29. Jesus Prophet & Provocateur [Matthew] - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

good morning how are you guys doing happy Sunday I invite you to grab a Bible and open with me to the Gospel according to Matthew and we man's great we're really going for it we're in the series we have been for over a year we're crawling our way through one of the earliest biographical account of Jesus of Nazareth the Gospel according to Matthew and we're in chapter 21 and today's a pretty significant day I've been imposing a Mack on you for months no you guys know it you know the map I'll show it to you one more time this has been that what I call the road trip section of the Gospel according to Matthew so Jesus has been on a road trip since chapter 16 he had a really significant conversation with his disciples about how he was Israel's King and that he as this real king he was going to become king by dying by being brutally murdered and executed and this was surprising to the disciples a bit shocking and they were not pleased to receive this information and Jesus we're told at that point that his face to go to Jerusalem and so four chapters now chapters and a couple months we've been following these conversations that Jesus has on the road as he heads towards his death and almost all of these conversations have been about people misunderstanding Jesus misunderstanding what it means to follow him and so today they've reached the destination the road trips over guys been a blast and today today it end and it ends in a really really dramatic way something shifts today with with the story that we're going to read and we've seen a Jesus that's operated somewhat under the radar though the leadership of Israel is becoming more and more we're of him and his kingdom movement but today Jesus changes how he behaves in public and if you've been following with us through the series yield you'll notice it Jesus comes into Jerusalem to to bring his kingdom is upside down Kingdom and some people are thrilled some people are not happy this is a story that happens in three scenes that are all dramatic let's go for it guess with me let's dive in chapter 21 as they approached Jerusalem and they came to best page his how we butcher it in English but Beit fog a house of the early fig they came to the house of the early fig little village on the Mount of Olives and then Jesus sent out two disciples saying to them don't you go into the village ahead and at once you're going to find a donkey tied there and a little Colt by her untie them both and bring them to me now if somebody says something to you just say the Lord needs them and you will send them right away and then Matthew whispers in our ear he says dear reader this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the Prophet and then here's the quotation of the prophetic poetry say to dr. Zion look your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey on a Colt the foal of a donkey what prophet look at your footnote what prophecy quoting prophet Zechariah the disciples went and they did just as Jesus instructed them basically they got the donkey they brought the donkey and the Colt and they placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on in a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches off of trees and spread those on the road and the crowds that went ahead of him and those that were falling behind him they were all shouting Hosanna Hosanna which is one of these I don't know why they don't it's an English translation but somehow they just choose not to translate certain bits for you so means save us save us please save us son of David how blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord save us in the highest heaven now when Jesus entered Jerusalem the whole city was stirred I have the New International Version New International Version it says stirred any other translations the city was well have stirred nobody asked turmoil who was in turmoil when you hear the word stirred does it is that neutral negative or positive stir like you stir in your sleep all right this is like really disturbed this is a month nightmare in your sleep from something like that that's what's happening here the point is turmoil real disturbance the whole city was in turmoil and asked who is this and the crowds answered well this is Jesus this is the Prophet from Nazareth in Galilee scene scene number one Jesus has time his arrival in Jerusalem right ahead the road trip and he's timed his arrival in Jerusalem for the week before Passover now in in the Christian calendar this event marks what day in the Christian calendar Amina called Palm Sunday and so this is the beginning of what Christians call Holy Week so the week leading up to a passion Friday installing crucifixion Friday and and Resurrection Sunday so this Christian holy week on the Jewish calendar this is the week leading up to Passover is called the week of unleavened bread so Jesus has timed his arrival to Jerusalem - to coincide with the most charged volatile significant week of the whole year for Israel in its capital city this is interesting we are archaeologists those geeks tell us that the population of Jerusalem would have been around 50,000 people at this in the first century and that somewhere around 150 thousand pilgrims Jews from all over the world would descend every year on Jerusalem for for this week which which means what let's just imagine the 50 thousand person City right this is a room for about 250 people how many of you have been in here when we pack it with four hundred it's ridiculous it's ridiculous so it's like they're just a sardine City you know and there would be then the families would camp in the hills all during the nights all around Jerusalem is just hunting about tens and tens of thousands of people additional and so Jesus has has been we're told that he has a large crowd there's all these people coming with him and these