Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: The Triumphal Entry as Procession

Sermon text today is Matthew 21:1-17. Matthew 21:1-17. Please stand for the reading of the King’s Word.

Now when they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.

All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you lowly, sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road.

Others cut down branches from the trees, and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before, and those who followed cried out, saying, “Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” And when he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” So the multitude said, “This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

And he said to them, “It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple and saying hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes, have you never read out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise.” Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and he lodged there.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your scriptures once more, and once more we ask your Holy Spirit to open our eyes, open our hearts and our understanding of this and our obedience and praise to you for this particular text. Transform us by your word, Lord God. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

As the children helped us to see a few minutes ago, what we have in the triumphal entry is a procession. It’s a parade. Jesus has his disciples go and get specific things that he wanted for this entry into the city. He didn’t just casually walk in. There was a procession of the Lord Jesus Christ, a parade in our modern parlance into that city. I want us to think about the triumphal entry today as procession, as a parade, a procession.

Now the doctrine of procession is an important one in the context of the Christian faith. We read and heard when we were going through the gospel of John, John 15:26 says this: “When the helper, the encourager, the strengthener comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me.” The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son—the orthodox formulation—is an important one. And I think what we’ll see today as we consider the triumphal entry as procession is that this really helps us to understand what Jesus is doing, where he’s coming from, where he’s going to, and what the end result of that procession and parade is.

And what I hope the goal of this sermon is to equip you so that you see yourselves united to Christ and see his procession as your procession. And my goal here is that tomorrow morning or this afternoon when you leave this place and go to your homes, and tomorrow when you go to your work—particularly the men in this church—that you’ll understand something today about the significance of what is a very common occurrence: the rush hour drive to work. And I’ll try, you know, to infuse it with a little more meaning and purpose based on what our Savior does here in his procession.

Parades are important. Parades are an interesting indicator of a culture. In the medieval period, for instance, processions and parades were fairly common facts. They were religious processions. There’s a movie called “Manon of the Spring” in which there’s an example of a religious procession—one that is an extraordinary one—where the people process through a town that has become cursed with drought and they process to the church and they are supplicating God’s grace and mercy to them for the disaster that’s been brought upon them.

It was not uncommon in the medieval period for Christian kings to enter into a city in a kind of imitation of the triumphal entry, and there would be a procession going in and people shouting, “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.” Every Lord’s day we now have a procession and a recession as the elders process in to the sanctuary and then recess out of the sanctuary. And this triumphal entry and this idea of the procession of the spirit from the Father and Son to the world is what’s going on there.

The elders, specifically the elder that will bring the word of God in the preaching of the word and in the sacrament, bring that to you from God. They bring you these gifts. This is the one proceeding in to where you are. So Jesus Christ—there’s certainly a truth that we go to heaven to be with God in worship. But just as clearly, the scriptures also teach that Jesus comes to us. Behold, he knocks, stands at the door, and knocks. He proceeds in here.

It’s not been unusual in the history of the church to have processions to the church where the elements of communion would be brought in, representing the procession in of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible would be maybe placed in the front of a procession to the church. Icons at various stages of church history—these parades were religious events that had religious accompaniment to them. And they represent that power comes from God to us, not the other way around.

The men at Babel were in a reverse procession. They were doing it kind of the wrong way. They were trying to attain to God somehow through their building of a series of parade steps or processional steps up a physical device that would have them reach to God. But true biblical procession is from God the Father, God the Son. The Holy Spirit proceeds to man. Jesus comes to us with gifts. We know that he led captivity captive. We read in the New Testament, and he gave gifts to men.

Well, you know, it’s not that God is using the terminology of the Roman Empire there, although the imagery is similar. Caesar would, from a conquest, come back into the city and he would lead captivity captive. He’d have the slaves in, you know, barred cages behind him and he would distribute gifts to the people. You know, we have a little parade, Fourth of July parade in Canby, and the cars go through and they throw candy to the kids. Why? Well, it’s this basic idea that when God comes to the people, he distributes gifts to mankind. And this is what Jesus shows us. It’s a demonstration of royal authority and power. It’s a demonstration of absolute sovereignty—what a procession is or what a parade is.

Now, in our day and age, the parades have become different. All we kind of are left with, probably the best picture of what we have today, when men turn to the state as God, is the May Day parade in the former Soviet Union, or the military parades that we have even in our country, where what’s on display is not the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his power and rule and authority, as it is in the triumphal entry, but the power of the state. And so we’re used to those kind of parades.

