Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

The Right Stuff

by Dave Wilkinson

Luke 19:28-44, 20:9-18, Daniel 2

April 16, 2000

Because of a strep throat, Sue's four year old son had to stay home with a babysitter on Palm Sunday. When the rest of the family returned home carrying palm branches, he asked what they were. His mother explained, "People held them over Jesus' head as He walked by." "Wouldn't you know it," the boy fumed. "The one Sunday I don't go, He shows up."

This morning I want to explore how amazing it was for Jesus to show up the first Palm Sunday. We’ll start our exploration in the rain forest.

I want to quote from the official Handbook of the United States Peace Corps. I want to read what it says that a Peace Corp volunteer has to do if he or she is attacked by an anaconda.

The anaconda, as you know, is the largest snake in the world. The anaconda is in the family with the boa constrictor, but it is larger than that. The anaconda grows to be 35 feet long and can weigh about 400 pounds. For the volunteers that are assigned to the Amazon, there is a section in the Handbook on what to do if you are attacked by an anaconda. There are 10 steps here that you are supposed to follow. Someday, you'll thank me for this information.

If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are.

Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight together.

Tuck in your chin.

The snake will come and begin to nudge and begin to climb over your body.

Do not panic. (I love that: Do not panic!)

After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet in, always from the feet in.

Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic.

The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.

When the snake reaches your knees, slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down and take out your knife and very gently slide it between the edge of the snakes mouth and your leg. Then suddenly rip upwards severing the snake's head.

Be sure to have your knife with you.

Be sure your knife is sharp.

It would be very difficult for most of us to go through something like that. It would be a tremendous test of courage. — a test of control.

The gospel writer Luke tells us about another one. Luke 9:51. "And it came about when the days were approaching for His ascension that Jesus resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem."

As Jesus walks on the road to Jerusalem, He knows that He is walking to death. He said: "it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem.

The Pulpit Commentary says: "The triumphal entry interests us, because it was the acknowledgment and reception of Jesus with the joyful homage due him as King of Israel and King of men." It was fitting for this king to be so honored. But for Jesus on this earth, a crown was not his goal. The Cross was his goal. When he looked ahead, Jesus never said, "I'm going to Jerusalem to be received in a great parade as the new king." Instead, Jesus said that he would be betrayed, condemned, handed over, mocked, spit upon, flogged, and killed. (see Mark 10:32-34).

It is only with this background that we can grasp the awesome courage of Jesus. Luke tells us that Jesus walked ahead of His disciples as they journeyed -- fully ready to put Himself in the place of mortal peril.

As Jesus enters the Holy City on Palm Sunday, He gives a deliberate challenge to his enemies. He rides on the back of a donkey in the role of a king who comes in peace. His disciples and some of the people of the city acclaim Him as messiah -- the heir of David -- waving palm branches and laying their coats on the road before Him.

Jesus embraces their acclaim. Some scandalized Pharisees in the crowd cry out: "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" Jesus replies: "I tell you, if these become silent, the very stones will cry out."

Later this same week, while teaching in the temple, Jesus tells the people a parable about their leaders. As you listen, remember that Jesus' enemies are listening to everything He says and that Jesus will stand on trial before these same enraged men in only a few days.

Jesus tells of a man who plants a vineyard, rents it to some farmers and goes away. When the harvest comes, he sends a servant to collect from the tenants. But the tenants beat-up the servant and refuse to pay the rent. The owner sends a second servant and then a third. But they receive the same treatment. Finally, the owner sends his own son, thinking the tenants will respect him. Instead, they kill the son -- hoping to gain the vineyard for themselves.

Of all of Jesus' parables, this one is perhaps the easiest to understand. No one misses the point. They don’t all like it but they don’t miss it.

Jesus draws his parable picture from Isaiah 5 where Israel is called God's vineyard. God sent His prophets, who are the "servants" of the parable. The nation, through its leaders, consistently rejected the prophets -- rejecting them and their message. Even though God had sent these servants, they were rejected and persecuted. John the Baptist, concerning whom Jesus had just questioned His opponents, was the last of these prophets. John, as a divinely appointed spokesman for God, proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah. They had rejected him, like all the rest.

