Creekside Church Sermon of March 28, 1999 "Who is This?" Matthew 21:1-11	Rev. David Bibbee
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Even though I lived in a Hubert Humphrey household, it was still exciting. People were clapping and cheering and flashing their Nixon for President signs. He smiled and waved. He said the good people of Ohio are the reason America is so strong, and that he would sure appreciate our votes come November. He also spoke of the significance of coming to the hometown of a past president of the United States, Warren G. Harding. Given what we were learning about the hometown boy and the scandals of his presidency, we didn't think the tie with Harding was such a great idea. Maybe it was an omen of things to come. His visit lasted all of fifteen minutes, then he was off to another city. And I recall thinking how odd it was that our town had gone from the high of seeing a future president, to business as usual in a matter of minutes. Nothing changed. We were back to normal.

The day Jesus rode into Jerusalem was quite a spectacle. His reputation preceeded him. He had become the subject of many a conversation, so he attracted a large crowd the day he rode into the spiritual center of the world. They would see him for themselves -- maybe hear him speak. They had no idea as they waved their palms and hollered, "Hosanna!" that life would never return to normal.

Jesus came as a king-not the king of military conquest. Such a king would have ridden a white stallion. Jesus came as the king of peace on the back of a spindly legged little donkey...a beast of burden; a poor man's Cadillac. Notice that Matthew has Jesus riding two animals at once. "They brought him the donkey and colt, and put their cloaks on them and he sat on them." Scholars think that Matthew may have not understood the form of Hebrew poetry in Zechariah 9: 9 announcing the coming of the king, not on a donkey and a colt, but on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.

This wasn't Jesus' first donkey ride. He rode within his mother on a donkey to his birth in Bethlehem. As a child he rode a donkey to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Now he was riding donkey-back into Jerusalem to a chorus of "Hosanna! God, save us!" He had come to the final week of his life, and with him came something that accompanied him wherever he went. He roused curiosity and raised questions, and the question asked more than any other; the question that reverberates down the halls of time into this sanctuary is, "Who is this?" He seemed as human as you and me, yet was like no other. "Who is this child-king born in Bethlehem?" King Herod wanted to know. "Who is this who forgives sins and heals on the Sabbath?" the Pharisees wanted to know. "Who are you?" Pilate asked Jesus. "Are you the king of the Jews? Are you the Son of God?" "Who are you?" Saul of Tarsus, the Christian killer said when struck blind on the Damascus road.

"Who is this?" people asked as they waved their palms. "This is the prophet Jesus." people said. It had been a long time since anyone had heard a prophet...over four hundred years. To call Jesus a prophet was no little thing. To be mentioned in the same breath as Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah would cause quite a stir. The prophets spoke for God. They spoke the truth. Rank and title meant nothing to them. King or country, it didn't matter. When people turned their backs to God's law, when the rich ignored the plight of the poor, when injustice was tolerated, the prophets called Israel to accountability with a voice of judgment.

The prophets also spoke tenderly of God's mercy and steadfast love for his people, but much of the time they were not pleasant people to be around. Someone said, "There's no evidence to suggest that anyone ever asked a prophet home for supper more than once." It was no surprise that kings and clergy and lawyers and powerbrokers looked for ways to get rid of them.

"Who is this?" "This is the prophet Jesus." Read on in Matthew and you'll see how much Jesus acts like a prophet. He stormed into the temple and turned over the moneychanger's tables. Pigeons and money were flying everywhere. Sheep were running loose while Jesus cried that God's house had been turned into a den of crooks. He called the priests hypocrites. He called the Pharisees blind fools and white washed tombs. He said that IRS agents and whores would make it into the kingdom ahead of the Pharisees. The prophets were to the religious and political establishment what matches are to gasoline.

"Who do people say I am?" Jesus asked his disciples. "They say you are one of the prophets." But we need something more than another prophet. If for some reason you should decide to torture me, here's how to do it. Strap me into a chair, put duct tape over my mouth and play sermon tapes from my first two years of preaching. I thought I was supposed to be a prophet. I thought I knew it all. I talked about all the ways we didn't act like Christians. I gave a list of all the problems in the world and said that we had better do something fast or we might die in a nuclear holocaust. My early sermons did a good job of keeping people awake at night, but that's about it. Thankfully the church was patient and kind until I got this stuff out of my system and began to focus upon how to fix what ails us when we see who Jesus really is.

