Ok! We are officially entering the part of the gospels we traditionally call Holy Week. That is, the last week of Jesus’ life. The final eight chapters of Matthew cover this week. That’s over a quarter of his gospel just about one last week. In John, this week comes in chapters 12-21. In Mark it’s chapters 11-16. In other words, a huge amount of the gospels tell us about this last week of Jesus’ life. A lot happens between Palm Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus. 

And as we enter this part of Matthew’s gospel, we have to remember what question Matthew has been trying to answer through the whole of his gospel: Who is Jesus? Who is the Son of Man? And this is the same question our culture is asking today. I really don’t know of anyone who asks if Jesus existed. The questions you hear are more in the realm of who exactly he was. Many non-Christian scholars would say that he was dynamic teacher, but nothing more. Muslims say he was a prophet, but no more. Buddhists believe he was an enlightened individual, but no more. Well, this question about who Jesus is, for the reader of Matthew’s gospel, is definitively answered in this passage. 

Since I dunked pretty hard on Indiana Jones a few weeks ago, let me use Han Solo to set this up in a positive light:) Do you remember the scene in The Force Awakens where Rey doesn’t know if the Jedi or the force are real because it’s been so long since anyone had heard from or seen any Jedi? Han looks at her and says, “It’s true. All of it. I saw it.” And Rey can’t believe what she’s hearing. Think of Matthew as Han Solo here. He was there. He saw it and he’s telling us in this passage that it’s all true. And we should read this passage with the same intrigue and interest as Rey listening to Han because the implications in our lives are presently and eternally significant. 

This passage answers the question, who is Jesus? If we understand what we are reading, we will see that he is the promised King, he is the greatest Prophet, he is the truest Priest, and he is God himself. That’s all here. 

1. Jesus is the promised King

We see this in what we call the triumphal entry. Now, admittedly, it’s hard for a reader from the 21st century West to see Jesus claiming his kingship while riding a donkey. I remember the first time I read this wondering, why would Jesus ride a donkey? Why not a big clydesdale horse, or an elephant, or even a lion. I mean, he walked on water and raised Lazarus from the dead, riding a lion shouldn’t be too hard. Well, he’s doing something very intentional. When you read this passage, you can see how in control Jesus is. How he’s orchestrating all these events or a very specific purpose.. 

He’s not riding on a donkey because it’s the most fearsome animal - in fact, the exact opposite. He’s riding a donkey because Scripture has said that that is how the humble King has been prophesied to enter. There are two very important texts to see this. One is quoted and one is not. The one that isn’t quoted in Genesis 49. 10  The mscepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff nfrom between his feet, until tribute comes to him;1 and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 11  Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. - Gen 49:10,11 This is saying that a great king will come one day and when he does all the nations will bow to him and he will make everything right. This washing of his robes in the wine of grapes means that he will make things so right that we’ll be drenched in prosperity. There will be wine and celebration. So much wine will flow that you could wash your clothes in it. 

Then, of course we have the prophecy quoted in the passage from Zechariah 9 5  u“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, vhumble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt,1 the foal of a beast of burden.’” - Matt 21:5 So Jesus tells the disciples to get him a donkey AND A COLT. He tells them where these animals will be. He tells them that if anyone asks why they need them to tell them that the ‘Lord needs them.’ And it’s important to see that Jesus isn’t at the city gates when he gives this instruction, he’s staying about a mile and a half away. So, this allows for word to spread and anticipation to build. So much anticipation that the people begin to line the path with their own cloaks and palm fronds to make way for the king.

When we see celebration and palm fronds together, we might think of a tiki hut, hawaiian party, or a Jimmy Buffet concert, but these people had something very different in mind. Everyone there and anyone Matthew could imagine reading his gospel to would have gone back in their minds about 190 years to Judas Maccabeaus who successfully overthrew the Roman occupying forces and everyone welcomed him back into Jerusalem as a conquering king with palm fronds. Everyone knew what this meant: the king is returning. 

