Latest / Harvest After Sunday / The Return of Christ & Palm Sunday: Theology Q&A
Transcript
- Harvest Media: I'm Natalie and I'm your host and I'm here with Stefan Wilson, pastor of preaching and teaching. And today we're going to be discussing the return of Christ with Palm Sunday coming up. We want to talk about both the significance of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem as well as how we understand his future return. But maybe you can just give us a little hint as to how those things are even kind of connected before we dive in. Yeah, and I think that's a fair place to start because it would be a wild assumption to think, ⁓ yeah, that's obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament that those two things are linked, but I'm convinced, along with quite a few other theologians, that there is a direct link between them. And and we should we should expand out to see first of all, the bible is a single story The bible is a single story about the mission of god for his glory through his people and how it is that he is going to Assemble a people in his presence who reflect him to his glory When I talk about the the mission of god, i've i've said this in sermons few different times that we can summarize the message of the Bible that from beginning to end God is assembling a people in his presence who will reflect him to his glory. That's the point of creation. That is the point of new creation. And that is what God is doing in between those two events. And so if we say, okay, well, that's the thread of all of the Bible. Well, then that means that as things occur, they are either showing us God's intention and his design for his mission, or they're showing us where things are out of line with that. The Old Testament is helping us to see how God was doing that, how his people rebelled against him in that process. And we've talked at length about how Jesus fulfills all that the Old Testament was pointing toward. That when Jesus arrives in the first century, he is coming as the end goal that the Old Testament was ultimately pointing to. And so the things that he does and the things that he says are now helping us to understand and to see what was murky maybe in the Old Testament that things that were hidden though the word that Paul uses for that is is things that were a mystery they they they were truths that weren't fully understood weren't fully explained yet in the Old Testament but they were shadows that that belonged to the substance of Christ so they they are things that point to Jesus there are things that we don't fully understand until we see Jesus and then he gives us the full picture of it. And in Daniel chapter 7 you have this figure in a vision that Daniel has this figure is called the Son of Man which is Jesus favorite term for himself in the Gospels and the Son of Man is a human figure who reigns alongside God. to him are given are given authority and dominion and rule and He he is coming on the clouds in Daniel 7 and so this whole picture is this image of this man who is referred to in ways that sound like God and He has a throne set up next to God's throne and he reigns with God forever And so now we're anticipating, okay, when is this guy gonna show up? Then you fast forward to the first century in Rome. People of Israel have been under the rule of multiple kingdoms. They're longing for the return to the kingdom that they have been told about from the Old Testament, that they've read about. They've heard the prophecies that God is gonna come and visit his people and that his kingdom is gonna be brought to earth. So they're anticipating that that King is gonna come and he's gonna overthrow the Romans and he's gonna set up this new kingdom and then that King arrives on a donkey in in Jerusalem the week before Jesus is crucified that Jesus himself as the King arrives and they receive him as the King And if we're going to say, like I said when I first started, that scripture is one story, and then we start reading in the New Testament about how the New Testament describes the arrival of Jesus when he returns. What we'll notice and what we'll get to later in this episode, what we'll notice is that there are very clear similarities between the two events, between Jesus riding into Jerusalem during the week of his crucifixion on a donkey. and him returning at the end of days to usher in his kingdom in the fullness. The way way that theologians talk about it is that Jesus inaugurated his kingdom in Jerusalem when he was crucified and rose from the grave and he will consummate his kingdom. He will bring it to completion when he returns. So if we're going to see those two events as inauguration and consummation, the introduction and the bringing to an end, then we're wise to see the link of the imagery, the link of the truths there, all within the single picture of... the one storyline of Scripture. I think the one storyline is such a helpful reminder and a good framing for our conversation. think it's something we forget. We like to zoom in on stories and topics and to really have the correct understanding of what has happened, what might be, what is going to happen, and then what the significance of those things are. We have to understand it in that one storyline. ⁓ And I'm excited to learn more about the links and the parallels between the two events because before our conversation I you know was not sure there were any and I never really thought about it in that way so I'm excited to unpack that let's jump to Jerusalem and you could paint the picture for us there Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday I think the first thing to note before we even paint the picture is that all four Gospels talk about this entrance in into Jerusalem. ⁓ with Jesus riding on the donkey, entering Jerusalem, the people receiving him, all four gospels talk about this. And that at first blush might sound insignificant because I think the knee-jerk reaction is, well, yeah, all four gospels tell a lot of the same things. And that's kind of true. