Richard Davenport
April 13, 2025 – Palm Sunday
Luke 19:28-40
Our interaction with authority doesn’t always land where it should. These days, across our society, there seems to be a lot less respect for authority than might have been the norm in decades past. If true, it may be disappointing, but it shouldn’t be surprising. Respecting authority isn’t something we do by default. We have to learn it. None of us starts out knowing what that means. We have to learn how, and then we have to want to actually follow through.
That doesn’t change when it comes to God. We wave a dismissive finger at the prosperity gospel preachers who talk all about how God wants you to be happy and will pour out many earthly blessings to prove his love. Obviously, God does shower his people with earthly blessings, but this isn’t the primary way he demonstrates his love. We know that, yet we still do many of the same things. Our prayers to God are often offered with the expectation that he will not only hear us, but will do what we say. He’ll give me the job I want. He’ll get me into the college that’s at the top of my list. He’ll cure my dad’s cancer. He'll send me the guy or gal who will be the love of my life and he’ll do it in the next couple of weeks.
We pray, and when these things fail to materialize, we assume that God was either not paying attention or didn’t care. Either way, the fault is his for not following through. If earthly blessings are God’s primary way of showing love and he didn’t bless me with earthly blessings, then it follows that he probably doesn’t love me after all. If he doesn’t love me, then there isn’t much for me to gain in this relationship. I’m better off finding my own solutions to problems.
God, of course, is not Santa Claus. He may give you good things, but that’s not really his priority. For many, the distinction between God, our loving Heavenly Father, and God, the righteous king, don’t become apparent until it is too late.
In the mid 3rd century BC, a man named Ying Zheng rose to power as king. His kingdom was small, but the land he ruled was surrounded by mountains, making it very defensible. He had an advisor who showed him how to make reforms in agriculture and military practice and training. He built up his military extensively, and the changes in agriculture allowed him to feed a large army. The mountains around his kingdom meant he could focus his efforts on offense and conquest, and so he did.
His soldiers were better trained and better equipped than those around him, they also didn’t worry about fighting fair, like everyone else did. That meant he could tear through the surrounding kingdoms with impunity. He was unstoppable, conquering kingdom after kingdom and uniting them, finally, into the Qin Empire, the first time all of China would be united.
In the years that followed, his advisors made a point that the new emperor took to heart. His royal majesty should not be sullied and profaned by interaction with common folk. He started building palaces away from the population, making them off limits to all but those approved to be in his presence. He built enclosed walkways around the major towns, so that when he did have to go to the city, he would have his own private walkway, separate from the rest. Since the walk ways were completely enclosed, no one else would even know he was there. The people he ruled would never see him, never approach him, and never be able to speak to him.
In his mind, that was all as it should be. The people didn’t deserve to be in his presence anyway. In the end, it proved to be the empire’s downfall. His advisors kept him from knowing what was actually going on in his empire and his empire fell to rebellion shortly after his death.
God doesn’t have the same problem. He is always aware of what’s going on in the world. He is never out of control. His might and his wisdom are supreme at all times and in all places. He is so powerful, so majestic, so regal and righteous and holy that there is nothing in this world that is even in the same category. Nothing can claim to be anything like him.
That is who God is. He is the almighty king who sits on his glorious throne and looks with contempt at the achievements of men who think their work can be compared to his. This is the God who can create and destroy with a word. This is the God who, should you somehow find yourself before him, will lay your soul bare and see into every dark and wretched corner of your existence.
There are times in the Bible when that very thing happens. Someone unwittingly ends up face to face with God or one of his representatives. There is no hiding. There are no excuses. There is only the realization that you are utterly unworthy to be in the presence of God and you know the penalty for doing so.
There are the parts of our life when we don’t take God all that seriously. His distance from us also takes him out of mind. We don’t worry about him because you don’t really think of him as being around or paying attention. There are serious dangers there and serious consequences. Those persist in that will all eventually end up in the presence of the king and they’ll see what their disrespect has earned them.
But then there are those other times, times when you know exactly what you’ve done. You know how wretched you are. You’ve seen the pain on the faces of those on the receiving end of your wretchedness. You see the hurt in your eyes as you let a little of the selfishness that lurks inside you out. You see the disappointment as they see how you really only care about yourself. You thought nothing of the hurt you might cause someone else. You were only thinking of yourself.