The people are cheering, or really chanting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” This is a phrase reserved for the promised King. They are basically shouting, “Messiah, save us!” But they really don’t know how he is going to save them. They really still have no idea really what kind of king Jesus is. They look at Jesus like Judas Maccabeus and think he’s coming to overthrow Rome. And the Pharisees hated Jesus for this. They didn’t like the way he challenged their religious authority and they certainly didn’t want him provoking the Roman authorities and the tenuous peace they had with them. That takes us to the gates of the city. The king is arriving. Then, we see Jesus the prophet. 

1. Jesus is the greatest prophet

Likely, up until this point, Jesus was surrounded by his followers who came from Galilee, but now he is entering the city which is why in the very next verse people are asking the main question Matthew wants to answer for us all: Who is this? Who is this man? And the crowd who had been following Jesus answered, “This is the prophet Jesus.” A prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of God, but one who does this in a very specific way. The best way to understand the prophets is the term ‘covenant prosecutors.’ They came to prosecute Israel for violating the terms of the covenant they had made with God and bring blessings if they repent and curses if they do not. And that is exactly what we see Jesus doing in the Temple. 

We talked a bit about this last week, but here is where we see a very different Jesus than we have seen in the gospels thus far. We have to remember that we are in the middle of the Passover and many people have traveled to the Temple. The Temple is designed to be a place of prayer for all people and a manifestation of God’s love, but it has instead become a den of greed. They are selling sacrifices looking to make money off of peoples’ worship, they are exchanging money, and likely taking advantage of people. When I lived in Italy, you always knew the worst places to buy stuff or eat are near the historic landmarks because that’s where they take advantage of the tourists. Well, a very similar thing is happening here at the Temple. 

Jesus is fuming with righteous anger. He’s overturning the tables, he’s scaring off the customers, and he bars the entrance for anyone coming to make money. He says, “you have made this place a den of robbers,” which is a quote from the prophet Jeremiah. Meek and mild Jesus who said to turn the other cheek is now cracking the whip. This is the character of a prophet. This is Jesus prosecuting not only the Jewish people, but also the Temple system that has been so corrupted from what it was designed to do. 

There are people who say that religion is made up. That the stories of Jesus were created to fill some evolutionary longings we have for significance. But, if that were all there is to Christianity, Jesus would fit our expectations much better than this. Nothing about Jesus, the great covenant prosecutor, fits our expectations because Jesus was not made for us, we were made for him. We don’t conform Jesus to our expectations, we conform to his.

In one sense it’s hard for Christianity to compete with the made up religions because they so nicely conform to what we want religion to be. We want religion to make us feel better about ourselves in our current state. This is exactly what the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day were doing. They created a system of laws to make them feel like they were accomplishing THE law. But Jesus disrupts us. He makes us feel uncomfortable and that is one of the most convincing evidence that Jesus is real. Jesus comes and says, “You can’t do it. This is why I came” Christianity is the only worldview that says that we can’t do it. We can’t achieve true enlightenment, self-actualization, or salvation on our own. Which is either going to be devastating or liberating. 

There is a story, I actually heard it this week, about C.S. Lewis walking into a room and the professors asked him what made Christianity different from other religions. He responded with ‘grace’ and ‘our savior is a person, not a program.’ Again, He isn’t made for us, we are made for him. And as we see what Jesus does in the Temple next, we see that he is also the truest Priest. 

1. Jesus is the truest Priest

What happens next is a total shift. We don’t see Jesus the prophet, we see Jesus the priest. He moves from great anger to beautiful compassion. He goes from expelling people to welcoming them. And he welcomes those who are restricted from going into the Temple: the blind and lame. Those who sat at the Temple entrance and begged for money. Jesus cares for them, he heals them. This is actually the only miracle Matthew records Jesus doing in Jerusalem before he dies. He’s showing us his priestly nature. This is what a priest should look like. A priest is a mediary between man and God. He understands us in our temptations, desires, and needs, but he can then approach God on our behalf. That is what Jesus is doing. 

Malachi 3 says that the Lord will come and restore the worship of his people to God. He will come to the temple and purify it and refine it. But the priests of that day hated Jesus for it. As the children in the Temple cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” the priests became infuriated. They confronted Jesus asking him if he even hears what these people are saying because, to the priest, it sounds blasphemous. And Jesus not only acknowledges that he hears them, he says he will accept this praise. And, he tells the priests that they don’t appreciate this praise because they do not understand their own scriptures. This is exactly what Psalm 8 said would happen. Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise. - Matt 21:16b

Who is Jesus to tell them what the scriptures say? Who is Jesus to accept this blasphemous praise? Who is Jesus to come in here and rearrange the furniture in the Temple like it’s his own? The same Jesus who referred to the Temple as ‘my house.’ And that brings us to the last thing we learn about Jesus in this passage. 