In Portland, we’re used to an even more perverted form of parade, and that’s the gay pride parade that happens here and it’s been going on for a long time, blessed by the city fathers, by the ruling authority in the city. And what we see in this is the replacement of the true procession or parade—the religious one—with a new religion. You know, religion doesn’t go away. It gets transferred in who the sovereign is. And the gay pride parade is a demonstration, a parading forth of power. And it really is. They have political power to be able to conduct that parade and have the blessing of the city upon them. And they’re showing you that kind of power and authority.

So processions and parades are about power and authority. They’re ultimately, in the biblical sense, to come from God to man, and in that coming from God to man he gives gifts to men as well.

Now, there were other—as the Christian faith in the medieval period recessed a little bit and grew a little less important—another rival church came up. I mean, the state’s a good thing, but when it rivals the church, when it rivals the power of Jesus Christ, that’s a bad thing. Another type of procession or parade that became important in the medieval period was the academic procession. We’re going to have a discussion this afternoon about whether, with the graduation ceremony here at the church for our high schoolers, should they wear caps and gowns. And maybe I’ll weigh in a little bit here. I don’t want to poison the well, but the idea of the academic procession was that power had been transferred from the religious authority to the academic authority.

The doctrine of academic freedom accompanied the rise of academic processions and the imbuing of power and vestigure upon academicians as the true power and authority in the culture. Now, it doesn’t necessarily have to mean it that way in our day and age. Clothing is authority. I’m going to talk about clothing in a couple of months from now. And so I don’t want to completely poison the well, but you do have to understand that academic processions became a replacement for processions that focused upon the person of Jesus Christ, being replaced with academic freedom and academic importance, and it’s the philosopher kings who really should rule in the context of a culture.

Now, another procession we’ll see in our day and age is the Olympic procession in Greece. Is it this summer? I don’t know. I think maybe this summer in Greece the Olympics are going to happen, and there’ll be a procession of athletes. Well, the sense of that procession is that these athletes have become divinized. That’s kind of the root of the Olympic procession. These athletes have assumed sort of divine powers. They’re like Roy Hobbs in that movie “The Natural.” He eliminates time even by hitting a baseball. So for breaker time itself he becomes immortalized as a god, and these athletes become kind of immortalized, and this procession is that they are now divine.

And it’s, you know, it’s not a stupid thing to make that kind of association. How often do you see businessmen processed on the street like an athlete would? You don’t. And how often would a man who’s very successful in business be invited to a talk show to give his ideas of politics and philosophy? And yet we see athletes on these shows all the time because they have this kind of quasi-semi-divine perspective granted to them by the culture that’s demonstrated in processions. They proceed into the basketball court, et cetera.

And so processions and parades are an important part of man’s life. And what we see here is what true processions and parades are supposed to be like according to the scriptures. Man never jettisons an idea such as the procession of the spirit from the Father and Son. He replaces it with something else—whether it’s the academician, the sports authority, or the tanks as they roll down the street. It’s a transfer of authority or can become that and a substitution of a new god for the true God.

What we want to see today are some elements of this parade, this triumphal entry, but obviously set up by our Savior with the procuring of the donkey and colt to be a specific demonstration of something. And so we want to look at this triumphal entry as procession and notice a couple of elements of it.

And number one on your outlines is the king’s procession is from the Mount of Olives to the temple. Well, so what? Well, this is the beginning of Holy Week—so-called, the commemoration of the final week of our Savior. You know, he processes in the triumphal entry. Later in the week on Good Friday, he dies for us. Monday—Thursday, he gives us the boot commandment to love one another. Monday means mandate, command to love one another. Not a new command, but a transformed command. It was the heart of Levitical commands to love one another in Leviticus 19, the center of the law section, center of Leviticus 19: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s not new in the sense of being brand new. It’s being new in the sense of transformed.

And so Monday Thursday, the evening with the disciples and then the rest in the garden late that evening and early Friday morning, and then the crucifixion, resurrection on the Lord’s day, Sunday, as history moves forward a notch into the new creation.

What you may not know, but what the Bible clearly tells us, is that during this week leading up to his arrest late Thursday night to early Friday, he was not staying in Jerusalem. He would come into Jerusalem and then he’d go back, and the next day he’d come in and he’d go back. Today is the first day of that, or the text before us is the first day of that. The triumphal entry is first coming in. It has a great significance to it. But the next day when he comes in, he curses the fig tree and that’s important. So God wants us, in our minds, when we think about the triumphal entry to think where he is and where he’s going to.

Now, he’s at the Mount of Olives. The text tells us that. One of the songs we just sang talked about the reference to the Mount of Olives as the place where Christ’s processional comes from. That’s important because the olive tree, olive grove—the Mount of Olives—is an olive grove, a grove of olive trees. The olives have great associations in the scriptures, and I’ve listed some on your outlines.

