When God Draws Near

When God Draws Near

Luke 19:36-44

A little boy was sick on Palm Sunday and stayed home from church with his mother. His father returned from church holding a palm branch.

The little boy was curious and asked, "Why do you have that palm branch, dad?”

"You see, when Jesus came into town, everyone waved Palm Branches to honor him, so we got Palm Branches today.”

The little boy replied, " Aw Shucks! The one Sunday I miss is the Sunday that Jesus shows up!”

We laugh, but think seriously about that.  What if Jesus shows up?  What do you anticipate?  What would you expect?  We have made room for Jesus in our worship here today.  We’ve prayed for Him to be present in our worship.  Would you recognize a visit from Jesus?  What are you expecting?

In Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge lies down on Christmas Eve hoping to enjoy a good night's rest. In the course of that night he has four separate visitors, all of them uninvited, all of them unexpected, and all of them unappreciated—at least in the beginning. 

The ghost of Jacob Marley, Scrooge's deceased business partner; the Ghost of Christmas Past; the Ghost of Christmas Present; and the Ghost of Christmas Future all show up, unannounced and uninvited, and break into Scrooge's life. These four disturbing visits leave a profound impact on his life. When Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning, he is a different person because of the visits he experiences on Christmas Eve. 

There are two possible outcomes with any visitation in our lives: blessing or cursing. When family or friends visit us during the holidays, we experience the blessing of being around loved ones. We experience the blessing of visitation when the plumber comes to fix a broken pipe, or when the doctor comes to bring healing in times of illness. On the other hand, we experience cursing when a thief visits our home and takes all our valuables. The outcome of the visit is dependent upon the visitor and his purpose in visiting. 

Today, we are going to learn of the various outcomes when God draws near. In this text from Luke 19:36-44 we see :