Eventually, the owner of the vineyard decided to send His own son. Surely they would recognize and submit to his authority. But instead, these rebels decide to kill the son, thinking that this might somehow give them the possession of the vineyard.

Jesus, in this parable, is telling His audience that He is not another prophet; He is the Son. That is the basis of His authority. He owns the vineyard. He has been sent by His Father to possess what is His. But they will reject Him and put Him to death. And they do so with the full knowledge that He is the Son. They kill Him because He is the Son. This is what Jesus' opponents have already decided to do. It is not so much that they do not know who Jesus is, as that they will not accept His authority. It is not the identity of Jesus that is in question, but His authority.

In a few brief lines Jesus puts the issue squarely to His opponents: "Your quarrel, He says, is not with Me but with the one who sent Me. Your rejection of His demands is not new but old. Your fate is not further blessing but certain punishment."

As the planter of Israel, God has rights to the fruit of his labors. Through Isaiah he tells the fruit He expects to harvest: "He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry!" Like servants sent to collect a percentage of the fruit, prophets came to Israel. Sometimes they were greeted with stony silence and other times with silent stones. Finally the Father sends His beloved son - and the Son is also killed.

Jesus says: "What therefore will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy these vine growers and give the vineyard to others." He will destroy these leaders and give their positions of leadership to others. In this context, those who replace the leaders are Gentiles. Imagine this! Jesus is saying that He is the Son of God, that He comes in God's authority, that they will kill Him, and that God will not only destroy them, but He will give their land to the Gentiles. The response of the Lord's hearers is predictable---"God forbid!" It is a thought almost too horrible to consider.

Then Jesus looks directly at them and asks, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

Jesus asks this question because the parable of the vineyard did not say quite enough. It fails to show that the destruction of the wicked leaders of Israel is actually to be accomplished by the Son of God, the Messiah whom they rejected.

The Son who is rejected and put to death is the Son of God who will rise from the dead, and who will someday return to the earth to establish His kingdom. The Son is on the one hand, a "stone of stumbling" -- what Paul calls a rock of stumbling to the Jews. This was our Lord's role at that moment in time from His first advent up until today. In a "passive" way (the stone doesn’t move, people stumble over it) Jesus is a stumbling block to people who refused to acknowledge their sin and their need of a Savior. But this passive "stone of stumbling," whom the builders (the leaders of the nation) rejected, will one day become an active agent in their destruction. Now, He is viewed as a moving stone, a falling stone that crushes and grinds His enemies.

Jesus did not come to the earth the first time to bring about His kingdom by the exercise of His authority, by sheer force, but by allowing people to reject Him, and nail Him to a cross. The message does not stop here, however, for the preaching of the gospel in the Book of Acts informs the Israelites that the One they rejected, God raised from the dead, and He will return to bring justice to the earth and to subdue His enemies. When He comes again, He will come "unveiled," with His full splendor evident, and displaying His mighty power in the subjection of His enemies. That is why it is important to receive Christ now as the rejected one, the redeemer, rather than to have to submit to Him later as the mighty conqueror.

Sin is largely a matter of authority. We sin, not because we lack the knowledge of what God requires, but because we refuse His authority. We would rather run our own lives, and live as we please. We would rather be like God than to obey Him. Sin rejects God's authority and seeks to live autonomously, turning one's back on God's commands. While modern people may be more polite than the Jewish leaders were in challenging Jesus' authority, the core problem is identical.

Years ago the great American Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards, developed the theme of this parable in an essay titled: "Men naturally are God's enemies." It was based on Romans 5:10: "For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him by the death of His son."

Most of us, when we take such a text focus on the good part. We like the part about being reconciled to God. We do not like the dark setting--"When we were God's enemies." But Edwards saw that no one could personally grasp the death of Jesus Christ until he or she understood the degree of his or her own need for that death.

Edwards writes of the "Natural Person": "They hear God is an infinitely holy, pure, righteous being, and they do not like Him on this account. They have greater aversion to him because He is omniscient and knows all things, because His omniscience is a holy omniscience. They are not pleased that He is omnipotent and can do whatever He pleases, because it is a holy omnipotence. They are enemies even to his mercy because it is a holy mercy. They do not like His immutability, because by this He will never be otherwise than He is -- an infinitely holy God."

