St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Palm Sunday – April 13^th, 2003

9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Dear People of God,

Like everyone else, I have kept up on the things going on in Iraq. I’ve seen the updates from the embedded reporters. I have seen all the retired military analysts tell us what they think is going to happen next. But there is one thin that gets under my skin every time I see it is the news conferences with the General Tommy Franks or his spokesman or maybe Mr. Rumsfeld or Ari Fleischer at the Whitehouse or even the Pentagon spokespeople. How many times am I going to have hear one of those Reporters ask is the war over yet? Can we say that we have won? Are we done? I give lots of credit to those spokespeople that they don’

To just jump down and shake some sense into those reporters as they time and time again tell the reporters that there is still fighting going on and we don’t know when the war will officially be over. There certainly isn’t peace in Iraq

As we live on this earth, there are lots of people who sound much like those reporters. They are so concerned with the outward peace of this world that they seem to come to God over and over again and ask him when is he going to bring peace to this world? If you are really God and are as powerful as you say you are, then stop all of this fighting. If I was God I would be thinking to myself, I’ve told the world how many times that I didn’t come to establish earthly peace, but a heavenly peace that will last forever in heaven.

As we gather for another Palm Sunday we are going to take another look at our Savior and King as he entered into Jerusalem on that day we celebrate as Palm Sunday. But instead of questioning God and his peace, we can look at this day for what it truly is. Today is a day of rejoicing, because we know on this day that our Lord began the final few days to bring us and the whole world eternal peace. With this in mind we will use the theme:

In our text for today we have the familiar Palm Sunday prophecy of Israel’s coming King. The words of our text were fulfilled when Jesus entered Jerusalem the Sunday before his death The context of this prophecy were after the people of Israel had returned from their Babylonian Captivity and were struggling to regain control of Israel and rebuild their Temple to the Lord.

Here is a little chance to review some of the parts of God’s Word that we don’t read or hear too often. Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi are often referred to as the postexilic prophets, since their ministries took place after the remnant had returned to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon. Haggai and Zechariah both preached at about the same time in the history of the people of Israel.

While Haggai proclaimed by God’s design more words of chastisement for the people for their neglect and challenges them to quit making excuses for themselves, Zechariah on the other hand reminds them of the Lord’s faithfulness to his promises. Zechariah’s name ("Jehovah remembers") as well as his message served to encourage the people with the thought that the LORD had not forgotten about them in their distress. Their present problems were due in large part to their own wickedness. Nevertheless, if they would turn again to the LORD, he would preserve and protect them in the future just as he had in the past. Their nation would prosper once again under the guiding hand of the LORD, who would surely one day send the Messiah into their midst to establish his kingdom forever.

In chapter nine Zechariah tried to encourage the people in their work of rebuilding the temple of the LORD. After their return from exile, the Jews had hoped for a quick restoration of their former glory and the fulfillment of their messianic hopes. When their dreams did not materialize, the people became discouraged. As they looked at the superior strength and relative independence of the heathen nations around them, they may have been tempted to wonder whether God would ever fulfill those glorious promises which he had once given them. In his prophecy, then, Zechariah turns their thoughts from their present woes to the future fulfillment of God’s messianic promises to his people. Their return from captivity was but the first step toward the realization of those promises. The time of complete fulfillment was still to come, but in the meantime God would protect his people from their enemies. That is the central theme of this final section of Zechariah’s prophecy.

The first eight verses just preceding the verses of our text for today predict the overthrow of the Syrians, the Phoenicians and the Philistines — those heathen nations which seemed to be so superior in the eyes of those who had returned to the Promised Land. While this may have seemed important to the people trying to rebuild in Israel, Zechariah leads them to look down the road to the coming of the Messiah, Zion’s King, and the establishment his kingdom. It is here that our text begins. "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

What is the one image of the war in Iraq that stood out from last week. I remember turning on the TV and watching as the Iraqi people were marching to the square in the middle of Baghdad. They were shouting and were full of joy, because they realized that they were free. We can’t imagine the joy and relief the people of Iraq must have felt to see an army march in and free them from all those years of oppression. In joy they toppled the statue of Saddam. They couldn’t hold that joy in happiness in any longer.

