371: Why a King Needed a Colt | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

Well, good morning, friends. So glad to see some of you men stepping up and waving the palm branch. I can tell you this, when Jesus appears, you're gonna be overcome at the magnificence of His glory, and you will not be afraid to wave a branch, I promise you that.

You know, this is the last Palm Sunday that I will actually be senior pastor or rector here, and some of you are like, alright. But I will be, and then I will be sticking around. I'll be on staff for about another nine years doing whatever the new rector wants me to do, handing out bulletins or whatever, you know, whatever Sloop thinks would be awesome. So anyway, I wanted to go out with a bang, and I had this idea. And you know, part of being a creative is you get ideas, and they're not all good ones.

So my idea was to have a live donkey. What possibly could go wrong bringing a farm animal into the house of the Lord? So I put it on Facebook, and I got like 15 responses. I literally wrote to everybody that said the friend had a donkey. And as hard as I tried, it seemed like everybody's donkey was too old or too crippled or they were three hours away or something, something, something. And my wife kept going, Quig, that is not a good idea.

Now, could you just imagine, there's probably at least four things a donkey could do in this building that would be terrible, might be epic, but it would, anyway, no donkey today. And I was so upset because I'd picked Jesus to ride in on. It was gonna be Christian Howes; he's about the right size, he has a beard. It's either that or Walt Derry, and I figured the colt would appreciate Christian.

So, there we go. Let's open your Bible. No. Actually, I want you to let's read something. Let's get this—let's get this setting of what's going on here. All right. So this looked really big on my computer, but I realized now, for anybody over 40, this is like really hard to see. So maybe we could read it together. By faith, we can read it together.

Jesus had healed many, had been the rabbi to twelve, and taught thousands. Jesus had rebuked the wind and calmed the sea with just three words. He taught with authority. He taught about the in-breaking kingdom of God. He fed 5,000, and later 4,000, with a few small loaves and fish. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He promised the Jewish temple would be destroyed and rebuilt by Him in three days. And so, the stage was all set for a coup of epic proportion. Rome would be defeated, happy days were coming. At least, that's what His disciples believed.

See, that's what they wanted and I get it. Like, you know, being in the United States, we've never been occupied. To my knowledge, can you think of any time our country's been occupied? No. Well, the unpleasantries in the mid 1800s, I get that, but anyway, essentially, no, we have not. We've never been occupied by another country. Imagine what it's like to be God's people and you're like, you're chosen. You're chosen but yet, as beloved as they were and as picked as they were and as chosen as they were, they still ended up in Egypt for four hundred years. That is a really long time. Four hundred years.

There was no temple, there was no scripture, there was no nothing. They knew they were God's people but it sure didn't feel like it. And so they're waiting, waiting, waiting. I don't know about you, but I hate waiting. If you ever see me in Kroger, go to any other line because mine is gonna be the longest no matter how short it is. The bottom line, friends, is we hate waiting.

Now, if you have your Bible or your Bible app, I want you to pick it up, and we're gonna go verse by verse. We're in Mark 11, and we'll begin at verse one. This is the triumphal entry. This is Jesus entering Jerusalem. And so apparently, it's about a 17-mile ride, 17 miles from Jericho up to Jerusalem. Now, the only reason I happen to know this is that our life group teacher is really smart and did the homework. But he said, Jericho was incredibly low. It was like 830 or 840 feet below sea level. I don't see how that works. Seems like everything would cave in on itself.

But it was low, and it was called the City Of The Palms. City Of The Palms. And so they started, Jesus and His disciples started from Jericho, and they were going to Jerusalem. All good Jewish men would be doing that because it was getting ready to be Passover, and they were required to be there. But so they're moving up this 17-mile grade all the way from Jericho to Jerusalem. Now, let's see what it says.

The Triumphal Entry

Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount Of Olives, you remember that, don't you? Remember Jesus sweating blood in the Mount Of Olives, and He's like, Lord, let this cup pass for me. In other words, I don't want to die, I don't want to have this horrible death, I don't want all that crushing sin on me, but nevertheless, not what I want. Your will be done, Father.

