Triumph and Tragedy

Sunday November 8, 2026 · Del Martin

#1: Luke 19:28-46

Luke 19:28-46

The final week
The Triumph – vv. 28-40
1. Arranged and planned by Jesus
  1. He arranges the colt and plans the whole event
  2. Jesus calls himself ‘Lord’ v. 31
  3. He fulfils the prophecy in Zech 9:9
2. A public disclosure of Jesus’ Kingship
  1. Praise and blessing by the crowd of disciples because of all the miracles they saw
  2. Peace in heaven, glory in the highest – recounting the angels’ praise at his birth
  3. Rebuked by the Pharisees
Sorrow expressed through tears as he sees Jerusalem – vv. 41-44
1. Jesus approaches the city but still has not entered it
2. Tears – outward expression of inward sorrow
3. Lament
  1. For their ignorance
  2. For their blindness
  3. For their rejection and repudiation
  4. For the coming judgment and destruction of the city
The Authority of Jesus exercised in the temple – vv. 45-46
1. Jesus exercises his authority
2. The violent act of Jesus
3. A prophetic sign of judgment, not a cleansing
  1. Condemned for making the temple a cave of robbers. Referencing Jeremiah 7:11
    1. Not because of selling offerings: the purchase of offerings was required due to the long journey
    2. However, the markets became a commercial enterprise
  2. It is “my house.”
4. The Temple had lost its purpose.
  1. It was to be a house of prayer but had become a den of robbers – Isa 56:7
  2. Some had already left Jerusalem due to its corruption
5. Don’t forget the tears
Application
1. Are we welcoming Jesus as the King; are we coming to meet Him?
2. Does our worship honour King Jesus?
  1. The temple situation shows what worshiping God on our own terms looks like and the resultant judgment
  2. There is room for individual repentance evidenced by the book of Acts.
    1. People repented, people turned to Jesus all before the destruction of the temple.
    2. Yet the temple system was judged and destroyed within 30-40 years. (70 A.D.)
3. Are we ready to follow Jesus all the way to the cross?
4. Are we, the church, a house of prayer?
  1. Not in name but in practice.
  2. Are our activities, our services, upheld and covered with prayer?
  3. Does prayer determine what we do?

New Mini-series: The Week that Changed the World

Luke 19:28-46

²⁸When he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹As he approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples ³⁰and said, “Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’”

³²So those who were sent left and found it just as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

³⁴“The Lord needs it,” they said. ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their clothes on the colt, they helped Jesus get on it. ³⁶As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road. ³⁷Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

³⁹Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.”

⁴¹As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it, ⁴²saying, “If you knew this day what would bring peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst, because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.”

⁴⁵He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, ⁴⁶and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!” (CSB)

Message Summary:

Luke 19:28 opens Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem with His triumphal entry. Fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, He arrives on a donkey while His disciples joyfully worship Him as King. Though they do not yet grasp what lies ahead, Jesus accepts their praise because He is indeed the Messiah. But as He looks over the city, He weeps over its coming judgment, the consequence of rejecting the One who came to bring peace. Entering the temple, Jesus performs a prophetic sign of judgment, not a cleansing. Echoing Jeremiah 7:11, He charges that God’s house has become a den of robbers. As in Jeremiah’s day, persistent disobedience means the temple itself will fall. Now Jesus indicates that Jerusalem’s judgment is certain, yet this announcement comes amid the tears of the King.