are all these thousands of pilgrims Jewish pilgrims coming down for the for the feast and Jesus he's timed at all and he's actually pre arranged it all - this is really interesting this is the epic scene so we're told that he approaches Jerusalem from from the Mount of Olives now just you can't recreate this but let me show you a picture so he's coming from the east and this is a picture taken from a kind of the main tourist spot on the Mount of Olives so you can't see the Mount of Olives because you're looking from it right now it's actually a big mount and when you hear mountains and mountains in the Bible no no just think Mount Tabor you know they're boiling here just really tall Hills so I had nothing like Mount Hood anywhere around there so so the Mount of Olives is about the height of say Mount Tabor and then it actually it's taller than Jerusalem itself and what you're looking at here is directly west from the Mount of Olives and can you see the castle walls can you see castle walls there it's the big horizontal line there's a castle walls those are not the walls that we're there in Jesus's day those wells are a mere 600 years old but they they're 1,400 years after the walls Jesus so but they're in the same location that the walls of Jerusalem would have been and where you see the gold dome that's a Muslim holy site called trommel Sharif or the Dome of the rock but that is the location where the temple would have stood it would have been actually much larger than that structure right there so here the point is you're on the Mount of Olives and it's just a steep downhill really it's quite steep all the way down down even beyond where those trees are and at the bottom are the olive groves of Gethsemane near the bottom of the valley it goes down even further and then a steep uphill and so this ride Jesus comes over the Mount of Olives and there's a little village and he's pre-arranged everything this is one of my favorite parts of the story because this happens more than once during Holy Week he's pre-arranged these donkeys right where they go is just go into the village and you'll find a donkey these this isn't a big town this is like it's not even a one stoplight village you know what I'm saying so it's not like there's donkeys everywhere you know it's just a very small little village Jesus is prearranged with somebody that there's going to be some donkeys there and then there's a code word even in my favorite part right they go they go I go in ties the donkey go in you're like who does this belong to I feel very awkward right now the disciple and then somebody will come up and talk to you and say is the Lord needs them yeah all right the Lord needs them got it and so on you get it this is a great like a spy movie or whatever this is going to happen again with the room that they celebrate the Last Supper in it's all prearranged and there's a code word wonderful and yeah so so the point is is Jesus he he's arranged all of this all of this is intentional every move every step every word that he's going to say from this point on for the next seven days it's all intentional this is this is the culmination of his whole mission to announce him to bring the kingdom of God into reality and so he comes he comes over this hill it's the Mount of Olives he has these two donkeys which will we'll talk about more in a couple minutes and then we're told huge crowds all these pilgrims they've seen his miracles up in Galilee they've come with him on the way they've heard his teachings and they think he's the real deal like they're shouting they're shouting that he's the Messiah save us friend of David and it's this huge they have this impromptu red carpet you know right they like take off their clothes you think it's like a muddy dirty road and it's your only jacket it I mean what this tells us is what these people think of Jesus like they really believe that he's the Messiah the son of David he's the king and so they and they get branches and I mean what an epic scene is such an epic scene and it's all intentional well actually I don't know if he could have intended the crowds and the impromptu red carpet that was probably a pleasant surprise but you can see clearly like this is an event that Jesus has both intended and planned and becomes a huge huge thing now you might think well you Jesus yeah people should praise him something like that but I think has this been Jesus's MO has this been his way of operating in public up to this point right if you've been following this is the exact opposite of everything Jesus has been doing you might remember on more than two occasions when people said publicly after he had Jesus had healed them and they said you're the Messiah the son of David and what did Jesus say to them Shh quiet you know like don't tell anybody remember that it happened more than a few times so and and he's been operating under under the radar and he's slowly been coming into more confrontations with Israel's leaders but then all of a sudden it's like public really public and really intentional like he doesn't tell these crowds to be quiet he's just like yeah yeah and he gets a donkey Jesus is not Jesus is not the first king of Israel to ride down this very hillside on a donkey before Bible geeks anybody looks great it's great King David King David after his son rebelled against him for Samuel 16 excuse me second Samuel 16 when he is reinstated as Israel's king he made the same exact ride on a donkey and when David's son the son of David Solomon went to his coronation as king guess what he rode to his coronation his father's donkey right so what Jesus doing here right there's none of everything's architected here full of symbolism full of meaning it's as if he's staged he's waited he's waited he's waited and now this is the moment to reveal who he is now when Jesus says that he is the king of Israel what does he mean by that what do you think these crowds think