Right in the moment, you might not have thought about it. Maybe you were too angry or too blinded by your own selfishness to have really thought about it. Eventually the realization hits you. You try to blame others for it, to give yourself excuses. You try and explain it away, to make yourself think it really wasn’t that bad after all.
That sort of thing sometimes works on other people, those who don’t really know better or who you manage to fool with your excuses, but the all-knowing king of all creation is not so gullible. He saw what you did. He knows your motivations. He saw how you chose to be rude to someone who unintentionally got in your way. He saw how you belittled someone who you thought wasn’t as put together as you. He saw how you looked right at someone who could have used just a little bit of help and you chose to ignore him as if he wasn’t even there. He knows you think you’re better than the rest of humanity.
Who are you to go up into the presence of the king you’ve shown contempt for? You know exactly what awaits you if you show your face before him. You’ve disregarded his laws and commands and hurt his people. The almighty king who sits on his glorious throne and rules over all of creation, who can create and destroy with a word, will surely not taking pity on such a callous, wretched person like you. He has wiped out whole swaths of civilization when they turned their noses up at him. Surely he will cast you out with barely a thought
As a pastor, I’ve seen the people whose past haunts them. Many people try and pass the blame or rationalize the past away, but when someone is faced with what they’ve done and can no longer hide from the dark reality of their deeds. They drift away from church, sometimes they drift away from friends and even family. They realize that they’re terrible and really shouldn’t be around anyone. They don’t deserve happiness or friendship. The world likes to help people smooth things over, cover them up, and build up the façade of normalcy, but none of it really solves the problem. Deep down, we’re all terrible people. Some of us just do a better job of hiding it, but sooner or later it comes out no matter how hard you try. You have no business being here, and you know it.
God’s righteous Law reveals our sins. It lays bare everything we do to try and hide or cover it. When you’re confronted with who you really are, you hide in shame. You hide because you don’t want anyone else to see you for who you really are. You hide because you know what will happen when the king finds you. That’s how it was with the very first sin. Adam and Eve knew what they had done as soon as they did it and their reaction is to hide from the king. Everything he had said would now be true for them, and they instinctively understood that.
Palm Sunday reminds us of God’s nature. He is the righteous king and we don’t deserve to be near him or receive anything good from him. In our dark hours, in the depths of our sin, we run and hide from shame. We run from the king. But this righteous king actually loves his people. He loves them even when they’re spitting in his face, when they’re hitting him, cutting his flesh. He loves them even when they pound nails into his hands and feet, putting him on a rough piece of wood and leaving him to die.
Palm Sunday celebrates the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem. This is the one who holds all authority in heaven and on earth, the one whose name is above every name, the before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. The king of all creation comes to the very city, the very people, who only a few days later, will put him to death, knowing and accepting that his blood will be on their own heads.
None of this changes his purpose or blunts his resolve. He is going to his people. The righteous king is going to dine with, live with, be with sinners, the wretched, the selfish, the rotten and worthless people who know they deserve nothing but death. Many who know their sins, who are crushed down by them and cannot escape will never come to him because they know they are not worthy of being in his presence. So he comes to them instead. He comes to them, not to deliver justice or send his wrath on them, but to deliver them, to save them, to set them free from the darkness that surrounds them.
Palm Sunday celebrates a past event. Christ has already died and risen again. The sins of the world have already been paid for. But Christ’s work continues. Not that he continues paying for sins, but that he continues seeking out those who are lost in their sins. The righteous king who reigns forever and ever comes here now, is present with us now.
Whatever darkness you find yourself in, whatever it is that you’ve done that you know you can never account for, when you know the only thing you can do is beg for mercy, the king will find you, not in wrath, but in love. When you feel lost in the darkness of sin, the answer is not to keep hiding, but to respond to his call as he comes looking for you. Follow him here, for he invites you into his temple. He takes his place on his throne and passes judgment, but you do not receive the punishment you should. Instead he commutes your sentence. The price has already been paid.
As you encounter others in your life who drown in the knowledge of their own unworthiness, share with them what happens here. Tell them the story of Palm Sunday and the king who came looking for his people. He is looking for them too. He calls for them to come out from where they hide, not to flaunt their sins, but to see them wiped away. The chant of the people in Jerusalem is “Hosanna!” not a word of praise, but a plea for salvation. The king heard his peoples’ cry and he brought that salvation to them.