He Came in Peace

Matthew 21:1 – 11

 

Growing up the where I did and the way I did, I’ve been able to experience numerous parades. Us Portuguese people love our festas, with our Saturday morning parades with the steers/oxen pulling those squeaky wheeled carts down American Ave. Every festa had its set of queens, that where part of the parade, though they weren’t the focus.

 

But perhaps, more easily to relate to are homecoming parades. Also being from Hilmar, homecoming is a BIG deal. Lander Ave gets shut down, American flags, pop up tents, and camping chairs line the road.

 

Each class spends weeks, if not months, planning and building their float. And the grand marshal and the nominated homecoming court gets to ride down Lander usually on the back of Corvettes.

 

It’s a big deal. Practically the whole town shuts down during that time (mainly because most of the business in Hilmar are on Lander and no one could get to them). There’s a tremendous amount of energy and buzz surrounding homecoming, especially during the parade.

 

People excitedly cheering, singing, dancing, jumping around, looking for that particular friend or family member who is in the parade, especially for the football team and the homecoming royalty. The energy is so palpable that you can feel it.

 

As we continue looking at undeniable truths about Jesus, that He is God incarnate, that He came down to the world He created to dwell among His people, that He perfectly reveals the Father to us, and that He came to bear the punishment for our sins on the cross, satisfying God’s wrath and payment for our sin, today we’re gonna look more closely at His spectacle of an entry parade into Jerusalem six days before His death on the cross.

 

This isn’t a homecoming parade, and it’s not some quiet moment on a side street. Jerusalem is overflowing. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have come for Passover—people from all over—filling the streets, filling the city, all carrying the same hope… they want deliverance, they want peace, and right into that moment, Jesus rides in. Let’s read God’s Word together: Matthew 21:1 – 11.

The majority of Jesus’ ministry, the last three years or so of His life on earth doing all the mighty works and then some that’s recorded in the Gospel’s, was spent moving around and working around Galilee. On occasion He came to Jerusalem for a festival, but most of His time was up north in Galilee, where He even got the attention of people, namely the religious elite, in Jerusalem who came to see what He was all about.

 

But this is the last time Jesus comes south to Jerusalem and the surrounding area of the Mount of Olives. Beginning back in chap. 16 of Matthew, in Caesarea Philippi which is North of Galilee, Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do people, and who do you, say I am?

 

Peter gives His famous confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. To which Jesus ordered the disciples to tell no one who He truly is.

 

From that point onward, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must got to Jerusalem and suffer, to which Peter did not respond well. And from there to our passage today, Jesus and His disciples traveled south, back to Galilee, then beyond Galilee all the way to Jericho, which was east of Jerusalem.

 

And so, here comes Jesus, heading to Jerusalem, and the people give Him a welcome fit for a conquering king. But Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem like that, not exactly. He didn’t come with an army of soldiers. He didn’t come in power or with force. Rather, He comes in peace.

 

And that’s exactly what the people wanted. They wanted peace. They wanted relief from their problems, freedom from their enemies, from Roman oppression, they wanted a life that finally felt settled after being spread all over where they didn’t feel like they had to live in uncertainty.

 

And as the crowds watched Jesus ride into the city… they thought that’s exactly what He came to bring, peace. But they were wrong, in a sense. Not completely wrong, but they missed it by that much.

 

They were wrong in the way that matters most. Because Jesus did come to bring peace—just not the kind they were expecting. And if we’re honest with ourselves… we’re not that different. We say we want peace. We pray for peace in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones and in the world around us.

But most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, what we really mean is that we want our circumstances to change. We want life to get easier, safer, and simpler. We want control.

 

But Jesus didn’t come to give anyone that kind of peace, though following Christ can bring that kind of peace. He came to give you something much deeper, something much better, something that would cost Him everything. And if you miss that… you won’t just misunderstand this moment—you’ll misunderstand Him. So let’s look at how the one true King comes.

 

When Jesus and His disciples got close to Jerusalem, near Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, He sent two disciples into the village of Bethphage with a very specific directive.

 

It’s so specific it almost reads like a prank, or a bad joke. “Ok, go over there and you’re gonna find a man in a trenchcoat on the corner of straight street and he’s gonna lead you to the secret lair.” It’s oddly specific.

 

But I want you to realize that Jesus never does anything that isn’t intentional, and what He’s doing here is very intentional. He sends His disciples ahead and tells them exactly where to go, what they’ll find there, and what to say.