it means for Jesus to ride victoriously into Jerusalem what does Jesus know he's going there to do to die I doubt that's what these crowds think is going to happen save us son of David big bad Romans in there let's go get him here go like that this is a charged a charged moment okay just want to pause right here and I so I hope I'm trying to paint the gravity of the scene there's something really really significant happening here and why is Jesus doing such a public dramatic presentation of who of who he is little almost sir and what is what do the people in Jerusalem think how do they feel about King Jesus riding up to Jerusalem deeply disturbed deeply disturbed for all kinds of reasons one Jerusalem already has leaders chief brace the sanhedrin there's also a huge fortress Praia overshadowing the temple of it represents the king of the world Caesar Augustus of Rome I mean drew Jerusalem already has a king it's not Jesus this is a way to get yourself killed so well I just want to camp out right here because I the two scenes that follow from this one this is a side of Jesus we don't see very often and it's actually going to we're going to spend the next couple months as we work through the next couple months we're going to work through seven days the last seven days of Jesus is live we're going to take like three months to do it but it's going to be seven days and every conversation everything Jesus does is just like this it's public it's calculated it's meant to communicate more than just the surface event show and so well I want to help us grasp the gravity of this we're going to pause I'm going to show you something else and then we'll come back to the story I think with some renewed perspective I want to show you an image and you may or may not be familiar with this how many of you seen this image for I'm actually curious by show of hands a smattering smattering well you're welcome the rest of you you need to know you need to know about this so who who who's the artist where'd this image come from who painted this anybody yeah so an artist who goes by Banksy he's a British Street artist some would say graffiti artist but a street artist and and you'll you'll see why I think he's more significant than that this image was painted originally not two miles from where Jesus rode into Jerusalem did you know that no that here's the original right here it was painted on a separating barrier wall that divides modern Jerusalem from the Palestinian West Bank and Bethlehem and Jerusalem are like bedroom towns now and so there's the separation wall due to the conflict and so on what's going on and so this is on the west bank side it's a painting of a Palestinian teenager and instead of throwing a Molotov cocktail bomb he's throwing flowers Banksy's a fascinating fascinating artist and people love to hate him or hate to love him or whatever and I don't know what you think about Banksy but he he did he pulled this stunt here in Jerusalem like did it by the cover of night it's illegal to paint on the barrier wall and so on but his his career and what he's been up to over the last few years is actually very similar to what Jesus will be up to in these last seven days Banksy and nobody well maybe some people do I don't know publicly his identity is unknown and he you know began as a graffiti artist painting on the sides of buildings but it wasn't just like tagging or words or anything like that it was always political and social commentary for example so it's always very sarcastic it's very charged and it's always symbolic and I just google him and you'll waste it's not a waste you'll use in hour a half of your life and just be amazed by whether you agree with his viewpoints or not by the brilliance of this artist his where he does his art and what he paints and how he does it just absolutely absolutely brilliant so here's what's really interesting is that a number of years ago he got so popular that he began to be invited by American and British art galleries to like put together shows and it's really clear that he loved and hated all this attention so what he first started doing this is so amazing but he first started doing was dressing up and disguises and then going into British art museums and hanging his own framed works of art have you ever seen these so he would dress up and likely classic you know Inspector Gadget like outfits and then this is the security camera picture here and he's putting up a little framed piece of art and all of the art is either spoofs on classic works of art or just you know mocking the whole modern art scene altogether and had a ridiculous the prices are you guys did you get it brilliant it's brilliant so he did this and he did all kinds of pieces like this really interesting I think the most provocative saying that he ever did was he snuck into Disneyland and he had a backpack that was full of mannequin parts and then he assembled a mannequin and dressed up the mannequin as a in a prisoner uniform from Guantanamo Bay she guys hear about this and then he placed the mannequin at the at the entrance to Thunder Mountain definitely alright as his number of years ago so I don't know he's got the orange thing he has a black hood on it's a it's from iconic photographs taken of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and so Disneyland was so shocked whoever first noted this they shut down the park for three hours they shut down the whole park because of this because they thought is this some sort of threat or what's going on here whatever okay hey guys doing so here's my point here's an artist he he has convictions about politics about religion about the way the Western powers behave and he he pulls these very calculated public stunts that gets everybody's attention that shocks people that make you question your values to make you rethink things and that's his career that's his job somehow he's make it the others made his job of this