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke are what we call synoptic gospels. They give a synopsis of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And so there are a lot of similarities. between the three of those. John's gospel is entirely different. if you just read all four, you know, like John just reads totally different. John has a very specific end game in mind in the writing of his gospel. And so we find a lot in the gospel of John that is unique to John that the other gospels don't talk about because they are, John is specifically highlighting things that serve the very specific point that he has to show you that Jesus is the divine son of God. And John uses seven signs that correlate with seven Jewish feasts, ⁓ that all of those feasts are focused on who God is and what God does, and Jesus signs validate that he is the God that that feast was about. very different than I'm telling you the story that validates Jesus as the coming Messiah or as the suffering servant, right? So we have different end goals of each gospel and even the type of writings that they are, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or Matthew, Mark, and Luke are different in their type of writing than John is. So that in those Gospels causes there to actually only be a short list of things that are written about in all four. Luke has some parables, Matthew doesn't have, Matthew has parables, Luke doesn't have, they all have different healings that some of the other ones don't have. In fact, only two of the Gospels talk about the birth of Jesus. I mean, Mark starts with Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, so Mark starts with Jesus in his 30s, whereas Matthew and Luke detail his birth and his childhood, John starts in heaven with Jesus. So we we look at that and go, okay there things that we would absolutely say and truthfully say are significant about who Jesus is not all the gospels include them. So it is worth saying that the fact that all four gospels make sure to tell us about the the entry of Jesus on Palm Sunday. The fact that all four make that point is significant. Clearly the authors of all four gospels see that moment as very significant in akin to his death, his resurrection, and his identity as God in human flesh. So just in that, I think we can already say this is a significant thing. We shouldn't just write it off as, ⁓ it just happened that way. It's a significant thing. So the picture that we get of of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is first of all Zechariah prophesies of a day when the Lord would arrive riding on a donkey. Matthew quotes that prophecy and in obedience and fulfillment of that prophecy, the disciples go get Jesus a donkey. And he's riding into Jerusalem and the people come out to meet him. So before he gets to Jerusalem, people have come out to meet him and they're laying their cloaks on the ground. They're laying... ⁓ palm branches, are shouting, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They're shouting Hosanna, which means God saves or God save us. The religious leaders are indignant at his arrival. The people who come out to greet him Go into the city with him. So his arrival in Jerusalem He doesn't he doesn't come outside the wall people come out and meet him and he takes them somewhere else He arrives the people come out to meet him and they go in with him now There's historical background for why it is that all these things play out this way in the in this time in ancient history in the centuries orbiting this, if a king had been away, specifically away in some kind of conflict, a war, a battle, and he's victorious. and he comes back to his home city, the people would go out to meet their victorious king and they would meet him and celebrate his return as they come back into the city. And so the people in Jerusalem are greeting Jesus as the victorious king that they've been awaiting. This is the one who's gonna, who's gonna set us free. He's going to defeat all the enemies of God and we're going out to meet with him, to align with him, and to come back into the city because he's going to take the city now and we're going to reign with him. That was the image. And it doesn't quite work out that way because he doesn't conquer the city. He instead dies on the cross. Many of the same people who were saying, Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, days later are shouting, crucify him, because he isn't doing the thing that they thought he would do. They welcomed him as a king, but then they rejected him for not being the king that they wanted him to be. So that's the picture that we get of that Palm Sunday in the first century. And all of those details are really important because they get retold later in the New Testament when we talk about Jesus return. And all of those details are gathered from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or are all of the elements that you mentioned specifically stated in each for the majority of the story is told in all four gospels you're saying. Yeah, there are elements. that are unique to each particular one like you would expect with somebody writing their own literary work. ⁓ Matthew tells quite a bit of the detail. Luke recapitulates a lot of the same details that Matthew tells. John gives some unique details that the rest leave out, but if we put it all together, which we should do with the Gospels, when there are similarities, we should put them all together. The reason that we have the full picture of the crucifixion of Jesus and the reason we have the full picture of the resurrection of Jesus is because we put all the details of all four together so that we can see how the whole story unfolds. Now let's talk about his future return. ⁓ This is a big topic. I mean, we could do a series on this. People have. ⁓ You know, I liked that you went ahead and laid the groundwork earlier also by telling us that there are things that are hidden or mysterious to us, because I think a lot of us feel that way when we think about his future return. We don't know. We don't understand. ⁓ think people can feel fearful. Yeah. Or maybe they just don't know anything or they know that people disagree about what might happen and they just want to steer clear of it. So let's talk about what we can know for scripture ⁓ and how that can help us to not fear but to rightly understand and then link for us the parallels between his entry into Jerusalem and his future return. Yeah and we'll try to do this in like 10 minutes. So admittedly this will be ⁓ introductory ⁓ and narrow. So what we're not going to do is we're not going to work out an entire theology of the return of Christ and timing and all