Olive oil, Exodus 30 tells us, was used to anoint the second Adam, the new Adam being pictured by the priest and his assistants Aaron and his sons. They represent the new Adam, how Jesus will create a second man, a new man when he comes, a new creation. Well, those representatives are anointed with olive oil. Olive oil represents the impregnation of those men for service by the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them. And so olive oil is associated with anointing for purpose.

The olive wood is heavily involved in the architecture of the temple. Specifically, there are cherubim placed in the Holy of Holies. And these cherubim—these two cherubim in 1 Kings 6:23 in Solomon’s temple. Now there were two giant cherubim, and they were made completely out of olivewood, and then they were overlaid, I believe, with gold, but they were completely made out of olivewood. It’s in the Holy of Holies, the place where the two cherubim—who are two personified olive trees—that’s where they’re at. The doors to the Holy of Holies is also made out of olivewood, and the doors to the temple itself, olivewood.

As our Savior will be crucified on the Mount of Olives, you would be able to see apparently the place of the temple from that Mount of Olives. There’s the temple here, ravine, Mount of Olives here. And from that point of crucifixion, you could actually see over to the temple. You’d see the olivewood doors. And if they were opened, you’d have a microscope at this point—a telescope at this point—you could see the olive doors to the Holy of Holies. And if they ever came open, inside that is the two olive trees personified as these two cherubim.

The olive tree was the first of the new creation after the flood. You know, the dove is sent out, he brings back an olive branch. It’s the new creation. So olive, olive trees and oil have great associations in the scriptures.

In John, I forgot to mention that—in John 20:12, you remember that as Jesus—where Jesus had laid after he was in his burial tomb—in John’s gospel when you look in there you don’t see one angel, you see two. And you see two that are specifically said to be sitting at either end of where Christ has done his work. And the association of a slab and two gold cherubim now, or two cherubim either end, brings clearly to mind this Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple with two giant olive tree cherubim and then two cherubim on the actual ark of the covenant as well.

So Jesus, when he does his work on the Mount of Olives, that’s where he’s buried—is associated with the Holy of Holies and the olivewood that would compose the doors, the overarching structure of the Holy of Holies. And Jesus would be associated with this olivewood, the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit-empowered one. At his baptism the Spirit descends upon him and empowers him for his work, and he will be the one to bring about that new creation, the new olive branch. And the olive, of course, is what we’re grafted into, not a grape vine, an olive branch, right? An olive tree. That’s who we are as well.

The lampstand itself in Zechariah 4 and Zechariah’s vision—the lampstand outside of the Holy of Holies—it is described as being fed by those two giant cherubim in the Holy of Holies. There’s olive oil coming out of those trees in Zechariah’s vision, and it fills the lampstand. The lampstand as Israel overseeing the world. So the church is portrayed as receiving its power from those giant cherubim olive trees in the Holy of Holies. The olive oil flows from that and lights the lampstand.

Finally, the olive press and the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where Jesus goes. Gethsemane means olive press. So we’ve got an olive press on the Mount of Olives where Jesus goes to complete his passion for us.

Zechariah 14:4 says, “In that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley. Half the mountain shall move toward the north, half toward the south.” And this is a dramatic presentation of what would occur, not at the end of the age, but what would occur when Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives, when he’s crucified on that Mount of Olives. And Mel Gibson did a wonderful job of presenting the humongous earthquake, the decreation of the old order as it were symbolically in his presentation of the Passion of Christ—of that earthquake being seen there.

We think of it in terms of the veil being written to, but it’s an earthquake that goes right through that entire area. The Mount of Olives so to speak becomes the place where the earthquake opens up. Then the veil of the temple is written to. Jesus has done his work on the true, in the true Holy of Holies.

Finally, the Mount of Olives is of course where Jesus ascends to the Father. You see, if we understand that Jesus goes from the Mount of Olives and his procession then is to Jerusalem, the Spirit is sent from the Father and Son to the believers. Jesus is going from where? The Mount of Olives. The entire scriptures have set us up to think about as the true Holy of Holies to the city.

You see, Jesus is going from the place where all the associations—which we know now, particularly from his passion, his resurrection, his burial, his ascension—everything happens on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is the picture of those two giant olive trees and the olive doors to the Holy of Holies. It is the true Holy of Holies. That’s where the blood of the Savior Jesus Christ will be shed. That’s where the new creation will be affected.

Jesus comes from the place of power and authority. He comes with Father and Son and Spirit to come to Jerusalem. See, he’s processing from the Holy of Holies to the city that represents all the world. That’s the movement of the procession, the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ. As we will do, we come to the Holy of Holies and we’ll proceed from this place into the rest of the world.

