There's Within My Heart a Melody / Luther B. Bridgers
There's within my heart a melodyI prayed, “Fill me, Lord, with your peace and joy today. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.” I read Luke 19:28-44:
Jesus whispers sweet and low:
Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be still,
In all of life's ebb and flow.
Though sometimes he leads through waters deep,
Trials fall across the way,
Though sometimes the path seems rough and steep,
See his footprints all the way.
Soon he's coming back to welcome me
Far beyond the starry sky;
I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown;
I shall reign with him on high.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
Sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing,
Keeps me singing as I go.
The Triumphal EntryMy Understanding: I saw four primary and significant aspects of this passage of scripture:
28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
1. Preparing the way for the Lord
2. The declaration of the Word
3. Weeping over the sin of unbelief
4. Peace with God vs. divine judgment
Preparing the way for the Lord - The disciples were asked by Jesus to go into the village ahead of them, to find a certain colt, and to bring it to Jesus. Jesus then rode that colt, apparently in the direction of the Mount of Olives, which was Jerusalem’s watchtower, and it was where Jesus went with his disciples to pray before he was arrested and then crucified on the cross. So, Jesus’ riding on this colt was symbolic of his preparation for the cross, so it represents that journey to the cross.
When I read in v. 32 “Those who were sent ahead…” I immediately recalled that John the Baptist was one that was “sent ahead” of Jesus, too. And, I thought how this story of the disciples going for the colt paralleled over to the story of John the Baptist, as both were making preparation for the Lord and for the cross. John’s message was one of repentance from sin and declaration of the nearness of the kingdom of God. His job was to prepare the way for the Lord by calling people to repent so that they could enter into God’s eternal kingdom by way of the cross and God’s grace. The disciples also made preparation for this journey to the cross and by declaring that Jesus is the king who brings peace in heaven.
Jesus is coming back one day soon and he will take his true disciples to be with him forever. There are many people in this world who don’t know Jesus or who have never heard the gospel message. There are many who have heard, but have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior and Messiah. There are those who profess to believe, but who are not walking in fellowship with God due to sin and rebellion in their lives. And, there are those who are truly disciples of Jesus Christ who are walking in faith and obedience, not with absolute perfection, but that they are obeying what they know, holding nothing back. Jesus has called his true disciples to prepare the way for when he comes back by telling others about him, by sharing the gospel message, by living out the life he has given us and by being a light for him in this dark world. This is how we are those “who are sent ahead.”
The declaration of the Word – When Jesus was riding the colt and when he came near the place where the road goes down to the Mount of Olives, the scriptures says that the whole crowd of disciples began to joyfully praise God in loud voices, calling him blessed as the king who comes in the name of the Lord, and by shouting “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” They were declaring that Jesus was of God and that he was God and that he was the promised Messiah who had come to the earth. I like the part where it says that they joyfully (they wanted to do this) praised God in loud voices where everyone could hear. They were not ashamed of the gospel or of their Lord and did not keep their faith hidden.
The Pharisees, who were the religious leaders and ruling body of the people, chastised these disciples for their loud display of praise and adoration of their Lord Jesus Christ. They wanted Jesus to rebuke his disciples for this. I love Jesus’ response to these religious leaders. He said, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” There must be the proclamation of the Word and of Jesus as our Lord and Messiah and of the salvation he brings due to his death and resurrection for the sins of the world. We can’t keep silent!! We must proclaim the Word of God and the message of the cross and of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ preached in its fullness. We must tell the world about Jesus and we must call sinners to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ, because we are all going to have to face God one day, but not for that reason only. Jesus did not die just so that we could have life after we die. He died that we might have life now, i.e. that we would be free not only from the ultimate penalty of sin but that we might be free from the control of and bondage to sin on a day to day basis, and we must proclaim that truth.
Weeping over the sin of unbelief – Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because they failed to believe in Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Lord. They had God in the flesh with them and yet they did not recognize him as God coming to them. Jesus grieved in his spirit, he wept, he mourned and he lamented the fact that his own people did not believe in the only One who could bring them true peace with God. And, he grieves and mourns over those even today who have turned a deaf ear to the message of the gospel and who have refused to believe in him and to receive salvation through Jesus Christ.
