A Word about Fame, Faithlessness, and Fickleness on the Road To The Cross

 Today I want to share a word about fame, faithlessness, and fickleness on the road to the Cross as I comment on Luke 19:28-48. Let’s begin with verses 28-34:

 When He had said these things, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As He approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, He sent two of the disciples and said, “Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a young donkey tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here.  If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent left and found it just as He had told them. As they were untying the young donkey, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the donkey?” “The Lord needs it,” they said.

Introduction:

Holy Week is an amazing time in church worship. We know, from the Scriptures, a day-by-day account of the week that ended with Jesus being crucified on Good Friday and then rising again on Easter Sunday. It was an eventful, and spiritually vital, time. 

The interesting thing to me is that this week, in many ways, is bounded by two mob scenes. In each of these scenes we see people shouting and gesturing because of Jesus. The amazing, and sad, thing is, these two scenes are 180 degrees out of phase with one another.  

Accommodation: 

As we saw in previous events along the road to the Cross, the fame of Jesus had spread far and wide. It is one thing for a person to develop local fame, but it is altogether different for someone to gain national attention. This reminds me of a story I once heard about a person who was a local celebrity.

This fellow, who I will call John Smith for convenience, was a well-known man in the county where he was from. Everyone knew and revered him, to the point that when some young school children were asked by their teacher who the President of the United States was, they replied, “John Smith.” John had a way of making friends wherever he went, and he knew how to “Make friends and influence people.”

One day, John’s family and his best friend and his family travelled to Rome. One of the sights they wanted to take in was when the Pope came out on his balcony to bless the crowd in the square below. In the bustle and excitement of the crowd, his friend lost track of John, when suddenly the crowd began to shout and point excitedly. To his friend’s amazement, on the balcony stood John Smith and a man in a white cassock and skull cap. Amid all the shouting and excitement, another tourist grabbed his arm, and asked, “Who is that on the balcony?” John’s friend replied proudly, “Oh, that’s my friend John Smith, but I don’t know who that guy in white is!”

In the 21st Century, people often gain fame by making a spectacle of themselves. That type of fame is really infamy or notoriety. In the 1st Century, however, Jesus had gained national attention for several valid reasons.  First, He had performed many miracles, from feeding the 5,000 to raising Lazarus from the dead. He was a powerful teacher, and He was also known as a man of spirituality and prayer. In addition, Jesus was not afraid to challenge the authorities, and He wanted to give people hope of a life free of legalism and all its onerous requirements. His fame was such that people had gathered in the Temple to wait on Jesus to come to Passover. 

Jesus was planning to attend, of course, and He planned to fulfil prophecy in doing so. The prophet Zechariah had written, 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9

So, Jesus sent His disciples ahead to acquire that donkey. Undoubtedly, its owner had heard of Jesus, and he willingly let Him use it. It is human nature to allow association with fame to rub off on us, and that might be the case here. In any event, Jesus, like He had done before and like He would do again, had fulfilled the law and the prophets.

Not only did His fame produce accommodation on the part of the owner of the donkey, but it also led to acclamation by the crowds. Luke 19:35-38 says:

And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.  And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.  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!”

Acclamation:

The scene that unfolded above might remind us of human events that could seem similar on the surface:

• It might make us think of a political rally or a victory party on the night after an election.
• It might make us think of the celebrations that broke out in many cities on VJ Day.
• It might make us think of the reaction of a crowd to an entertainer. 
• It might make us think of the celebration after a city’s sports team has won a championship

Some of the people present at the first Palm Sunday may have been reacting to Jesus in one of those ways.  In fact, since Easter had not yet happened and since the Holy Spirit had not yet come, I doubt that anyone present there, including His disciples, knew just how much Jesus deserved their praise.

Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. He deserved all the praise He was given on Palm Sunday, and even more. We can see a glimpse of the type of praise and worship Jesus deserves in Revelation 7:9-12, which tells us that in heaven, 

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

The fame of Jesus, as much as it sparked an outpouring of emotion by the crowds in Jerusalem, was not enough to overcome faithlessness on the part of unredeemed humanity. Verses 39-48 say, 

And some of the Pharisees in 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.” And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

Accusation:

As we noted early on our journey with Christ to the Cross, Jesus was the most competent and powerful person that ever lived. We also noted, however, that people often misunderstood what He was doing, and why He was doing it. Take for example the reaction of some people when He wept at the grave of Lazarus: 

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” John 11:36-37

The events surrounding the resuscitation of Lazarus, was not the only time when accusations were made about Jesus. In Matthew 11:18-19, Jesus was accused of being a man with many vices,

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.

In John 5:18 we can see that some leaders were so upset with Jesus that they were prepared to kill Him,

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God

Before everything was done and said, some people came right out and accused Jesus of being in league with the Devil, as we see in Matthew 12:22-24,

Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

When everything was finally done and said, the Jews arrested Jesus and illegally tried Him before Pilate. At that point, we can see a huge flip-flop on the part of the people gathered in Jerusalem. Let’s turn to Luke 23:13-25 to see how fickle unredeemed humanity can be when it comes to honoring and serving God:  

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed.  So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Abandonment:

In less than a week, the crowds in Jerusalem went from saying "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” To shouting “Crucify! Crucify Him!” What a remarkable flip-flop!  Yet, when we think about the record of humanity in the Bible, we should not be surprised at all. In fact, we don’t know it to be the case, but it would not surprise me at all if some of the same people acclaiming Jesus on Palm Sunday were also there, condemning Him on Good Friday.

From the beginning of time, people have proved to be fickle: 

• Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day, until they chose to follow the serpent.
• Abraham trusted God until it came to his wife, Sarah. Then he decided to lie to Pharaoh and say she was his sister.
• Pharaoh decided to allow the Jews to leave and worship God, but then he changed his mind.
• The Children of Israel followed Moses to the Promised Land, until they found out that the tribes there were tough to defeat.
• Once in the Land of Canaan, the Israelites served God until they didn’t. Then when they cried out to God to save them and He did, they served Him, until again, they didn’t.
• God was ruler in Israel until they decided that, like everyone else, they wanted a king of their own.

In the New Testament we can see the pattern continue:

• Peter was a stout defender of Jesus, until he betrayed Him.
• Ananias and Saphira were honest with God, until they weren’t.
• The church at Ephesus lost their first love for Christ, and the church at Laodicea were lukewarm
• Paul warned Timothy that, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons . . .”

Even today, many church pastors have found that their congregation honors them and follows them as a man of God . . . until they don’t. 

And so it went, and so it goes.

Fickleness is a trait that causes much fear and distrust. One reason that people distrust politicians is that they often flip-flop on issues. They see which way the wind is blowing before they say a word. And, one of the most discouraging and soul-crushing experiences is when a friend we thought we could trust betrays us.

One of the biggest problems we encountered with the COVID-19 epidemic was that, to the average person, it seemed very fickle. As my son told me, “COVID-19 is very infectious, except when it isn’t.” I can’t help but agree with his summary.

The Good News for us is that while we may be fickle, and we are, God isn’t. The Scriptures tell us that God is unchanging, and Hebrews 13:8 tells us, 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

If there is one, rock-solid fact in our lives it is this: unlike us, God isn’t fickle, and He will always stand by His Word, His Way, His Will, and His eternal love for us. This means we can trust God, we can trust His Word, and we can rest in His love. He will never flip-flop, and He will never stop redeeming humanity from our own fickleness.

Conclusion:

We can trust God, but the question that comes to me is this: can God trust us?

The record shows that God can certainly not trust unredeemed humanity. People in their natural state are faithless and fickle. The Good News is that during Easter, Jesus died and rose again to redeem people from their sinful state and provide salvation to all who accept it.

Even more, Jesus also sent the Holy Spirit to us to empower and to equip us and to stiffen our resolve to be faithful to God. Because of the presence of the Spirit in our lives, we can be faithful and steadfast. While even redeemed people can be weak in our faith and fidelity at times, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, and this is cause for us to be hopeful and helpful instead of being hapless, helpless, and hopeless!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt