THREE QUESTIONS
WHO DO YOU SAY I AM? (PALM SUNDAY)
DR. JIM DIXON
APRIL 5, 2009
LUKE 19:37-40
On January 24th, 1975, my wife, Barb and I made our way to what was then the Aurora Presbyterian Hospital. We were excited and we were nervous. Barb was about to give birth to our first child, and we’d gone through Lamaze and we were really ready for this. So we got to Aurora Presbyterian and kind of settled in our room in the maternity section Barb was kind of in mild labor and the hours were passing and not much was happening. We had the TV going, and we kind of went through the whole day. It was Friday night, and still Barb was not making a lot of progress, but no one seemed to think anything was wrong.
Then they brought in a fetal heart monitor that had just been brought by the hospital by a group seeking to sell it to the hospital. This was when Aurora Presbyterian Hospital was brand new. This was January 24th, 1975, so the hospital was only a week in existence. So, they had no one else in labor. So to demonstrate the fetal heart monitor, they hooked it up to Barb. And as they hooked it up, they discovered that the baby was in trouble. They rushed Barb in and did an emergency cesarean section and probably saved our daughter Heather’s life. We’ve told that story before, and Barb and I will never cease to give thanks to God for His mercy upon us and His grace in our lives and for our daughter, Heather.
We have another child. Of course Heather’s married to Chris, and then we have our son. Barb gave birth to our son Drew also by cesarean section. I’ve sometimes said to people (and people think I’m kind of flaky, and maybe I am) but I sometimes say to people that the Holy Land is a lot like my wife because the Holy Land and my wife both have had two cesarean sections. Now, you might not understand that, but in the Holy Land in Israel there are two sections. There are two regions called Cesarean or Caesarea. One is Caesarea Maritima, and the other is Caesarea Philippi. Both are named after Caesar. And of course, cesarean section comes from Caesar because it was believed that Julius Caesar was born by C-section. But we have these two cities named after Julius Caesar, or Caesar Augustus.
Caesarea Maritima is north of Joppa and south of Mount Carmel, and it’s on the Mediterranean Sea. Caesarea Maritima was a great Roman city of government. It was there that the Apostle Paul was incarcerated before he was taken to Rome for trial and then north of Israel. There’s this second region called Caesarea Philippi, and it’s beautiful. Caesarea Philippi is absolutely beautiful to this day. It’s near Mount Herman. It’s near the headwaters of the Jordan River, and you can go to Caesarea Philippi today and you can see the rivers and you can see the waterfalls and you can see the lush foliage and the mountains. It is just so beautiful. It was there long ago in Caesarea Philippi that Jesus posed this question to His disciples, perhaps the most important question we will ever hear: “Who do you say that I am?”
Jesus posed this question, and He poses that same question to each of us in this room today. Who do you say that I am? Of everyone in the world He would ask that question, who do you say that I am? And the Bible gives two answers, and these comprise our two teachings this morning.
First of all, the Bible tells us He is King of Kings. You go to Revelation chapter 19, and you see the second coming of Jesus Christ described in apocalyptic language. Jesus comes with the armies of heaven. He comes, Lord Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. He comes with the armies of heaven to reign on earth and He is given a title. That title is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So the Bible tells us Jesus is King of Kings. Who do you say that I am? King of Kings. Now, Peter understood this, so at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus poses the question, “Who do you say that I am?” the disciples said, well, some say this. Some say that. Some say Elijah, some Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Jesus said, “Yes, but who do you say that I am?” And it is Simon Peter who answers, and Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now, we should understand that the title Christ is a Greek title, and it is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew title Messiah. Christ comes from “chrio.” Messiah comes from “masiah.” But chrio and masiah are Greek and Hebrew equivalents. They both mean “to anoint.” To say that Jesus is the Christ is to say He’s the anointed one. To say He is the Messiah, is to say He is the Anointed one.
Now, in the Jewish world, the Hebrew people understood that one day the Messiah would come. The Hebrew people understood that one day the Christ would come and He would be the anointed one, and therefore He would fulfill all three of the major offices of Israel. He would fulfill the office of prophet, one of the three anointed offices of Israel as the Anointed One. He would fulfill the office of prophet, He would fulfill the office of priest, and he would fulfill the office of king. Most of all, the Messiah, or the Christ, was viewed as the promised king who would be the king to end all kings, who would establish His eternal throne, the one who is King of Kings. The Messiah, the Christ.