Joy

Outrage , and 

Sorrow

1. Body
1. Joy from those who are expecting  (vv.  36-38)
1. When Jesus came by, there was a parade.  Everyone Loves a parade.
2. It was October 29, 1927 when Charles Lindbergh was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City in honor of his solo flight of the Atlantic Ocean. 750,000 lbs. of ticker tape poured onto the streets.
3. But the biggest ticker-tape parade was on March 1, 1962, for astronaut John Glenn after he became the first American to orbit the earth in a spacecraft. The sanitation department cleaned up 3,474 tons of ticker tape, confetti and other paper along a 7-mile route of jubilation.
4. Everybody loves a parade. And it was no different when Jesus came to town. Josephus, a Jewish historian, estimated the crowd to be as high as 3 million! That’s a big crowd!
5. The crowd that had gathered had at least 3 elements in it. One element was the crowd that had heard about Jesus and heard how He had healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and caused the lame to walk. So they were all excited and began to chant Psalm 118:26 as Jesus approached. Matthew adds that they also quoted v.25 of Psalm 118.  Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna means, “Save us, we pray.
6. They had eyes, but they could not see the truth.
1. They had ears, but would not listen to the truth.
2. The people who were so busy waving palm branches really didn’t understand what the Jesus was about to do.
3. Waving palm branches was what their great-grandparents had done after the Maccabees defeated the Syrian oppressors and reestablished worship in the temple.
4. By waving palm branches the people were showing they expected Jesus to be a warrior Messiah who would lead them to victory from the Romans.
5. Instead of praising Jesus for who He really was, they praised Jesus for what they thought He would do.
7. Jesus fully understood what was happening as He listened to their “Hosannas.” Soon those happy voices would turn into the voices which would cry out, “Crucify Him!” or simply stand aside and say nothing at all.
8. Lest we become smug in our understanding, The Disciples also missed the real significance of that day.
1. Later they would understand what was taking place.
2. For them in that moment, the journey to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover would have been one that they had done many times over the years.
3. For us, perhaps we think we are familiar with the events of Palm Sunday, the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in the Garden, the sham trial, the cruel crucifixion of Christ. Christ’s death and resurrection.
4. The events of that week can become so familiar that we just go through the motions of celebrating Easter without allowing the truth of these events to touch us.
5. Do we really get it? Do we really understand?
2. Outrage from those who feel threatened   (vv. 39-40)
1. The Sadducees and Pharisees were there. They were supposed to be keepers of the law, the spiritual leaders. But Jesus’ popularity led them to feel threatened. So, with hatred and jealousy they looked at Jesus. They were waiting for Jesus to make one mistake and that would be it for Him. They were  already moving together towards a plot to kill Jesus.  And then,  they discovered Judas’ weakness.
2. The religious leaders had everything to lose: their reputation, their power and influence. Jesus had been exposing their corruption and shaming them in public debates. They sought to discredit Him, only to themselves be discredited and humiliated. And now He is arriving in triumph! So they tell Him to rebuke the crowd. Jesus bluntly tells them that if the people keep quiet, the stones will cry out. If they had, that would’ve been the very first “rock music!”
3. So what is this business of rocks crying out?  This could mean one of two things.
1. The personification of creation recalls Isaiah 55:12, where the mountains and hills “burst into song” and the trees of the field “clap their hands,” rejoicing at God’s deliverance. Jesus says that if these worshippers were to stop praising Him, God’s creation, itself would cry out.
2. There may also be an allusion here to Habakkuk 2:11, where that prophet announces that “the stones of the wall will cry out” in judgment against Babylon. Jesus will soon pronounce judgment against Jerusalem, predicting her destruction (Luke 19:43–44). v. 44, “not one stone will be left upon another…”
3. In the next chapter, after Jesus’ authority is questioned at the temple, Jesus tells a story about these leaders in the parable of the wicked vinedressers.
4. Luke 20:13-16 —  “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’ But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.”  And when they heard it they said, “Certainly not!”
5.  Then He looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written:  ‘The stone which the builders rejected. Has become the chief cornerstone’?  Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
6. The Bible teaches a powerful concept called "visitation." The Hebrew word for visitation, paqad, indicates a time when the Eternal God breaks into human history in order to bless or to punish individuals or nations. This visitation always changes the destiny of the person or nation, whether they are ready for it or not. In fact, very few people are ready for a visitation from God. 
7. The Bible makes it clear that whenever God visits a people it results in either blessing or judgment; sometimes both at the same time - depending upon how the people receive Him.
3. Sorrow from those who know  (vv. 41-44)
1. This is why Jesus,  as He approaches the city, laments over it.
2. The irony of all this is that the name of the city has “peace” as part of its meaning (Hebrews 7:2), but - as Jesus says — the people of the city did not know what would bring them peace. The “city of peace” was blind to the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). If the people had known on this day what was truly happening and had recognized it for what it was, they could have found peace. But the Jewish leaders had rejected their Messiah (19:39, 47); they had refused God’s offer of salvation in Jesus Christ when they were visited by God himself. Now the truth would be hidden, and soon their nation would suffer.
3. The judgment of which Jesus spoke would fall four decades later in A.D. 70 when the Roman military crushed the Jewish revolt and destroyed Jerusalem. Revealing His omniscience, the Lord gave five specific features of that judgment: Israel’s enemies (the Romans) would set/throw up a barricade around/against Jerusalem, they would surround the city, they would hem it in on every side. Finally in verse 44, they would tear you down/level it to the ground, along with its inhabitants, and they would not leave one stone upon another. This would include the temple (Luke 21:6) and with it their religious system.
4. He weeps because we gather in our churches on this day to wave palm branches and shout “Hosanna!” but in many ways we’ve turned our backs on God. Like Jerusalem, we have our religion, we have our churches, but we’re missing God’s presence in our midst!  Jesus looks out over our cities and sees the abuse, the addictions, the sin that runs rampant through society. He sees lives that are torn apart, kids without families, hearts that are empty, suicide, rape, murder, bitterness, incest, divorce, hatred, and hopelessness.
5. Jesus sees it and He weeps. Is Jesus weeping over this region? Does He cry out “O Quad Cities! O Quad Cities!  If you, even you, had known, trusted, and believed in me. Then on this day you would have peace. But since you have chosen to reject me, that peace you have longed for is now hidden from your heart.
2. Conclusion
1. Earlier we sang the hymn with the words of the angels at Jesus’ birth,
   from Luke 2 — Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
2. There were others at His birth who realized what God was doing. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, realized that God was up to something when, in Luke 1:68-69, he prophesied, “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,  For He has visited and redeemed His people,  And has raised up a horn of salvation for us. In the house of His servant David.”
3. Not everyone had that same insight about Jesus.   John 1:10-11— He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
4. God is still in the business of visiting people. This is not just stuff that happened back then in the Bible; this doesn't only happen to other people. God still visits people, blesses them, and changes their eternal destiny. Some of the “future-looking” portions of the Bible point to a time when Jesus visits to execute judgment and justice.  How will you respond, as Jesus visits you?  In faith, like Zacharias?  Or like some of the others in our text from today?  With misplaced hope or even outrage?
5. God also visits nations; both for means of revival and judgment.  What would Jesus say should he visit the Quad Cities?  The United States?  Would he discover that the Stone that the builders rejected has become for us a Cornerstone or a stumbling block?