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?

Do 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

Perhaps a Roar

Perhaps a Roar        

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The month begins like a lion we are told.  March, unlike any other month, arrives on winter’s tail.  A time of transition, the harshness of wintertime fading, the hint of warmer days to come.  Quickly the days grow, soon the sun’s appearance longer than its absence.  Yet the lion has not abandoned the throne, perhaps a roar remains to find us ill prepared.  The dark overcast skies…cold north winds…snowy days a temporary thing.  For perhaps the roar of winter can yet be heard, but frost and chill’s reign has neared its conclusion.  Winter is passing…new life of spring only weeks away, and the cold season’s harshness only increases spring’s joy.

Endings and beginnings…a lesson hard learned.  Times dark and troubling, roaring through our lives are not the whole of our existence.  Highs follow lows, light comes as certain as the sun’s rising.  Each must face the winter of our lives. Though, during the hardest of times, we may not believe that spring lies near at hand.  That pain, disappointment or sorrow will end and greater joy may come.  Perhaps a roar fills our ears…now…but the gentle lamb waits!

(195 Words)         2-28-2013

Thinkin' About October

Thinkin’ About October

 

By John W. Vander Velden             

 

Been thinkin’ about October.  The autumn month wedged between September and November.  Seems to me that October is a month of change.  I guess the whole season of autumn is.  But to me October is a special month. 

Typically as a farmer, October is when harvest begins.  That was not the case for all those years I milked cows.  I always said harvest began around Memorial Day, with the first cutting of hay, and did not end until the last ear of corn had found its way to the bin.  Good years that would be before Thanksgiving.  Great years, and they did not happen often, by Halloween.

But things change, and October is about changes.  We notice the change in temperature.  Frosts come in October to remind us winter approaches.  On most years the leaves become glorious, the green of spring and summer replaced by golds and reds.  Usually those leaves abandon their posts flying on the breeze for brief moments to settle in our yards, in October.  We do not allow them to remain blanketing our grass.  Instead we rush about raking them to neat piles to be hauled…somewhere.

 

           It’s still football season for our area High Schools, and Marching bands yet take the field in Saturday competitions.  It can snow in October.  It usually does.  Another reminder that winter’s at the door.  But the white stuff doesn’t hang around for long.  But I can remember my son sloshing around the field, counting his steps and fingering brass valves in memorized order.  They say you’re not a fan of the Bands if you haven'’ been snowed on...and like it. 

 

It’s October and things be a changin’.  But in truth each day brings some sort of change, no matter what month it is.  Life is about changes, isn’t it?  How we handle the changes tells a great deal about us.  Surely there are those changes we anticipate…even enjoy.  And there are those changes that come sneaky to the unprepared and turn life of its axis a bit.  Sometimes more than a bit.  And so as I think of October, as I think about changes, I become reflective.  I take a bit of time to think of the changes I have seen.  I consider how those events have changed me.  I wonder what I would be like if…. Now that’s just counter productive.  Things happened and I changed… period.  Or have I…Hmmmmmm.  How would I know?  How can I be certain that I have grown because of the changing environment that surrounds?  Perhaps I have done no more than adapt to the ever changing world.  Is there a difference?  Perhaps…perhaps not. 

But even if I have only adapted to the changes of MY world…I am different because of those adaptations.  So I HAVE changed.  Hopefully for the better.  So I’m thinkin’ about October and about changes.  About the changes I have seen and endured, and the changes, expected and unexpected, I will face in the days ahead…

 

(501 Words)  9-26-2017

 

Sagging Shoulders

Sagging Shoulders            

By John W. Vander Velden

 

With sagging shoulders that had so willingly borne loads, the structure stands long abandoned.  Once the tumbled down barn was the pride of those that had moved within the walls that now deteriorate.  How heavy, the great beams, hewed by hand, fitted together by skill, and hefted skyward by shear will of many men, the framework designed to stand for all time.  The number uncountable of the nails that fastened its skin of broad planks to that skeleton.  Joy filled the faces of those that first set eyes upon the structure that would be the center of their lives.  When only the aroma of new lumber  filled its grand space.  But that was long ago.  The days when a man carried a lantern into its heart before the dawns first light are long forgotten.  Summers when farmer, with great hooks, team and rope, filled the mow, a history remembered only by bent old men.  How many times had men with ladder and brush dressed the barn in garments of red trimmed in white?  Now the weathered wood show only traces of faded blotches too stubborn to vanish.  Wood shakes that had covered the mammoth roof, shielding man and beast from driving rains, lay scattered and broken upon the mow floor among forgotten rotting hay.  Only the foolish venture within the shadows and among the shafts of light flowing through broken panes.  Summer’s storms and winter’s fury did not devastate the once proud monument.  Changes called progress eliminated the grand building’s usefulness.  Over time what had once been the pulsing heart of the farm’s life became ignored -- just an old building.  No, it was not the heavy burdens willingly carried that caused its shoulders to sag -- but people that no longer needed or cared.

Part of this nation’s history stands crumbling along that country road, a symbol of what was and is no more – all that remain are the sagging shoulders of the abandoned barn.

(327 Words)