What a difference a day makes

Luke 19

Introduction: I would invite you this morning to think back with me to a day that changed your life. There was something about that day that moved you into a brand new direction, and as you look back, you see that that day was a turning point in your life for one reason or another. While you are thinking, let me tell you about a couple of individuals that I read about this past week that had very significant days that charted the whole course of the rest of their lives.
We have all heard the name, Helen Keller. At 19 months of age she fell ill with a high fever. When the fever passed, it took with it both her hearing and her sight. Unable to communicate in a world that only confused her now, she became known for violent rages. She would kick, bite, and pinch family members and had a track record of breaking things. Family friends encouraged her parents to put her in an insane asylum where she might be controlled.
Helen’s parents refused that option and began looking for a tutor. It was a long search; but by the time Helen Keller was 7, they had found the perfect candidate. Annie Sullivan was a partly blind, 24 year old teacher, and she began to teach Helen a touch-based version of American Sign Language so that Keller could begin to communicate. By spelling out words in the palm of Helen’s hand, Annie taught her how to identify objects, spell, read, and most importantly, how to communicate with other people. There are many interesting facts from Helen Keller’s life that we could share this morning, but one of the most significant ones is that she would graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904.
Helen Keller would later say, “The day Annie Sullivan arrived in our home was the most important day of my life.” What a difference a day can make in the course of life!
William Allen is a name few of us would recognize, but he became the president of the Boeing Company on September 1, 1945. That would seem to be a great day for celebration! But just two days before that, the U.S. government canceled half of its remaining orders with Boeing for B-29 bombers. The next day it canceled pretty much everything else, including all its orders for the famous B-17. If we had been William Allen, I wonder what we might have been thinking as we awakened on the morning of our first day as the new leader of the Boeing Company? The one thing Mr. Allen didn’t do was panic. He set in motion plans for the building of a commercial airliner that would become known as the Stratocruiser, a civilian aircraft built on the platform of the B-29.
In William Allen’s first year as the president of Boeing, the company had revenues of $13,000,000. When he retired in 1968, revenues that year were $3.3 billion. Surely September 1, 1945, was a life changing day for Mr. William Allen!
What a difference a day can make in the life of an individual! No wonder the Psalmist would write: “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps. 118:24) And again in another place, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Ps. 139:16)
Well, this day on the church calendar is Palm Sunday. This is always the Sunday that just precedes Easter. And I wonder what a difference this day may make in our lives? Let’s go back and look at the first Palm Sunday and see what a day it might have been. What that day had the potential to mean back then, Palm Sunday still has the potential to mean today!
Interested in exchanging the grumpies for joy and joyful praise to God? The first Palm Sunday was a day of joy and joyful praise. Interested in trading inner turmoil for peace? The first Palm Sunday offered those around Jesus complete and perfect peace. Interested in replacing disillusionment and disappointment with hope? Above all things, that first Palm Sunday suggested that tomorrow could be better!
Follow along with me in a text from the Gospel of Luke, Luke 19:28-44. Keep an eye out for these things I’ve been mentioning: joy, peace, and hope.
Luke 19:28-44 -- “After He had said these things, He was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.
If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them.
As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it. As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road.
As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’ But Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!’
When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.’”
The key to our passage today, on this Palm Sunday, is the portion of this text covered by verses 41 and 42. “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, (42) saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.’”
That little phrase, ‘in this day’, or ‘on this day’, is a crucial phrase. That day, the day that the Lord Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, is actually a Monday, Monday, March 30, 33 A.D.
How do we know that this day is this date and why is it important? Let’s go back into one of the Old Testament prophecies found in the book of Daniel. In Daniel 9, verses 20-25a, we find a clue that gives us some understanding of what Jesus was saying.
Dan 9:20-25 “Now while I (Daniel) was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering. He gave me instruction and talked with me and said,
‘O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.’”
Now these next two verses are key, verses 24 and 25. It is from understanding their meaning that we define the date of Monday, March 30, 33 A.D. We can know the very date that Jesus rode into Jerusalem from understanding the time-table that Daniel is given here by the angel Gabriel.
(Daniel 9:24-25) “‘Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.’”
Now there are 70 weeks or, literally, 70 sevens in verse 24. There are 69 weeks or 69 sevens in verse 25 – 7 sevens and 62 sevens. This morning we are primarily concerned with the first 69 sevens referenced in verse 25. These 69 sevens are a time frame with a definite beginning and a definite ending.
The beginning, according to our text, is a date on which a decree is issued to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. The ending is a date on which the Anointed One, the ruler, comes.
See again how verse 25 states it? “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks…”
So, if we could know the beginning date, we could figure out the ending date. And we do know the beginning date. It is March 5, 444 B.C. This is the date that Nehemiah went in to see the King and Queen and got permission to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 2:5) Now if we use the King’s decree date, March 5, 444 B.C., and we add 69 sevens worth of years… Daniel’s 7 sevens and his 62 sevens, totaling 483 years…
And if we convert those 483 years into days… understanding that a prophetic year had 360 days in it (as opposed to a solar/calendar year which has 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45.9 seconds in it), we come to 173,880 days. If we add those days through the centuries to March 5, 444 B.C., we arrive at March 30, 33 A.D. That was the very day the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt, all the while being hailed as the king.
