How a True King Acts | Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr

Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King

11 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ² saying to them, “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.’”

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. 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!”

¹¹ Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

 

I like to pay attention to new leadership when they start to operate. When there is a new president, governor, mayor, city council, a new pastor, a new fraternity, or sorority president, I watch how they operate to see if I can learn any new leadership lessons from them.  What plans and programs will they put in place? What kind of team will they put together? What problem will they work to solve first?

 

We all look at new leaders to see how they are going to act, what kind of hope and change they will bring about. I imagine that is why people watch inaugurations even if they did not vote for that president, why when a new pastor comes to a church all the business meetings and Bible Studies have strong attendance. I see city council meetings standing room only at the beginning of a new administration, everyone is waiting to see how the new people are going to work.

 

We see a new leader coming into their own her in this scripture passage, the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four gospels, it was written to be read in an assembly of believers. I wonder if that is why it is the shortest Gospel? This Palm Sunday passage is a story found in all four gospels; each gospel emphasizes certain parts of the story more than others. In all the stories Jesus and the Disciples are going into Jerusalem for Passover. Historian Josephus says that many people would come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, so many that the city of Jerusalem could not hold them, and the visiting worshipers would have to stay in neighboring cities, we don't know exactly where Bethpage was, but we know that Bethany was about 2 miles southeast of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives was east of Jerusalem.

 

We are drawing near to the end of the Gospel story but there is still a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus is coming in announcing himself as the Messiah, the savior who takes away the sin from the world.

 

This Palm Sunday story takes place at the height of oppression for the people of God. By the time we get to this passage, the people are looking for a savior, practically begging for one. Hosanna literally means save now, or save I beg. Have you ever been so low that you didn’t care where your help came from as long as you got it?

 

Many have tried before Jesus practically going to war with Romans and they have failed over and over again.  There were plenty of people who claimed to be the Messiah before Jesus, but the people were never saved. Judas Maccabeus and many others came looking to overthrow the Roman government with military might, and the people cheered them on, even shouting hosanna, hosanna to some of these other messianic claimants, people who claimed to be the saviors before Jesus did. However they all failed, the previous people looked to save the people by military might, Jesus sought to save the people’s souls.

 

Jesus put care into his entry, Jesus thought about what he was going to do before he did it. Jesus considered where he was going, who he was going to, and put some care into how he was going to go to the people. Oh, I wish the church would put some effort into how they could reach out to the community instead of always expecting the community to come to them.

 

Jesus started from the Mount of Olives because Zechariah 14 prophesied that the Messiah would come from there. Jesus told the disciples to go to Bethany and get a colt, a donkey because he knew it would be there and when we look at the old testament kings, they rode on donkeys during peacetime. Taking a donkey during this time would have been like taking a car today. Jesus said if anyone asks you what you are doing? Tell them "the Lord needs it" watch the text here, Jesus hasn't been called Lord in this way until now, that was scandalous because the people would have been hearing Lord when talking about Caesar, not some man from Galilee. Romans would take people's stuff and take people all the time just because they could. However, when Jesus takes something, he is going to return it. A true king doesn’t just take and take, they give as well.

Up until now, Jesus had been operating in secret, heal somebody, tell them to keep it a secret, now he is coming into Jerusalem with fanfare. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, people put out their coats before their king, their ruler because that is what they did in 2nd Kings 9. We call this particular Sunday "Palm Sunday" but the coats and the donkey have a biblical significance to what was happening when Jesus was coming into town. The text doesn't mention palms directly it just says branches. Jesus put care into how he was letting the people know your savior has arrived.

 

Jesus is letting the people know a true king has come, a true savior has come, not for military victory but a spiritual victory over all of creation. Jesus is here to set the world right with a new world order. Jesus came during the Passover, a time when the Jewish people celebrated being delivered from slavery in Egypt, celebrated freedom from bondage, freedom from oppression. Jesus was here to save the people from the bondage of sin and death.

 

We can look at how a true king acts, how a real ruler carries themselves. Jesus came to Jerusalem this time to give himself willingly for us. We are a royal priesthood, a chosen generation. Jesus knew what was going to happen when he came into Jerusalem and he came anyway. Jesus knew he would be betrayed but he came anyway. Jesus knew that Peter would deny him, but he came anyway, Jesus knew the people would choose another criminal over him to go free, but he came to Jerusalem anyway. Jesus knew that he would be beaten, bloodied, and bruised but he came anyway. Jesus knew what he had to do, who he had to do it for, and came into town with his head held high to see the Temple and to save the people.

