The Time of His Visitation

Hello, my name is Dave Scherrerrer, and you have found 100 Full Ministries Kingdom Offerings. This is the podcast environment of our ministry that focuses on the gospel of the kingdom. And as I record this in my current time and space, it's the eve of Holy Week of 2024. Tomorrow, all around the world, we'll find Christ followers celebrating Palm Sunday. It's a bittersweet day to be sure. Here's how the passage reads. From Luke 19, starting with verse 29, he drew near to Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, so the Mount of Olives. He sent two disciples, saying, Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? You shall say this, The Lord has need of it. So those who were sent away found it, just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, the owner said to them, Why are you untying the colt? And they said, Well, the Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they sat Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. Jesus answered, I tell you, if these were solid, the very stones would cry out. So Palm Sunday, Palm Sunday is kind of a story within a story. Of course, as we've just read, this is the day where the church traditionally marks the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, starting the last week of his life. And so it's a great reality where Jesus is seen as the King who comes in the name of the Lord, the Messiah, the Son of David, the long-awaited ruler of Israel, the fulfillment of all of God's promises. In fact, let's try and get this into our imagination a little bit. In Jerusalem, high upon the mountain, the air is brisk, it's filled with the coolness of spring. It is a time of the great Passover feast in Jerusalem, and that's always held in the Jewish month of Nisan, which would be April on our calendar. And this particular calendar year began on the 14th of Nisan, and that fell on a Thursday night after sunset and continuing on into that following Friday. Scholars, using astronomical data, have determined that the date of the Passover feast during which Jesus was crucified was one of two dates, either April 3rd, AD 33 or April 7th, AD 30. And I want to tell you, the streets of Jerusalem are abuzz with the news that Jesus may show up, show up right here in Jerusalem to be made King of Israel. Usually only 50,000 people live in Jerusalem, but for the Passover, there would be as many as 300,000 to 500,000, many of them sleeping on the streets. That is, if they could get any sleep, anticipating the possibility that this man, Jesus, this mysterious man who has turned the nation upside down, he might show up. And the stories that have been told, people saw it with their own eyes, he's healed lepers, he has given sight to a man born blind, he's given speech to the dumb, sound to the deaf, he boldly offers forgiveness to the sinful. He stills the wind, he casts out demons, he walks on water, he even made water into wine. He has taught with remarkable authority about the kingdom of God, as though he had inside information about what happens in the throne room of God. In fact, they're saying just two weeks ago, he raised a man, a guy named Lazarus from the grave, four days dead. I'm telling you, this man, Jesus, he can send the Romans running with a wave of his hand. You see, the people were on the lookout, they were giddy with excitement. The Messiah, the one that they had waited for over a thousand years for, the descendant of David, was finally coming to claim the throne of the kingdom, amazing story. But there was also a great misunderstanding underway, and that was that he would enter Jerusalem and by his mighty works, he would take his throne and make Israel free from Rome. But it wasn't going to be that way. He would take his throne, but it would be through his voluntary suffering through his death and then his miraculous resurrection. The first words of Peter's sermon that was preached right after the resurrection comes to an end with these words, this Jesus, God raised up so that he was exalted at the right hand of God. And the apostle Paul says that he is now king and he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. So Palm Sunday was a day of celebration, but it was also a day of profound irony and misunderstanding. The story within the story is that the murder of Jesus, just a few days later, would eventually usher in the destruction of Jerusalem. And Jesus saw it coming. Let's take a look at this story just by going a little bit further in our narrative, starting in Luke 19, verse 41. And when he, Jesus, drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hand you in on every side. They will tear you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. So I want to spend a little bit of time, just a little bit, on this sidebar drama that's going on. We talk about this incredible entry into Jerusalem and all the people going crazy, but there was this side story of sadness in Jesus. We see Jesus swept away with emotion. The word weeping here is actually quite a strong word. It is as one weeping with deep sorrow and overcome with sadness. It's not just a little trickle from the side of your eye. You see, this is a poignant moment of deep sadness, a reflection on the part of Jesus in response to the blindness and the hostility that he was about to meet in Jerusalem. I have it in my mind that as Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, it was not like he was riding on a float in the Rose Bowl Festival. This was a somber event, as Jesus understood it to be the beginning of the end. Jesus knew what was about to happen. The Pharisees were going to, for the moment, get the upper hand. While the people slept on Thursday night, the Pharisees executed a secret plot to capture Jesus and to conduct a set of illegal and torturous trials. They would find a mob to be stirred up and paid to shout down Pilate, the Roman governor, and they would demand Jesus to be crucified. And Jesus would indeed be rejected and crucified. And what Jesus could see on the day as he came into the city that no one else can see was the judgment set aside for their blindness and their hard-heartedness. And that reality caused him to weep with sorrow. Within a generation, just 33 years, the city would be obliterated. The city of Jerusalem would be judged and would be taken down stone by stone. The Roman army, led by the future emperor Titus, would fall upon the rebellious Jerusalem. And following a five-month siege, the Romans would destroy the city. The temple would be looted and burned. Tens of thousands of Jews were killed. Thousands barely escaped with just their lives. Jesus talking, he says, for the days will come when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. You will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation. You see, God had visited them in his son Jesus Christ. He came to his own and his own received him not. As Jesus put it, they did not know the time of their visitation. They could not see that this was Jesus himself, the Son of God, the King of kings. So they stumbled over the stumbling stone. The builders rejected the stone and threw it away. It seems to me that the time of visitation, or perhaps the hour of visitation, is upon us. He is visiting us now, today. Today is the day of our salvation. Today is the day to respond to his sovereignty and his mercy. Today is the day to embrace the gospel of his kingdom, to look to this King, this King of kings, and look to him alone for our hope. Whatever day you find yourself listening to this, imagine it to be Holy Week. Imagine it to be your Holy Week, your chance to embrace this Jesus as the Christ. I invite you to pray with me. We confess, Lord, that you are the Son of the Most High, that you came 2,000 years ago to bind the strong man and to begin laying claim to all that is rightly yours. You came to seek and save the lost and to give your life a ransom for many. Yet even knowing this, Father, we sometimes have moments of rebellion in us, moments of pride and selfishness, choices of willful disobedience. It is as though we, too, have turned our back on Jesus, the King. Father, thank you for your Holy Spirit who visits us now, who beckons us now to come home. Your Spirit invites us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all that we need will be added. We pray, Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy on us, and we celebrate you as the King and coming King. Amen. These are kingdom offerings, and you've found 104 ministries. Take care.