In the year 586 B.C., the city of Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonian Empire. King Zedekiah, a direct descendent of King David himself, had attempted to rebel against Babylonian power, so they invaded.
Rather than trusting in God to save the people, however, Zedekiah thought he could fight back with his army - with power and might and the sword.
As a result of his arrogance, the city walls of Jerusalem were pulled down, Jewish citizens were slaughtered, homes were burned, and the spectacular Temple of Solomon - one of the wonders of the ancient world - was reduced to rubble.
King Zedekiah was captured by the Babylonians and carried off into exile. The prophet Jeremiah tells us what happened next.
Jeremiah 52:10-11
The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as he slaughtered his sons. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah. Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in bronze chains, and the king of Babylon led him away to Babylon. Zedekiah remained there in prison until the day of his death.
And thus ended the rule of Israel’s kings. A generation later, the Persian Empire defeated the Babylonians and allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. They could now rebuild their city and the temple.
Great news! Except for one thing: their king wasn’t a descendent of David. It was the king of Persia.
After 230 years, Israel came under the rule of the Greeks - the Ptolemaic Kingdom ruling from Egypt. Then it was the Seleucids.
There was a brief window of about 50 years where Israel ruled itself again, but their king wasn’t from the line of David, and they were quickly brought under the rule of the newest empire on the block: Rome.
Six centuries after the fall of Jerusalem, and the rule of Israel’s kings seemed like it might never return.
Until the early first century AD, when a powerful new leader emerged in Israel. He spoke with authority. He could work miracles and heal people. And he was a direct descendant of King David himself.
With royal blood in his veins and power in his voice, perhaps this man - Jesus from Nazareth - was the king Israel had been waiting for…
Welcome back to “Follow Me,” our deep dive sermon series through the gospel of Matthew. We’ve been exploring this powerful book in our Bibles off and on for almost a year now. And we are about to reach its epic conclusion on Easter Sunday.
So far, in the 23 sermons we’ve already had in this series, we’ve seen how three common themes emerge again and again in the gospel.
First, that Matthew is a Story of Fulfillment. So many actions and teachings of Jesus in this gospel are direct culminations of promises and words of the Old Testament.
Second, we’ve seen how Matthew is a very provocative Kingdom Manifesto. Jesus pulls no punches as he describes the “upside-down” values of his kingdom. It’s the poor who are considered blessed. It’s the last who are first. That’s not at all how our world normally works.
Finally, we’ve seen how Matthew is a Discipleship Manual. Over and over we are given a clear vision of what it looks like for us to follow Jesus.
Well now, as I said, we are reaching the end of Matthew’s story - the epic climax of the book, which happens to be the crucifixion. The death and resurrection of Jesus.
But rather than just marching sequentially through the last few sections of the book, I wanted us to try something a bit different.
For the next four weeks leading up to Easter we are going follow four unique threads in Matthew that all lead to the cross. Different angles on what the sacrifice of Jesus meant.
I want these four sermons to be meditations on the cross that, when taken together, will give us a far deeper reason to celebrate on Easter morning.
Today the thread we’re following is that of Jesus as The King of the Jews.
So grab a Bible. We’re going to hop around between several passages, but we’re going to start with Matthew 21 While you’re turning there, I’ll pray for us.
THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
I began this sermon by giving you a little history lesson about the rule of Israel after King Zedekiah’s fall. By the time Jesus was on the scene, there hadn’t been a king from the line of David on the throne for 600 years.
Instead, as I mentioned, Israel had been under the thumb of foreign (Gentile) kings that entire time. Persia, Greece, Rome…
But, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the prophets of Israel throughout that whole time period had made one very clear prediction: that one day, a descendent of King David would regain the throne and then all the nations of the earth would stream to Jerusalem to worship God.
Over time, this promised king took on an almost mythic title: the anointed one. In Hebrew,
mashiach Messiah - anointed one
This idea of anointing literally meant pouring sacred oil over someone’s head. This is how the kings of Israel were commissioned into their role by the High Priest. They were anointed.
Fun fact: mashiach is the Hebrew word for anointed one. The Greek word for it is christos - Christ. Jesus Christ - It’s not a last name… it’s a title.
So this promised, anointed king was coming. The only question was when. When would the Messiah of the Jewish people finally show up and kick out the Romans (and all other foreign rulers!) for good?
That was the question hanging in the air when Jesus began his ministry. You can imagine the anticipation people felt as this powerful teacher began moving through Israel, healing people and even raising the dead.
He spoke of the kingdom of God being close enough to touch.
And then one day, when the time was right, Jesus entered Jerusalem. He walked right into that rebuilt second temple with authority. But here’s where things get interesting. Matthew tells us that Jesus rode into the city… on a donkey.
A donkey? Not a war horse or a gleaming white stallion? That seems a little anticlimactic.
Or at least it does, until you remember that Matthew is a story of fulfillment. Listen to these words, spoken by the prophet Zechariah in the ruins of Jerusalem right after the Babylonian Exile:
Zechariah 9:9
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…
Ah, so the donkey is a symbol for the return of the king. The arrival of the maschiach. With that prophecy in mind, we now come to Matthew 21, with Jesus riding into the city on a donkey exactly as Zechariah had imagined.
Matthew 21:8-11
Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD! Praise God in highest heaven!” The entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered. “Who is this?” they asked. And the crowds replied, “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
The mashiach - the Messiah has finally arrived. The king has returned to rule Israel again! At least… that’s how it appears.
Until just one week later, when Jesus is arrested, put on trial by the Jewish religious leaders and then brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, who sentences him to death.
