Text: Matthew 21:1–13
Topic: The new king has come—but do you want what he brings?  

• When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, everyone knew a regime change was taking place.
• This was the day that God's people had been praying for after living under the boot of Rome.
• Israel had been reduced to nothing more than a puppet state.
• They couldn't have any high priests that weren't approved by Rome first.
• Rome even had the nerve to build a giant fortress on the side of Israel's temple to keep an eye on her.
• Despite the crippling political power of the Romans, the Jews had not given up hope.
• The ancient prophecies from Zechariah and Isaiah said a Savior would come—that a king would come one day and ride into Jerusalem to deliver God's people from the evil of the ungodly.

• Imagine with me what that day must have been like when the Messiah finally arrived.
• The Messiah arrived just as the rabbis had said he would: during Passover.
• As hundreds of thousands of Jews fill the streets, a victory parade starts to form at the edge of the city—a two-mile parade that will go into the heart of Jerusalem.
• People turn to each other and say: "This prophet from Nazareth—Jesus—he's the one. He has to be. He just healed two people who were blind. It's incredible!"
• As Jesus comes their way, the people wave and shout because he's riding on a small donkey colt just like the prophet Zechariah had said it would be.
• As he draws closer, the people yell: "Bless the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise the new Son of David! Blessed is the King of Israel!"
• The people are excited because the blessed one himself has finally come to judge the ungodly.
• They think to themselves, The Messiah will finally remove the pagan Romans from power.

• But then something odd happens. Jesus doesn't go to the Roman fortress. He goes to the temple and drives out the people who are providing a service, a convenience for people coming to worship.
• Because the Jews couldn't bring their Roman or Greek coins into the temple to pay the temple tax, there was a currency exchange where a Jew could pay a fee that goes to the local bankers and the high priest's family.
• Because Jews traveling from a great distance wouldn't have animals with them for sacrifice, they would purchase animals at a higher price at the temple.
• The money changers and those who sold animals for sacrifice used to be outside the temple, but when Caiaphas became high priest, he let them move into the temple courtyard. After all, how would they pay for the temple without such business?
• Jesus confronts these practices saying: Who's violating the Holy Place more—the Roman soldiers who stand in a tower with the high priest's garments locked inside, or the temple bankers who are making money off of every poor person who comes to pray? You're interested in religion, but I'm interested in people!

• This text tells us that when the Messiah rides into town, you just never know where he might go or what he might do.
• When the Messiah rides into town, he confronts the evil things in the hearts of everyone—even his people.
• When Jesus returns in triumph to judge the ungodly, he will start with us, because we know that the temple now rests in his people.
• I wonder—what would he cleanse from God's people today?
• I think Jesus would cleanse some things that we widely accept—things we wouldn't think anything about, like the currency-exchange folks in the temple.
• I think Jesus would go after any practice or attitude that somehow keeps out "outsiders."
• Jesus might want to go after a sin that's very common among those of us in the Anglican tradition: the sin of loving our liturgy more than people.
• Jesus would confront our unwillingness to give above and beyond what we currently give.
  • Illustration: A husband and wife team of researchers in Champaign, Illinois, discovered that if all Christians gave at least 10 percent of their incomes, clean water and sanitation, prenatal and infant care, basic education, immunizations, and long-term development efforts that could help overcome global poverty would be taken care of—and then some!
• Most of what we do give stays here for our church; but maybe now is the time to have a special offering in which we challenge ourselves to go against that grain.
• Maybe we should take up the offering on Good Friday. Good Friday was the day Jesus was killed because the religious leaders couldn't handle his indictment on Palm Sunday.
• They took thirty pieces of silver out of the temple treasury—which they'd gotten from the tax on worshipers—and used it to hire an informant, a betrayer.

• When Jesus comes to town, you just never know where he might go or what he might do.
• He might challenge the things that are most dear to us—the things that are keeping us or others away from God.
• When he rides into town, he's going to judge the ungodly! It just might not be the people we think.