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Jan 05, 2025

If You Had Only Known

Passage: Mark 11:1-10

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Mark

Keywords: compassion, messiah, rejection, right time, spiritual vision

Summary:

So much of life can be summed up, "If I'd only known...." In this story from Mark 11 of Jesus' triumphal entry to Jerusalem, it's really a story of his tearful heart for this city. What is it that makes God sad about how cities respond or don't respond to Him? What is Jesus saying to us about what we need to know about our city in order to bring the peace and blessing He has for it to fruition?

Detail:

If You Had Only Known

January 5, 2025—Mark 11:1-10

Fellowship Question:  Share a word of wisdom you wish you had known when you were younger.

COMMUNION—Psalm 118--Is 1 of 6 most frequently quoted Psalms in the N.T.  Psalms 113-118 were called the Hallel Psalms and were used especially during Passover.  Vs. 25—“Lord, save us!” is where the crowd got the chant Hosanna as Jesus was coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. 

INTRO:  Ever been in a parade where people are cheering you on?  I’ve only known the experience once.  I wasn’t even there on my own merits.  I got in on the shirt-tails…or better yet, “dress-tails” of our daughter, Joanna.  In 2003 Joanna was Lilac Queen and I as her father was invited to escort the float on foot…one of the peasants, you know.

[Spokesman Photo!]  In case you don’t recognize her, she’s the quiet, reserved, retiring one in this picture.

      What I felt was similar to what every parent feels when you see your child on the basketball court…or drill team…or debate team.  Those are some of the greatest moments of a parent’s life – to see those they love receiving the attention, cheers and accolades we wish the world would give to them every day.  We know how wonderful they are.  We know how hard they have worked.  And it’s wonderful to see others cheering that on.

It’s quite an experience to snake your way through the streets of downtown with thousands of people lining the curbside, little children eagerly pointing and waiving, friends shouting greetings…boys whistling…all knowing that this whole experience is happening because someone you love, someone who means the world to you, is part of it. 

That may be the closest I’ll ever come to feeling what our heavenly Father felt that day his Son Jesus entered Jerusalem to the cheers, shouts and praises of the crowd of people waving palm branches and laying their robes on the road as a sort of carpet of honor.  I wonder if there was a sense in the Father’s heart of, “Finally, a few people are beginning to get it.  A few people are coming to understand what I’ve know all along.  This is my Son!  He is my most amazing gift to the world.  He IS the King of Kings and Lord of Lord!”

But for God the Father, that feeling must have been counter-balanced by the divine knowledge of what would happen within a few days time.  It would be quite a different parade knowing that those now cheering along the roadside would be those spitting, shouting and cursing on a hillside where God in human flesh would be hung on a cross. 

God the Son, Jesus, knows what it is to value the one you love more than your own life.  God the Father also knows the pain, like none of us ever will, of having the power to stop torture at its worst but refusing to intervene because of love at its best. 

We’re back in the Gospel of Mark today.  In today’s passage, Jesus is in a parade.  He is, in fact, THE parade.  He is entering Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people.  A city that normally had some 30,000 residents was swollen like an overflowing river.  There were probably some 200,000 people there to celebrate the annual national festival of the Passover.  They were there to deal with their sins…and so was Jesus.

Like some Presidential Inauguration, Jesus had his “advanced team” working with him.  As he drew near to Bethany, where he had recently raised his good friend, Lazarus, from the dead, he gave 2 of his disciple some instructions about what he would need for his grand entrance into Jerusalem.  You see, it was the custom for a conquering king to enter a city to declare his authority over the city riding on some impressive beast of burden. 

  • Julius Caesar had done it when he returned to Rome in 45 B.C. in a golden chariot harnessed to 40 elephants!
  • Four generations before Jesus, a fellow by the name of Judas Maccabees, had rallied an army of Jewish men to fight against the Syrians who were occupying Jerusalem at the time. Judas Maccabees, called “the Hammer”, entered Jerusalem in 163 B.C. riding on a massive stallion, as the people shouted and waved palm branches, cheering, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  They cleaned out the Temple, burned incense, offered sacrifices, and lit a huge menorah that burned for 8 days.  Judas was their hero and many thought he was the Messiah.  Jews still celebrate to this day that historic event known as the Festival of Lights…or Hanukkah (which just ended Thursday of this week).  Judas was later killed in battle, buried, and that was the end of “the Hammer” messiah.

But entering on a donkey?  Was Jesus just so poor that he couldn’t afford an “upgrade” to the next level of vehicle at the local “Budget Rent-A-Beast”?  But we’re getting ahead of the story.  So let’s read Mark’s account in Mark 11:1-10.

