Palm Branches on the Road

Palm Branches on the Road      

By John Vander Velden

Each year when Palm Sunday came we would discuss the event in our Adult Sunday School class. As the class’s teacher I had the privilege of choosing each week’s topic and I love the story. It’s so human.

So this year we are to spend time separated, physically at least, from each other, I thought I would take some time and pass along my thoughts on this Sunday the beginning of Holy Week. Bear with me.

Jesus was coming to town.

The town was Jerusalem and this person, Jesus of Nazareth, is coming to the very center of the Jewish faith, for the Passover. You’ll find the text in Matthew 21 or John 12. Take some time to read them, I’ll not cover the actual text here.

But by that time a young rabbi, or teacher had gained a great deal of fame. In a world before TV, radio, or the internet, word had gotten around about this carpenter’s son from a village up north. Stories of his speaking to the masses, of changing water to wine, of healing people from their illnesses, of freeing others from the demons that possessed them, even a story of raising a man from the dead. The name of Jesus was tied to so many events that by word of mouth thousands had heard of Him.

And he was coming to town!

So Jesus comes down the road riding on a colt of a donkey. Doesn’t seem impressive does it. Where’s the pomp. Where’s the circumstance. A donkey! But it fit with a prophecy and the folks new it. Now the city of Jerusalem had swelled with the religious masses. It was Passover and if possible you went to the temple for Passover. So Jerusalem was filled with not only locals but with many from all over.

So the crowds must have heard for they were excited, you see Jesus was coming to town!

So if we read the gospel we see there was a great deal of hoopla as Jesus approached the city. Everyone is excited because surely this man, this Jesus, is the Messiah. They have been waiting for the Messiah for a long time. They’re wait is over.

Impressive isn’t it. Yes, it certainly was. And the religious leaders noticed.

Many might say that the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem was the pinnacle of His ministry.  But we who know the “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say, know it just isn’t so. As a writer it might be called the pre-climax, perhaps a hint of things to come.

So how can things go from mass adoration on one day to the crowd demanding his execution in less than a week? It’s simple really. The crowds were human. A cheap excuse, perhaps, and I don’t mean to excuse them, really. Just to clear the muddied waters.

For generations the people of Judea had anticipated the Messiah. One empire after another came in to dominate their lives, bringing odd cultures, odd laws, demanding odd payments. Times they had revolted. Times they had a few years of self-rule. But by and large the Jews were under the thumb of SOMEBODY. They interpreted the words of the prophets to mean that the Messiah would come and set them free. Free from Rome in this case. He would be a warrior king and with his authority and God’s power Judea and all the lands promised them, would be restored. David’s Kingdom would be reestablished forever.

Doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know, does it sound like your Jesus?

And that was the problem.

Maybe Jesus was the Messiah, but he wasn’t the Messiah they wanted!

Crucify him, crucify him!

Yes, there was some political wrangling mixed in the change of the masses opinion, but the fact that this carpenter’s son did not fit the job description provided the fuel for the fire.

We can understand can’t we? Like I said they were human.

And so are we.  

Now I shear off from the past and bring Palm Sunday and Holy Week into the present. What kind of Messiah are you looking for? Does Jesus fit?  Or do we bend the Son of God to fit what we want Him to be?

Does we take Jesus’s message of unconditional love and God’s forgiveness and decide who qualifies and who does not.

    

Have we shaped the gospel to say what we think it should mean?  Ouch!

These are questions we should ask ourselves every day, but especially ask them when we think about the story of Palm Sunday and the week that follows.

“For God so loved the world,” (loved the world doesn’t necessarily mean he has always liked it), “that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (This is the sacrifice we must understand.) “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” John 3:16, 17 (NIV)

This is what Christmas―Palm Sunday―Easter is all about.

And that is why it matters.

So as we sit in our individual homes,  know that God’s actions are for each of us, that Jesus is the Messiah, not necessarily the one we may want, but the one we absolutely need.

With God’s Blessings, and Christ’s love,

John

(893 Words) 4-5-2020