Mission Impossible: Palm Sunday  Acts 9:1-25

¹Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath. He was eager to destroy the Lord’s followers, so he went to the high priest. ²He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.

³As he was nearing Damascus on this mission, a brilliant light from heaven suddenly beamed down upon him! ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”

⁵“Who are you, sir?” Saul asked.

And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! ⁶Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

⁷The men with Saul stood speechless with surprise, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice, but they saw no one! ⁸As Saul picked himself up off the ground, he found that he was blind. ⁹So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. He remained there blind for three days. And all that time he went without food and water.

¹⁰Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!”

“Yes, Lord!” he replied.

¹¹The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you arrive, ask for Saul of Tarsus. He is praying to me right now. ¹²I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying his hands on him so that he can see again.”

¹³“But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! ¹⁴And we hear that he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest every believer in Damascus.”

¹⁵But the Lord said, “Go and do what I say. For Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. ¹⁶And I will show him how much he must suffer for me.”

¹⁷So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you may get your sight back and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. ¹⁹Afterward he ate some food and was strengthened.

Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days. ²⁰And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is indeed the Son of God!”

²¹All who heard him were amazed. “Isn’t this the same man who persecuted Jesus’ followers with such devastation in Jerusalem?” they asked. “And we understand that he came here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests.”

²²Saul’s preaching became more and more powerful, and the Jews in Damascus couldn’t refute his proofs that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. ²³After a while the Jewish leaders decided to kill him. ²⁴But Saul was told about their plot, and that they were watching for him day and night at the city gate so they could murder him. ²⁵So during the night, some of the other believers let him down in a large basket through an opening in the city wall.

There are times when God simply must act. This is one of those occasions. Something has to be done about Saul. More space is devoted to the conversion of Saul than any other event in the New Testament except the death of Jesus.

Saul is determined to destroy the church. The important business of persecuting Christians was given to Saul officially by the leadership in Jerusalem. It is apparent that the Romans had given the responsibility for the Jewish communities in the eastern part of the empire to the leaders in Jerusalem. That is why they can give Saul letters to the Jewish community of Damascus to surrender over any people who believe in Jesus…that is followers of the Way. He is given authority to continue what Luke describes as “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.

One wonders why Saul and the leaders of Israel are so zealous about destroying the followers of Jesus. Tolerance that we hear so much about these days is not even in their vocabulary. It appears as is they will not rest until the destruction of the church is complete. Why are they doing it?

The question leads us back to Jesus and his entry into Jerusalem the week before his crucifixion. On that day he enters into the city the Sunday before the Passover, His followers line the streets. They lay down palm branches and their clothing to make a “royal” carpet for him. It is such a tumult that the Jewish leaders are concerned that “the whole city has gone over to him.” He is obviously entering the city as the Messiah. That is obviously his claim as he comes into the city. And it is clear to the religious leaders and they don’t like it.

“Why do you think that in the space of one short week Jesus could go from being the most popular person on the planet to public enemy number 1.”

The key to the answer can, I believe be found with the ownership of the Donkey.

The Jews had been longing for and looking for their Messiah to come and deliver them from oppression. Two Hundred years earlier Judas Maccabees revolted and threw off the yoke of the Kings of Syria and the Jews reclaimed their independence. Some one like Judas is what the Jews were looking for in a Messiah.

In the Roman way of doing things, Rulers would ride into the city on a gleaming, white stallion with pomp and ceremony. For the Jews THAT was the type of Messiah they were expecting at the beginning of the week of Passover.

However, as he comes into the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, Jesus dispels their notions of what their Messiah was going to be like.

Why did the crowd change in one short week from worshipping Jesus to crying for his blood?
It is because Jesus brought unacceptable CHANGE to their thinking. He is the wrong kind of Messiah.

He challenged their concept of the Messiah and as with most change – religious people didn’t like that.

In fact if the crowds had been watching carefully they would have realised that - even on Palm Sunday itself -something wasn’t quite right.

Why?

Because if Jesus was coming as an all conquering King, he would not have ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Instead had he come as a political Messiah, he would have ridden into Jerusalem on a white stallion – the symbol of power in the Roman world.

But he came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey – the symbol of servanthood.
 
The donkey was part of what Jesus had planned.

And I believe that Jesus had purposely planned riding a donkey into Jerusalem – that was no mere chance.

I believe we can see this in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples:

"Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ’Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ’The Lord needs it.’ (Lk 19:30,31)

Clearly the disciples did not know the donkey’s owners – otherwise Jesus would have simply said “Go and get the donkey from whatever the owner’s name was.

Luke then records that when the disciples did go and fetch the donkey, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" But note this: The donkey had plural owners. And you can be sure that if the donkey had more than one owner; it meant that the people were quite poor. The donkey did not belong to some rich land owner. It represented quite an investment to its owners. And for them to give the donkey to some strangers would have been unlikely. “The Lord needs it.” must have been a pre-arranged code word Jesus had given the owners of the donkey.

 So what was Jesus saying by using a donkey?

What is the point that He is making by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey?

Jesus was well aware of Zechariah’s prophecy – given four centuries earlier that said one day the true King would come - not on a charger but on a donkey.