Secondly, the king’s procession is marked by a sign of humility. Now, we can talk about donkeys and foals and what their meaning is and all that stuff, but the text tells us explicitly that as we think of this picture of him riding on a donkey and a foal, it sets up deliberately the association with meekness and humility. It says, “Tell Israel, your king is coming lowly, riding on a donkey and a foal.”

So the donkey and foal are related to the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now some people think that the donkey is the opposite of a horse, and a horse is a military deal and a donkey is a beast of burden. So declared in the text of the triumphal entry. I think there’s significance to that. We saw last week that the warrior bride of Proverbs 31—described in militaristic terms—is engaging dominion for Jesus Christ through vocation, which has as its necessary goal benevolence. That’s how the world moves. That’s the whole movement of Proverbs. The church becomes the warrior bride of Christ by entering into not military conquest—ultimately sometimes that’s needed—but by entering into vocational conquest of the world. The four horns in Zechariah are defeated by the four tradesmen or craftsmen. Vocation trumps military might. A military knight’s important, but ultimately it’s a beast of burden that Jesus is riding.

Now there were kings. You know, Absalom rode on a donkey, and so you know, we maybe some people have said donkeys are associated with kings. Okay, maybe so. But what I do know is this: that the association is deliberately set up to bring us a sense of Christ’s humility because that’s what it says: “Lowly, riding on these animals.”

This is what we saw in Proverbs 28 and 29, Proverbs 30 and 31. The true king is the one who is humble before God. The true king is the one who knows that it’s not his will that should be done, but God’s will. The true king is the one who is not exercising pride and all this stuff in terms of his reign. He is humble before God, and as a result shows mercy to the poor.

Jesus Christ came not to do his own will but to do the Father’s will. He came as meek, broken to harness—is the original explanation of the Greek term translated lowly. Here he was broken to the Father’s harness, so to speak. He was under control of the Father in everything that he did. He said he didn’t do it of his own initiative.

You see, Jesus is the picture of true dominion being exercised by a man of humility and meekness. The procession, the parade shows something to the crowd. Whether it’s the, you know, sauntering pride of the homosexual, the burly walk of the athlete, the robes of the academician who thinks his mind is where God is, or here it’s the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated in this parade element that he had set up.

He has the meek and quiet spirit. Almost always we think of its immediate application in 1 Peter 3 to women, but it’s the same word meek here. Jesus Christ is meek. He has that quiet spirit, the sight of God of great price.

Proverbs 3 says that the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesses the habitation of the just. Surely he scorneth the scorners, but he giveth grace unto the lowly. The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the portion of fools. Who gets to inherit? The wise. What are the wise? Lowly in state. Who is the true king? The one who is humble before God. He’s the one that God then gives the earth to. And what do the beatitudes tell us? The third one: “Blessed are the meek, that they shall inherit the earth.”

Jesus Christ comes as a picture to us of what true dominion looks like. And it looks like humility. It doesn’t look like pride.

Now, the text specifically relates this occurrence to Zechariah chapter 9. That’s what’s being fulfilled here. And it’s important because Zechariah 9 is really about how God will bring judgment. And the end result of the judgment will be that the Gentiles are brought into the kingdom. We read for instance in verse 7 talking about those in Philistia that he shall be as a governor in Judah. So Philistia will be incorporated into the people of God through what’s being described here. And in the context of that conquering of the Gentile nation, that’s the quote where it says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion” (verse 9 of Zechariah 9). “Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king comes unto thee. He is just and having salvation. Hosanna. He brings salvation and justice. Lowly, riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle both shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace unto the heathen.”

So Jesus Christ comes humbly. He is the one who will bring worldwide dominion and the ability to speak peace to the heathen. So Jesus Christ comes with an external sign of humility.

But third on the outline, the king’s procession is marked by a sign of ascension and heavenly rule. Where is that in the picture? Well, the picture is these palm branches and other kind of branches and garments of people were laid down before Jesus. He is in the parade. He’s on a lowly. He’s demonstrating his humility. He’s on a donkey and a colt. And he comes in and they lay down garments before him. They’re worshiping before his feet. We’re not worthy to untie your shoelace. The garments represent us and our authority and power. Garments are power. We lay them before King Jesus.