A Magnetic Messiah | Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr.

John 12:20-33

20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. 21 Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.

23 But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”

29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”

30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.

I am interested in people with what I would call magnetic personalities, people who have others naturally gravitate toward them. If there is someone who people naturally want to follow. I wonder what is it about that person that draws people to them? When I was growing up in school I wondered why certain kids were popular and what made them so popular. What drew others to that person? Also, I would wonder what drew people to some of the more famous activists?  What draws people to follow a Martin Luther King, a Mahatma Gandhi, what draws people to a Mother Theresa or a Harriet Tubman?  I recently finished watching Judas and the Black Messiah a movie based on the life of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. Chairman Hampton said that he was high off the people and that he lived for the people. He said he might have to die for the people. Hampton helped form a Rainbow Coalition, Hampton was able to get people from the Young Patriots organization, a group of Southern Whites living in Chicago, Latino leaders, and African Americans to come together to help the people in the community. 

Hampton caught the attention of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who wanted to prevent the rise of a Black Messiah that could bring unity and coalition among black political groups, so they did to Hampton what they have done to so many black leaders during that time. Attracting people sometimes attracts people that don't have your best interest at hand. Hampton was killed by police officers in his apartment at 4 am in 1969. My mother and grandmother tell me that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, I had another friend tell me that sometimes the squeaky wheel gets removed. Hampton was too loud for J. Edgar Hoover’s tolerance and Hoover sought to get rid of him. Magnetic personalities have positive and negative consequences. 

We find someone with a magnetic personality in scripture here in the gospel according to John. Jesus comes to Jerusalem a week before Passover. Jesus has been living for the people, he has been helping the people. Jesus has been healing the sick, raising the dead, this is not too long after Lazarus was revived. People in the community are attracted to Jesus because Jesus is out there in the community helping the people. Some Greeks have come to see Jesus. These Greeks are different than the Greek-speaking Jews that would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, these are people not born into the faith. The powers that be, the Pharisees don't like that, in verse 19 they say that they are worried the world is coming to this man. We hear the Pharisees' fearful prophecy in verse 19, we see it come true in verse 20. The powers that be have their status quo messed up and they don't like that. 

Jesus knows with all the change he is bringing out, along with the fact that he is here to free us from penalty, power, and presence of sin, that he is going to have to die for the people. Jesus says that his hour is coming, his time is almost up, he does not have long for this world. 

When Jesus says that the ruler of this world is going to be driven out, a more literal translation of the Greek phrasing for “the world” means system. Jesus came to tear down the systems in place that are not like God's kingdom. God is on the side of the oppressed and has been since as early as Exodus when he told Moses to tell Pharaoh "let my people go" he was with the oppressed when the kingdom was in captivity, he was with the oppressed in the New Testament under Roman captivity, God is with those who suffer, and will be with them in victory. 

“I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” That’s spiritual magnetism at work! On the one hand, he repels; but he also attracts. Once the power of his love gets hold of you, there’s no resisting. He just brings you along.

At Jesus' birth, he attracted shepherds to a Bethlehem hillside, and later on, attracted wise men from afar. In the temple when he was 12 years old, the wise were attracted to Jesus listening and asking questions. Jesus called to his side fishermen who left their nets and tax collectors who put down their account books. Even the wise Pharisee, Nicodemus, came to him by night, in John chapter 3 to learn how to be “born again.” Jesus attracted to his side women like Mary and Martha, and men like Lazarus. Even the Roman governor, Pilate, felt the pull of his magnetism as he interrogated him.

Jesus can do the same thing for you today. Have you felt the pull of his love in your life, calling you out of ungodly habits? Have you experienced the fascination that comes from hearing his story, the timeless story retold by the church in every age? Have you ever turned to him in grief or worry or fear, and discovered at the center of your being a calm and peaceful place, where none of life’s storms can harm you? If so, you’ve felt his magnetism. Very likely, it’s what has drawn you here today.

Jesus understood that there has to be some sacrifice, the seed of wheat is sacrificed to make more wheat. Jesus was willing and able to make the most impactful sacrifice that would change the world.  Jesus is God in the flesh looking to reconcile humanity back to God. Jesus is going to do this by sacrificing himself so that all of creation can have access to eternal life. 

