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Palm Sunday – April 13^th, 2025 Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas Rev. Joshua Woelmer Text: Zechariah 9:9–12 and John 12:12–19 “Jesus Comes as King” Theme: Zechariah foreshadows Jesus entering Jerusalem and also bringing eternal peace. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. It’s always an amazing sight to be driving to Colorado and seeing those mountains rising out of the plains. They are so far away at first, and it takes hours and hours of driving for you to see their real height. And those are only the first range of the mountains. If you pay attention, there are layers upon layers of mountains going deeper. The closer ones have more detail, but the farther ones are cloaked in mists and cloud. It’s striking to consider that the mountain peaks you see can be 50 miles apart, but you’re seeing them stacked one behind another as if they were so close. This is so often the case that it’s noticeable when you have a mountain like Pike’s Peak that seem to dominate the landscape. I remember going to Colorado Springs. At over 14,000 feet, Pike’s Peak is impressive. You can see it clearly from Denver. It’s remarkable for not having a lot of other mountains in the way—there’s just a few smaller ones in the twelve miles between Pike’s Peak and Colorado Springs. Taller mountains like Mt. Elbert may not look as impressive because they’re harder to get to or are tucked in the middle of other massive mountains. All you may see is the peak towering behind some other tall mountains. The reason I bring this up is because you have something similar with Old Testament prophecy. Prophets like Zechariah or Isaiah are prophesying about two different things that the Messiah will bring. First, they talk about the Messiah’s life. Micah mentions His birth in Bethlehem. Isaiah gives many prophesies of the Messiah being born of a virgin or being a Suffering Servant who will be “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (53:4). These are all like the first mountains that you see. These clearly describe Jesus and His work. He is the Messiah that the Old Testament promised. You should be reading the Old Testament expecting to see glimpses or prophecies of Jesus. His mountains rise high in the Old Testament—they describe him, maybe not with perfect clarity, but with enough clarity that we Christians can go back to the Old Testament and say, “Ah, yes, we see now that is about Jesus.” The second types of mountains that are higher and that stand further back are like the prophecies of eternal peace that the Messiah will bring. Take Isaiah 11 as an example. It says, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. … They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (vv. 6, 9). Isaiah 25 describes the eternity as a feast on a mountain: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (vv. 6–8a). These are beautiful images that both the Old and New Testaments give us. Jesus will take away our pain and suffering one day. There will be neither death nor pain nor hunger nor wild animals nor sorrow nor sin. God will lead you to this mountain on the Last Day when He sends Jesus forth with the blast of a trumpet, waking the dead, judging the righteous and unrighteous, and leading all believers in Him to our eternal rest. We should look forward with hope to that bliss, just as the Old Testament people looked forward to it as well. As I read you those passages from Isaiah, God did not skimp on the promises of eternal reward for the Old Testament people. However, the Old Testament people had a hard time distinguishing these two mountains, the mountain of the Messiah and the mountain of the End Times. They knew they were connected, and so they are. But they didn’t quite see that there would be a gap between them. They thought that the Messiah would bring about this glorious age right away. When Jesus did finally come, there were a lot of people who were expecting Jesus to bring about earthly peace by raising an army and kicking out the Romans. You might remember from two weeks ago, Jesus fed the 5000 and then they turned around and tried to make him king! Those weren’t the only crowds trying to make him king. Even Jesus’s disciples after His resurrection and when he is about to ascend into heaven ask Him this: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). And, of course, Peter made sure he was packing heat the night that Jesus was betrayed, taking out a sword and cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. He was ready to fight for Jesus. All of this comes to a head on Palm Sunday. Jesus acquires a donkey, sits on it, and rides into Jerusalem to shouts of praise. What do the crowds do? They go crazy with joy. Why? Because they are seeing both mountains at once. If you read Zechariah 9, both mountains are in view. First, in verse 9, it talks about the kingly Messiah entering Jerusalem; “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” “That’s Him!” you can imagine parents telling their children, “That’s the king, the Messiah that Zechariah promised!” Guess what the next verse of Zechariah points to? It’s the second mountain: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (10). His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. It’s what the crowd wanted. Their desire was not wrong. We should all want this. It is good for us to praise God, to be excited about the future He has for us. It is good for us to sing to God for what He has done. If we had been in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we would not be wrong to welcome Jesus with shouts of Hosanna, which means “Save us now!” It is drawn from Psalm 118, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord” (24–26). Their only mistake was confusing the two mountains. Jesus did come to bring eternal peace, but not that week, not in that way. In just a few days, he would establish peace between God and man, but it would come at the price of his life. The crowds that followed Jesus into Jerusalem would be silent as other crowds picked up the chant, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Few followed him into Jerusalem and all the way to the cross. In fact, you could probably count them on one hand: his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Salome, and John. Wolves do not dwell with lambs, nor have chariots and war horses been cut off. Patriot missiles, F-16s, and stealth bombers rule the day now. We Christians probably desire the same thing as the Jews of Jerusalem. We don’t want war. We don’t like economic turmoil. We want no death, no pain, no hunger, no wild animals, no sorrow, no sin. We want peace. We want happiness. We want a righteous king. Yes, we sometimes search for all of these things in the wrong ways, in the wrong people. Politicians cannot solve all our problems. Money will not make us happy for long. Other people are fellow sinners who will disappoint us. What peace has Christ brought? It’s good then when we have a good understanding of the two mountains. On Mount Calvary, Jesus made peace between God and man. He took away the guilt of sin. You still, for now, live in a world corrupted by sin. “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said (Matt 26:11). He also gives you peace in your heart right now—peace that promises you that He is with you always. Yet he promises to lead us to the far greater mountain. We live right now in the distance between these two mountains. We can look back at Mount Calvary with appreciation and praise. We can look forward to the Mountain of Paradise with hope and longing. Like Pike’s Peak, it looms up before us. There is no other mountain obstructing our view. We run towards that mountain, keeping our eye on the One who is with us all the way. We can see better than the Old Testament saints, who saw two mountains in front of them. Yes, they may not have understood the gap between them, but there were correct on this one thing: both mountains are about the work of the Messiah. Jesus’s work of salvation culminated in his death on the cross, that he would bring us one day to the Mountain of Paradise. We’ve only got to wait a little while. Like a runner that sees the finish line approaching, we can run this race with endurance, knowing the joy and rest that lies before us. It might be uphill at times, but Jesus, our Messiah, is with us. Come later this week to hear in more detail about that first mountain that is now behind us, but is still so important for us. Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen. Return to Top \| Return to Sermons \| Home \| Email Church Office

