.
We all face
challenges.
Challenges
come in all shapes and sizes. Challenges
can be financial, physical, health, family, economic, political, legal and the
list can get long.
Jesus is
our hope. No matter the challenge, Jesus
is the answer.
For
thousands of years before His birth, those who knew God looked forward to God
sending His anointed One, His King. This
promised One was the hope of the world, for political and personal
problems. The Jewish nation was
entrusted with the Word of God and carried this hope. To this day, the Jewish people carry on the
traditions that look forward to the coming of this hope.
For those
who care to accept it, Jesus is the promised hope of the world. Jesus is the promised Messiah, the anointed
One of Israel. Jesus is the great and
coming King.
Those who
pursue money, fitness, health, happiness and/or all that this world has to
offer miss the true meaning of life.
They miss what they were created for.
God created each person unique, and loves each one individually. Each individual can only find true meaning in
God. This is where hope is.
Jesus showed
He is the Hope of the world when He rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of His
passion week.
First, we
see this in the way He came.
He came
fulfilling prophecy.
The
prophecy, given 500 years before Jesus was born, is found in Zechariah
9:9. It says, “Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is
humble, riding on a donkey--riding on a donkey's colt.”[i]
This is
exactly how Jesus came. He came
triumphantly. He knew He was coming to
give His life as a ransom for many, and yet His coming was triumphant and
joyful.
It was also
in perfect timing.
Daniel 9:24 says: "Seventy
weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision
and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy Place."
The idiom of a "week" of
years was common in Israel. The prophecy
encompasses seventy weeks, that is, seventy times seven years, or 490 years. However verse 26 indicates that there is an
interval between the 69th and 70th weeks. A very specific prediction occurs in the next verse:
"Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall
be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again,
and the wall, even in troublous times (Daniel 9:25).” The Jewish (and Babylonian) calendars used a
360-day year; 69 weeks of 360-day years totals 173,880 days. In effect, Gabriel told Daniel that the
interval between the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem until the presentation of
the Messiah as King would be 173,880 days.
The commandment to restore and
build Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 BC.
On [that] day [Jesus] rode
into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey, deliberately fulfilling a
prophecy by Zechariah that the Messiah would present Himself as king in just
that way: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation;
lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass (Zechariah
9:9)."
This is the only occasion that
Jesus presented Himself as King. It occurred on April 6, 32 AD. When we examine the period between March 14,
445 BC and April 6, 32 AD, and correct for leap years, we discover that it is
173,880 days exactly, to the very day![ii]
Jesus also
came making prophecies of His own.
He walked
approximately 6 days to get to Jerusalem.
With no way of communicating to any one in advance, Jesus was able to
tell His disciples exactly where they would find a donkey and what would be
said.
Throughout
His ministry, Jesus demonstrated this supernatural power or knowledge. He confronted His detractors about unspoken
thoughts, demonstrated knowledge of the details of the lives of complete
strangers.
He still
does this. Scripture tells us that He
knows the very hairs on our head. He
knows the words we mean to speak before we speak them.
Jesus shows
He is the hope of the world by both giving and fulfilling prophecy. He is so in control of the events of History
to be able to tell exactly what is going to happen hundreds of years before it
happens. He has promised to come back and
make everything right, establish peace and justice and to take away tears and
suffering.
Besides
fulfilling prophecy, Jesus showed He was the hope of the world by accepting the
praises of His people.
Crazy
people, megalomaniacs and deceivers also accept praise. However, by looking at the fruit of their
lives and by reading what they said we can easily identify these imposters.
Hitler,
Stalin, Nero and such accepted praise and their legacy in history is that of
monsters, murders and liars. There are
hardly any redeeming factors to their reigns.
As an
extreme opposite, Jesus’s life has changed the world for the better. One has only to read what Jesus said to know
that He was not crazy, a megalomaniac or a deceiver. No one in history has ever taught with such
wisdom, insight and understanding.
The main
word in the people’s praise carried the message of the triumph that Jesus
carried with Him. Jesus was entering
into Jerusalem in victory.
The people
were shouting, “Hosanna, Hosanna.”
This would
be like people in our day shouting, “SAVE NOW, SAVE NOW, SAVE NOW, SAVE NOW.”
This is
exactly what Jesus came to do. There
could be no more appropriate praise. Luke
19 tells us:
39But some of
the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying
things like that!”
40He replied,
“If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!”
He is
worthy of all of our praise. Acts 4:12
says, “There is salvation in no one else!
God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be
saved."
Jesus
showed He is the hope of the world by fulfilling prophecy and by accepting the
praises of His people. He also showed He
is the hope of the world by what He expected in return.
Mark 11:11
says, “So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything,
he left because it was late in the afternoon.
Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.”
What was He
looking for? Why did He look around
carefully?
Throughout
the week, Jesus gave hints of what He was looking for.
He cleansed
the temple, accusing them of making His Father’s house a den of thieves rather
than a house of prayer.
He cursed
the fig tree. This was a symbolic
gesture pointing to the fruitless condition of the nation. It was a picture prophecy of what happened to
Jerusalem in 70 AD when Titus and company destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
He gave the
parable of the evil farmers who killed everyone the landlord sent to collect
the rent, including the landlord’s own son.
This was a clear reference to the reception Jesus received from the
nation’s leadership. They knew He was
talking about them, and they tried all the harder to kill Him for it.
The
cleansing, the fig tree and the parable all point to what Jesus was looking
for. He was looking for true, unfeigned
religion. By religion, I mean love for
God. This is the first and greatest
commandment. “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your
soul, and all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)
He is still
looking for the same thing.
“It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe
that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
“But to all
who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)
“And anyone
who believes in God’s Son has eternal life.
Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but
remains under God’s angry judgment.”
(John 3:36)
[i]
Unless otherwise noted Scripture
quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright ©
1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., Carol Steam, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
[ii]
http://www.khouse.org/enews_article/2007/1190/print/