I remember a scene from Judas and the Black Messiah where Hampton was put in jail, and the Black Panther’s headquarters blown up. Hampton expected to come out of jail to a pile of rubble, but the community banded together to help rebuild the headquarters. People rise and make a change in their community or the world at large, and sometimes those in power do not like change. Sometimes those in power seek to destroy the person, that magnetic personality creating the change. That is why so many of our great leaders get killed, however putting Jesus on the cross was just the beginning, death could not hold him down. Jesus boldly walked into his sacrifice, boldly into being a ransom for all our lives. 

The Foolishness of the Cross | Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 New King James Version

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

There is a picture used online when people are making fun of others in a meme the picture is of a man during different stages of transforming into a clown. The picture is 4 smaller pictures the first of the man without makeup and by the time we get to the last picture, he is a fully outfitted clown. People use this picture to make fun of someone else's views on a matter to indicate that this person, or what they said, makes them look like a clown. The picture is meant to represent the view that whatever that person says or believes, is so silly that they should be working in the circus. 

The other funny part about this meme is that joke is that the person offering this silly opinion does not realize what they are saying is wrong, they believe what they are saying makes sense, which makes them look even more like a clown. Oh, what a bad place to be in to think you know what is right but be completely wrong. We all have been there, we all have opened our mouths and put our foot in it. If you have not said something embarrassing in your life, I am pretty sure you are an infant or toddler and don't know how to speak yet, sooner or later we will all say something incorrect, no one is right all the time.

Even though we all mess up sometimes I submit to you that messing up is not as important as how you respond when you find out you were wrong. We have an example of people getting the wrong idea in scripture. 1st Corinthians was written around 54CE, it is a Pauline letter, there is no doubt that Paul wrote this one. Scholars believe that even though we call this letter 1st Corinthians, there is evidence that this letter was Paul's second letter to the church, the letter we call 2nd Corinthians is probably Paul's 4th. This letter comes about 10 years after the area was established as a Roman colony. In 1st Corinthians Paul had to let the people of the Corinthian church know they had gotten the wrong idea about some issues. Paul spent some time with the people of Corinth, started a church, taught them, then left. 

Corinth was a metropolitan city by a harbor with a diverse population, Corinth had recently freed slaves and some wealthier people making lots of money all living in the town. While from diverse backgrounds the people of Corinth had some similarities. No matter where they were in life, social status, economic status, education, the people of Corinth thought they could do whatever they wanted. The people of Corinth were concerned about their freedom and wanted to act out. The people in the city of Corinth wanted to have their freedom and act however they felt and the people of the Corinthian church wanted to have their freedom and act however they wanted. 

The church had started to become divided when Paul wrote this letter, not just between Jew and Greek, but they had started to divide based on who they followed, and economic and social status. Verse 12 says that the people were going around saying, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. There is pressure outside of the church with Corinth being a Roman colony and the church folk separating themselves. This kind of behavior hurt the church and made the church look strange to the rest of the world when they already were not fitting in. It is popular and easy to be a Christian now it was not back then. Jesus was executed like a common criminal, someone who the Roman government was worried would overthrow them and people started setting up churches to follow this man. 

We need to step back and look at how our faith looks to others. The things we think are important, the things we think are wise, are not as important as we think. The cross is scandalous, our king of kings was executed like a common criminal and we use a symbol of the executioner's tool for representing our faith on logos and jewelry, we use it in symbolism when we say everyone has their cross to bear. 

Human wisdom does not compare to God's wisdom it is so far apart that God's "foolishness" is better than the best of human wisdom. God works in our powerlessness, what we think is wise is foolish. Paul understands that what he has in comparison to God is minor. Paul is responsible for sharing Jesus with so many people around the world, most of the New Testament are books credited to Paul, yet he thinks that he is not eloquent, and a terrible speaker. With the help of the power of God, working through Paul many lives are changed. 

The gospel challenges our human intellect, the gospel challenges us. Christ crucified to the Romans is not important but to Christians, this is a source of power and wisdom. To believers the cross is more than just an emblem or logo for church shirts, this is the symbol of true freedom from the bondage of sin and death. 

Though we know better, Christians sometimes fool ourselves into believing that we can rely upon our abilities, our expertise, our planning, and sophistication. Degrees, insurance policies, master plans, and systematic theologies are good things unless we pile them up to convince ourselves that we have life all figured out and our future neatly planned. In the shadow of the cross, such “wisdom” and thinly veiled attempts at control seem foolish.

The cross also reminds us of our unity as a church. Though we may sometimes hate to admit it, we are all tied together—liberals, moderates, conservatives—united under the cross. Our community of faith is formed around what seems to be utter foolishness—an instrument of torture and death used for the salvation of the universe. The savior has already won, the power of the gospel comes from God not social status.