those things. talking about it in relation to Palm Sunday and how these how the understanding of that first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem can give us insight into how we should think about the return of Christ and if we just think about events in the world right now we're in a conflict with Iran and who knows what what that's gonna look like in the days weeks months in the future ⁓ There was lots of discussion about the return of Christ during COVID. There have been lots of events in the last century that have prompted people to believe that we are nearing the end. It's fair to say that we're closer to the return of Christ today than we've ever been. It's also fair to acknowledge that every generation since the ascension of Jesus has believed they were the last generation before his return. So there is a humility that we should have while also a watchfulness that we should have to say the various things that Jesus said must take place before he returns are taking place. They also have been taking place for a very long time. And so we want to say that we're humble and that we don't think too highly of our ability to discern the times, but we want to be watchful because there are things to be discerned about the times. And so we want to have a healthy view of the return of Christ and a hopeful view of the return of Christ should he return soon. Should he tarry another 500 years? It's not that he's late, it's that he's coming at precisely the time he should, yet we can still live today. hopeful of the future when we can understand the truth of his return. So all that to say. We should keep that all in mind. So one of the things that happens when we talk about the return of Christ and why there's so much disagreement and why there are so many different views is exactly what you were saying just a few moments ago that that we'll focus in and kind of get this myopic view of specific passages in the Bible where where we'll really parse out the words themselves and disconnect them from that singular storyline of scripture and so Then we'll start reading passages in the Bible the way that we would read them as 21st century Americans Rather than reading them the way that they were written and the purpose they were intended to serve I think that happens a lot with the book of revelation rather than reading it as an apocalyptic writing that is revealing to you. That's what apocalyptic means. It's revealing something unknown to us. It's giving us a peek behind the curtain from the perspective of God in terms of all of human history and how his plan is working itself out. If we don't read it that way and we read it like this is a linear chronology of the events of the end times, then what we end up doing is we end up misinterpreting it as has been done by some. So if we take I would say the two most prominent passages in the new testament that talk about the return of christ that have direct links to palm sunday it would be first thesilonians chapter four okay and then revelation 19 okay and so what i'm to do i'm going to grab my bible and i'm going to just open to those and i'm just going to highlight the links in those passages to what we talked about in in palm sunday So Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 starting in verse 13, But we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be. with the Lord. Now some have interpreted this to be a ⁓ secret coming of Christ that doesn't count as his second coming. It is a secret coming where he just pulls believers out of the world. that then the events of the end times will then transpire and then his actual second coming will come after the tribulation and the finality of those end times events. And what I would say is if you disconnect Paul's words here from the triumphal entry of Jesus and if you start with the assumption that God's people will not in any way shape or form encounter the events of the end times, then you could possibly come to that conclusion. But if we take Paul's words as being, as being related to the singular story of scripture. And if we understand Paul as having been aware of the events of Palm Sunday, then we can start to pay attention to the words that Paul uses and see the connection. So there's two terms specifically that I want to bring up in this passage. Verse 17, says, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds. So the dead in Christ will rise when Christ returns. They will be with him. We who are alive will be caught up with him. That word caught up is the Greek word that we get our word harpoon from. So, you know, harpoon gun shoots out an arrow that has a tether attached to it. It hits its target and then you pull the thing that you just shot. You pull it back to you. So the Greek word for caught up is harpezo, which is to be grabbed and pulled up. ⁓ Okay, for what purpose? Because we're not just grabbed and pulled up to be pulled up in the air. There's a purpose. ⁓ He says that we're caught up, we're pulled up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. That word meet is the Greek word. going out to meet the victorious King and to enter back in to the city with him. So what is Paul saying? Paul is saying that there was a day when Jesus entered his capital city as the arriving King, yet he was not received as the King he truly was. But a day is coming where our King will return having conquered and he will be bringing with him his kingdom and we will go out to meet him and we will come back into the city with him. where we will reign with him forever. And that's the language that Revelation 20 and 21 uses, that we will reign with the Lord. And what is the new heavens and new earth described as? And the people that are with him, what are they described as? The New Jerusalem. The assembled people who belong to Jesus and who will reign with him are called the New Jerusalem in Revelation. And I think that that's on purpose. I think that it is to say, listen, was on Palm Sunday, there was an event in human history where the king arrived. And that gave us a picture of what it will look like when that same king returns. And then if we then jump to Revelation 19. where we see what it's gonna look like when Jesus returns. So Paul tells us why it is that we don't need to worry about those who have died, they're not gonna miss the return of Christ. And he tells us what it's gonna