1. Jesus is God himself

This takes us to the fig tree. The next morning they were hungry as they were walking back into Jerusalem and they approached a fig tree. This fig tree was full of leaves, but had no fruit, so Jesus cursed it. Why would he do this? Why was this so important that Matthew and others recorded it? It’s important because this fig tree looked good on the outside, but it failed to accomplish the main thing it is supposed to do: produce fruit. What else in this passage looked good on the outside, but failed to accomplish the main thing it was supposed to do in producing fruit? The Temple system. 

The fig tree represents Israel. This is why Matthew connects this story with the cleansing of the Temple. Mark actually tells the story of the fig tree with the cleansing of the Temple in the middle of the story. Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah all also liken Israel to a fig tree so this doesn’t come out of nowhere. The Temple system may look nice on the outside, but it is dead on the inside. Israel has misconstrued their relationship with God into one where they are saved by their works of the law instead of faith. That’s what they are missing. Again, they are creating a religion of program to make themselves feel better about their current state. But, it has just become a religion of damnable good works. 

But Matthew wants us to ask the question, who has the authority to condemn the Temple system created by God? No priest can do this. Who has the authority to curse the temple system? Not even a prophet can do this. Who has the authority to pronounce a curse on a fig tree and see it wither immediately? No king can do this. The only person who can do these things is God himself…and that is what Matthew wants us to see. He’s accepting the praise that should only go to God and he is doing the things that only God can do because Jesus is himself God incarnate. 

We talked about this two weeks ago, but up until this point in time, Jesus has been hiding who he really is. The term for this is veiled disclosure. He has been selective in how he discloses who he is because he knew that the moment that happens, the Jewish authorities would want him dead. Well, this is the moment. No more veiled disclosure, Jesus is fully displaying who he is. He is the king, the prophet, the priest prophesied and he is himself God. 

Why does this matter? If we don’t see Jesus as the great prophet we will not understand the way he uniquely speaks to us from God. We won’t see the way Jesus came to announce to the world that our sin merits eternal punishment, yet, he would take that punishment on himself on the cross. In doing so, he simultaneously pronounced covenant curses and blessings and ushered in the New Covenant. 

If we don’t see Jesus as the great priest, we will never see how he uniquely mediates between us and God. He understands our plight better than anyone who has ever lived. He understands our temptations. Not only that, but he understands them better than we do. In the words of CS Lewis, he knows temptation better than we do because while we give in to the temptation, he kept enduring. 

If we don’t understand that he is God, we won’t see how in his priestly role, he can also perfectly relate to and intercede to the Father on our behalf. We won’t see how he could uniquely die in our place on the cross because he was without sin and give us all that his perfect life merits. 

And if we don’t understand that Jesus is king, we won’t desire to submit every area of our lives to his kingship. And the result of not seeing Jesus as prophet, priest, king, and God will be a Temple-like system of works based righteousness where we do what we think we need to do to earn God’s favor. We will create a comfortable spiritual system that will never disrupt our lives. We will be our own deliverer. We will be our own prophet. We will be our own king. And we will be our own God. 

Today, we may not run to a temple to do this, but we functionally become our own savior when we believe we will be good with God when we do more good than bad. If we have a good enough heart. If we give enough money, read enough Bible, or know enough theology. None of these things are bad, but none of them will save us. When we elevate these things to the level of salvation, we make them damnable good works. And they are damnable because we are the one’s doing it. 

When Jesus came to the Temple to purify and refine it, he was prepared to do it himself. He was prepared to take on the curse for what we had done…and still do. So, who is Jesus? He is the prophet, priest, king, and God who is uniquely qualified to pay for our sins and give us his righteousness that we might worship him out of a desire to do so, not a duty. He tears down the temple system that we might be temples ourselves full of his Holy Spirit.