And we also have this thing where we’re laying down palm branches. Why? Well, again, there—if we make the association, we know that palm branch branches and branches of trees are an important aspect of the Old Testament. We know in this church better than most, I think, that the last great feast in Leviticus 23 is the feast of booths where these palm branches were used to construct little leantos. And it’s interesting because God says, “Celebrate the feast of booths because God kept you in booths in the wilderness.” And you read that in the Bible and you think, gosh, I don’t know my Bible very well ’cause I don’t remember that Bible story where God provided booths for men in the wilderness.

What does it mean? Well, you’re right. There is no such place in the Bible. There’s no place in the Bible that says they were constructed little booths, little tents out of trees in the wilderness. And in fact, it would be a hard thing to do because that takes a lot of trees and the wilderness is a wilderness. There’s not a lot of trees out there. What is he talking about?

Well, the same word for booth is the word sukkah. And this was the first place that Israel went to when they came out of Egypt and were delivered by God. They came and they stayed for a little bit at Succoth, and Succoth is this booth. The Lord God gave them a booth or covering at Succoth to dwell in.

Now, Succoth is interesting too because it’s from there that the cloud of fire by night, cloud by day—when the single cloud that was both fire and appearance of a cloud—goes before them from Succoth. That’s where the cloud begins. So what’s interesting is this root, this word doesn’t mean necessarily a tent. It means a covering, an environment in which to dwell. And Succoth was this environment. And the Lord God had them dwell in booths all the rest of the wilderness. Why? Because they were in the environment of the cloud that went before them. And in fact, in the Psalms—and I’ve got some verses on your outline—when the Psalms talk about God dwelling in a pavilion of clouds, it’s the same root. It’s the same word, the same family of words. God’s booth is his glory cloud.

And when you see the clouds in heaven, it’s sukkah. It’s a cloud, a covering for God. You see, what people were doing by dwelling in booths was to recall that they had been granted, as a result of their deliverance from Egypt, to be the heavenly people that dwelt in clouds. If we want to picture somebody being Luke Skywalker walking in the skies—okay, Luke Treewalker. How would we do it if we’re in a parade and we want to say, “Well, this guy, he’s ruling from heaven”? This is how you do it. You take the trees and subjugate them to his feet. And now Jesus is Treewalker guy. He’s in the heavens. He’s walking with strength and power from on high.

So the external sign of the palm fronds is specifically given to bring to our association not just the leantos. The leantos at the feast of booths was to remind them that they were a heavenly people encamped around God in the trees. They were in the heavens with him.

You see? So Jesus’s parade has a design element to show his humility. And it has a second design element in his providence and his sovereignty to demonstrate heavenly majesty and rule.

Psalm 105: “He spread a cloud for his covering, for his booth fire to give light in the night.” So God has this demonstration of the heavenly rule of Jesus Christ.

Four. So we know where he’s coming from—the true Holy of Holies, spirit empowerment, Mount of Olives. We know that he’s coming lowly and humble like Proverbs says a king will be who rules over all the world. And we know he’s coming with heavenly authority and might. He is Treewalker guy. He is in the heavens. He’s in the clouds, actually. That’s where his dominion and authority comes from.

And now where is he going to? What does he do when he gets to Jerusalem? The king’s procession is under judgment. What happens? That’s why I read more than just the entry. Where does he go? Does he hang out for a while and get something to eat or, you know, go and do some teaching? No, he does not. He goes to the temple. The temple is a representation of the religious system.

And if we were to take the time to do it, we could look at the Gospel of Matthew. It begins with the genealogy. It ends with the commission. It began with looking at the past, and it ends by saying what’s going to happen in the future. And then after the genealogy, we got a Mary reference. And before the great commission, we’ve got another Mary reference. And then we have similar sorts of events.

And this section of Matthew is tied to the descent into Egypt when Jesus and his family flee to Egypt. And what God wants us to make the association of is that Jerusalem has become Egypt. The temple is a representation of the religious system, but the religious system is a representation of the whole world. The temple was supposed to look like the world, or we’re to think of the world in terms of the temple.

So Jesus comes to the world from the heavenly Holy of Holies with loneliness and heavenly power and authority to bring judgment. He overturns the tables of the money lenders. And what does he say? He says, “My house is the house of prayer.” The reference of the Old Testament completes the quote: “A house of prayer for all the nations.”

What does Zechariah, the reference, say? Jesus is coming to bring salvation to the nations, not just to his people. Their rulers will be like governors of Judah. The barbarian will be brought into the kingdom of Christ. And he goes and he brings judgment upon a failed religious system that failed to evangelize, that failed to include the Gentile nations, and in fact used the court of the temple that was specifically designated for the Gentiles to sell animals at a high price.