and what what Banksy has been to Western culture in the last fifteen years or so it's exactly what the Israelite prophets were in their day so the go read Isaiah chapter 20 and you'll see God asked Isaiah who is a very public to go walk around Jerusalem for one year wearing no clothes totally naked just what a bummer to get that one from God so totally naked as of shocking symbol of the naked captives that will be taken to Assyria when God allows this area to come take over part of Israel because of their sin in their idolatry or the prophet Ezekiel God told Ezekiel to shave off all of this hair with a sword so not a good haircut job and then to go out in public and throw his hair up in the air and chop it up with the sword as a symbol of the Babylonian armies heading towards Jerusalem to take it take it out and this was a village it's like Street theater this is what Israelite prophets do the shocking public symbols and if you know is real scriptures you get the symbols there you go and what Jesus is doing here and what he's going to do and seem to and scene three is is precisely that he's taking up this mantle of the Israelite prophet we can change the image I don't know or maybe let's just do blanks let's just do blank for right now he's taking up this mantle of this very public symbolic attention getting shocking behavior why why he has a message he has a message from the God of Israel that the time is up and that Israel's chance to respond to the kingdom of God's offer through Jesus the windows the windows closing so we ride he rides into Jerusalem and what does he do when all of the eyes are on him where does he go he goes to what for us would be marching on the White House this is this is this is next week you get a thousand people to do this impromptu presidential announcement inauguration of you next week tried in front of the White House right out in front you guess get it here this would be something like that nobody's asked Jesus to become King he's just making himself one Scene number two verse 12 so great so Jesus entered into the temple courts it's like going to the White House and he drove out all who were buying and selling there he overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves it is written he said pizzamas that's a sign that he's going to quote from the Hebrew Scriptures which they all like know and grew up on and so and he says it's written my house will be called a house of prayer but you all are making it into a den of robbers who's he quoting if you have little footnotes who's he quoting right there two prophets one of them the naked guy isaiah 50:6 one of them a really sad god the weeping prophet jeremiah chapter 7 we'll come back to that then the blind and the lame came to him at the temple and He healed them but when the chief priests finally is the White House staff shows up and the teachers of the law and they saw all these amazing things he was doing these children are shouting in the temple courts Hashanah save us son of David they were indignant like you would be too do you hear what these children are saying they asked him of course I do Jesus good have you read your Bibles before always never gets old that one he's talking to Bible scholars it's funny it's Mary have you read your Bible Jesus says quoting Psalm 8 from this lips of infants and children you O Lord have called forth your praise and then he left them and he went out of the city to Bethany where he spent he spent the night Jesus has the whole city's eyes on him he's just made very public his claim to be Israel's true king and so where does he go he goes right to the center of Cour to the heart of Israel's life and culture and leadership and what does he do he gets angry he goes on a rampage we're told in the Gospel according to John that this required a whip for him to let people know he is really serious and he made people run now not everybody children the blind and the lame were actually quite pleased with him worth day but not the leadership and not the people running the moneychangers now just think about this if you've ever traveled to another country what's one of the first things you need to do when you land there and you need to go to the exchange booth now if you go to the hood what's the interest rate or the C charge that usually comes with that it varies it varies you know in Jerusalem today you still just really get taken advantage it's really unfortunate so what what's happening here people have to change money you have one hundred and fifty thousand people who don't live in Jerusalem going to be in Jerusalem for a week so they have to be many changes it's Passover there's going to be lots of sacrifices people need to buy there is sacrificial animals and so on so what what does Jesus objecting to here well where where is it where all these people doing their business where the money changers making a handsome profit off of people in in the temple so lots of pictures here today sorry but I'm not really sorry so so here's a I've shown you this before it's like it's a model reconstruction from everything we know about the shape of the temple the Jesus would have walked into so that the temple is that tall thing right in the middle and then there's a series of courtyards and walls around that the altar of sacrifice would have been right in the in the outer court of the building around the temple then you have a big huge courtyard and on the left that red roof building it's a pillared portico is called the portico of Solomon that's where Jesus pulls his stunt right here that's where the money changers would have been that's where people mean appear from Galilee a hundred miles away you don't want to bring little lamb me with you going to bring money and then you need to exchange the money so that you can go buy a sacrifice then off and so on and so that's what it's what people are doing now this is interesting we know that the money changers and