My text this morning is Luke chapter 19 beginning at verse 28. Luke chapter 19, 28 through 44. When he had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass, when he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the mountain called Olivet, that he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go to the village opposite you, where, as you enter, you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it, and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, Why are you loosing it? Thus you shall say to him, Because the Lord has need of it. So those who were sent went their way, and found it just as he had said to them. But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, Why are you loosing the colt? And they said, The Lord has need of him. Then they brought him to Jesus, and they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. And as he went, many spread their clothes on the road. that as he was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. But he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. Now, as he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, if you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. but now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close it in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." In April of this past year, I preached on Palm Sunday on the triumphal entry I examined a lot of the details at that sermon. I'd like to remind you of a couple of those things, but today I'd like to focus primarily on the term peace, for he warned Jerusalem that they did not know the way of peace. But let's look briefly at the triumphal entry. I won't go through every detail. You can refer back to that sermon if you want to look at every detail. But the first thing to remind ourselves of is that Jesus entered riding a colt. I disagree with the commentaries that say that this was a mark of his humiliation. This was not. This was a mark of his exaltation, the writing of a cult, because writing into Jerusalem itself was an act of a king. No one ever rode into Jerusalem. Even Alexander the Great walked. He got off his horse and walked in. That was part of the custom. You walked into Jerusalem. Ever since Solomon was crowned king, and if you remember the account of Solomon, Adonijah, the son of David, tried to usurp the throne when David was sick. David heard of it, and he told his men to put Solomon on the colt of his donkey. and let him ride into the city, thus declaring Solomon to be the king over all. This was an act that Jesus did deliberately to proclaim himself as the king, the rightful heir to the throne of David. The Gospel of Mark tells us also that Jesus entered Jerusalem and all welcomed him as a king. But then when he went to the temple, Mark says he walked in, looked around, said, oh, look at the time, it's getting late, and left and went back to Bethany to stay with his friends. And the cleansing of the temple took place the next day. That was Jesus' humiliation. He came humble. He did not come as a king that the Romans were expecting. They would have been watching him very closely. When you see all of Jerusalem gathering and shouting, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the Roman armies would have been paying attention. And yet even Pilate knew these are not the actions of a threat to the Roman Empire. But he was received as a king. He did not correct any of those that were shouting. In fact, he rebuked the Pharisees, saying, if these didn't shout, the stones would. He chose to make a statement of his rightful place as the heir of David when he rode into Jerusalem on the colt of the donkey. But he is a king unlike any other. Even the Romans understood that. He was the prince of peace. That's why I want to look at this term of peace that's used a couple of times in our text. In Isaiah 9, this famous Christmas passage, Isaiah says, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. The Prince of Peace. At his birth, the angel sang, peace on earth, goodwill toward men, glory to God in the highest. And this song is echoed at the triumphant entry, peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. Peace. And when he condemns Jerusalem, he says that the reason that they're about to be overthrown is because they did not know the way of peace. The concept of peace in the Bible is far greater than simply a cessation of hostility. Of course, it is that. But it's also much more. Sometimes things are communicated more eloquently than other times, and I'd like to try to communicate what the scripture of the Jewish mind meant by peace. It means wholeness, soundness, harmony, contentment. It means to fit in, to be accepted, to be loved, and to love. It means to know and to be known. It means to live in harmony. Each part fitting together, glorious diversity blending together into beautiful unity. It's each man sitting under his vine and under his fig tree. It's when the barn is full and the children are in bed and the wine is opened and you're sitting on the porch with your spouse and the snow starts to fall on Christmas Eve. It's when your enemies have lost their power and can no longer touch you, when the cold and the frost are safely outside, and the fire is crackling, and you have plenty of wood to last the winter. It's when your work is joyful and it pays you well, and your efforts prosper, and your crops grow and multiply a hundredfold, and the aphids leave all your rose bushes alone. It is what we all long for. It's how we were created. It's the Garden of Eden without the thorns and thistles, it's love without the shame, companionship without the blame shifting, walking with God without being afraid of his voice, with no fear of death, no fear of the futility of life or the uselessness of riches or the vanity of youth and beauty that fades and dies. Peace is when we walk with God without fear. Peace is when we have communion with one another without fear and condemnation and shame. Peace is when our bodies