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples…

Jesus had just been coming from Jericho where he had performed a double-healing of blind men, Bartimaeus being one of them (Mark 10:46ff).  He’s headed up to the biggest feast of the year in Jerusalem, the Passover.  He’s passing very close to Bethany where, just weeks earlier, he had raised Lazarus from the dead.  You can feel the excitement building.  None of this had ever been experienced before in Israel—blind people getting their sight, dead people coming back to life, all within days of each other.  And it was all at the hands of a prophet, a teacher, like they had never seen before, Jesus.  No wonder a crowd was forming, following behind Jesus that day. 

            So Jesus tells a couple of his disciples,

 2…“Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”

      Speaking of miracles, this passage is full of them!  The one I find most entertaining has to do with the colt.  The only thing more stubborn than a donkey might be a donkey that hasn’t been broken.  If you don’t believe me, you try staying on an unbroken donkey for 10 seconds!  You’ll have a new appreciation for this miracle.

[That reminds me of a dude ranch that advertised,

“For big people we have big horses;

for little people we have little horses;

for fast people we have fast horses;

and for slow people we have slow horses.

And for people who have never ridden horses, we have horses that have never been ridden!”]

Jesus was on a horse that had never been ridden! He was demonstrating that he was Lord over the most stubborn of creatures…other than humans. A donkey recognized and responded with more submission to the King of Peace than did both Jewish and Gentile leaders in Jerusalem.  It’s not a great commentary of your spiritual sensitivity when a donkey recognizes and responds more than you do!

      But Jesus also wanted his disciples in particular to see that He knew things no mere human could possibly know about future events, such as…

  • where these 2 donkeys were going to be at a particular point in time.
  • that one would be a colt that had never been ridden.
  • that their owners would question why they were being taken.
  • that a simple, humble response of “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly” was all that would be needed to get approval to borrow it.

Keep reading.

4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it.

APP:  Got something “wild” in your life?  Something that needs taming?  Something you’re not able to “sit on and stay on”?  IF you’re willing to let God “sit on you” for a bit, you’ll find that he is able to do that which is truly miraculous.  Others around may not grasp the significance of it, but you will.  Others may not think it’s a big deal, but you’ll know.  Jesus is in the business of taking the “bound up” stuff in our lives and setting us free…while at the same time taking the “wild” energies of our life and bringing them under the control of His Spirit in ways that do his Kingdom work.

The passage continues:  8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

            So, you have the crowd that is coming TO Jerusalem with Jesus (from Jericho and Bethany—“…those who followed”) and you have those in Jerusalem that are joining in this parade (“Those who went ahead…”).  Many of them are making public the fact that they believe Jesus to be the promised king, the prophesied Messiah. 

Actually, Matthew’s account of this event in Matthew 21 specifically mentions the prophecy when he tells us that the prophet Zechariah had predicted this very event some 500 years earlier in Zechariah 9:9.  “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”        

Whenever a king entered a city on a donkey it was a sign he was coming in peace.  Was there ever a clearer fulfillment of a prophecy than this one?  “King…in Jerusalem… righteous… having salvation…gentle…riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey!”

APP:  Jesus wanted to give people peace.  But in order for that to happen, people need to surrender their sinful lives to the righteous King. We can’t have peace with God or even peace within our souls and between each other unless God is on the throne of our lives instead of self.  That’s why both the Jewish and Gentile rejection of Jesus Lordship on that Holy Week was also a rejection of the salvation and peace that God wanted to give them.  He was modeling the humility they should have embraced.  But they demanded that he be a savior made in their image—one who would rule with political power and military might rather than rule over their egos, their pride, over the sin of their lives. 

APP:  We face the same danger daily.  We can’t have the peace of Christ, the Prince of Peace, until we truly surrender to the Lordship of Christ.  Have you done that?  Today?  Ever? 

[By the way, the next time Jesus enters Jerusalem, Ezekiel tells us in Ezekiel 44 even what gate he will enter through.  It will be the Eastern Gate of the Temple.  He also predicted that that gate would be shut and only the messiah Prince would enter it.  Today, all the other gates surrounding Jerusalem are open, but not the Eastern Gate. 