look like for us when Christ returns. But in Revelation 19, we're told what it's going to look like in terms of visually when Jesus arrives. says in Revelation 19 starting in verse 11, Then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse The one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness He judges and makes war his eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems That's jewels and he has a name written that no one knows but himself He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God which is what John uses to describe Jesus in John 1. The armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen linen white and pure were following him on white horses From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. He has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So in Jerusalem, he enters on a donkey. In the end, he rides a white horse. In Jerusalem, he is received but quickly rejected. In the end, He will be received by his people and he will pour out wrath on those who rejected him. In Jerusalem, he took judgment on himself to pay for our sins. In the end, when he returns, he brings judgment and ushers in the final judgment. And he does this as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. People in Jerusalem said, blessed is he who comes in name of the Lord. In the end, we will declare him as Lord of Lords. And so I think it's just helpful for us on Palm Sunday to reflect on this, to say, Palm Sunday is not just the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is a moment in history that we can look back on and then we can go to passages like 1st Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 19 and say, and you're going to come back the same way you wrote in Jerusalem, but it's going to be so much greater. And it won't be in meekness like it was 2,000 years ago. It won't end in death like it did 2,000 years ago. It will be in power and glory and eternal life. Wow. I think I appreciate you laying that out for us. And my initial thoughts are. It is when we again take things in balance in this one storyline narrative I think for me Never having linked these two things before as I mentioned in the beginning. It's helping me increase the significance of Palm Sunday and what I can understand about that and then not let fears or thoughts about his future coming be outsized in a negative way that causes fear ⁓ or even uncertainty or for some trying to attain certainty like you mentioned always guessing and saying this must be it this must be it I think it brings into balance the character of God that some as you mentioned were I'm disappointed that he wasn't more conquering and triumphant when he entered Jerusalem, that he wasn't the king, the dominating conquering king that they desired and expected. And those that look towards end times and are fearful that he is an angry God and only ⁓ a judgemental God. And ⁓ we can see that his character is perfectly in balance, the meekness and the justice. ⁓ And I just think it Helps us right-size our view of God my very favorite thing Having you walk us through all of that is just the focus is on Jesus No matter where you crack open your Bible. No matter what part of the story we are talking about I think Jesus is magnified and that's so exciting and wonderful and ⁓ gives me just renewed a sense of worship going into Palm Sunday and thinking about Palm Sunday in his entrance into Jerusalem while looking forward to his second coming and what that means for us as believers. Yeah and I think your point is absolutely right and is a really good corrective to the person who looks at the events of the world and looks at what scripture says about when this age is going to come to an end. and responds in fear. That if I am consumed with trying to find the events in the world that match the events in scripture because I am convinced that the end is coming and I need to be ready because I'm afraid of it. Because I have to now plan for how am I going to survive, all of it's focused on me what it's gonna be like, should that end be coming in my lifetime? And it's it's fraught with anxiety. That's because I'm focused on the wrong thing. I am focused on on my placement in history. I am focused on the powers of the world that are opposed to Christ, thinking they have more power than they have. And I am neglecting the vision that scripture paints of the reign of Jesus. That's why it's so important to draw that arc from Palm Sunday to his return because a whole lot of things happen in between those two events. Jesus arrives as the the king who is going to inaugurate his kingdom and he takes his throne when he dies on the cross and raises from the dead and that point forward, we are living in a world in which Christ reigns. He reigns over those powers and authorities that would seek to oppose him. And so there is no power that they have that can somehow undo what Christ is doing. And the New Testament gives us these images that are linked to his entrance into Jerusalem to help us, I believe, to see. Like, he came once he's coming again he's not coming because he might lose his kingdom he's coming to bring it to its fullness and there is coming a day where we will hear the words of Revelation 20 verse 6 it is done behold the dwelling place of God is with man like that's that's the image that we're that we're looking ahead to And so when I see Jesus as the point and when I see how this theme of his reign is just tracing all the way from Daniel seven all the way through the gospels and into revelation, then when I read the news, I can say, ⁓ Lord, thank you that you are sovereign and that the end is sure and I can have hope and and this Palm Sunday Can just be a reminder for us. I don't know what the news is gonna hold in the next few days But what I do know is that God holds human history in his hands So whatever the news holds it does not change the future that God holds in his hand Absolutely from the prophecy of the Old Testament to the life of Jesus and then to his future coming like I just see the perfect will of the Father perfectly unfolding in his timing and what hope and what peace we can have when that's our focus. That's awesome. Well thanks for listening to the Harvest After Sunday podcast where we help you grow into the image of Christ by applying the truths of his word for his mission. We'll see you Sunday.