And not just any death. Crucifixion - the Romans’ favorite form of torture to subjugate their enemies: Being hung naked on a cross for all to see as you slowly suffocate to death.
It kind of makes the Babylonians plucking out Zedekiah’s eyes seem like a mercy.
Again, all this happens to Jesus just one week after his so-called “triumphal entry.” Skip over to chapter 27 with me and let’s read what happens next.
Matthew 27:27-30
Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.
How humiliating! They’re dressing him up with a robe and scepter and crown to mock him. They give him these imitation symbols of royalty, and then they pretend to bow and acclaim him. “Hail! King of the Jews!”
But then the Roman soldiers get to work. They bring Jesus to the place called Golgotha – “place of the skull” - and lift him up onto the wooden beams. The humiliation continues.
Matthew 27:35-38
After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.
What began a week before with triumphal acclamation has turned into mocking scorn.
Matthew 27:41-44
The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.
It sure seemed at this point that this so-called mashiach - this so-called king, was nothing but a failure. But was he?
ALL PART OF THE PLAN
Now, we all know the end of the story. We know that brutal crucifixion was not the end for Jesus. We know that on Easter morning the Spirit of Life raised Jesus Christ - the anointed one - from the dead.
We know that the risen Christ appeared to his disciples and sent them out into the world with the good news of his kingdom. Here’s what he told them:
Matthew 28:18-19
I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations…
In other words, the king of Israel truly had returned. He truly does reign now. The Messiah lives! And the long-awaited promise of salvation (not just for Israel, but for all the nations!), had finally begun.
That’s the end of Matthew’s story. But that raises a really important question: Why did Jesus - the rightful king of Israel - have to die?
Why go through all the trouble of being judged and condemned to death by the religious leaders of Israel? If Jesus really was the king the people had been awaiting for over 600 years, then why allow the Roman Empire to mock him and look like they were the ones with all the power?
Well, here is where Matthew’s genius really shines. Because when you read the gospel with this question in mind, you start to see that he has been planting seeds of an answer all along the way that only bear fruit in the resurrection.
Little hints in the story that become so obvious after the fact. Call them Easter eggs if you want! Pun intended!
Matthew is like one of those great heist movies like Ocean’s 11 or Inside Man or The Italian Job where you get to the end and then wind back and realize that this has been the plan all along!
Those types of movies demand a second viewing. Well, Matthew demands a second reading.
For one thing, you look at the things Jesus taught, and you see that his kingdom has always operated by an entirely different set of rules.
Matthew 5:5, 10
God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth… God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
There’s a hint that God’s blessing belongs to those who are humbled and persecuted. Jesus also redefines the concept of greatness.
Matthew 19:30
Many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.
Matthew 23:11-12
Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
He consistently rejects the violence of empire.
Matthew 5:39
Do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.
Matthew 5:44
Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
Matthew 26:52
“Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword.”
And he makes it clear that his kingdom upends the default setting of humanity in our lust for power.
Matthew 20:25-28
You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Over and over again Jesus sets the stage for a kingdom where the last are first. Where true power and authority comes not through domination, but through surrender! Through self-giving love.
Where the king spends his time not in the halls of power but among the forgotten of the world.
Remember all this stuff about the promised king being the anointed one - the Messiah? The Christ? Well guess what happens in the week leading up to his death:
Matthew 26:6-7 (NRSV)
While Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table.
Think about it! Jesus is anointed not in the palace or the temple, but while dining with an outcast leper… And in a patriarchal, power-driven world, he is anointed not by the High Priest of Israel, but by a peasant woman.
Jesus is the anointed one. But the way that anointing happens tells us that there is something profoundly unexpected happening here.
When you see all the hints Matthew has been dropping along the way, it all starts to make sense. In a kingdom as upside down as Jesus’, of course his enthronement of would happen in an upside-down way. Not through triumph but through the ultimate act of self-sacrifice.
Jesus’ death may have seemed like a failure, but This was all part of the plan.
The more you read and meditate on Matthew’s gospel, the more preposterous it seems to imagine Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a war horse. To picture him conquering Rome by the sword.
With all of this context, Jesus’ humiliation in the crucifixion takes on an entirely different character. It’s flipped completely on its head.
Suddenly you realize that it was soldiers of Rome - agents of the mightiest empire the world had ever seen… it was the Romans who put a robe on Jesus’ shoulders and a scepter in his hands and a crown on his head.
It was the Romans who declared to the world in that sign over his head,
Matthew 27:37
“This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
And it was the Romans who were the first to declare Jesus’ true identity in the moments just after he died.
Matthew 27:54
The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!”
The cross wasn’t Jesus’ defeat. It was his enthronement.
What the powers of this world intended to use to humiliate Jesus instead became their own greatest humiliation.
Why? Because the crucified king rose from the grave. Death itself - the greatest tool in the arsenal of every tyrant and emperor in history - could not conquer the true king of the world.
It really is like a heist movie, because Jesus pulled a fast one on the forces of darkness. He tricked the Evil One into gathering all his forces into one place on the cross.
He let them escort him into the grave and assume that they won. And that’s where he hoodwinked them all!
To reference again my favorite Eastern Orthodox devotional painting, Jesus let evil do its worst to him and then launched the greatest prison break of all time.
Not just rising again for himself but pulling all of us out of the grave with him. Oh, and leaving death itself trampled beneath his feet.
This was all part of the plan.
Jesus the Messiah lives. The promised King of the Jews now reigns - not in an empire of might, but in a kingdom of self-giving love.
The king has returned. And now our broken world can begin to heal.
—
How amazing that our king did all of this in his love for you and me.
This Easter, I hope we are all led to a place deep reverence for our anointed king - the Messiah - who gave his own life away so that death would not be the end of our story.