the people selling animals weren't always there we actually know that I'm Caiaphas the high priest we're going to meet in a couple chapters he he moved the money changers and everybody from outside the walls of the temple like lower down in the city he recently relocated them right into the heart of the temple we know that this move would have made him a handsome profit would have lined his pocket and notice where Jesus really what what animal tables does he go after here this is really this random detail look what animal tables did he go for this filling does now since you were reading leviticus last night if you're a poor israelite and you don't have enough to buy a lamb but you still want to show your thanks to the God of Israel what can you buy instead with the little money that you do have dubs doves were the the offerings of the poor in Israel so Jesus walks into the temple the house of the God he called father and what he sees is some renovations he sees that Caiaphas has moved the business center right into the temple courts itself he sees that instead of being a place for the prayer and praise of the God of Israel the poor being taken advantage of as they come to buy their offerings and people are undergoing extortion as they try and exchange their money and he gets ticked he just gets absolutely ticked because for in Jesus is mine this is this is yet another example of the corruption of Israel's leadership and so what does he do in you know hit in great symbolic form like a prophet he quotes the poetry of Israel quotes the poetry of Israel he quotes two prophets one Isaiah who said that the the temple was to be the meeting place of heaven on earth where Israel would become a light to the nation's and that's not happening and Jeremy quotes from the Prophet Jeremiah and actually want to subject you to this whole poem in context to this whole and you'll just see I don't even need to tell you I'm just going to read it to you he quotes from Jeremiah chapter 7 and you put the pieces together through Jeremiah the Prophet says hear the word of the Lord all you people of Judah who come through these temple gates to worship the Lord this is what the Lord Almighty says the God of Israel change your ways change your actions and I will let you live in this place don't trust in deceptive words that say this is the temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord just make sure you know this is a really important building for them right this is the temple if you really change your ways and your actions and if you deal with each other justly if you stop oppressing the foreigner and the fatherless in the widow and don't shed innocent blood in this place if you don't follow other gods to your own harm then I will let you live in this place in the land I gave your ancestors forever and effort but look you're trusting and deceptive words that are worthless are you going to steal and murder and commit adultery and perjury and burn incense to baal and follow other gods you haven't known and then y'all come and stand before me in this temple which bears my name and say we're safe look at the temple the temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord surely God is pleased with us I mean look there's the building to show it really are we that stupid Jeremiah says has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you oh I've been watching you declares the Lord and what you read on than the rest of Jeremiah 7 is God saying because of your bad decisions the Babylonian Empire is on its way and it's going to God's going to destroy housed the temple that Israel built to honor the God of Israel what do you think was going through the priests minds as Jesus quotes Jeremiah chapter 7 that's all intentional they know what he's saying and they know what he's doing Jesus is going to become king of Israel by saying that the temple is going to be destroyed scene 3 verse 18 early in the morning as Jesus was on his way back to the city remember he spent the night outside he was hungry so seeing a fig tree by the road he went up to it and he found nothing on it except some leads so then he said to it may you never bear fruit again and immediately the tree withered that's very weird the disciples think so too when the disciples saw this they were stunned how did the fig tree withered so quickly they asked jesus replied truly I tell you if you have faith and don't doubt not only can you do what was done to the fig tree but you could also say it of this mountain go throw yourself into the sea and it'll be done if you believe you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer hey you guys dude what this is so bizarre right we are all kind of tracking and then Jesus hates on a fig tree you know and then apparently says you can have superpowers too if you just trust and believe or whatever so was this very so again you soon as you have to stop and just like you have to put the story and look in its context so so Jesus he's just done these things and he's walking back to Jerusalem and he sees a tree a fruit tree right a fig tree that has in it spring and it has all these leaves it just says it has it's full it's full of leaves so if it's the right time of year and you see a fruit tree that has full of leaves what are you can start looking for apples whatever fruit you know figs pomegranates these kinds of things and so whatever he's peeking around you know it's like there's no fruit there's no fruit on this tree this full of leaves it looks like it's full of lives but there's no fruit and then for the very small circle of his disciples he performs his his third symbolic act which is to pronounce a curse on this fig tree I don't think Jesus hates fig trees and I don't think Jesus hates plants I think we're dealing with a highly intelligent man whose mind and heart were soaked in the scriptures of Israel and he sees an opportunity to communicate to his disciples yet