Episode 1532: Open the Gates
Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,532 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
Tabatha Perry: I'm Tabitha Perry, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to live your authentic and purposeful life.
It's key and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.
Scott Maderer: Because all too often it's easy for us to just be distracted by the spectacle of the moment, by the worldly appearance of something, by how it shows up in our life, and we lose track of that central message of Christ to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. [00:01:00] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Luke chapter 19 verses 28 through 40. I also share how so many things, there are multiple ways to interpret this message. I also share how we find ourself distracted by the world from the central message of Christ. Luke 19 verses 28 through 40 says, after he had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem when he had come near Beth [00:02:00] Phage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives.
He sent two of the disciples saying. Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you'll find tithe. There a cult that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Just say this, the Lord needs it. So those who were sent, departed and founded as he had told them, and as they were untying the cult, it's owner asks them, why are you untying the cult?
They said, the Lord needs it. Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the cult. They set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. Now, as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all of the deeds of power that they had seen saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven at glory in the highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, teacher order your disciples to stop. And he answered. I [00:03:00] tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out. Often when looking at scripture, we have a tendency to look at it and try to interpret it to bring answers to it, to decide what the right or wrong way of thinking about it is.
And looking at this event in Luke, the Palm Sunday event and the description of it, there's a lot of different things that kind of jump out in this version. And the first thing is that everyone is really a backseat person except Jesus. He seems to be the only one that kind of knows what's going on, is setting it up.
Everyone else is just a spectator invited to look and see, shout for joy and welcome. The one who comes. So it's easy to think about this and wonder is the crowd that's lighting the streets of Jerusalem, were they glad to see Jesus and celebrate this? Or was there something [00:04:00] else going on?
Perhaps, maybe it was just a good distraction from their day Notice in this account by Luke, there are no palms in what we call the Palm Sunday parade. They also don't shout Hosanna. Instead, this is a quote from Psalm one 18, which is a psalm that was used for pilgrims that were making their way to Jerusalem.
So did they see Jesus and what they wanted to see, or were they just in a Psalm singing mood? What's going on? There's a lot of different perspectives that we can take, and I think a lot of times it's valuable to look at different perspectives when you're looking at scripture. There's definitely a militaristic overtone.
If you read the verses that come right before this accounted Luke, Jesus telling a parable of a nobleman who went to claim a kingdom. There's things about [00:05:00] how this happened, but in that story, it ends in a ruthless way. So trying to put Jesus in the place of that nobleman seems uncomfortable.
I. And yet Jesus is writing into Jerusalem to claim a kingdom. That's what the whole Palm Sunday proclamation about Jesus declaring who he is about, and that's certainly true, but Jesus is also saying, look, I'm a different kind of king. I'm not like the kings of the world. And there are elements that could be lined up here with conquering generals, the commandeering of an animal for the purpose of presentation, writing to the city surrounded by loyal followers, singing praise.
These were things that Roman military generals dead, but it's also telling us that Jesus is saying he's different. He's not wearing a crown the way other kings do. In fact, the crown comes later. He's not invoking King David or other [00:06:00] kings. Instead, he's echoing the chorus from the infancy story at the beginning of Luke's account about peace on earth.
The nobleman in the story that came before here, the parable that came before here kills those who oppose his rule. While Christ gives his life to save those who oppose him. In Luke's mind, at least the nobleman of the parable is not Jesus. Maybe he's the ruler of the world. Maybe he's the Roman emperor, maybe he's Satan.
It doesn't matter, but it's any who. Jesus' life is set up to be an opposition to the opposite of, it doesn't matter whether this is Jesus's planning or Luke's telling, but we're meant to know from this account that Jesus was claiming a kingdom, but it was not a kingdom of this world, and it wasn't being done in the way that the world does things.
It was something new, something different. It's answering prayers that maybe we [00:07:00] didn't even know we had. So what do we know about the motivations of the people who line the parade route on that first Palm Sunday? On the one hand, we very know nothing. People like spectacle. People like to be drawn to crowds.
I, I don't care if this is a large crowd or a small crowd or just a few people, there's a lot of spectacle that was going on. This is Passover time in Jerusalem, probably some of the ones that are shouting had no idea who the man on the cult really was, and they didn't even know enough to seek him out.
In fact, if we think what happens in a few days time at the ta time of the passion, the crowd's fickleness will be revealed. Yet maybe some of those that were standing around were. Actually earnestly searching. Maybe some of them observed and sang and even waved palms, hoping that maybe here, this is a reason to hold onto our faith.
This is [00:08:00] something new. This is something different. This is a sign of grace and a sign of power. We really don't know because all too often it's easy for us to just be distracted by the spectacle of the moment, by the worldly appearance of something, by how it shows up in our life, and we lose track of that central message of Christ to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Thanks for listening.
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