The final week
- It begins with Jesus approaching Jerusalem.
- “Luke begins recounting Jesus’ final days in and around Jerusalem. This ends the lengthy account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, which is necessary partly because ‘no prophet can die outside Jerusalem’ (13:33). This episode also marks the beginning of Jesus’ final confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus challenges the Jewish leaders for misusing the temple and corrects the people for misunderstanding the Messiah’s role. Instead of challenging the Roman rulers when he arrives in Jerusalem, Jesus targets the misconduct of God’s own people and thus becomes the object of their anger and persecution.” NIV Zondervan Study Bible
The Triumph
1. Arranged and planned by Jesus
  1. He arranges the colt
  2. Jesus calls himself ‘Lord’
    - ‘The Lord needs it’ v.31
    - “This is the first time Jesus refers to himself as ‘the Lord,’ the sovereign one who controls his own destiny even as the enters Jerusalem to suffer at the hands of many.” NIV Zondervan Study Bible
  3. He fulfils the prophecy in Zech 9:9
    - Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
      Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem!
      Look, your King is coming to you;
      he is righteous and victorious,
      humble and riding on a donkey,
      on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
    - “[Jesus] carefully plans what is to take place. By His colt-requisition He is deliberately setting the stage for the ‘triumphal entry.’ It was not merely the spontaneous eruption of His disciples’’ enthusiasm; He Himself had ‘set it up.’” Dale Ralph Davis Luke 14:24, p. 124
2. A public disclosure of Jesus’ Kingship
  - “The ‘whole multitude of the disciples (v. 37) join in the pageant of Jesus’ arrival. It is a public disclosure (vv.35-38) of Jesus’ kingship, as the crowd hails Him in the shout of Psalm 118:26a, “How blessed the one who comes – the king – in the name of the Lord!’” v. 38a). Davis op. cit. p. 124
  - “For Jesus [his entry] a royal occasion, to be carefully planned and staged so as to make exactly the right point. ...The disciples pick up the theme, and in a kind of instant royal celebration they spread cloaks along the road for him. Down they go...and the crowd starts to sing part of the great psalm of praise (Psalm 118) that pilgrims always sang on the way to Jerusalem; a song of victory, a hymn of praise to the God who defeats all his foes and establishes his kingdom.... He comes himself as the fulfilment of the nation’s hopes, answering their longings for a king who would bring peace to earth from heaven itself.” N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pp. 229-230
  1. Praise and blessing by the crowd of disciples because of all the miracles they saw
  2. Peace in heaven, glory in the highest – recounting the angels’ praise at his birth
  3. Rebuked by the Pharisees
    - “The rebuke of the Pharisees represents the real attitude of Jerusalem toward Jesus. He is not now Messiah triumphant but Messiah rejected.” E. Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke, p. 224
    - “The central division of Luke opened with Jesus’ rejection in Samaria (9:53). It closes with his rejection at Jerusalem.” Ellis, op. cit. p. 225
Sorrow expressed through tears as he sees Jerusalem
1. Jesus approaches the city but still has not entered it

⁴¹As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it,

Tears – outward expression of inward sorrow
- “The terrible judgment that has been pronounced, and will shortly be executed, proceeds not from a stern and cold justice but from a heart of love, that wants the best for, and from, the people, and so must now oppose, with sorrow and tears, the rebellion that had set in its own interests and agendas before those of the God who had established them there in the first place.” Wright, op. cit., p. 232
- “Though the rejection of Jesus by many of the Jews was predicted in the OT... Jesus still feels great sorrow over their rejection, surely reflecting the heart of God as he contemplates the Jewish people rejecting his prophets and his Son.” ESV Study Bible
Lament

42 “If you knew this day what would bring peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

“this day. That is, the day when the true Messiah and King came, “the time of your visitation” (v. 44). Broadly speaking, this refers to the coming of the kingdom; more narrowly, it means the coming of Jesus as Israel’s King. The things that make for peace are the things that would lead the Jewish people to salvation. But now they (the things that make for peace) are hidden” ESV Study Bible

For their ignorance
For their blindness
For their rejection and repudiation
- “Again and again during his long journey he had warned of God’s impending judgment on the city and Temple, because they, like the towns of Galilee, had resisted his call for peace, for the gospel of God’s grace which would reach out in love to the Gentile world.... It is an essential part of Jesus’ message of warning and judgment that it is uttered, finally, through sobs and tears. Luke’s writing of the scene is vivid, conveying the sense of Jesus sobbing out a few phrases, until he finally controls himself sufficiently to utter the solemn warning upon the city that has chosen to ignore the moment when God was coming in solemn ‘visitation’.” Wright, op. cit., pp. 231-232
For the coming judgment and destruction of the city
- “It is an essential part of Jesus’ message of warning and judgment that it is uttered, finally, through sobs and tears. Luke’s writing of the scene is vivid, conveying the sense of Jesus sobbing out a few phrases, until he finally controls himself sufficiently to utter the solemn warning upon the city that has chosen to ignore the moment when God was coming in solemn ‘visitation’ (compare 12:68; 7:16)... The terrible judgment that has been pronounced, and will shortly be executed, proceeds not from a stern and cold justice but from a heart of love, that wants the best for, and from, the people, and so must now oppose, with sorrow and tears, the rebellion that had set its own interests and agendas before those of the God who had established them there in the first place.” Wright, op. cit. p. 232
- “Jesus grieves over the blamable ignorance and consequent blindness of Jerusalem (vv. 41-42) and then over the ruin and judgment she will experience because of it (vv. 43-44) .... it discombobulates a reader to take in verses 38-39 and then to get hit with verses 42-44. It does not seem like a proper climax at all, there’s something ‘wrong’ about it.” Davis, op. cit. p. 127