are fit and healthy and contented and calm and our stomachs aren't in knots and sweat isn't pouring down and our hearts aren't racing. We aren't afraid of threats. Our traumas are all healed. Our tears are all wiped away. It's what we all long for. On this earth, we can see glimpses of it because of the goodness of God. And we can do things because we're image bearers of God that can bring about a shadow or a glimpse of this peace. We can eat healthy and exercise and follow our doctor's instructions. We can learn breathing techniques and learn how to quiet our thoughts. We can go to therapy and learn how to deal with our trauma. We can reconcile with our neighbor. We can learn to watch out for red flags. We can buy security systems. We can work hard to give to others. We can fight for justice and give a voice to the voiceless and strive after equity and truth. And all of these things bring about a glimpse and a shadow of the peace that we long for. But as we all know, no matter what we do or how hard we try, the bodies will still hurt. The old traumas find a way to resurface. friends betray, slanders shatter reputations, and kings that are once welcomed as liberators become tyrants and die and give birth to fools. The fact is when you strip away all the complexities of peace and the wholeness and health and salvation, when you strip away all the longings of the heart and peel back the layers and look at what we all long for, There's only one problem with mankind. Our catechism sums it up. From where do you know your misery? Out of the law of God. That's the problem, isn't it? What does God require of us? To love God and to love our neighbor. What do we do instead? We're prone by nature to hate God and hate our neighbor. Unless God intervenes and shows us the way of peace, it is far from us. Every garden still has aphids and thorns. Every body is born, already dying. The default of all creation is war. War between nations, war between spouses, war between people, between the sexes, between us and creation, between us and our own bodies. And all of it happened because when Adam ate the fruit, he declared war on God and we all inherited his war. As Isaiah puts it, we made a covenant with death. The way of peace we have not known. Equity and justice are far off from us. We have all come short of the glory of God. And all of mankind, for the whole of history, has struggled to bring peace, to overcome the curse. And there is still death, war, injustice, poverty, and hatred. The Pharisees had their declaration of what would bring peace, and it would be the death of the Sadducees and the Romans. The Sadducees had their definition of peace, which was very similar to the Pharisees' definition of peace. Jerusalem did not know the way of peace. The angels sang peace on earth, good will toward men. Many people this time of year wonder what happened to peace on earth. The nation of Israel in Jesus' day had the same questions. If Jesus is the promised anointed one, as the scripture says, if he is the king and the prophet promised by the law and the prophets, then where was the peace that was promised? The nation welcomed him as the king, but they could not conceive of a king without their concept of a kingdom, as I've said before. A kingdom where everyone sits under their own vine and their own fig trees. And they would say, like many do today, if only we got back to the good old days, then we would all have peace. You know, like in David's reign. David, the great king, where everybody had peace. Well, except for all the people that were still sick and dying and plagued and fighting and abused and outcast during David's reign. The problem with looking for a king just like David is that that David never existed. David becomes a larger than life, almost mythological character. They expected Jesus to be just like David, destroying enemies and bringing peace all around, but that David only existed in their minds. It is true, David's kingdom was wonderful for a tiny handful of people, unless you happen to be the woman that lived next door to David, or the daughter of a king, or part of the harem. were part of the forced labor that made the bricks to build the buildings. So when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds welcomed him, thinking that he would be on their side, run the others out, bring about peace and prosperity to the right sort of people, just like every other king. The friends are rewarded, the enemies cast out, the ones with nothing to offer are left on the streets to fend for themselves. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He did indeed declare peace on the earth, goodwill toward men. The problem is the cancer of sin, the cancer of our declaration of war against God, the covenant that we made with death. Until that covenant is annulled, there can be no peace of any kind. There can be glimpses, but never any lasting peace. And Jesus didn't come to put a band-aid on the symptoms. He came to annul the covenant of death, to use Isaiah's phrase, bringing peace with God. And so this is a king like no other. He does battle like no other. His chariot is humility, as our Christmas hymn says. His sword is his body and his blood, which he will offer as a sacrifice for sin. And through his obedience and his sacrifice, He will purchase for Himself a people, an inheritance, a nation of kingly priests, which He will govern by His Word and Spirit. He will fill us with His Spirit and cause us to walk in His statutes and judgments and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. A King that can change hearts from hearts of hatred to hearts of love, who can give hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone. And the day will come when the kingdoms of this earth will become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever the same way. This kingdom will not be established by armies or horses or chariots, but by his word and spirit. As the angel declared to