Peter understood this when he made his great confession, “You are the Christ.” That is to say, “You are the promised King of Kings.” So as Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowds agreed with Peter. As Jesus came into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday and the crowds lined the street as He came down the Mount of Olives towards the Kidron Valley, towards the walled and holy city of Jerusalem, as He approached the city and thousands lined the road they shouted, “Hosanna, hosanna! Save us now. Blessed is the king.” They understood this is the promised Messiah. This is the promised Christ, King of Kings. He has come. Rejoice. So Peter and the disciples and even the crowds and the multitude understood that this is the promised King, but they had false expectations that Palm Sunday.
They thought that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem that Sunday to establish His physical kingdom on earth, to set up His throne and to rule the nations. The crowds believed that would happen that day, and that’s why He was coming to the Holy city as the promised Messiah. The Jewish people were so tired of being oppressed. They were a conquered people. They had been conquered by the Assyrians centuries earlier. They had been conquered by the Babylonians centuries earlier. They had been conquered by the Medo-Persians centuries earlier. They had been conquered by the Greeks centuries earlier. They had been conquered by the Seleucids a couple of centuries earlier. They had been abused by the Ptolemies, and they had been conquered by the Romans just 60 years before the birth of Christ. The Romans under the armies of Pompey came with their legions and swept over Palestine, swept over Israel, and the Jews became part of a vassal state of Rome.
They were tired of it. But the Messiah was coming—the promised king, King of Kings. As Jesus came down that road that Palm Sunday, Peter and the disciples were ready for conquest. They had their swords. I mean, there’s every reason to believe that all the disciples were armed. If Jesus called upon them to take up weapons, they were ready. But they also suspected they wouldn’t need to, because they’d seen Christ. They’d seen Him calm the sea. They’d seen Him rebuke the wind. They’d seen Him heal lepers by the mere touch of His hand. In a moment in time, they’d seen Him raise the dead by His command. They’d seen Him raised from the dead the widow’s son of the village of Nain. They’d seen Him raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus, the high priest in Galilee. They’d seen Him raise from the dead in Judea Lazarus in a region of Bethany. They’d seen his power, and He had said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” They understood what He could do and they really believed this was the day He would establish His physical kingdom. They did not understand that His physical kingdom waits for His second coming.
I think the crowds felt a lot like the crowds in Rome when Julius Caesar would enter the city in triumph. You know how Julius Caesar, after his many triumphs, would often return to Rome with his legions. And he would in a great processional make his way down the Via Sacra towards the Roman Forum and towards the capitol. Tens of thousands would line the Via Sacra and Julius Caesar would come in his chariot of gold pulled by a team of white horses—or perhaps, as some historians believe, at least on one occasion a team of lions. Before him were the Roman senators and the trumpeters, and behind him the Roman legions and prisoners bound in chains and the spoils of war. The crowds lining the street, and they shouted, “Hail Caesar, hail Caesar, hail Caesar!”
“Veni vidi, vici.” Caesar had once said, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” and I think as Jesus came into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday many people in the crowds felt like that. They felt like this is king of kings. And though He had not yet conquered, they did believe He was about to, and they were all so excited. Now, of course, they did not understand that Jesus was bringing a spiritual kingdom, that He wanted to reign over their hearts and their souls, and that His physical kingdom would wait for the second coming. But they didn’t understand that His first coming had to do with the establishment of His spiritual kingdom planted like a seed on the earth.
I think it’s true even to this day. Many Christians, many people, do not understand the meaning of the kingship of Christ. I think this has been true throughout Christian history. You all know there was a period of history called the Crusades. And as Christians, there’s a sense in which we can understand the crusades. I mean, the world of Islam for centuries had seized and conquered Christian territories. The world of Islam for centuries had seized, with military force, Christian territories and Christian cities and Christian regions of the world. Christians were tired of it. So you had armies rise up in the name of Christ, and there’s a sense in which you can understand it, although it was totally misguided because Jesus told us we cannot establish His kingdom by human force. We do not establish His kingdom by military force. So this was misguided. The physical kingdom of Christ will come when He descends from heaven with a cry of command. The physical kingdom of Christ will appear when Christs descends from heaven arraigned in glory and surrounded by the host of heaven. That’s when the physical kingdom of heaven will come.