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Palm Sunday – April 13^th, 2025

Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas

Rev. Joshua Woelmer

Text: Zechariah 9:9–12 and John 12:12–19

“Jesus Comes as King”

Theme: Zechariah foreshadows Jesus entering Jerusalem and also bringing eternal peace.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It’s always an amazing sight to be driving to Colorado and seeing those mountains rising out of the plains. They are so far away at first, and it takes hours and hours of driving for you to see their real height. And those are only the first range of the mountains. If you pay attention, there are layers upon layers of mountains going deeper. The closer ones have more detail, but the farther ones are cloaked in mists and cloud. It’s striking to consider that the mountain peaks you see can be 50 miles apart, but you’re seeing them stacked one behind another as if they were so close.

This is so often the case that it’s noticeable when you have a mountain like Pike’s Peak that seem to dominate the landscape. I remember going to Colorado Springs. At over 14,000 feet, Pike’s Peak is impressive. You can see it clearly from Denver. It’s remarkable for not having a lot of other mountains in the way—there’s just a few smaller ones in the twelve miles between Pike’s Peak and Colorado Springs. Taller mountains like Mt. Elbert may not look as impressive because they’re harder to get to or are tucked in the middle of other massive mountains. All you may see is the peak towering behind some other tall mountains.

The reason I bring this up is because you have something similar with Old Testament prophecy. Prophets like Zechariah or Isaiah are prophesying about two different things that the Messiah will bring. First, they talk about the Messiah’s life. Micah mentions His birth in Bethlehem. Isaiah gives many prophesies of the Messiah being born of a virgin or being a Suffering Servant who will be “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (53:4).

These are all like the first mountains that you see. These clearly describe Jesus and His work. He is the Messiah that the Old Testament promised. You should be reading the Old Testament expecting to see glimpses or prophecies of Jesus. His mountains rise high in the Old Testament—they describe him, maybe not with perfect clarity, but with enough clarity that we Christians can go back to the Old Testament and say, “Ah, yes, we see now that is about Jesus.”

The second types of mountains that are higher and that stand further back are like the prophecies of eternal peace that the Messiah will bring. Take Isaiah 11 as an example. It says, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. … They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (vv. 6, 9). Isaiah 25 describes the eternity as a feast on a mountain: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (vv. 6–8a).

