The Crowd or The City?

Psalm Sunday 2026

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Anybody to remember last year's sermon, I addressed the significance of its location on the Mountain of Olives, the donkey and her cult, and all those things. And if you would like a refresher, you can go to our website and you can listen to that. But what I wanted, what I want to do this morning is to explore the end of the Triumphal Entry Passage. And the question the city asks the chanting crowd, who is this? It is this question and how it is answered that should concern us this morning, because the same question asked about Jesus is now being asked about his church. Who are you? When the crowd spreads their coats on the road for Jesus to ride over them, they are doing what subjects have always done before their king. In the ancient world, to lay down your garment before a king was to put yourself underneath his feet. The garment was you. It carried your identity, your standing, your whole entire person. That was what the crowd was doing on the road in Jerusalem. Every coat on the ground was a person saying, Reign over me, you are my king. Their whole lives lay on that road. And the branches waving in the air, those aren't floral arrangements. Those are branches of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Where the great harvest feast, where Israel waved palms before the Lord and cried out for his salvation. These people aren't being spontaneous. They are performing a liturgy of the coming king. With coats and palm branches below, the king walks through a corridor of total surrender. Heaven and earth both given over to him to rule. Matthew 21, 10. When he had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred. Saying, Who is this? The word stirred is the Greek word from which we get seismic. The city was experiencing seismic activity like that of an earthquake. They were trembling at the arrival of Jesus into the city. Jesus and Jerusalem have this unique relationship. This isn't the first time the city of Jerusalem has experienced tension with Jesus. When Jesus was born, in Matthew 2, 3, we read this: that they were troubled. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. And all of Jerusalem with him. There is something the city doesn't like about Jesus' presence, it seems. It causes them to fear, to be troubled, to tremble. And this is a little awkward because the city's name is Jerusalem, the city of peace. But there is no peace in Jerusalem when Jesus, the Prince of Peace, comes near. Only trouble, only trembling. That is because peace, real peace, requires submission. And Jerusalem will not submit. The city cannot reconcile itself to a king it did not choose. A Messiah who doesn't fit their plans. A Lord who demands more from it than they're willing to give. Matthew 23, verses 37 through 38. Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you, desolate. Instead of joining the crowd in their surrender to Jesus as their king, the city questions, asks a question, Who is this? And they dismiss Jesus altogether. The city doesn't want the real answer, because if the answer is the son of David, the king of Israel, the Lord coming into his own city, then everything would have to change for the city. Its plans, its agenda, its power would all have to shift to Jesus to meet his intentions, not their own. But the city would rather ask the question and keep its distance. While the city keeps its distance, the crowd becomes influenced by the city. Notice what happens when the crowd enters the city. When they were shouting, Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It's bold, it's royal, it's messianic. Then the city asks, Who is this? And the crowd gives a different answer. Not son of David, not king, but they say this in verse 11 of 21. And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Either they are backing down under the pressure of the city, deflating Jesus' title to something safer, something the city can handle, or they are piling it on. He's not just the king, he's a prophet. Either way, the city is trembling as the crowd celebrates King Jesus. And though the city trembles, it will get the crowd to change their tune. The same crowd that cried, Hosanna, will still stand before Pilate and cry, crucify him. The leaders of Jerusalem persuaded the crowd to call for Barabbas. We just read this, Matthew 27, verse 20. But the chief priest and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. The city wins, the crowd folded, the coats came up off the road. This is a sobering thought. The story of the folding of the crowd by the persuasion of the city is something that should confront every Christian who confesses Jesus as king on Sunday and lets the city run their life for the rest of the week. But the Gospel of Matthew reveals an interesting turn. The city thinks it wins. Jerusalem gets what it wants. Jesus is arrested, he's tried, and he's executed. The king is put into the ground. But what they meant for evil, Jesus uses for good. He doesn't come to Jerusalem to avoid death. He comes to look death in the eye and beat it. He passes through the city's plots, through their violence, and goes straight to man's oldest enemy, death, and he defeats them. And Jesus stands over death's dead corpse and taunts it, saying, O death, where is your victory now? Where is your sting? The city of fear, because of Jesus, becomes the city of peace. What happened to Jesus in Jerusalem gave everyone who believes peace that surpasses all understanding. The city couldn't contain him, the grave couldn't hold him, and now the peace he purchased belongs to all who will receive it. This gospel lesson presents us with two options: the crowd or the city. The crowd lays down their coats, they wave their branches, they cry, Hosanna, they put themselves underneath the feet of King Jesus and say, Reign over me, rule over me. You get first dibs to my life. The city, on the other hand, trembles and asks questions. It keeps its distance and eventually talks the crowd into joining them. Here's the hard question for this week ahead. Which one are you? Not which one do you want to be, which one are you presently and actually? When the week gets going and the city starts calling, who are you? Because you know the city's going to call. Your employer is going to call, your coach is going to call. Your schedule is going to be demanded of by something. And each call will come with a quiet pressure to put Jesus second, to show up at church if there's some time left over. To let worship be the thing that fits around everything else you have going on in your life. We're all busy. There was a time when the church influenced the city. Coaches dare never to schedule practices on Wednesday nights because the church was gathering for prayer. Sundays were not a backup option or some extracurricular activity you can do. They were the center of the community because the church was the center of the community. All that's been reversed today. Coaches demand that you have to show up to practice if you want to play in the game. So you're confronted to be influenced by the city, or to act like the member of a crowd who cheers and hails Jesus as King. How badly do you want to play in the game? You gotta forfeit one. Or your employer, who demands that you show up on time, or you're gonna lose your job. If you want to get paid, you will do what I say. We never think about using vacation time or PTO time to say, King Jesus rules my life. He reigns over it. My time is his. This has all been reversed. And for many Christians today, worship is the thing, the first thing to go. Participation in the church is the first thing that gets compromised. And I say this not to shame anybody, I just say it because the passage warns us. It's evident Matthew wants us to really look at the crowd and the city and how the city who leads the crowd that was just hailing Jesus as king to say, kill him. How does that happen? And we think that doesn't apply to us, but when we begin to let the world and the city influence and dictate how we live our lives, you can't have two masters. Matthew 6, 24, Jesus Himself tells you this: you cannot serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. If you were to survey your own life, who are you devoted to? What are you devoted to? And whatever that is, the other thing becomes the despised one. You think about, we have been consistently worshiping for an hour this over this last year. There's only 52 Sundays in a year. That means only 52 hours out of the, you do the math, how many hours you have to live your life throughout the year. That you present your body in service to your King? Could it be more? This Holy Week, from now through Easter, is a proving ground. Could you tell the city this week that King Jesus rules my schedule? Could you tell the coach, tell the employer, tell whoever holds your calendar that this week you're going to be offering your time to the one who gave up his life for yours? Could you use a vacation day, rearrange a practice, decline an invitation, tell the city no, and spend that time with the people of God who will specifically and intentionally be reminded of the saving acts of their king? I'm not naive about the pressures, but I believe that Christians are supposed to be the ones influencing the city and not the other way around. That starts with just one person deciding to lay their coats down on the road under the feet of King Jesus. So the city asks the crowd, who is this? And I think Jesus is asking us now, who are you? City or crowd? Trembling or surrendered? Are you the one asking for a safe distance from Jesus? Or are you the one who's going to put your coat your whole life down under his feet? How you live this and what you do this week will tell you the answer of which one you are. Let's pray.