The prophecy reads like this:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech 9:9)

But the crowds couldn’t hear the statement Jesus was making when he came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
They were too caught up in their own preconceptions of the Messiah and what Messiah meant to them.
They weren’t listening to the change in their thinking of Messiahship that Jesus was making.

For the donkey reflected the servanthood of the Messiah encapsulated so well in Isaiah 53 where God speaks to us of the suffering servant.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, there was an air of expectation.

The Crowds were simply waiting for Jesus to give the word and they would rise up and storm the Roman garrison But he didn’t.

Jesus ….entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. “It is written” he said to them “My house will be a house of prayer but you have made it a den of robbers” (Lk 19:45, 46)

Instead of leading a revolt to throw out the Roman secular power, Jesus goes into the Temple to “clean up shop” there. He cleanses the temple. He throws out the money changers. He does so with authority and the religious establishment hates him for it.

Why? – because he came to CHANGE their expectation of what Messiah meant and restore true worship to Israel.

He attacked the corruption in the Temple. God’s people need to be reformed first, before those who have no allegiance to God.

He took the Jews - not the Romans to task.

And instead of listening to the change Jesus brought – they turned on him.

When what Jesus was saying finally sank in – the religious Jews rose up in fury

For it was when He went into the Temple that they began to realise how different Jesus’ mission was to their expectations. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord.
’For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

Because his mission was different than what they wanted, they engineered his death on the cross.

That leads us to Saul of Tarsus.

When the Jewish leaders could not stop the disciples from telling others about Jesus by arrests and threats some thing had to give. The beginning of the change came with the stoning of Stephen. The leaders determined to destroy every person who was a follower of this Jesus. They did not want this man who claimed to be the Messiah  and any who followed him were deemed trouble makers who threatened their power and position. They had successfully gotten rid of this Jesus and now it would be the turn of those who followed him.

With his letters of introduction, he leaves for Damascus. And there on the way to Damascus, he meets Jesus. It is clear from his account of his conversion in Acts 22 and 26 that he actually saw Jesus that day. We know there was the bright light that flashed around him. The way this is expressed in the text indicates that the light flashed and then remained around him for some time.

What he heard was “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?” To persecute the followers of Jesus is to persecute him. Saul wants to know who he is talking with. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting…” “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

We do not know the exact moment that Saul was converted. It may well have been the instant in which he saw Jesus and realized who he was seeing. In some manner he makes the connection between the crucified Jesus and the resurrected Christ. There is no indication in Scripture that he had ever seen Jesus before. But he sees him now and it changes his life forever.

In some way he understands that all the Jesus said and did had the approval of God…the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. The resurrection proved this to Saul. He now realizes that to fight against Jesus and his followers was to fight against God. This was the very thing that the Rabbi Gamaliel had warned about in the Sanhedrin.

Saul and his murderous threats against the followers of Jesus is the logical end to which those who refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah would go. They could not accept Jesus and they would not accept his followers. He was not what they wanted in a Messiah. By sending Jesus God had thrown the Jewish people a “curve”. They did not want to change their expectations. They did not want to change how they lived their lives. They did not want to change how they related to God. They wanted their own way. Isn’t it interesting that whenever people want their own way, it ultimately leads to destroying other people. That is the history of sinful, unbelieving people from the time of Adam and Eve.

Saul and his letters to the synagogues in Damascus is the obvious result of the refusal to accept their Messiah who came into Jerusalem riding on the donkey’s colt as the Servant King on what we call Palm Sunday. Their desire for a different kind of Messiah led them down the path of rebellion against God, the death of Jesus and the murderous desire to destroy any who followed Jesus as Savior and Lord…the true Messiah.

Unexpected times, unlikely people, unpredictable ways—all of this and more carry out God’s holy will and purposes. Saul was one of the least likely men to ever come to Christ. But Saul of Tarsus becomes Paul the apostle, one of the greatest disciples of Jesus and missionary to the Gentiles. He who had caused suffering of Christians, himself becomes a sufferer for the sake of Christ. He becomes one of the greatest leaders in the church ever as he took the gospel to the Gentiles and in doing that spelled out so much theology and doctrine for us.

There is a danger that we - like those religious Jews - will find ourselves opposing God himself IF we resist the changes Jesus wants to make in our lives.

Why do we do that?

Because we fail to realize that our unchanging God is paradoxically a God of Change.

Jesus’ mission rocked the folk religion of the day.

Jesus came to change the mindset of those who called themselves God’s chosen people. He came to seek out his people and save them from their sins. His death on the cross of Calvary made all this possible as he paid the ransom penalty for our sin. This offer was made to the religious leaders of his day…to people who should have recognized him.

But the way they reacted showed that they weren’t God’s people.

The conversion of Saul of Tarsus shows us that there is no one who is beyond the reach of the gospel message. Even those we think the most unreachable can be touched by the Holy Spirit. Saul was and the result was that the entire world was touched by a man who saw himself as the worst of sinners, unworthy of Christ.

For those who know and trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior, Jesus is the true Messiah and we will one day see the true Kingdom of God.

--Dennis Gleason