In many ways Zechariah is telling the people of Israel and us to have this kind of joy. Instead of moaning about our troubles, Zechariah calls upon us literally to "jump for joy" at the prospect of our coming King, the promised Son of David, who would establish an everlasting kingdom. Zechariah was reminding us to be filled with joy because our long-expected King is coming to us. There’s no doubt about it! We will be set free.

As we live our lives, we have already seen our heavenly King come. We have seen through our eyes of faith, the King that came to this earth as a humble servant to save us from our sins. We have seen him live a perfect and die a perfect death to wash our sins away. But sometimes we get so caught up in the troubles and difficulties of this world that we loose sight of what our King brought us. He gave us eternal life in heaven. Often we need to be reminded to rejoice and be filled with joy, because our humble King has already made the lowly journey to the cross. We need to let the joy of our full and complete forgiveness fill our hearts with that eternal joy that can never be lost even in the midst of earthly troubles.

The past three weeks have seen the United States Military destroy and overthrow the powerful King of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. He was a King that seemed to have everything. They listed what they found in just one of his Palaces. This one palace had over a hundred rooms. It had over twenty kitchens. There were 60 some bathrooms. There was a Ballroom for entertaining all his special guests that was almost the size of a football field. And at this disposal he a very powerful army. But Jesus, the King of Kings would not come on his royal steed in the way that an earthly King might have arrived. You would not have been able to tell that Jesus was a King by His majesty or his military power. On the contrary, he would come in lowliness and humility, riding on a common beast of burden, one that is not yet full grown, and a borrowed one at that . He will not come as a war-like conqueror but as a "gentle" or lowly one.

Zion’s coming King will also be "righteous". This little word tells us the whole story of why Jesus is better than any other King. You could not call any earthly King righteous, because all have sinned ands fall short of the glory of God. Jesus is perfect in his righteousness because he was the sinless Son of God. It is this righteous King that came into this world to live a perfect or righteous life in our place to earn a perfect righteousness for all mankind. That is the kind of King that we can see and trust. That is our humble King

What’s more, he will come as one "having salvation." During our Savior’s state of humiliation, he depended upon God to help him, and even though he was forsaken by God for a little while, the Father finally exalted him to his former position of honor and glory. What an insight into the coming events of Holy Week and our Savior’s subsequent resurrection on Easter morn! "I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth." It is impossible for us to truly understand how and why Jesus our King would set aside his divine power for a short while as he came to this earth and won salvation for us, but he did. Even though he was true God and could have done anything he wanted he didn’t. He just came and won salvation for all people. We know this victory was won because God promises us eternal peace.

The one word that jumps out about this section from Zechariah is the word "I". Jesus our heavenly King is the only one that can bring peace to this world. He most certainly wasn’t talking about earthly peace. All we have to do is look at this sinful world that we live in and realize that this isn’t going to happen this side of heaven. But the picture is very clear as our King tells us that he will destroy all the fighting weapons of the enemy.. While earthly rulers regard military might such as chariots, war-horses and battle bows as essential for the defending and enlarging of their kingdoms, Israel’s King will have no need for such worldly weapons. He will establish his kingdom through the word of peace, which will be proclaimed to all nations near and far, from the River Euphrates to the very ends of the earth.

What is this peace that Zechariah is talking about? This word of peace is the gospel message of peace between God and man through the redemption that is ours in Christ. This peace has nothing to do with an earthly peace. Earthly peace is always broken. Earthly peace is always temporary. Earthly peace can only last a short time. This peace is found on the top of Mt. Calvary. This peace is found in the empty tomb on Good Friday. This peace is found in Jesus’ perfect life and perfect death..

But who is this peace for? The people of Israel for along time and still to this day think that this peace is just for them. Zechariah a prophet of the Old Testament gives the people of Israel a different view. Here in the Old Testament we already have a preview of the great commission found in Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. We can see that Jesus’ powerful message would work in the hearts of people around the world. Christ’s kingdom would continue to spread. We are living proof of the words of the prophet Zechariah. We need to remember this proclamation of peace to all mankind is possible only because of the events of Holy Week — because of the suffering, death and resurrection of our LORD. May we always look to our humble King who has given us the peace of knowing our ins are forgiven and that a place is ready for us in heaven. Amen