He says, “You’re a den of thieves.” Not wrong to sell animals. You needed clean animals. But these guys were exorbitant in their prices, apparently. And in so doing, they had defiled the court of the Gentiles. They had failed in their mission. They hated the Gentiles. They were unclean. We don’t want anybody around them. We don’t want to get around those lousy sinners. We’re too good for that. God says, “No, judgment comes to you. It comes to us.”

If our reaction to the homosexual issue in Oregon is a retreat from homosexuals—those are really bad people, we don’t want to be around them—we’re in danger of this same judgment coming to us. It is our job to proactively evangelize the homosexual community in Oregon. Who else will? Who else knows that it’s wrong? And who else knows that it’s a sin that can be forgiven? And who else knows that there’s a bondage to this sin that will continue to drive them down in their rebellion against God? We are the ones.

So the king comes with humility and power from the heavenly Holy of Holies to the world represented by Jerusalem and specifically to the religious authorities of the world represented by the temple to bring judgment.

In Leviticus 10:1-2, Nadab and Abihu are like the false religious officials in Jerusalem. They’re not going to use the fire from God’s altar. They’re not going to submit to the sovereignty of God in their use of the temple and the offerings that they’re going to the tabernacle rather. No, they’re going to do it their way. They’re going to bring their kind of fire. They’re going to worship the way they want to worship. And God strikes them down. How does he strike them down? Fire proceeds from before the Lord, which reference means from the Holy of Holies, from those olivewood doors. Fire comes out from the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God of his people, to devour them.

Jesus is doing the same thing. He’s coming from the Holy of Holies to come to the religious leaders to overturn their tables and demonstrate that he comes to bring judgment. He comes to bring judgment. He is the fire from the Holy of Holies to devour the wicked men who have defiled worship and specifically who have failed in their mission of stewardship to the Gentile nations.

“Judgment begins at the house of God,” the scriptures say. But it doesn’t stop there. It goes out to all the world. Jerusalem is a representation of the capital of the world. Jesus comes there and begins with the house of God, begins with those engaged in religious activities as proper as they may have been. And he comes and brings judgment there. And that judgment we’re supposed to understand will then percolate out to the rest of the world. Jesus comes as judge. He comes to bring judgment.

But immediately the text tells us that he’s not just there to judge and destroy. Ultimately he’s there to bring transformation and healing.

So the fifth point is that in this king’s procession, this procession is unto healing and transformation. Read very specifically: the blind and the lame then come to the temple and he heals them. He transforms them. Little children are going to praise his name. He’s already demonstrated that the judgment is under transformation by judging them in the court of the Gentiles. But the association of Zechariah, we know that the end result is not just that, you know, the disobedient people at the temple are going to be cursed should they maintain that disobedience. We know the end result of that is going to be the inclusion of all the Gentile nations. Transformation of the whole world.

Psalm 98, the great center of the fourth book of the Psalter—the king’s coming, king’s coming, king’s coming. Psalm 98 comes, he comes to bring judgment. The world is going to rejoice because it’s a judgment unto transformation, unto health, and to healing. And then we have that really pointed out to us very clearly by the blind and the lame.

Why blind and lame? I don’t know why blind and lame were designated. But I do know this: I do know that in Deuteronomy 15:21, it talks about the blind and the lame in this way. It says, “But if there’s a defect”—now it’s talking about the offering, bringing forth your offerings, things to God. “If there’s a defect in it, or if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.”

So defect, blind and lame—defect. And here Jesus heals the blind and the lame. You know what he’s doing is showing that he’s transforming people who are no longer, have not really been able to approach God in worship because of their blindness and lameness. The nation of Israel has become blind and lame. Now, without saying the specific blind and lame people here were sinners, the point is we’re supposed to make that kind of association.

What did the Psalms tell us? The Psalms tell us in Psalm 135:15-18: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. Eyes they have, but they do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. And then the kicker, those who make them are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them.”

Israel has become idolatrous. It’s worshiping blind gods, things that can’t really see, and lame gods, people that can’t do anything, and they become like them. And Jesus wants us to know that he has—it is his business to transform us by judging our idolatries and leading us to true sight and true mobility, being able to walk once more.

You know, blindness and lameness both result in an inability really to ambulate, to move, to walk, to process, right? Don’t know where you’re going. A deaf guy, he can see everybody’s going this way. He can go ahead. Blind guy can’t see that. He’s got to be led by the hand. Lame person can’t walk, got to be carried. So they’re impediments to procession and they’re marks of idolatry, but ultimately they’re given to us here to show us that the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ is unto healing and transformation.

Okay. So the triumphal entry is a procession. It’s a procession that comes from the Holy of Holies to the world, from God to men. It’s the procession and parade of the great King of kings, the great Caesar of Caesars. And he is demonstrated to be lowly and humble before God and also men. But he’s also demonstrated to have heavenly rule and authority. He exercises dominion from a heavenly perspective because he walks on the trees.

