Palm Sunday Thoughts

Yesterday, Sunday , we celebrated Palm Sunday.  It was the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Crowds gathered to see him and acclaimed him a king.  They laid palm fronds on the road as a red carpet for the donkey to walk over.  Just for that day, Jesus was a crowd pleaser, a red carpet walker, an idol with a thousand fans.

We only need to watch TV when famous singers like Katy Perry, Justin Beiber, and their ilk arrive, the hysteria, the fanfare, the adulation.  That too was Jesus for a day.

A few days later Jesus was nailed to the cross.

How fickle is public acclaim, today a hero tomorrow an outcast, left to die an ignoble death?

What the crowds then and now fail to grasp, Jesus is the King.  He doesn’t need the fanfare, the adoring fans, he is the King. He is not reliant on the acclaim of people to give him status; he already is status.

Jesus, for a day, hangs on a cross on a hill,  for a time he is in the tomb, in the grave, tasting death and then he stands on the Mount of Olives, the King has risen. He is master of all he surveys, the world, the universe, the cosmos, all is his.

Regardless, he bows to give to fickle humans a new heart, a new spirit, he makes them into a new creation.  Fickle humanity can be king with him for eternity.  He has looked past our flakiness, to see what we could become.  He has given us life.

Can we accept what he has made us?  Can we turn away from our life of independence and let him live within us? Can we lay down our life?  Can we say yes to his rule as King? 

‘He has made us to be more than we can be.’