20070330 Bible Study for the Day- Matthew 20:29-21:22

Context for Matthew 20:29-21:22

Jesus arrives at Jerusalem for the last time. He has come there to fulfill the mission He came for, the mission promised from the first moment of sin to restore mankind to God’s grace through faith in Him and in His work.

Matthew 20:29-21:22

Jesus’ resolute march toward Jerusalem was always framed in a single, compelling mission: Jesus came to fulfill the will of the Father. Because Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s will, He was also the fulfillment of God’s promises about who He would be.

So it was, that when He entered Jerusalem, He did so riding on the foal of a donkey, an action that drew attention to Him not only because He rode into the city instead of walked, but because He did so to fulfill what had been promised about Him.

The leaders of the Jews could not have failed to notice this fact, just as they had to have noticed how Jesus fulfilled all of the other things God had promised them about the Messiah. The problem for them was that Jesus was not the Messiah that they wanted. They wanted a powerful, earthly king, riding in triumph into Jerusalem to elevate them to the levels of power they felt they deserved.

Instead, Jesus came humbly, accepting the praises of the masses rather that a gathered army, riding on a borrowed donkey. Jesus came fulfilling what the Word promised of Him, not what men sinfully expected of Him, and the leaders hated Him for it even as He came to redeem them.

There is a lesson for us in Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Just as the Word promised the Jews how their Messiah would come to them, the Word promises us how the Messiah will come to us. We may want Him to come in some other way. We may want Him to come for some other reasons. Yet, He comes how He comes and for what He comes for-through the Word and the Sacraments for our redemption and our eternity.

The lesson then is to look for the Jesus the Word promises and to focus ourselves by grace through faith on the people He wants us to be because of who He was and is. In that focus, we find the true fulfillment of our hope and the enduring promise of what is yet to come.

-=DLH=-

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