Love with Power: The Saving Love of God

A message based on Matthew 21:1-17:  As they approached Jerusalem, entering Beth-Phage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent off two disciples with the instructions, “Go into the village straight ahead of you, and immediately you will find a tethered donkey with her colt standing beside her.  Untie them and lead them back to me.  If anyone questions you, say, ‘The Rabbi needs them.’  Then they will let them go at once.”  This came about to fulfill what was said through the prophet: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Your Sovereign comes to you without display, riding on a donkey, on a colt— the foal of a beast of burden.’”  So the disciples went off and did what Jesus had ordered.  They brought the donkey and her colt, and after they laid their cloaks on the animals, Jesus mounted and rode toward the city.  Great crowds of people spread their cloaks on the road, while some began to cut branches from the trees and lay them along the path.  The crowds—those who went in front of Jesus and those who followed—were all shouting, “Hosanna to the Heir to the House of David!  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Most High!  Hosanna in the highest!”  As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred to its depths, demanding, “Who is this?”  And the crowd kept answering, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee!”  When Jesus entered the Temple, he drove out all those who were selling and buying there.  He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.  He said to them, “Scripture says, ‘My house is called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of thieves!”  Those who were blind or couldn’t walk came to Jesus in the Temple, and he healed them.  When the chief priests and teachers of the Law saw the wonderful things Jesus did, and heard the children shouting “Hosanna to the Heir to the House of David!” throughout the Temple area, they became indignant.  “Do you hear what the children are shouting?” they asked Jesus. “Yes,” Jesus replied.  “Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of children and nursing babies, you have brought forth praise’?”  After leaving them, Jesus went out to Bethany to spend the night.