Daniel 9:26 says, “After the 62 sevens, the Anointed One, the Messiah, will be cut off and will have nothing.” In fact, 4 days after riding into Jerusalem, the King, the Lord Jesus, was “cut off”, that is, crucified on Friday, April 3, 33 A.D.
(My source for all these calculations is the Ph.D. dissertation of Dr. Harold Hoehner, done at Cambridge University, published the year he graduated as “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ”.)
The point I want us to understand this morning is that the Lord Jesus arrived in Jerusalem right-on-time! We know from Luke’s Gospel that He was headed that way. Luke 9:51 -- “When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem…”
Luke 13:33 – “Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.”
Luke 18:31 – “Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.’”
Luke 19:11 – “While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.”
Luke 19:41 -- “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it…”
And we know from Daniel’s prophecy and from history’s records that He was not one day early, nor one day late. And when He spoke through His tears, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace…”, He had in mind that very day!
It is not hard to understand what Palm Sunday is all about. Palm Sunday is God bringing His plan for all the ages to completion right on time according to His own very accurate timetable – right to the very day – just as Gabriel had said to Daniel hundreds of years before!
So, let’s ask the question, “What does all this mean to me?” What can we take away from here today from the things we’ve learned? A number of lessons come to mind…
One, if God is a part of our lives, every day is full of meaning! The inventor, Arnold Beckman, turned 100 this past Monday. Perhaps his most famous invention was the pH meter. He invented it in 1934 because a friend of his, a research chemist, needed to know how to measure acidity in lemon juice. That invention earned him a spot in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1987. Mr. Beckman’s philosophy: “I tried to make the most I could of each day.”
If he lived life this way, why wouldn’t we -- who have a relationship with the God of Heaven? Every day is just one slice of His eternal plan that will come to pass!
Remember how Paul said it to the Ephesians? Eph 1:10-12, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
Eph 2:4-7 “But God… raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Eph 3:10-11 “(His) intent (was) that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord…”
So, how is it we get grumpy and discouraged in the face of this kind of truth? Palm Sunday is a day of joy! When the apostle John wrote about this day, he included palm branches in his account. In fact, he is the only gospel writer who includes the palm branches. (12:13) John’s gospel is the gospel of symbols (bread, water, shepherd, sheepgate, light, etc.). The palm branch was always a symbol of joy. Jericho was the city of palms. It was the first city captured in the promised land. It was the first fruit of that campaign. It’s capture was an occasion for great joy.
When King David’s daughter was born, he named her “Tamar”, the Hebrew word for palm, because of his great joy.
In Revelation 7, the great multitude that surrounds the throne of God is made up on people wearing white robes and holding palm branches, and they are full of great joy.
If God is part of our lives, then everyday has meaning – no matter what happens – and we can rejoice in what He is accomplishing.
Lesson Two, If God is not part of our lives, then this day is a day of opportunity for peace, peace between God and us.
The Lord Jesus had said, “If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace…”
He was saying to the people of Jerusalem that He, the King, had come, and they did not know it. Because they didn’t know it, He would be crucified, and Jerusalem would be destroyed, which in fact happened in 70 A.D. Their opportunity for peace was lost.
Today, this day, would be a good day to give one’s life and one’s heart to the Lord Jesus. His death was for your sin; He invites you to make Him part of your life before that day of destruction and judgment comes.
Our car has an overhead console that digitally displays all kinds of information. It tells us which direction we are going, how many miles we can still drive before our fuel is gone, and a host of other things. This past Friday we noticed a little word, ‘cal’, had appeared on that display. We looked in the owner’s manual and were told to drive the car in three 360* circles to recalibrate the car’s compass. So Saturday afternoon that’s just what we did. At the very point where we began our first circle, when we had completed three, the little word ‘cal’ disappeared! Amazing! My point is this: We all are made for a relationship with God. The Gospel defines the way to “calibrate” our lives to His standards, to a relationship with Him, to life with Him. (1) If we recognize our sin, if (2) we acknowledge His sacrifice for us, and if (3) we accept His death for us by way of a conscious decision, then we are saved. Then we enter into a relationship of peace.
Palm Sunday is a day of opportunity for peace. Wouldn’t you like to leave your turmoil here today and leave this place at peace, rejoicing? It is simply a matter of making a decision…
Lesson Three, The King is coming – again, and we dare not lose sight of that hope! Palm Sunday reminds us of God’s coming. He came into Jerusalem for the first time that day as the king, the Messiah, and the disciples rejoiced “that the King had come in the name of the Lord.” If they hadn’t been rejoicing, the stones themselves would have burst into praise.
Every new day is a day to anticipate His coming again. Every day is a day of hope… we are being conformed to the image of His Son… He is moving everything forward according to His plan… forces of evil will not prevail… He always provides a way of escape… His mercies are new every morning.. Great is His faithfulness. Let’s not be unprepared the day He returns. Let’s get up every morning with that thought on our minds, “Could this be the day?” And if it is, how should I then be living? What would I want Him to find me doing?
(Conclusion) So, what a difference a day can make! The King arrived in town on March 30, 33 A.D. Everything could have been different. All the city could have rejoiced. Jerusalem would not have been destroyed a few years later. Hope could have burned brightly. Peace could have been everyone’s experience.
Could have been…
Should have been…
Might have been…
Since none of us knows what any particular day holds, shouldn’t we be at peace with God? Shouldn’t we plan to rejoice every morning? Shouldn’t we be full of hope? Palm Sunday says we should! What a difference a day can make…


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