Zerubbabel, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. This is the kingdom He entered into Jerusalem to claim. And so He not only entered in as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but also as the Lamb of God, coming to take away the sins of the world. In their rush, and in their joy, and in their exaltation to receive Jesus as the King, the nation missed something else. This was the Sunday before Passover, five days before the Passover lambs were to be offered, when according to the law all the lambs were to be brought before the priests to be examined to see if they had any blemish or had any spot. And so while all of Israel is bringing the lambs into Jerusalem, the Lamb of God is entering on the colt of a donkey. We will see in the next chapter of Luke that the priests in the temple examine Jesus to find fault in him, just as they're examining the lambs for the week. Because this king came to offer himself to the judgment of God to annul the covenant with death. And therefore, as Paul says, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace on earth was taken away when we declared war against God. Now that we have peace with God, peace on earth will burst forth in this age and come in its fullness in the age to come. When every tear will be wiped away, when every enemy will be destroyed, when the last enemy to be destroyed is death, And this is why the kingdom of heaven is described in terms of peace, where the wolf lies down with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the goat and the calf and the young lamb and the fatling together are led by a little child. The warfare between mankind and creation is taken away. The warfare between men and men is taken away. Between men and women is taken away. And there is peace. But this peace is only possible According to Psalm 2, for those who kiss the Son, who make peace with Him, who trust Him and lay aside their weapons, and learn how to rest. Back again to Isaiah 28. rebuking the nation of Israel for refusing to listen to the prophets one right after another. And he says, I've declared this to you. This is what the Lord says. This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest. And this is the refreshing yet they would not hear. They would not hear words of rest and words of peace. They would not say, just be quiet and wait for the Lord. Instead, they said, we will not have this man to rule over us, as we saw last week. And thus, as the scripture has declared, there is no peace for the wicked, for they have declared war with God. For unless sin is taken away, there can be no peace. Israel would have accepted Jesus on their terms. But there's only one term given, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish from the way. Blessed are all they who put their trust in him. So Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and he warns them again. They're following the same path that they followed in the days of Isaiah. Just as Isaiah said, the way of peace they have not known. There is no justice in their ways. They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. And Jesus said the same thing. If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. Or as other translations have it, if you had known the way of peace. That they rejected that way. They rejected the word of the Lord over and over again. The gentle offer of rest. Come unto me you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And they rejected it. There is no peace for the wicked. Back in Isaiah 8, Isaiah said, I've offered you the gentle waters of the pool of Siloam, but you rejected it. And so the river of Assyria will overflow you. This is the same message that Jesus has in our text. You've rejected the way of peace, the gentle waters of the gospel. And so the river of God's judgment, the Roman armies will overthrow you. When the people of God refuse the way of peace, that way is taken from them and their eyes are blinded. And then the gospel goes to all the outsiders, the Gentiles, those that are on the highways and the byways. The offer is again made. Here is the way of peace. Everything that you're longing for and everything that you're looking for, it isn't in reputations. It isn't in belonging, in bank accounts, in politicians, in making proper choices, in exercise and eating right. It isn't in the things of this world because no matter how hard we try, moths still eat. Rust still rusts. Gas prices still go up. Cancer still enters. The body still decays. Loss and enmity are the loss of this world and you can't ever find peace there. This week it struck me at how many people's peace is connected to what the gas prices are. It shouldn't be that way because we don't know the way of peace. When we embrace the Son who has made flesh for us and for our salvation then we have peace with God. The cancer is dealt with. And we can cry out, give us today our daily bread. The symptoms of restlessness and un-peace fade at the proper time. When we look for that peace in anything else, like Jerusalem did, we're bound to be discouraged, anxious, angry, stirred up, restless. Like riches and happiness, the things of this earth will never be enough to give rest to our souls. But the Prince of Peace has come, and he says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For he has the authority and the power and the strength to give what he promises, and he promises rest. Only in him do we find the way to peace. Only there can we find rest for our souls, just as he promised. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the rest that you have given to our souls. We pray, Father, that you would Forgive us that You would cause us to rest quietly in Your arms, even as we work to shine the light of peace in the world around us, as we try to ease the burdens as children of our Father, as we fight for justice and give the voice to the voiceless. And teach us, though, that our rest is not here, but it's resting in the arms of our Savior. In His name we pray, amen.