These are beautiful images that both the Old and New Testaments give us. Jesus will take away our pain and suffering one day. There will be neither death nor pain nor hunger nor wild animals nor sorrow nor sin. God will lead you to this mountain on the Last Day when He sends Jesus forth with the blast of a trumpet, waking the dead, judging the righteous and unrighteous, and leading all believers in Him to our eternal rest. We should look forward with hope to that bliss, just as the Old Testament people looked forward to it as well. As I read you those passages from Isaiah, God did not skimp on the promises of eternal reward for the Old Testament people.

However, the Old Testament people had a hard time distinguishing these two mountains, the mountain of the Messiah and the mountain of the End Times. They knew they were connected, and so they are. But they didn’t quite see that there would be a gap between them. They thought that the Messiah would bring about this glorious age right away. When Jesus did finally come, there were a lot of people who were expecting Jesus to bring about earthly peace by raising an army and kicking out the Romans. You might remember from two weeks ago, Jesus fed the 5000 and then they turned around and tried to make him king! Those weren’t the only crowds trying to make him king. Even Jesus’s disciples after His resurrection and when he is about to ascend into heaven ask Him this: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). And, of course, Peter made sure he was packing heat the night that Jesus was betrayed, taking out a sword and cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. He was ready to fight for Jesus.

All of this comes to a head on Palm Sunday. Jesus acquires a donkey, sits on it, and rides into Jerusalem to shouts of praise. What do the crowds do? They go crazy with joy. Why? Because they are seeing both mountains at once. If you read Zechariah 9, both mountains are in view. First, in verse 9, it talks about the kingly Messiah entering Jerusalem; “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

“That’s Him!” you can imagine parents telling their children, “That’s the king, the Messiah that Zechariah promised!” Guess what the next verse of Zechariah points to? It’s the second mountain: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (10). His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. It’s what the crowd wanted.

Their desire was not wrong. We should all want this. It is good for us to praise God, to be excited about the future He has for us. It is good for us to sing to God for what He has done. If we had been in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we would not be wrong to welcome Jesus with shouts of Hosanna, which means “Save us now!” It is drawn from Psalm 118, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord” (24–26).

Their only mistake was confusing the two mountains. Jesus did come to bring eternal peace, but not that week, not in that way. In just a few days, he would establish peace between God and man, but it would come at the price of his life. The crowds that followed Jesus into Jerusalem would be silent as other crowds picked up the chant, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Few followed him into Jerusalem and all the way to the cross. In fact, you could probably count them on one hand: his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Salome, and John. Wolves do not dwell with lambs, nor have chariots and war horses been cut off. Patriot missiles, F-16s, and stealth bombers rule the day now.

We Christians probably desire the same thing as the Jews of Jerusalem. We don’t want war. We don’t like economic turmoil. We want no death, no pain, no hunger, no wild animals, no sorrow, no sin. We want peace. We want happiness. We want a righteous king. Yes, we sometimes search for all of these things in the wrong ways, in the wrong people. Politicians cannot solve all our problems. Money will not make us happy for long. Other people are fellow sinners who will disappoint us. What peace has Christ brought?

It’s good then when we have a good understanding of the two mountains. On Mount Calvary, Jesus made peace between God and man. He took away the guilt of sin. You still, for now, live in a world corrupted by sin. “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said (Matt 26:11). He also gives you peace in your heart right now—peace that promises you that He is with you always. Yet he promises to lead us to the far greater mountain. We live right now in the distance between these two mountains. We can look back at Mount Calvary with appreciation and praise. We can look forward to the Mountain of Paradise with hope and longing.

Like Pike’s Peak, it looms up before us. There is no other mountain obstructing our view. We run towards that mountain, keeping our eye on the One who is with us all the way. We can see better than the Old Testament saints, who saw two mountains in front of them. Yes, they may not have understood the gap between them, but there were correct on this one thing: both mountains are about the work of the Messiah. Jesus’s work of salvation culminated in his death on the cross, that he would bring us one day to the Mountain of Paradise. We’ve only got to wait a little while. Like a runner that sees the finish line approaching, we can run this race with endurance, knowing the joy and rest that lies before us. It might be uphill at times, but Jesus, our Messiah, is with us. Come later this week to hear in more detail about that first mountain that is now behind us, but is still so important for us.

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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