You may think that Edwards is pouring it on a little thick. But we all know the people he describes--perhaps we have even been the people he describes--people whom the minute the subject of God comes up cry: "Don't talk to me about God!" They want nothing to do with Him and refuse to let their children have anything to do with Him. Others are much more polite. They simply close a steel barrier over their minds so nothing can penetrate.

They don't tell you to shut up. But their whole desire is expressed by the Psalmist in Psalm 2:3: "Let us break God's chains and throw off His fetters."

What is to be done with such persons? This is precisely the question Jesus answers in verse 18 of our text: "The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone, everyone who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces; and he on whom it falls will be crushed."

The greatest privilege we could have is to have the Kingdom of God given to us. Nothing can compare with the privilege of being a son or daughter of God Himself.

True life comes to us as a gift of God. The tragedy of the wicked tenants is that they kill the Son in order to steal an inheritance, which could have been theirs as a gift. They could have been joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. But in their lust to "have it all" they lose all they have.

The greatest privilege is to have the Kingdom of God entrusted to us. The greatest sin is to reject the Kingdom--to reject Jesus Christ.

Some people came to Jesus and asked, "What must we do that we may do the work of God.'?" Jesus replied, "This is the work of God--to believe on Him whom He has sent." Faith in God through Jesus is the door to peace with God.

In Planet in Rebellion George Vandeman tells about a young scientist named Louis Slotin, who was doing some atomic experimentation in 1944. Part of the experiment had to do with bringing two hemispheres of uranium together to achieve critical mass, and then--at just the right time --pushing them apart with a screwdriver. But one day the screwdriver slipped. The hemispheres came too close together, resulting in a "dazzling bluish haze" which filled the room and threatened to kill everyone there with its radiation. Slotin tore the two hemispheres apart with his bare hands, interrupting the chain reaction and saving the lives of the seven other people in the room. Slotin himself, however, was badly burned. Before being taken to the hospital, he said quietly to a companion, "You'll all come through all right. But I haven't the faintest chance myself" Nine days later Slotin died in intense pain.

Jesus came from the safety of heaven into our dangerous world, courageously exposing Himself to the radiation of sin. He actually let the powers of evil take His life. But by this, He broke the chain reaction of evil, death, and hopelessness. That's the offer for us now.

But Jesus also said that the greatest dom is to be crushed by the very Kingdom of the one who now offers salvation. When Jesus refers to being crushed by "this stone" in vs. 18, He is referring to the vision King Nebuchadnezzer had in the days of the prophet Daniel. Sheri read this in Daniel 2. Nebuchadnezzer had a dream in which he saw a statue representing four successive world kingdoms. At the end of the vision a stone came and struck the statue, grinding it to pieces, and then the stone became a mountain that filled the whole earth.

The striking stone is Jesus Christ. The mountain is His Kingdom. Jesus says to those who are listening: "You can be a part of the Kingdom and grow up with me to fill the earth. Or you can stand against My Kingdom and be broken." Those are the choices.

In the telling of this parable we learn that certain things about Jesus Christ. We see His awesome courage. We learn that He is not fooled by pretense. We learn that He is not indirect or wishy-washy. He presents men and women with a clear situation and tells them that they have the power to choose their own destiny. He tells us that the judgement of God is not to be taken lightly.

Those are some things we learn about Jesus. But the point of His parable--and therefore the point of this sermon--is certainly for any among us this morning who do not yet trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

The God who offered peace to Israel that Palm Sunday is the God who offers peace with Himself to you this Palm Sunday -- God making His appeal through me to you. If you will not have Him now as Savior, scripture says that you will have Him later but as judge. In the words of scripture: "Now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation."

That means this day--here--right now. If you do not belong to Jesus Christ, you have a choice to make. You can respond to Him or you can walk away from here without doing a thing.

I'm not going to push you. Jesus didn't beg or manipulate and I will not do it in His name. The choices and the alternate destinies are set before you. The choice and the consequences of the choice are yours. I am responsible to preach the word, but only you are responsible for what you will do with it.

But if you would like to share your response -- or if you feel you need more information, well then Sheri or I will be very glad to talk to you anywhere, anytime.