 

He tells them that once they get to the village, they’ll find a donkey and her colt tied up there immediately as they get there. He tells them to untie them and bring them to Him, and if anyone says anything about it that they are to respond with, “The Lord needs them.”

 

Now I don’t want you to miss this because this is all part of Jesus’ intentionality here. Matthew often uses “Lord” to speak of God Himself… and yet here is Jesus—not announcing Himself loudly… not demanding recognition… but acting with the kind of quiet authority that belongs to the Lord alone.

 

Whether anyone interprets Jesus’ words there as Him referring to God the Father or Himself makes no real difference because as Jesus Himself has said in Scripture, He and the Father are one. Jesus Christ is Lord. The King is here, the Lord is present, just not in the way anyone expected.

“The Lord has need of them.” That’s authority, quiet… controlled… unmistakable authority. Jesus isn’t being swept up in the events surrounding His approach to the city. He’s directing them. He’s moving towards something. Toward Jerusalem, toward the cross, toward the moment where He will accomplish what He came down and took on flesh to do.

 

And Matthew tells us—this is happening to fulfill prophecy from Zechariah 9:9. “Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”

 

But that doesn’t make sense. Kings entered cities they conquered or returned home to their city riding horses, with a parade of soldiers behind them. When Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world in his time, that’s how he entered a city. When Rome conquered most of the known world in its time, that’s how they entered a city.

 

That goes all the way back to king Solomon, Israel’s wisest and wealthiest king, King David’s own son, who used horses in his royal parades instead of smaller beasts of burden, like a donkey. Donkeys don’t give the image of power and strength and might. They paint a different picture.

 

Jesus is King. But He doesn’t look like one. No war horse, no army, no mighty display of power. Instead—humility, gentleness, lowliness. And that matters. Because kings ride war horses when they come to conquer… but they ride donkeys when they come in peace. He is a King marked by humility… a King who comes to bring peace, but not the kind of peace people are expecting.

 

But look at v.6, the disciples go and do exactly as Jesus had directed them. And they find everything exactly the way He told them they would. Whether Jesus had made prior arrangements with owner of the donkey and colt, or if this was divine omniscience doesn’t really affect the story.

 

The point is, they obeyed Jesus, and brought the donkey’s back. Don’t miss this. It didn’t matter how odd and out of left field Jesus’ directive was, they unquestioningly obeyed their Lord. Even when God directs you into something that doesn’t make sense, obey Him anyway.

Once they brought the colt and its mother back, they put their cloaks on them and Jesus got on the colt, the foal of the donkey that had never been ridden before. And you have to picture the scene.

 

This isn’t a small group of people. We see that Jesus wasn’t travelling with just His disciples. We see in our passage that there were crowds going ahead of Him and following Him.

 

On top of that the city is packed with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people gathering for Passover. The Jewish historian, Josephus, recorded that in one Passover around 256,000 lambs were sacrificed.

 

Each lamb that was sacrificed was for about every 10 people, meaning that there could have been around 2.5 million people in the city and travelling to it. Now that’s a massive pilgrimage of Jews from across the region.

 

Can you imagine that scene? Can you place yourself there among the crowd walking towards the city of Jerusalem? It’s quite an event to experience. And suddenly the crowd begins to swell, voices start rising, cloaks hit the ground as the crowd lays them down, palm branches are waving and being spread on the road, and they’re shouting—"Hosanna!” Save us now.

 

Look at v.9, they shout: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” The people know they need rescue. “Hosanna” by the 1^st century had become a cry of praise to God, but originally meant “Save now!”

 

Part of that comes from Psalm 118:26, a praise Psalm singing praises to God for His deliverance from their enemies through His Messiah. Here with Jesus, they are praising God and crying out for deliverance. They are recognizing something real. They are calling Jesus the “Son of David,” they are calling Him their deliverer, they are calling Him, King.

 

But here’s the tension… they want a king with power, not humility. They want a king who will conquer their enemies, not a King who will suffer in their place. They want peace, but only the kind of peace they can see.

 

External, immediate, temporary. They are celebrating the king they want, the one they witnessed do all sorts of mighty works over the last three years, not yet understanding the King they need.

 

And as Jesus finally enters the city of Jerusalem, and the whole place was “stirred” up. That might be one of the biggest understatements in our English Bibles. The Greek word used here was used for describing earthquakes and apocalyptic chaos. The city wasn’t merely “stirred up,” it was shook, it was wild with excitement, it was thrown into commotion.

