How did a humble carpenter become the greatest King of all time? | Mark 11:1-11

September 13, 2020 John Harding

Timestamp

00:00 - Livestream starts & Introduction
08:00 - Message: How did a humble carpenter become the greatest king of all time?
47:12 - Worship: When I survey
37:33 - Catch Up
50:31 - Notices & Close

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 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. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 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.

Mark 11:1-11

The single most important donkey ride in all of history

Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey as a way of signalling to the world around that he is a new kind of King, starting a new kind of Kingdom. That is the passage in a nutshell.

Now, last week, we had a little family holiday few days in rainy Scarborough on the east coast. And if you've ever been to Scarborough, you will know they have donkey rides on the beach and quite honestly, they were advertising these donkey rides as 'the world's best donkey rides'. I don't know about that.

All I know is the poor kid was sat on this donkey getting dive-bombed by seagulls after his ice cream! But I do believe that this passage in Mark contains the single most important donkey ride in all of history.

The Conquering King

How on earth did they humble Carpenter from the middle of nowhere raised to become the greatest king of all history? That is a big question, isn't it? And there might be all sorts of elements in that question that you're not sure about or don't agree with, but this is exactly what's happening.

There are quite a few details that Mark includes in this story that might seem a bit insignificant to us today, but actually they are deep insights of real importance:The first insight is quite simply that Jesus was riding into Jerusalem. This is really significant. The symbolism of this would have been obvious to the crowds at the time.

In the ancient world, conquering warrior kings would ride into a city after the battle was ended to be installed as the new king. It was a triumphant procession.

That's what the Caesars had done before this time. It was called the Roman Train. When Jerusalem finally fell in AD 71, Titus rode into the city on a chariot pulled by horses.

Alexander the Great was recorded to have ridden on horses into cities after they had defeated them. They rode in as warrior kings and the inhabitants of those cities that were left alive. They would have bowed the knee to their new incoming King.

Welcoming the new King

So Jesus riding into Jerusalem it demonstrated that he was claiming to be a king and the crowds they clearly got this because they responded appropriately.

They spread their cloaks on the road, they took palm branches and wave them and spread them in front of this donkey as a path on the floor. They are symbols of how these people would have welcomed a king into their new kingdom onto their new throne.

And they cried, 'Hosanna! Hosanna!' that means Save Us! Deliver Us! They sang ancient songs From the Psalms like,Blessed is he Who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our father David. They were singing songs written to be sung for kings, to welcome a king.

Stallion v's Donkey

King Jesus, he rides into Jerusalem, not on a War Horse stallion. But it says on a humble donkey, a young donkey. Jesus is indicating that He is a different kind of king. He is the ruler of a different kind of Kingdom.

The donkey contrasts with the warhorse as a symbol of humility. The donkey contrasts as a symbol of peace.

The ancient prophecies they foretold this. 400 years before Jesus's birth it was prophesied:

So Jesus was not entering Jerusalem as a warrior king but as a suffering servant. He wasn't riding in on a warhorse to overthrow the Roman occupiers to overthrow the puppet, King Herod.

Jesus was riding into the city to suffer and to die because that was exactly how he was going to bring about a new kind of Kingdom.

And Jesus gives his disciples some clear instructions and specifications.

So we know it was a young donkey, under the age of four. And again, there's some really powerful symbolism here. When you go back through the Old Testament and you look at the specifications for temple sacrifices for the animals that were to be sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins. These were usually juvenile animals and ones that had never been ridden.

So this unridden, juvenile animal represented a sacrifice.

Now we really get to the crux of our question: How on earth did a humble Carpenter from the middle of nowhere rise to be not just a king, but the greatest king of all the earth?

Who are the greatest rulers in history?

The whole sweeping arc of the Bible, the big story, is that there are only really two kingdoms or only ever two kingdoms. There's the kingdom of this earth and the kingdom of heaven. There's a physical kingdom, and there's a spiritual kingdom, two kingdoms.

Throughout history, some pretty amazing kings and kingdoms in that physical world. If you were to type into Google, who were the greatest rulers in history, you would get answers like Caesar Augustus, who extended the Roman Empire as far as Egypt in the East to England in the West.

Or what about Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Emperor? He ruled over a region of 9 million square miles, making it the largest continuous Empire land empire in world history.

Closer to home, what about our very own Queen Elizabeth, a monarch at one of the lowest points in our history. But as an empire, at its peak, it included something like 23% of the world's population, great kings, queens and rulers.

But here's the thing, all these rulers and all their kingdoms, they were restricted. Time and geography. Time and place. Kingdoms come and kingdoms go.

And all we have left to remind us of them are some statues and some ruins. It's the stuff of history books.

A unique kingdom

Jesus through His death and resurrection built a totally unique, new kind of Kingdom. Not an earthly kingdom or a physical kingdom, but a spiritual kingdom, a spiritual reality, an eternal and infinite kingdom.

When Jesus, this new King, rode into Jerusalem on a humble donkey, the crowds were right in a sense to sing. 'Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!'

They didn't need to sing this because King Jesus was going to rescue them physically from their Roman occupiers, nor even because King Jesus was going to rescue them from their own religious leaders who equally oppressed them with their rules and regulations. Rather, this new King was going to rescue them from their sin and rescue them from their brokenness and rescue them from their spiritual death.

And this new King was going to welcome them into a new kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.

And what a kingdom it is! It's an enduring kingdom, it is a kingdom that's been growing and advancing for over 2000 years. Nothing can stop this kingdom. It's a kingdom that has thrived in times of personal trial and it has thrived at times of plague. It is a kingdom that knows no geographic borders or boundaries. It is a kingdom that is growing behind the scenes today, right now, almost invisibly in some unlikely places like Iran and China.

This is a kingdom whose citizens are so diverse from every ethnic group, every tribe, female and male, human, old, black, white, rich and poor, one kingdom.

It's a kingdom characterized by love, and joy, and peace.

Making Jesus Your King

The crowds bowed their knee to Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem. They've made him their king. they've invited him to come and sit and reign and rule on the throne of their hearts to be their king. And that is how a humble carpenter, from the middle of nowhere, became the greatest King in the greatest of all kingdoms in history.

I just want to point out a couple of questions to help you develop this further to help you take hold of it and apply it to your life:

Re-read the passage. And I'd really encourage you as you read it to think about how you see Jesus. If you're a follower of Jesus, then you will know him his Friend, you'll know him as a great love of your life, you'll know him as your Savior, and rightly so, he is all of those things and so much more. But he is also a King who wants to reign in our hearts and reigns only when we give him permission to do so. What extent is King Jesus reigning and ruling in my life? If you don't know Jesus in that way, in that personal way, then please do get in touch. We would love to help you to understand what it means to To accept Jesus as your king, to making your king and to receive be received by him as a citizen of heaven.
We are citizens of heaven. We are ambassadors of heaven. And as citizens and ambassadors of heaven, we have a responsibility to advance that kingdom, to advance the reign and rule of King Jesus on earth to bring the kingdom of heaven down to earth as it is in heaven. So let it be on Earth. In other words, to bring the justice of heaven, the love of heaven, the piece of heaven, the health of heaven, the provision of heaven, into those places where we live and work and spend our time. To what extent are we advancing the kingdom as citizens of the kingdom?