      Get this!  Christians didn’t shut that gate.  Jews didn’t shut that gate.  Guess who did?  Muslims.  They did it first in 810 A.D.  The Crusaders opened it again in 1102 A.D.  But then when Jerusalem was recaptured by the Muslims in 1187, they closed it again.  The Ottoman Turks rebuilt it and the city walls in 1571 but closed off the Eastern Gate because it was so close to their 3rd holiest site, the Dome of the Rock.  They knew the prophecies that the Jewish Messiah would enter that gate, so they sealed it and turned the area just outside it into a Muslim graveyard.  They did that because they knew, so they thought, that an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi would never walk on the graves of Gentiles and thus defile themselves.

      However, their errant theology about the resurrection of Jesus has blinded them to something: the Messiah already has TRAMPLED death!!!  Death can’t defile him.  He laid waste to death the last time he was in Jerusalem…and he will do it the next time he comes as well.] 

There is an interesting little interplay going on here between the crowd, the critics and the Christ. 

  • The Crowd: they are quoting a phrase from 118:26.  But they are fulfilling the next verse (27) in the Psalm – “The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us.  With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar.”  That’s just what they were doing!
  • The Critics: they are demanding that the followers of Jesus “tone it down”.  In fact, they wanted Jesus to outright “rebuke” them…call it off…end it right there. 
  • The Christ: he harks back to that very same Psalm 118 when he starts telling them that the very stones would cry out if the people didn’t.  Which stones?  Either the wall of the city or the foundations of the temple. 

Jesus is reminding them of what Psalm 118 says in the paragraph just preceding the phrase the crowd is shouting:

“The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone;

the Lord has done this,

and it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day the Lord has made;

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:22-24

So, here Jesus is, fulfilling prophecy right before their eyes.  The crowds are celebrating because they think this could actually be the Messiah they’ve been waiting for.  But their leaders have already decided Jesus couldn’t be…and wouldn’t be… their King. They’ve already rejected this rock.  They had already issued warrants for his arrest.  They were just waiting for the opportune moment when they could turn the fickle crowd against him and nail this “Deceiver” to a cross. 

      We’ve got the names all mixed up when we call this event in Matthew 21, Luke 19 & Mark 11 “The Triumphal Entry.”  This one was really “The Tearful Entry,” at least for Jesus. Take a look at Luke’s account of this event.  Luke 19 tells us how Jesus was viewing this supposed celebration, this pre-coronation.  Knowing what would happen to him in this city in the next few days—false accusations, betrayal by one of his closest friends, a sham trial, physical torture and an agonizing death by crucifixion—Jesus was experiencing this event from a very different perspective.  But it wasn’t driven by the horrible suffering HE was going to experience; it was driven by his compassion for what would happen to the very people and city that was about to inflict so much pain on HIM!  How utterly different Jesus is from any other human I know of. 

      Mark doesn’t tell us this but Luke does, so let’s go to that passage in Luke 19.

41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

That prophecy came true some 40 years later when Jerusalem was besieged by the soon-to-be Roman Emperor Titus, destroyed, ransacked, pillaged and set on fire.   

Vs. 43-44 – Jesus wept because of the judgment that would come upon Israel because of unbelief, not because of the pain that would come to Him because of their rejection. 

      This prophecy was fulfilled some 40 years later when the Romans under Titus, having had enough of Jewish rebellions, laid siege to the city, burned it and killed 10,000 inhabitants – men, women and children.  Even when judgment is deserved, we have the only God who weeps over his people.  We have the only God of deep, tear-provoking compassion.

What was he weeping about in Jerusalem?

  • “…on this day…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Their lack of understanding about the time in history and their place in it.  (Fulfillment of Daniel 9:26 prophecy to the day. [Add 62 weeks to the 7 of vs. 25 = 69 weeks = 483 years from the decree of Artaxerxes in Nehemiah 2 (using a 360 day year), the end of those ‘weeks’ coincides with the date of the crucifixion of Jesus, “When Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself….”]
  • “…what would bring you peace….” Their lack of understanding about true peace:  it would not come through political or national rediscovery.  It would only come through personal and national acceptance of their Messiah, Jesus.  APP: we must understand that only a turning to Christ in America will a.) suspend/delay God’s judgment, and b.) bring the kind of peace and soul-prosperity our hearts long for.  >>We must do all we can to call people to the Lordship of Jesus.
  • Spiritual blindness: “…but now it is hidden from your eyes.” So many things can sorrow our souls.  Dare we invite God to give us tears for our lost neighbors.  (ILL—suicide of neighbor’s son one night years ago.)