The Authority of Jesus exercised in the temple
- Luke 19:45 He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, ⁴⁶and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”
1. Jesus exercises his authority
  - “[Luke] chooses to omit the night in Bethany [see Mark 11:11-17] in order to place the temple episode right next to the ‘entry’ episode, and does so to show Jesus coming as king on His way into the city and then acting as king when He enters the temple. The king does not merely come but comes to is temple. That He does there shows that He assumes the temple is His PpHis temple. What He does there shows that He assumes the temple is His place. We are watching the authority of Jesus in living color.” Davis, op. cit. p. 128
2. The violent act of Jesus
  - “Jesus comes into the most sacred spot, run by the Sadducees and overturns the tables and in a symbolic act declares the temple to be corrupt. How do you think the Sadducees would have felt about this?” Darrel Bock, Life of Christ, p. 66
3. A prophetic sign of judgment, not a cleansing
  1. Condemned for making the temple a cave of robbers. Referencing Jeremiah 7:11
    - Jer. 7:11 Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is the Lord’s declaration.
    - “Characterizing the temple as a ‘den of robbers,’ thereby referring to Jeremiah’s temple sermon in Jer. 7:1-15, Jesus denounces the persistent disobedience of the nation and announces the destruction of the temple, since the people and their leaders refuse to listen to God’s message and obey his word.... In light of Jesus’ teaching concerning Jeremiah’s prophecy in Jer. 7, Jesus’ action can be interpreted as an enacted parable that predicts the imminent destruction of the temple. We should note that Jermiah’s temple sermon does not merely emphasize the necessity of repentance (Jer. 7:3, 5-7), implying the possibility of a purification of the temple; it also announces the destruction of the city and of the temple (7:7-15), since God has spoken persistently, but the Judeans have not listened and responded (7:13). This focus on judgment is supported by the context in which Luke has placed the temple episode. It follows right after Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem (19:41-44), with its prediction of judgment. Jesus’ next statement involving the temple announces its destruction (21:20-24). ... Jesus’ action in the temple symbolically expresses his conviction, expounded in his teaching based on Jer. 7, that the present ‘visitation’ of God (19:44) no longer needs the temple, whose destruction is announced.” G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, pp. 359-360
    - “It is now widely agreed that Jesus’ action in the temple was much more than a cleansing. Rather, it was a prophetic sign that predicted the imminent destruction of the temple itself.” Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 536.
    - "Jesus' effort to drive out the merchants aims not to reform the temple, but to judge it, sealing this as a watershed moment in the [end-time] scenario." [Nicholas Perrin, Luke, p. 381]
    1. Not because of selling offerings: the purchase of offerings was required due to the long journey
      - “Jesus is not simply mounting an angry protest about the commercialization of Temple business. His action is a solemn prophetic warning, echoing those of Jeremiah and others, that if the Temple becomes a hide-out for brigands, literally or metaphorically, it will come under God’s judgment. Now, it appears, the brigands are indeed running the show. Jesus is not so much concerned with the traders; they, to be sure, are doubtless making a few extra shekels on the side, but that’s trivial compared what the high priests and their entourage have been doing.” Wright, op. cit. p. 232
    2. However, the markets became a commercial enterprise
      - “Most worshipers could not bring sacrificial animals with the, so there was a ‘market’ for purchasing locally provided and approved sacrificial animals. In our text this was taking place in the temple complex in the ‘court of the Gentiles,’ a huge 35-acre area in which non-Jews could come. There’s some evidence that this bazaar in the Court of the Gentiles was a relatively recent innovation. Apparently, there were four markets on the Mount of Olives where worshipers could obtain sacrificial victims, but Caiaphas & Co. set up a market in the temple as competition with these traditional markets. If so, all the more reason for Jesus to vent His wrath on such wheeling and dealing.” Davis, op. cit. p. 129
      - “Note that money changing was required as the temple tax was supposed to be paid in a certain way and also the sacrifices were supposed to be spotless. Thus for those who brought animals for sacrifice off from a distance, it was a risk that they would become blemished. So, this was a place to buy spotless and unblemished sacrificial animals. All of this was required so that the demands of the law could be met. But it could be the moving of this into the temple was what Jesus was protesting or whether he was protesting the way in which the charges were arranged on how to do this. But the practice was something that the law required. So how it was being done was probably the issue.“ Darrel Bock, Life of Christ, p. 65