I believe Jesus also mourns, grieves and weeps over believers in Jesus Christ who are also suffering elements of unbelief due to holding on to sin, rebellion, going their own way, and refusing to accept God’s words to them, etc. These are the ones Jesus spoke of as living in spiritual rebellion or as living in spiritual adultery, i.e. they are following after other gods of the flesh and Jesus is taking a back seat in their lives or is barely even considered at all. When we do not follow God’s teachings and we choose to go our own way instead, not only are we committing specific other sins, but we are also perpetrating the sin of unbelief because we, by our actions, show that we don’t believe Jesus is who he says he is, that he died to set us free from sin, and that he has the power to conquer sin in our lives, etc. Jesus grieves over this and we should, as well, mourn over the sinful condition of our world and of our brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord, who are living in open rebellion against God.
Peace with God vs. Divine Judgment – “Peace” is a word that has multiple meanings from absence of war and conflict, harmony and unity with others, freedom from strife, the end of hostilities, used to tell someone to be calm or silent, etc. to the meaning of peace in this Biblical context, which has to do with rest, inner quietness, assurance of salvation, being made right with God via belief in Jesus Christ, contentment, and loss of fear and anxiety.
The people in Jerusalem were most likely looking for the absence of war and conflict kind of peace and a king who would deliver that for them. Yet, the kind of peace Jesus was offering is not of this world. It does not necessarily mean absence of war or conflict, harmony with other people, the end of hostilities, and/or silence of voice, etc. When Jesus told the people of Jerusalem that if they had only known on this day what would bring them peace, he was referring to the peace that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, belief in God’s provision of grace and forgiveness, and faith and trust in God’s promises for us in this life each and every day and in the life everlasting in heaven with God. Yet, they refused to believe, so now the truth would be hidden from their eyes.
Jesus speaks of this kind of peace of being in a right relationship with God through faith in Christ, but there is another aspect of this peace that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, can know and experience on a daily basis. It doesn’t necessarily mean absence of war or conflict, or lack of trials or tribulations. This song, for instance, suggests that we will face difficulties in this life, and sometimes our walk of faith will have some rough and steep spots, yet we are to see Jesus in every one of them and to know that God is absolutely sovereign over all things in our lives and he allows what we experience for our growth and maturity and to make us into holy vessels that he can use for his glory. So, we are not to fear or become anxious when we are up against great odds at times, but rather we are to allow Jesus to fill us with his peace even in the midst of our storms, and we are to be content in whatever circumstances he places us for his glory.
I admit that I am a work in progress in this area of learning to trust in his peace and to not become anxious or fearful, so when he said “Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be still,” he was talking to me, too. He is encouraging me that he can handle the tough and rough places of my life and that I am to come to him and to lay all my life’s circumstances at his feet and to allow him to work.
Jesus told the people of Jerusalem that because they had failed to recognize what could bring them true peace with God Almighty and because they failed to recognize God in the flesh among them and that he had come to them as their Savior, Lord, and Messiah, that judgment is what they had to look to ahead instead of eternity with God. And, God is still saying the same thing to all who would reject Jesus Christ, his provision of grace and forgiveness and his gift of peace with God for eternity.
Sometimes we just want to tell people the nice parts about Jesus Christ and we want to present Jesus as all grace, yet Jesus is both a God of grace and a God of justice and judgment, because he is a just God. We certainly should not tell people that their reasoning in believing in Jesus Christ should be merely out of fear of hell, nor should we tell them that a mere acknowledgment of him that is not followed up by genuine faith (repentance and obedience) is enough for them to have their ticket into heaven. God’s grace is not cheap. It came with a cost, and the cost was the cross of Jesus Christ. He did not die so that we could continue in our sins. That makes a mockery of his sacrifice for us and for our sins. So, we should neither paint Jesus as all grace nor should we paint him as all judgment. He is both a God of grace and a God of justice and he will most certainly keep to his promise and he will judge the earth and the people on the earth because of their unbelief.
So, whereas we should believe in Jesus Christ because of who he is, and because of his grace and mercy to us in providing us with salvation, and thus we should desire to live for him in all we do, we should also not take God’s grace for granted or to think that we can continue to sin and still hold on to a promise of his grace. God knows who are truly his. Don’t make the mistake of miscalculating God. Know that he takes sin seriously and that he grieves over our sin and rebellion and he longs for us to come to him and to enter into his rest. May we all find peace with God – the kind of peace that assures us of his presence within even if the world is falling apart all around us.
Lord, may I continually rest in your presence and know your peace in my life and in all my life’s situations, trials and testings. In Jesus’ name I pray these things, amen!
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