And so, they go from up to Jerusalem near Bethany and Bethphage to the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of His disciples and said to them, go into the village in front of you, and immediately, as you enter it, you'll find a colt. How many disciples went? Now, what's the significance of that? When Jesus later would send out the apostles, two by two. Do you remember that? Two by two. Not one, not three, two by two. It’s kind of reminiscent to me of a marriage, actually. You have two people that come together, and it looks like two, but the Bible says, a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

Right? If one falls down, the other one can help them get up. So you're thinking two, two, two, but actually the number is three hundred thirty-three, because the Lord is in the midst. And so He's sending them out two by two, I believe He's also the cord there, so they're really going with the Lord and in His power.

So anyway, they go out two by two, and they go to a village, and what are they looking for? A colt, right? So, some versions say donkey, some say ass, which all the middle school boys think is incredibly funny. Right? But He says, I want you to go in the village and you're gonna find a colt. Does anybody know what a colt is? It is a young, unbroken, ungelded— that's the word I was looking for— ungelded. None of that has been cut or castrated or fixed. So, a young, ungelded donkey.

That's what Jesus wanted. A donkey, a colt. So, He says, go in the village and says, you're gonna find one and it's not gonna be just any colt. I want one that's never been sat on before. It's kind of like when Israel would bring their offerings to honor the Lord— He didn't want these old, crippled animals. You know, like when you had food drives when you were a kid. Did y'all do that in your school? Did you do that? And so you're like, yes, this is a great opportunity to get rid of canned beets, canned peas, everything I hate in my mother's pantry I'm going to take. You know what, those people don't want to eat that junk any more than you do. But when they gave a sacrifice, the sacrifice had to be perfect, unblemished— like the one who's gonna sit on it.

So He says, I want you to find a young colt, a colt on which no one has ever sat. I want you to untie it and bring it. And if anyone says to you, hey, what are you doing? Tell them the Lord has a need of it, and we'll send it back immediately.

I didn't know this till yesterday, but actually, when King Solomon was made king, they placed him on a colt. Solomon, the son of David. Wait for it— this is what's gonna happen. So, they go, they get the colt. Verse four says this: and they went away and they found a colt tied at the door outside in the street and they untied it.

Verse five, and some of those standing there said to them, hey, what are you guys doing? Untie my colt. And they told him, well, Jesus had said— and then the people go, okay, you can have it. Now, that's a great story but I wonder how that could apply to you and to me.

Do you have things? Like, the Savior needs nothing. The Bible says He has all the silver and all the gold. Right? The earth is His and everything therein. So, He didn't lack anything. He used to do this, get anything He wants, just suck it right out of our hands. But in this case, the Lord is gonna use people, and He wants them to give of what He's given them. And so, amazingly, the people do. They let Him have the colt.

Verse seven, they bring the colt to Jesus, and they throw their cloaks on it, and He sat on it. They brought the colt to Jesus, and then the men— well, it didn't say men, it could be men and women— threw their cloaks on the donkey, and He sat on it.

Do you know what the reference to that is? I didn't. I didn't. It's King Jehu. See, good king or bad king? King Jehu. The right guess is always bad. I don't know if he was, but two out of three are gonna be bad anyway. So, in 2 Kings 9, basically, the Lord tells Jehu, you're gonna be king. And when he was made king, they throwed their cloaks or their coats down on the ground before him.

It was a way to honor. You may not care much about Jehu, but you might care about Sir Walter Raleigh because you took third grade history. Right? Sir Walter Raleigh, who was he and what did he do? For Queen Elizabeth I. Weren't y'all raised with no manners? Did your mama tell you about this? Sir Walter Raleigh, it's alleged, was a gallant man. They say he's very good-looking too, but he wanted to honor the queen. He did not want her feet to get wet and what he called the plashy, like splashy. And so, he took off his coat and he threw it down on the ground. Isn't that a great story? It is, except for that story never was written about till eighty years after the queen had died. So, I think it probably didn't happen. But anyway, it's a symbol, it's an example of how you would throw something down to honor.