one more time with the gravity of what's happening here because Jesus is not the first prophet of Israel to to talk about fig trees that have leaves but produce no fruit is he and once again Bible geeks you might know about this but I could I could show you half a dozen passages in the prophets right now where Israel is depicted as a fruitless tree the God planted and it produced no fruit I'll show you one just because I'm that kind of guy oh so mica - mica chapter three here are the few leaders of Jacob you rulers of Israel who despised justice and distort all that is riot you look for the Lord support you say it look using the Lord among us the temple the Temple of the Lord the Temple of what's right there surely God loves us look at that shiny building no Micah says disaster coming upon us because of you Zion which was the name King David gave to the city of Jerusalem Zion will be plowed like a field Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble the Temple Mount overgrown with thickets a couple after Slater mica has his own symbolic poetry oh what misfortune I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the greening of the vineyard but there's no cluster of grapes to eat there's no early fig there's no bait fog a house of the early fig there's no figs that I love so the prophet Micah he's like I'm going out to the vineyard and that's I see the vines and there's all these leaves and then I look and there's no grapes and I go out and there's these leafy fig trees and there's no there's no figs what's this image for that among Israel the faithful have been swept from the land not one upright person remains the rulers demand bribes and the judges accept them the Bauer's will dictate what they desire and they all conspire together and so the day of your judgment has come hey guys did you get it she get it Jesus is brilliant he doesn't hate trees he's brilliant he sees a moment to communicate yet again to his disciples and so what he picks up this prophetic image that they all would have known that Israel that he's written into Israel these are the Covenant people of God who were called to be the people who would host the presence of the Living God and and the temple is this place where heaven and earth would meet and where Israel would come to praise and honor this God who showers them with generosity and with life and what did they do they turn into the shallow religious icon they turned it into an idol the temple has become this Idol to them as long as the building shiny and the rituals are cruising doesn't Shirley were fine with God and Jesus comes and he asserts himself as this real King and he says no everything is not fine this drama has been played out before and in fact Israel's sin and corruption is just the same as it was hundred years ago when Jeremiah were 700 years ago when Myka uttered his words and in Jesus mind Israel's leadership has reached the point of no return and so his disciples say what does this mean how did that happen Jesus and he says the fig tree is nothing if you want to tell this mountain where are they standing and what are they looking at not Mount Hood with what are they looking at they're looking at the Temple Mount if you tell this mountain to be uprooted and thrown into the sea what is Jesus going to start doing he's going to start warning everybody that the temple is going to be destroyed this isn't a random little teaching on prayer and how to do you know super miracles and so Jesus he's reflecting on the faith that he himself is having as he's predicting what seems preposterous to all of them that God would abandon his temple again surely not surely Israel has learned his lesson surely know Jesus says we've we've reached a point of no return it's not going to be Babylon this time it's going to be Rome and Jesus will go on to predict the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple as God's justice for rejecting the offer of the kingdom and it's going to happen in just 40 years from Jesus uttering this words in 70 AD and it was a grim moment it was a grim promise for Jesus to utter just like it was a grim promise for Jeremiah and for Micah to utter and and this is the story that Jesus sees himself in hi guys done this has been like history lecture for the last 30 minutes I'm having a great time and I hope that you are too but we don't come here just to learn history the purpose of our Sunday gatherings is to come into worship Jesus to worship Jesus and to meet with him and to meet with his people and so how are we supposed to respond to Jesus when he's in this but this is like aggressive confrontational Jesus and it's very different than the mode of Jesus up to this point which has been actually actually there is a way in which is no different because he's very hostile to the leaders of Israel but who is he immediately compassionate and aware of their needs in the temple the blind and the lame he just he can't stay away from hurting people and so he's in angry mode pronouncing judgment on the temple and then he notices blind and lame people and he's right he's right there and so this is Jesus you don't just get the meek and mild Jesus who tells you to love everybody if you want that Jesus you also have to reckon with the Jesus who says that God will bring justice on human evil and corruption and actually you want those two Jesus's to be the same Jesus even though you may not see it like it all of the time we're here to worship Jesus and so some of us you know I don't know some of us might be kind of bothered in a visceral way when we see Jesus get angry like this when you get super aggressive maybe that custer's up something in some of us here because of your story because of angry you know people or adults or parents that you had in your life and so you you love the meek and mild Jesus and moves towards the blind and the lame but when Jesus gets angry and makes a whip and starts shoving you know