  2. It is “my house.”
    - “When Jesus quotes ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer’ one senses that Jesus’ ‘my’ is a reference to himself. Is He making a claim? Is He saying that the temple is His house? And therefore, He purges it of perversions?” Davis. op. cit. p. 130
4. The Temple had lost its purpose.
  1. It was to be a house of prayer but had become a den of robbers
    - Isa. 56:7 I will bring them to my holy mountain and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
  2. Some had already left Jerusalem due to its corruption
    - “[The Essene community] withdrew from Jerusalem, they thought that the city was corrupt along with the worship at the temple. Remember the cursing of the fig tree. We have a contrast between Jesus’ healing work and praise as the Son of David, accepted by the disciples and the cleansing of the temple, followed by the cursing of the fig tree [Mark 11:12-14, 20-21] which pictures judgement of the nation. Jesus curses the fig tree being a picture of the nation of Israel and thus it withers and dies.” Darrel Bock, Life of Christ, p. 66
5. Don’t forget the tears
  - “When you reflect on Jesus’ words and deeds of judgment, don’t forget the tears. And remember, with awe, that if Luke 19:11-27 is indeed about Jesus embodying the long-awaited return of God to Zion, those tears are not just the human reaction to a sad and frustrating situation. They are the tears of the God of love.” Wright, op. cit. p. 233
Application
1. Are we welcoming Jesus as the King; are we coming to meet Him?
2. Does our worship honour King Jesus?
  - “We ought not to think that Jesus’ scrutiny is limited to a first-century temple but realize it extends to our worship assemblies today. And one of the sad affairs is that there is many a church that is no longer ‘a house of prayer.’ One can enter churches that may have a brief prayer at the beginning and a ‘wrap-up’ one at the end, but for the most part there is no prayer in the worship. You will starve before you will find a prayer of confession or a time allotted for intercessions. We may be happy to crank up the amplifiers and go on singing ‘praise songs,’ but let us not give time for the arduous and careful work of prayer. Jesus likely has much cleansing work yet to do in our gentile churches.” Davis, op. cit. pp. 130-131
  1. The temple situation shows what worshiping God on our own terms looks like and the resultant judgment
  2. There is room for individual repentance evidenced by the book of Acts.
    1. People repented, people turned to Jesus all before the destruction of the temple.
    2. Yet the temple system was judged and destroyed within 30-40 years. (70 A.D.)
3. Are we ready to follow Jesus all the way to the cross?
  - We are having communion after this; do we see Christ’s sacrifice as a sacrifice of love. We worship the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
  - “As we arrive at Jerusalem with Jesus, the question presses upon us Are we going along for the trip in the hope that Jesus will fulfil some of our hopes and desires? Are we ready to sing a psalm of praise, but only as long as Jesus seems to be doing what we want? The long and dusty pilgrim way of our lives gives most of us plenty of time to sort out our motives for following Jesus in the first place. Are we ready not only to spread our cloaks on the road in front of him, to do the showy and flamboyant thing, but also now to follow him into trouble, controversy, trial and death?” Wright, op. cit., p. 230
4. Are we, the church, a house of prayer?
  1. Not in name but in practice.
  2. Are our activities, our services, upheld and covered with prayer?
  3. Does prayer determine what we do?

Group Material for week of November 8, 2026

Bible Reading:

Luke 19:28-46

³²So those who were sent left and found it just as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

³⁸Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

³⁹Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.”

⁴⁵He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, ⁴⁶and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!” (CSB)

Message Summary:

Group Discussion

What does Jesus’ triumphant approach to Jerusalem show about who He is and what He will bring?
What do you think the crowd of disciples expected after He arrived in Jerusalem?
What are all the reasons Jesus wept when he looked at the city?
Luke’s account has Jesus going directly to the temple after weeping over Jerusalem. What connection is there between these two events? Why should these two events be considered together? What does this say about the heart of Jesus?
Read Mark 11:17. What does Mark add that is not in Luke and why is this significant?
The purpose of the temple had degraded. Jesus condemned them for making it a den of robbers instead of a house of prayer. How should we apply this to ourselves? What is your response to this account in Luke?

Pray:

Pray that our lives would be directed by and filled with prayers.
For the needs of your group members.

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Triumph and Tragedy

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