 

How else would you expect the city, already filled with people all with messianic hopes of deliverance, and the people outside are shouting that here comes the king, their deliverer? And so the people in the city are rightfully curious, asking “who is this?”

 

And the crowds answer back, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” I don’t know if people face palmed back then, but that answer calls for a face palm. I mean they’re not entirely wrong, Jesus does fulfill the prophetic office, but He is so much more than just a prophet.

 

He is the one true King, sent to deliver His people from the oppression and bondage to sin, by taking their place and dying for their sin on the cross. He is a king that clearly these people who cheer for Him still do not understand. He is a King whose humility feels like weakness, whose mission doesn’t match their expectations.

 

Because this King did not come to overthrow Rome and restore Jewish kingdom. He came to deal with sin. He didn’t come to take power. He came to give Himself. This is the kind of King He is.

 

He is a King who reigns through humility. A King who brings peace through sacrifice. The peace we saw last week in Isaiah 53:5— “The punishment that brought us peace was him,” that peace doesn’t come through force. It comes through the cross.

 

That’s not a failed coronation, rather this is a deliberate and intentional mission. Jesus is moving—step by step—toward being pierced, toward bearing sin, toward securing peace for His people. Real peace, not peace with your circumstances, but peace with God.

 

And He does it the way Paul describes it Philippians 2:6 – 8, He does it not by exalting Himself, but by humbling Himself, to the point of death on a cross.

 

Notice the difference here from Jesus, don’t miss it. Where as before, He would tell everyone, from His disciples all the way to the demons He drove out, to not tell a soul who He truly was, the Messiah, the Christ, God the Son.

 

But here, on this special Sunday, Jesus reveals Himself as the true King who brings peace with God through His humility and sacrifice for His people. That is the truth of our passage today. Jesus stopped masking who He is, despite the people’s flawed understanding of Him, He intentionally revealed Himself as King, without ever saying so.

 

So now the question is simple, but it cuts deep. What kind of King are you willing to follow? Because the crowd wanted a king, but not this kind of King. They wanted power, not humility. They wanted deliverance, not sacrifice. They wanted peace, but not the kind that comes through the cross.

 

But Jesus is the only true King there is. A King who humbles Himself, to make peace for you. A King who doesn’t demand your life first, but gives His own. A King who does not come to take, but to give.

 

And that means that you don’t get to stand at a distance and just admire Him. You don’t get to define Jesus on your terms, and you don’t get to reshape Him into something more comfortable for you.

 

Because your King humbled Himself to make peace with God for you, you must humble yourself before Him and submit to His authority over your whole life.

 

Not partially, not when it’s convenient, not when it fits your plans, or your wants. But fully. That’s where true peace is found. Not in control, not in circumstances, but in surrender to the King who gave Himself for you. So receive Jesus as He truly is, not as you want Him to be.

 

There’s a difference between recognizing Jesus and truly understanding Him and submitting to who He is. You can say all the right things about Him, and even celebrate Him like the crowds in our passage.

And just like them, you can still completely miss Him. They welcomed Him as the king they wanted, but they missed the true peace He came to bring through His humility.

 

So what does all of this mean for you this week?

 

First, I want you to identify where you’re redefining Jesus. Take 10 minutes each day and ask yourself, “Where do I expect Jesus to serve my plans instead of submitting myself to His?” Write it down and name it honestly so that you can repent of that and become more like Christ.

 

Second, I want you to stop looking for peace in your circumstances. This week when things aren’t going your way, and believe something won’t go your way, stop and say to yourself, “I have peace with God because of Jesus.” And don’t rush it—just sit in that reality for a moment.

 

Third, I want you to stop striving for control and entrust it to Christ. When something feels out of your control this week, when anxiety hits, whatever it is, instead of grasping for it, pause and pray: “Jesus, You are King. I trust You with this.”

 

And lastly, I want you to follow Christ in quiet, faithful obedience. Intentionally spend time in God’s Word every day to help equip you to be obedient to Christ, just as He was obedient to the point of death.

 

Be obedient by serving someone quietly, giving generously without recognition, and obeying God’s Word, even when it costs you something. Because that’s what your King did.

 

Jesus is not just a king to be admired, rather He’s a king to be followed. A King who humbled Himself for you, so that you could have peace with God. And if you miss that, you won’t just miss peace—you’ll miss the King who brings it through His humility by going to the cross.