you're kind of like whoa I don't know what to do with this here so the thing think of it this way and this is how I want to kind of steer us to the bread in the cup into worship this morning egg and Jesus is angry he's kicked why he's claiming to be the embodiment of the God of Israel who's coming to his own covenant people and he planted them and gave them everything they could need and they produce no fruit it's not even that they produce no fruit but that's just an image here Isaiah the prophet says they produce stinky fruit horrible wretched rotten fruit is coming off the tree and and this is arouses anger in Jesus what is anger what is anger it's an emotion it's a strong instinctive reaction right it's all this emotional energy but the experts tell us that anger in a way is actually not an emotion it's a reaction to a deeper emotion and that deeper emotion can come from all kinds of things it can be bad but it can also be good what we're talking about is Jesus passion and I at least a way for me to understand this is to think about the anger that gets aroused in me I live with two small cavemen okay one is two and one is four and they are constantly is there this age now where they're just constantly perpetrating on each other it's just I don't know how we're going to do this but we're going to make it somehow pray for me we prayed for Jacob and Katie please pray for me in these two little cavemen and so you know because it's they're both old enough where they can really sin against each other and like steal each other's toys and then they chase and hit and this kind of thing and I you know I've never been in the situation before and it's it's remarkable to me the passion that stirs up in me when I watch my older son chase and hit my younger son like I've never felt anything like this before I get angry I get I really really have to check myself that I don't express it because I know there's something deeper going on here but my instinctive reaction just be like dude what you doing and like step you thug apart and that's not going to work well right because they're just going to get even now they're going to be angry at me together they'll forget about each other and unify against me so I don't get so I really so this is you know the journey of parenting that we're on one of my main missions is to not respond instinctively but it's not like the anger is just a symptom of this passion that's in me what's the root emotion I love these two cavemen I love them they come from me I'm so dedicated to them and and so I think about I think about my older caveman right and I know that he'd like continues this habit and pattern if it doesn't get checked that he just like hit whenever things don't go his way this is not good it's not good for his future or for him and so I I love him I'm concerned about his future I love my younger cavemen and he's so adorable and they're both adorable and so like I'm sticking up for this underdog you know like that's what's going on inside of me love for these little humans but what they see what they see is anger you guys with me here anger is a secondary emotion and so I think there's something like that happening and we're going to see it again we're going to see Jesus get really angry with the leadership of Israel and with a fig tree and it's not because he is not going to be hates people it's it's exactly the opposite it's because he loves people Jesus is the embodiment of the passionate love of Israel's God who who wants more than anything to be reconciled to his rebellious world and whose response to the rebellious Nations was not to destroy them but is set in motion a plan to bless them through this through this family of Abraham and now this family itself has rebelled and said and so Jesus comes as the very embodiment of the love and the passion of Israel's God and he calls his real to account and he warns them he's going to weep over the city the next chapter Jerusalem Jerusalem if only you knew what I'm trying to do for you but you would have none of it he says and so I think as we come to take the bread in the cup and worship Jesus let's let's focus here there are moments where the the passionate love of Jesus is confrontational and that happens especially when he when he sees hypocrisy when he sees idolatry when he sees religious people who just think we're fine with God the Temple of the Lord surely were safe the building shiney the sacrifices are going and but no it's stinky fruit is rotten rotten there's apathy there's injustice there's compromise and Jesus confronts because he loves and there are other times when his passion and his love will move him towards people who desperately need him like the blind and the lame and it's it's gem is the gentle Jesus that we love Christ who moves towards people in their need and so let's meet this Jesus as we come to take the bread in the cup today there might be some of us who are here and we we don't want it but we we know that if we're honest with ourselves we become shallow we've made compromise decisions we've dishonored Jesus by how we live and how we treat people and we act we actually need him to confront us and to get serious with us and so as we take the bread in the cup we're eating we're eating his death right the fact that He loves us and gave himself for us and for our sins and we allow his love to confront us and there might be some of us here who were in a place just a pain in our lives were confused trying to figure out what's going on and Jesus comes precisely as those people with gentleness and patience and compassion and as we eat the bread and the cup we eat the loving Passion of Jesus for people who are lost and confused amen it meant this is the real Jesus it's the real Jesus a man of passion for people let me close with the word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 50min 47sec (3047 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2017