Prophets can't do much but show the gulf between our practice and God's will. They aren't good at telling us what to do. So who is Jesus? A historian can tell you from the records of that period about a man named Jesus and how the movement he started impacted the surrounding culture. I could give you a stack of books and you could read what the theologians have said about Jesus. I could show you the works of artists and musicians and how they depicted Jesus. But this would not be enough. People say he was a great ethical teacher, a great motivational speaker, a wonderful example of a fine way to live and how much better the world would be if more people lived more like him. Beyond this there's not much more you can say. But this would not be enough.

If there's nothing unique about Jesus, you could just as well try to live like Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa or Jimmy Carter. But these people would tell you that they came to be who they were because they discovered Jesus for themselves. Jesus isn't concerned with what others say about him. He wants to know who you say he is.

You can't give someone else's answers. Only those who have been bathed in His love and have felt it flow through their lives to others can answer the question. Only those who have been sustained in life's darkest hours by a strength from beyond can answer the question. Only those who have tackled tasks beyond the reach of their resources and found that through Him they could do all things can answer the question. Only those who have bet their lives on His promises and have come to know there is no other we need turn to to find our way can answer this question.

Do you remember the pleading question asked by Rodney King during the Los Angeles riots which erupted when the police who beat him were acquitted? "Why can't we just get along?" Why? Because knowing we should do something doesn't mean we will do it. Why? Because we need someone to show us how and give us the strength and resolve to do it. We need God...the God who rode that little donkey into Jerusalem...the God whose glory shines in the face of Jesus Christ.

Do you remember the gruesome video of the truck driver, Reginald Denny who was mercilessly beaten during those Los Angeles riots? Several weeks and several surgeries later, Denny took the stand at the trial of the young men who nearly killed them. A remarkable thing happened in the courtroom that day. Denny said he bore no animosity toward his attackers. "I forgive them." he said. During a break in the trial, Denny approached the mother of one of the assailants and asked if he could shake her hand. She reached out and he hugged her, and she was heard telling him, "I love you." Then he went to the mother of the other accused man, embraced her, and they shared some words. People weren't accustomed to seeing such a sight in a courtroom. They were in awe, and afterward a reporter asked one of the mothers what words she and Denny had shared. She replied, "If you're not a Christian, you won't understand." If you don't know who he is, there's no point asking.

Their testimony and that of countless others who have met Jesus and found him to be the answer to their deepest longings know the answer to, "Who is this?" He's not a way, but the way. He's not a vessel of the truth, but truth incarnate. He's not one who lived a great life, but is the great giver of life.

Jesus looked Peter in the eye and asked, "Who do you say I am?" Peter's response was one of the few things Peter got right the first time. "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God." An ignorant fisherman saw what the learned and religious would not. Take a good look as he passes by on that little donkey. His path will tell you who he is. He's no prophet. He's not a brave, bold man, he's not a fine example of human potential. He's the one who calls into question the sufficiency of our ordered little world and turns our focus away from just us to serving others in His name.

We can know him...not completely. Just ask Peter. "You're the Son of God," he said. He was the first to see it. But when Jesus was arrested and a girl questioned his relationship with Jesus, he said, "I don't know the man." He wasn't just trying to save his skin. He really didn't know Jesus. Not fully. Neither do we. But we know enough to follow him. We know enough of him to trust who he says he is.

Who is this Jesus? Barry Johnson tells the story of an orphan girl who was awkward, abrasive and always in trouble. She made life so difficult that the superintendent of the orphanage was looking for the slightest breach of the rules so she could expel her. If the superintendent couldn't watch, staff members did. They were looking for a tiny excuse...just one, and one summer afternoon they got it.

The students weren't permitted to leave the premises without permission. One of the staff saw her step out the front gate, climb a tree and hide a piece of paper in a limb. The superintendent and staff hurried to the tree. One of them climbed it and retrieved the note. When the hardened superintendent read it, tears streamed down her cheeks. "What does it say?" the others asked. She handed it to them. There was just one line. "Whoever finds this note, I love you."

Johnson concludes: "Two thousand years ago God did a similar thing. He placed a note on a tree outside the wall of Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha. In essence, God said, "Whoever finds my Son, you will know that I love you."

Who is this? Read the note. There's your answer.

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