ILL:  this New Year’s Eve, I was helping lead 3 hours of the 24-hours of prayer.  Invited Shaun Cross, a attorney I had gotten to know years ago during the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal here in Spokane. Just a couple of years ago, he took over the leadership of Maddie’s House, one of only 5 such ministries in the country that works with drug addicted babies and their parents, 1 in 3 of the births in our county.  Since opening in 2022, they have cared for 102 substance-exposed newborns and their parents/caregivers. 

      Shaun challenged us to pray a “dangerous prayer”:  “God, create a passion in me for something that is worth the struggle.”

      God has done that with Shaun through this helpless babies.  He is passionate about this crisis in our city.  His own daughter died of an overdose a couple of years ago.  The average baby they care for has been exposed to 4 different substances before they begin care.  Without their intervention, the statistics are horrific:

  • 95% of the children will have psychological disorders.
  • 80% of the females will grow up to have children out of wedlock.
  • 78% will be homeless.
  • They will have 21 times the rate of hospitalization from the general population.

What do you suppose God feels when he looks at Spokane?

  • As we sit here today, roughly 340,000 fellow residents of this county don’t have enough interest in God to even go to church this morning.
  • As many as 1 in 5 homes in this community have a serious drug problem.
  • Tens of thousands of homes, of children and seniors are living in poverty.

ILL:  William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army.  He sent a group of Salvation Army soldiers to a rather evil city in this country to establish a mission work.  But they failed miserably in their effort to reach people for Christ. 

      They telegraphed General Booth reporting they had tried everything, but nothing worked.  They tried everything they could think of to touch the people there.  They were feeding them, clothing them, housing them, but there was no response.  They asked for his orders, and General Booth telegraphed two words in response:  “TRY TEARS”. 

            The closer we get to God’s heart as a church, the more our eyes are going to leak!  Too many people apologize to me for crying in church.  The fact is, those of us who are not crying over what God is doing with us or over the broken lives and lost souls of children, teenagers and adults in this city are the ones who should be apologizing…and I must be first in that line.

Q:  Do we have enough of God’s compassion for our city to ask God this year, “Dear God, please create a passion in me for something that is worth the struggle

Do we have enough compassion to ask God to break our hearts for the souls of lost people in this city?  That’s is a dangerous prayer…but the alternative is even more frightening.  The alternative is to be the fulfillment of Jesus’ last words to this crowd:  “…you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” 

      Is Jesus saying to the church of Spokane as he looks over our city, ““If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace…”?  We KNOW what will bring our city peace, don’t we?  Only the life of Jesus can do that to troubled marriages and anxious youth and suicidal adults and drug-addicted neighbors.  Only Christ-followers who care enough to risk rejection and speak about Jesus and spend hours making a difference in somebody else’s life will bring peace to our city.   

CLOSE:

  1. Are you willing to ask God to give you Jesus’ heart…and eyes…towards people who today, in this city, are not recognizing or accepting His coming to them? Are we willing, even eager, to “try tears” for the sake of lost people all around us?  Not superficial, manufactured tears.  But tears that flow from a heart that breaks for what could be if those around us would accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord?

Are we willing to take up our cross with Jesus in order to rescue our city from certain destruction?  Are we willing to have God “rend our hearts” rather than our clothes over what tears His heart for people in this city?   

      Do you want that kind of heart?  I’m going to ask you to do something symbolic today if that is your desire.  (Heads bowed.)  I’m going to ask you to place your hands together as if you were cradling your heart…and I want you to symbolically lift them up to God.  By so doing, you are asking God to make your heart like his when you see this city, your workplace, your school or neighborhood. 

 

  1. I want to talk for a moment with those of you who cannot say yet, “I know the peace of Christ that passes all understanding.” Maybe your life is in turmoil because you have not welcomed the humble Savior Jesus into your own life, just as so many refused to welcome him as their King and Lord in Jerusalem. 

      TODAY is the day of Jesus’ coming to you…not tomorrow, or next year, or, God forbid, at the end of your life when you have nothing to give him but wasted years. Don’t fail to “recognize the time of God’s coming to you” as so many in Jerusalem did.  “Today is the day of salvation…yours!”  If you hear his voice, don’t harder your heart…OPEN IT!

      Here’s how you do that:  ABC

  • AGREE with God about your sin and need of Jesus.
  • BELIEVE that Jesus lived a sinless life and died to pay for your sin that deserved eternal separation from God.
  • CONFESS your faith in Jesus as Lord. Tell someone else about your belief in Jesus.  Be baptized publicly.  Tell someone, “Starting today, Jesus is my Lord and Savior.” 

If you would like to do that today for the first time, I would like you to raise your hand.  Then I am going to pray a prayer that hopefully expresses your desire to know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

PRAY