He processes in, and his symbolic act is judgment upon the world, but it’s a judgment under transformation, that we might be able to see properly and go where God wants us to go and follow him in procession.

Because that’s the other thing that’s going on in this parade. Jesus isn’t alone. The throngs are around him. And this parade is not just Jesus. He’s the central figure. He gives the meaning and significance to the whole thing. But ultimately he tells us that we’re part of his followers, his disciples who follow him in procession because we’re the same. All these elements that we’ve just spoken of are true ultimately in the first sense of Jesus Christ, but they are secondly true of us as well.

We’re the heavenly people. We’ve been gathered to the Holy of Holies today, to the most intimate place of communion with Jesus Christ at this table and hearing his word. This is where we are. We’re at the Mount of Olives. The Spirit of God is filling us with his gift us to a purpose. Not so that we can just delight in this nice spirit-filled life that we have—no. He’s brought us here that we would process out to the world.

How are we to process to the world? We’re to process humbly, not having our ideas about what it means to do things right or wrong. We’re to be humble before the Lord God, whether it’s our businesses or our politics or our benevolences. None of them can be marked by our own thoughts on the matter. They must be marked by a submission to Christ. We must be humble before the King of Kings. We must submit to the will of the Father as our Savior submitted. We must be humble. We must not be prideful as we enter into this world.

And there’s a lot of inducement to pride because, like Jesus, we are heavenly rulers. Ephesians says that our citizenship, our dwelling place is in heaven. We are Treewalkers. We’re the true Luke Skywalkers. We’re the ones who have power and authority from above. We dwell above. And when we come in into the presence of God in worship, we’re in the heavenly room and God is telling us what we should do down there. We’re in the clouds today. The glory cloud of God is surrounding us and he’s giving us what we need to hear to move into the world.

We have heavenly power, but we can’t be prideful about it. Be the death to us if we’re prideful. We start thinking this is for us, then we’re like those Jews that were judged. Pride being ingrown inward in our thoughts and ideas as opposed to seeing that we have a mission to process into this world.

If we think we can dwell in the Holy of Holies and that’s it, we got another thing coming. Jesus won’t let it happen. He’ll go to that Holy of Holies and he’ll bring judgment. He’ll stop what’s going on there as he did in Jerusalem. Our job is to process humbly but powerfully into the world. And our job is to bring judgment unto transformation. It is our job to make discernments, training our senses to discern good and evil in what we do and to transform the world of man to move away from wickedness through judgment of our words, primarily, discernment of good and evil, and then to move toward transformation.

Our job is to prepare for this procession today. Our job is to recognize that this is who we are. We’re going to go on parade tomorrow. When you get in your car tomorrow morning, you’re not just driving off to a mundane day at work. You’re doing the most important thing in the world from one perspective. You’re going from the Holy of Holies, which is in this place and then becomes kind of replicated in our homes, our dwelling places, our places where the Spirit flows great and powerful to us. And we’re moving from those places. We’re getting in a procession, and some of you very literally tomorrow it’ll be in a procession of vehicles.

But your little car, what it represents to you is that you’re in procession and parade with the power of Jesus Christ to exercise dominion. You do it humbly, but you do it powerfully. And you’re going to go to the workplace and you’re going to bring judgment and transformation. You’re going to do things correctly and well, and you’re going to try to root out the sinfulness in your approach to vocation, whether it’s your own thoughts about what you should do, whether it’s deceit and lying, whatever it is. And then you’re going to try to exercise dominion in that workplace.

That root, that wickedness will be rooted out of the paper industry or the computer science industry or the programming industry or making of batteries. Your job is to transform the world through vocation. You’re the warrior bride who emerges from the place of great communion with her husband in the power of the Spirit. You’re processing out to exercise dominion over the world the way that Proverbs wife does in 31, by exercising vocation. And in that proper, spirit-empowered exercise of vocation, you’re the one who brings judgment and transformation to your little part of the world.

And as the church fulfills its task, that’s what it does as well. We must obey the mandate of the procession. The mandate of this procession is that we follow in like procession into our weeks.

Tomorrow many pastors will process out tomorrow at New Hope right up the freeway from us here. Probably have I don’t know 1,200, 400 people or more. It’s a statewide pastor’s briefing so that pastors can get empowered for 3 hours of presentation to know how to deal with the same-sex marriage issue in our state. The eyes of the nation are in some sense upon us. It’s so important that last Monday Dr. Do and dropped everything he was going to do and decided to come here for our event tomorrow, that the group that I’m involved with is sponsoring.