My question for myself is, do I throw anything down? Do I have anything of importance to myself that I've put down to honor the King? It's a question you wanna spend some time with. What are you throwing down so that the King of kings might be known? That people would see Him and know Him.

So, they put the cloaks on, then they spread their cloaks on the road, and spread leafy branches they cut from the fields. Leafy branches.

So, okay. I found this on the web— for should they put the cloaks on Siri, you can stop. That's creepy. See this right here? So I'm not sure I understand. You're a wicked woman. What the heck? Don't tell me my secrets.

When you're in Rwanda, see, I didn't get this whole thing of palm branches; it seemed really weird to me. Like, a few ladies want to do it, great kids, but when you become twelve or thirteen, I ain't waving no palm branches. I'm a man. But what I'm gonna tell you is, you guys, it's not a weird thing. Maybe weird in our culture. It's not weird in other cultures.

So, when you go to Rwanda, you go to a church, a rural church in the middle of nowhere. When you get to the road leading into the church, they have trees about this tall— palm trees that they pull out of the ground somewhere else and plant along the road. It's their way of saying, we honor you, we receive you with love, you are welcome here. And so, that's a tradition. That's a custom in Africa. It's a custom in many other places in the world. And so, we see that they did the exact same thing as Jesus comes in.

The People Celebrate

Now, let's finish the story because time's a-wastin'. Verse nine states, and those who went before and those who followed Jesus on the colt were shouting, Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest.

What is the word Hosanna mean? It's not in your vocabulary. You never say that word. I was even wondering, like, how many times it is found in the New Testament? How many times in the Old Testament? I wasn't sure, so I'm gonna phone a friend, not you. Mechanical ninny. Okay, I'm gonna phone a friend. Brian, the word Hosanna, is it found anywhere in the Old Testament? No. No, he says. It’s intimated in Psalm 118:25, what we read.

It's hinted at, but that word is not used. If you go to Bible Gateway and put in Hosanna, you're gonna find it in the four Gospels, nowhere else. But it literally means, save us, we pray. Save us. Now, I don't know if you've ever been underwater and maybe in a situation where you're almost drowning. Yeah. But I want you to feel what the Jewish people were feeling. When you drown, it's usually for about a minute, you feel it. They've been feeling it for over four hundred years, way more.

Have you ever been underwater? Have you ever been in a big wave? Maybe you're a surfer, and you've been in Hawaii in big waves and you're getting smashed, and all your only goal in life is one thing: to get to air. So, how's it in? So, Hosanna literally means, save us. And it's not save us from drowning, it's save us, Lord, from the misery we're in. Save us, Lord, from ourselves. Save us, Lord, from the Romans. We don't like them. We want this to be God's place. We want a king of God here, not Rome. Save us, Lord. Our lives are miserable. Come, Lord. Hosanna.

And so there's a sense of saving, but there's also a sense where the word has morphed, as many words do. If you go read 1,600 words from 1,600 years ago, a word that they would use for one thing then has kind of changed and means something different now. So Hosanna came to be used as a term not simply of save us, deliver us, but of a term of praise. Praise the Lord. Almost like hallelujah. So they're saying, Save us, Lord. Praise You, and see, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest.

And so all the people were lined up. I want you to see a video, and I forgot to do this earlier, but I wanted to get a clip from The Chosen because almost everybody loves The Chosen. It's high quality, unlike the nineteen sixties horrific Jesus films we saw, which always had a British dude with blonde hair playing Jesus, and they were pretty low budget, kind of B-movie. So I couldn't get The Chosen because that's only streaming, but I did grab this one which isn't too bad and it gives you some sense of the enormity of what Jesus did on Palm Sunday.

He raised Nazareth from the dead. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? He's a prophet, a great prophet. A prophet on a donkey.

Alright. It was a little cheesy, right? But you got the idea? Because all the other clips I saw were kind of low-budget films, usually done by individual churches, and they had like fifteen people there. I want to see how big it was. It was like when your favorite NFL team wins the Super Bowl in your city, and they come home, and there's confetti, and there's tens of thousands, a hundred thousand people packed in. It's like that. It’s like when they rush the field at Virginia Tech, or UVA, or Naval Academy, or whatever your school is after a big win. They knock the goalpost down, and everybody storms on the field.