But now His kingdom is spiritual, planted in the souls of men and women. It’s never meant now to grow through human conquests. Now, of course, the second coming of Christ is the great theme of eschatology, and we know that at the eschaton, at the end of time, Jesus will come. But we need to understand the spiritual nature of His kingdom. Peter didn’t understand why Jesus had come into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday, and He didn’t understand the events of the week. And on Maundy Thursday surely Peter did not understand the institution of communion as Jesus shared communion and He broke the bread saying, “This is My body, broken for you.” And as he poured the wine and He said, “This is the new covenant in My blood, shed for the remission of sins.”
I’m sure all the disciples were scratching their heads. They just didn’t understand. They would understand later, but they didn’t understand that day. Later that night, when Jesus was in Gethsemane and the authorities came to arrest Him, Peter drew his sword. He cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, a man whose name was Malchus. And Jesus told Peter, put away your sword. Do you not know that I could at once summon 12 legions of angels?
Do you understand what Jesus said to Peter? I could at once summon 12 legions of angels. How many soldiers were in a Roman legion? Well, 4,000 to 6,000, depending on the period of Roman history. Normally there were about 5,000 soldiers in a Roman legion. Jesus said, “Do you not know I could at once summon 60,000 angels?” But of course, He said 12 legions, and perhaps He’s using 12 as the number of completion, in which case He’d be saying, “Do you not know that I could at once summon the entire angelic host?” He is King of Kings. That’s the first answer to, “Who do you say that I am?” King of Kings. But His kingdom is not now physical.
Now there’s a second answer that is given in the Bible and that is, “Savior of the world.” “Who do you say that I am?” Savior of the world. We go back to Caesarea Philippi. We go back to the question that Jesus posed. Who do you say that I am? We go back to the answer that Simon Peter gave. “You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Anointed one, the Son of the Living God.”
Now, we saw that the title Christ is the equivalent of the title Messiah in Greek and Hebrew. We saw that the title referred to the promised one who would fulfill the three anointed offices of prophet, priest, and king. We also saw that most people in Israel focused on the office of King. But what they didn’t understand and what Peter didn’t understand that Palm Sunday as Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem was He was not coming to fulfill the office of king. He was not coming to fulfill that office. He was coming to fulfill the office of priest.
What did priests do? Priests were those who interceded for the sin of the people. And so the priests of Israel, through their prayer and their sacrifices, were constantly, daily, interceding for the sins of the people. They would offer the blood of animals upon the altars of Israel for the sin of the people. And of course, you know that the high priest, on a very special day, one day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, would go into the Holy of Holies of the temple (and in prior times of the tabernacle) and there in the Holy of Holies that one day each year the high priest would sprinkle the blood of animals upon the Mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, seeking to atone again for the sin of the people.
Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He came into Jerusalem that week to fulfill the priestly office by His own blood, that through the offering of His own blood He would atone for the sin of the people and fulfill the priestly office. So that’s why He came down that road on the Mount of Olives that Palm Sunday. That’s why He went to the cross on Good Friday. That’s why He instituted communion on Maundy Thursday. It was because He was fulfilling the priestly office, and He would once and for all bring sacrifice to an end.
He would once and for all, through the offering of His own blood, atone for the sin of the world as Son of God. So that is why the angel said to Mary with the angelic announcement, “You shall call His name Yeshua. You shall call His name Jesus.” You shall call His name Yeshua, which means Savior. You shall call His name Savior because He will, through His own blood, save the world from its sin, and He will fulfill as Christ the priestly office. Yeshua.
Now, Peter and the disciples in a sense should have understood this. And yet, I suppose if we were there, and if we were in that band that walked with Jesus, we would not have fully understood either. But Peter and the disciples had read Isaiah 53 and they had read in the Torah and in the Old Testament the prophecies and they knew that it was prophesied that there would come the suffering servant who would by His stripes heal the people.
So Peter knew Isaiah 53, that all of we like sheep have gone astray. But the Lord would lay upon the Messiah the inequity of us all. And Peter knew that it was prophesied that he would Be wounded for our sins and bruised for our transgressions and that by His stripes, by His wounds, we would be healed. Yet he would only understand those kinds of passages of scripture later. Why was Jesus crying on Palm Sunday? Why did He look, as recorded in Luke 19, at the city of Jerusalem and weep? Because He knew they did not know the answer?
Who do you say that I am? They didn’t understand. They didn’t understand that He was Savior and He was coming to save them by His own blood. And why did he weep in Gethsemane? Why did Jesus cry in the garden? Was it because He was about to face the physical pain of crucifixion? Perhaps in part, but most scholars agree He was crying because He knew He was about to have the sin of the world vested upon Him. He was crying because He knew He was about to have the sin of the entire world vested on Him, and He would die to atone for the sin of all people.