So, this is important. And you know what we want those pastors to hear tomorrow? They’re not going to hear this sermon. I’m not one of the guys that speak. But what I hope the pastors hear tomorrow, and I think that this is the intent of the meeting, is that they hear the necessity to obey the mandate of the procession, that they recognize that as they go back to their churches and back to their pulpits, they’re to equip their people next Lord’s day with the power and humility before God to go out and transform the world, to bring judgment in areas of civil wickedness, transformation, and healing, so that the blindness that now affects the rulers of our county here in Moba County and of our state and the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, that blindness may be removed, that they may see once more that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel to the homosexual who is suffering with his sin, in bondage to his sin.

The civil government says, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. “Be warmed and filled,” and they do not take off the scales of blindness from these people. It’s our job, the job of the church, to process into this world with judgment and transformation. It’s our job to recognize this is the very purpose why God has gathered us together today. This is the empowerment of the Spirit—to proceed out as the Lord Jesus Christ proceeded from the Holy of Holies to go to the city.

After all, when Jesus ascends, what happens in the book of Acts? The Spirit of God comes. What did Jesus say in John’s gospel? He said that after I’ve ascended, you’ll receive power. You’ll actually, out of your bellies will flow rivers of living water. He said, and then the text tells us that he was talking of the Spirit. The Spirit given—you had not been glorified. He’s glorified at his ascension. And Jesus says, “Wait for the power from on high. The Spirit power will come upon you for what purpose? So that we can have great lives in our family, that we can go quietly about living a great Christian life and not opening our mouths to the wickedness of the political realm without engaging in the sticky matter of showing benevolence to people that are far different than we are?

Is that why the Spirit comes to fill us for contentment and a spirit-filled life that’s joyous and neat and fun all the time? No. The Spirit empowers us that we might process out into the world to Judea and Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth, transforming, judging and transforming that world.

In Revelation, the seven spirits represent the seven Spirits of God that are sent out into all the world in Revelation 5. And immediately the text goes on to say that we are those who have been made kings and priests of our God, and we shall reign on earth. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to empower you to reign on the earth through the simple act tomorrow morning of whether you’re going to work, you’re going to cook, you’re going to your studies, you’re going to wash the dishes, you’re going to cut the lawn, so that you might proceed in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring judgment and transformation, to bring the glory of a spirit-empowered people ruling in the context of the world.

The scriptures say that we have been given power from on high to exercise authority and dominion for the one who proceeds in to be with us today. When the elders walk down this aisle at the end of the worship service, covenant has been renewed by God graciously to us, and they are a picture of your—of each of your necessity of proceeding out in the same way, following the Lord Jesus Christ as the elders follow him into the world, the way that he proceeded from the Holy of Holies to Jerusalem.

Obey the mandate of the procession. Be thankful for what task God has given you to do tomorrow. Proceed in the power and might of the Holy Spirit. And when we do that, we’ve understood the procession, the triumphal entry as a procession of power, strength, and rule into the world.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you, Lord God, for your great blessing upon us. We thank you for entering into this holy place with us. We thank you for embracing us, Lord God, with an assurance of your love to us and an empowerment of your Spirit to go out as new men and women this afternoon and tomorrow as we go to our tasks.

Father, we thank you for this day and pray that it would be the first day of the rest of our lives, that we might recognize that you have moved through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And tomorrow morning when we wash—we think of new birth that the washing represents. Old Testament rituals. As we clothe ourselves tomorrow morning, Lord God, as we look at ourselves in the mirrors, as we wash, help us to remember, Lord. As we put on clothes, Lord God, help us to remember that we’re being clothed with power and authority from on high, that we’re being invested with garments that are submitted to Jesus Christ, but still important to carry out the work you’ve given us to do.

And as we put on our cologne, our perfume tomorrow, as we make ourselves smell good, help us to remember the anointing of Aaron and his sons, that Spirit-empowered anointment, Lord God, for work. Help us to remember that the Spirit has indeed equipped us and empowered us to do the work you called us to do. Help us, Father, to remember that Aaron and his sons guarded that tabernacle for a season and then function to nurture the work in the context of that tabernacle.

Help us each, Lord God, tomorrow morning to remember that as the new creation we are through birth and through the application of the waters of cleansing, through the empowerment and imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the gift of the Holy Spirit to give us strength for our task, help us to remember Lord God that our job is twofold: judgment unto transformation.

Empower us, Lord God, tomorrow morning. May this image be in our minds as we awaken and prepare ourselves for the important work you’ve called us to do tomorrow. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.