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Hi there. My name is Preston Pouteaux. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen. We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere.

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At our core, we're a community of.

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People, so we gather on Sundays, but we also do a lot in the week. Together, we are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city. So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com. Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care, thanks for listening.

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King Herod was the king. He was called Herod the Great. He built so many things. We got to visit all of his palaces. He had palaces here, there, everywhere. These palaces. We've seen more Herod palaces than right. Colin and Kayla are nodding. We've seen palaces. This guy was wanting to be a king that was never forgotten. He was the king, Herod the Great for a reason. He built so much stuff, he wanted to be remembered. But boy, was he overshadowed because his life coincided with Jesus's life. And Jesus kind of took the stage for history. We have a king that wanted to be at the center of the story, and then he got overshadowed. So here's a bit of the Christmas story. So Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, during the reign of King Herod, about the time some wise men from the eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem asking, where's the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him. You can imagine that if you are Herod, this super king who wants to be the king known forever, whose reign wants to never end, and you hear somebody coming from faraway lands, from the east saying, hey, we've heard there's a new king to be born, you'd freak out a little bit.

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And they did. It said this. Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. The word from this would have been uproar. There was an uproar in Jerusalem when they heard that there could be another king. Impossible. King Herod is our king. Put a pin in that. We're going to come back to this uproar moment. So, Matthew 21, you have it there. I'm going to read it and unpack it a little bit because I think we're going to get a sense of what's going on in this story, and it's a pretty profound story. Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem. Well, where were they coming from before this? The triumphal entry story doesn't just begin approaching Jerusalem, but it begins somewhere farther away. If I put Jerusalem here, I need somebody to hold a piece of paper up. Can I have a paper holder here? Look at this, Ed. Here is Jerusalem. Ed, I'm going to have you hold it there. There is Jerusalem. Well, Jesus, he had come from first from the Galilee, which is a three day walk. Then he made his way down to probably about this far away from where Ed is.

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He was in Jericho, the lowest city on the earth, 2700 meters below sea level, and he had to work his way up through really rough up and down to make his way over to Jerusalem. So there's a bit of a distance there and we're going to unpack what that's about Ed? Awesome. I will call you up ten more times. That was just so, so good. So Jesus, he is in Jericho, and he begins to proclaim the coming of his kingdom in ways before he even begins to come into Jerusalem. Did you know in all the ancient prophets of the bygone times when they prophesied that somebody would come? They said, Somebody will come who will make lame men walk and the blind to see. This is something the prophets never did, but they had hoped that one day someone would. And so here is Jesus. He's in Jericho just before this. And Jesus, he shows up, and not only does he heal one blind man, but he heals two. They were sitting by the road and they heard Jesus coming and they began shouting, lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. And the crowd, they said they yelled at him, Be quiet.

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But they only shouted louder, lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. When Jesus heard them, he stopped. He said, what do you want me to do for you, Lord? They said, we want to see. And Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes, and instantly they could see and they followed Him. Jesus had also met another man at a pool who had been lame for 30 some years. And he said the same thing. What do you want me to do for you two people who are obviously blind and lame? And he's asking them, what do you want? What do you want from your king? Well, we want to see. We want to walk. This is how Jesus is setting the stage to say, this is the kind of King that I'm at, that I am. You see, Herod, he was always cloistered away in his palaces. He didn't care if you couldn't see or walk. But he was a different kind of king, and Jesus was inaugurating something different. So Jesus goes from Jericho and begins his journey, which would have taken a good full day, and it would have been sweaty and hot, and he would have worked his way up to a place just outside of Jerusalem.

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Jesus liked to walk. Jesus didn't have a car. We have no other reports of Him riding any animal except in this story, which we'll get to. But he walked. He hoofed it everywhere. He sent his disciples out to hoof it everywhere. He walked from way up the very, very north to the very south. And it would have taken days of walking anywhere in between. This picture of Jesus, who is maybe some gentle, gentle guy who kind of, I don't know, moves slowly through something, no picture a good mountain man or something, somebody who liked to walk, who got dusty and took his disciples and said, you're walking along with me. In a time when a lot of people maybe stayed in their place, he went out a king who walked, king Herod. He was often carried everywhere. He had a few people who had hoist him up. In fact, he had a gout so bad that he could barely walk, right? He was carried everywhere. And here's Jesus walking everywhere. So get this picture in your mind of a walking Jesus who's sweaty, who's dirty, and who is excited to move on to the next place.

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So Jesus makes his way up from Jericho after healing, and there's people even following him. Then they're excited. Why is Jesus going up to Jerusalem? Well, he's going up to Jerusalem because it is Passover. And good Jews would go to Jerusalem for Passover and they would prepare to retell the story of how they were rescued, how God saved them. The Passover story is just a retelling of how God took people from Egypt and rescued them out of slavery. And God had a mighty hand of rescue save us. And God did. So Jesus, he works his way up from Jericho and he makes his way 3400ft, 15 miles and makes his way too close to Jerusalem. John Twelve said that he shows up in his friend's house. And if you read, if you want to have a really kind of amazing passion week, read all the different accounts because they all piece together some pieces of what happened. So John Twelve says this six days before Passover celebration began, jesus arrived in Bethany. Bethany is a town probably about, probably about an hour's walk outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, there's a valley and it goes down there's.

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Bethany. You go up on the Mount of Olives, where there's Beth Phage, and you come down the other side and into Jerusalem while he comes to the base of it on the far side, on the east side. And he shows up there at a home of his friends, of his friend Lazarus, the man he had raised from the dead. It says in John. And a dinner was prepared for him in Jesus honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Imagine sitting there with a man who is dead and buried, right, who you rose from the dead. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of Nard. I actually went and visited the Jerusalem Nard Maker, because who doesn't, right? I brought back some nard for my sister. Oh, yeah, you brought the nard good. I love just saying the word nard. It's just so fun to say. And he anointed Jesus's feet with it. Or she anointed Jesus's feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.

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So here Jesus. He's receiving this care from his friends. He's healing, he's coming in, they're anointing him. And all around this, Jesus is telling the story about how he's about to die. And his disciples aren't really getting their heads around it. Jesus is scary at, the disciple who would soon betray him, said the perfume was worth a year's wage. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that he cared for the poor. It says he was a thief. And since he was in charge of the disciples money, he often stole some for himself. But Jesus replied leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. So here Jesus is getting ready. You see, there's so much more to the Triumphal entry than just him walking in. He's fulfilling some very important pieces. In fact, Jesus, as he's about to come into Jerusalem from the east, he is retracing the steps of one of Israel's favorite kings, king David, who actually fled from his son ABSALOM, going in that direction where one king once left. Here's Jesus, the King coming on that same road in in Micah four two.

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It says that Messiah will come from the east with healing in his wings. Here's Jesus, he just healed these blind men and he's coming to the house of Laz