This was a big deal. It was right before Passover, and Jews from all over the world were coming to Jerusalem. It’s not by accident that Jesus went up to Jerusalem and revealed Himself as the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one prophesied by Zechariah in chapter nine. It’s no wonder He did it during Passover.

The people wanted somebody who would destroy Rome. That was their cry. That was their desire. Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t always give us what we want? See, like a child, He says, bring your request, come boldly to My throne, and bring your request. But the problem is sometimes we don't even know the right thing to pray. We don't know what to ask for.

We ask selfish prayers. We don’t even know what to ask. So, we say, Father, Thy will be done, like Jesus said in the garden. I was thinking this week— if the Lord had listened to the crowd, we'd all be lost in our sin with no hope of a change. No hope at all. If you'd listen to the crowd and done what they wanted, there’d be no salvation for you. You would not be a child of God. You would, in fact, be an enemy of God.

There are other benefits as well. Yesterday and that night, I went to see Logan Durham. Have you guys heard about Logan? Howdy, sixteen years old, terrible car accident, top-level brain trauma, almost a month he's been in neuro ICU, not moving a finger, not doing anything. Had to have his skull taken out. And so, I had this building sense of like, this is really looking bad.

Boy on the bed, not moving, almost a month, no sign of hope. His mom was crying out to the Lord, like, Lord, do something, show me something. If he's gonna live, show me something. So what happened was, I think it was Saturday morning, Logan's granddad went up to ICU. He's a cool guy. He's a hunter, and anyway, he's a great guy. And he said, Logan, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can hear me, stick your tongue out.

And here's this guy that looks like his dad. He goes, he stuck his tongue out. Y'all, that was like the first sign of real life of brain and hearing. But then he went back to his coma, and it was the same. And so while that was hopeful, the mother is still like, oh my goodness, Lord, something. Do something.

I come in there with Miss Annette, and you know, we do what the Book of James says. We call the elders, and the elders have prayed, and we prayed this week just for that family. But I grabbed some oil, Holy oil, I anointed Logan. I said, Logan, I tell you what, buddy, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I want to tell you I love you. I do love you. When you pray for somebody that much, you'll start to love them. I started getting choked up. I said, Logan, I love you. I said, buddy, I want you to know that I believe. I believe the Lord's gonna heal you.

Well, that's a scary thing to say because it doesn't always happen, right? Right. But I said, Logan, I just want you to know we have not given up on you. I want him to hear it. And so then I picked out a passage of the Bible that I thought was really brilliant. It was like John chapter one, very theological. I, you know, I'm trying to give this kid theology. Nothing. I saw that was a losing cause, and I'm like, okay, let's get another scripture. I said, Logan, I'm gonna read you Psalm 23. And he's just sitting there, lying there. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. You know it.

But when it came to the part, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death— As soon as I said that, Logan's head went like this, and his eyes were wide open. It's the first time he's opened his eyes on his own, and it was so remarkable that his sister Sydney was blown away, as I mean, I didn't even know what to do. I was stunned. Sydney's got her phone out, started videotaping it to send to the family.

Friends, I just want you to know this: there are practical implications for Christ being the kind of king we need, not the kind of king we want. If Jesus had listened to the crowd, again, we'd be lost in our sin, we would not be His kids. But also, there'd be no healing for anyone. There'd be no healing, no power to heal for Logan. So, Christ, by not listening to us and our wandering desires, has opened the way for us to get what we most need.

And to quote a scraggly band that sang from 1962 till about a year ago, the Rolling Stones—you can't always get what you want. But they say, it's not really gospel if you try real hard; sometimes, you'll get what you need. Now, as Christians, we don't have that whole works righteousness thing, quid pro quo, but the song says that, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes, you get what you need.

That, friends, is Palm Sunday.

Conclusion

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Please stand as we worship together.