So again, I think on Maundy Thursday, as Peter received the bread and sipped the cup, he didn’t understand all this, but later he did. And I hope that you understand. I hope that you have truly become a follower of Jesus Christ. If you have, if you have truly become a follower of Jesus Christ, then you have embraced not only the cross, but the crown. You have said to Jesus, come reign in me. You have embraced Him as King of Kings, and you have accepted the cross as well, and you have knelt and said, Lord Jesus, forgive me and thank You for dying for me.
So we who follow Christ embrace both the cross and the crown. And by means of this faith, we become children of God and we enter the family of God and we live for the cause of His kingdom and with the promise of heaven.
I know many of you remember 1994 when Northwest Airlines offered their mystery fare tickets. Remember that? $59, you could purchase a mystery fare ticket. And where would it take you? Well, that was the whole point. Nobody knew; it was a mystery fare. Northwest Airlines was offering it for $59. It might take you to Seattle, might take you to Las Vegas, or might take you to Casper, Wyoming, but you didn’t know. Amazingly, thousands of people bought them. Thousands of people all across America bought these mystery fair tickets, having no clue where they were going and not caring.
It’s a strange world, and there are a lot of people in this world who with regard to death and with regard to destiny don’t know and don’t seem to care. They just want to know what’s for dinner. They don’t seem to care. And I marvel. Do you care? Understand why Jesus came to this world and why He came to Jerusalem that Palm Sunday. It was all about you. He came for you. He’s King of Kings and He’s Savior of the world.
Some of you have heard of Norma McCorvey. All of you have actually heard of her, but not by that name. Norma McCorvey was her real name. She went by the name Jane Roe. She went by the pseudonym Jane Roe, and of course she was in the Roe v. Wade 1973 the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal pretty much on demand in any and all trimesters in America. The year was 1969 when she claimed that she had been raped and horribly violated and was now pregnant. She decided she wanted to abort the baby. But she soon discovered in 1969 that abortion was not then legal. She said she could not carry this baby to term because it was in her sight and in her heart and in her mind an abomination, the byproduct of a horrible rape. It represented her abuse. And liberal attorneys found her and used her in this Roe v Wade decision, and of course, abortion was made legal.
Norma McCorvey, known only as Jane Roe, just kind of disappeared. She just kind of disappeared for 10 years and nobody knew her real name. 10 years later, fortified by vodka and Valium, she spilled the beans. 10 years later in Dallas, Texas, she told it all to a Dallas newspaper reporter. She was Jane Roe. She confessed that she had never been raped, that she had simply had casual sex. And then she later wrote her book, I Am Roe. And in that book, she talked about everything that had happened and disclosed some of her lesbian relationships, as she seemed kind of bisexual.
Then an amazing thing happened in 1995. In 1995, while Norma McCorvey was working at an abortion clinic, she met folks from a pro-life group. She met folks from a pro-life group that was headquartered nearby. These were Christian men and women, and they loved her. They loved Norma McCorvey and they befriended her. As they befriended her, her heart melted and she accepted Jesus Christ in 1995.
She gave her heart to Jesus, and she was baptized in front of the world, baptized in a swimming pool in front of the cameras for ABC’s World News tonight. Today she has written another book and published some videos, and she is a strong supporter of pro-life groups and tells everyone that Jesus is her Savior.
Now you could say, well, since the passing of Roe v Wade in 1973, approximately 45 million babies have been aborted. And you would be right. About 45 million babies have been aborted since the passing of Roe v Wade. And I think most of you know that most of these abortions have had nothing to do with rape or incest or gross fetal deformity or danger to the life of the mother. 98% of these abortions had nothing to do with any of those things. They were simply belated efforts at birth control in a society that is increasingly promiscuous.
It is a national tragedy. And perhaps there’s a few of you who might be thinking, well, how could Jane Roe, Norma McCorvey, if she had any part in those 45 million deaths, be forgiven? But you don’t understand Jesus. You don’t understand the power of the cross. You don’t understand the power of the blood. Jesus can forgive anyone. He can forgive anyone of anything. He has power to do that. Who do you say that I am? He is King of Kings and He is Savior of the world, and He is the hope of the world. And He is your hope, and today if you’re sitting here and you’ve not embraced Him and you’ve never answered the question, “Who do you say that I am?” this is the day you can do that. As we close, let’s pray.