Palm Sunday Meditation
Jesus
rode into Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover. The annual observance was in honor of God’s
rescue of the Jews from Egypt. When
during the final plague (the death of the firstborn), God told Moses to shed
lamb’s blood around the doors, and to eat the lamb so that the Jewish firstborn
would be saved. A deep connection to the
last supper of eating the body and blood of the Lamb of God sacrificed for our
sins.
Jesus
rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the practice of kings in ancient times. And like his birth into the world, there was
little fanfare or pomp and circumstance.
Followers of Jesus laid down their coats and branches similar to ‘red
carpet treatment’ today, while others asked who this man was. Earthly kings marked their territory; they
gave inaugural speeches, threw parties, had statues made in their likeness, and
named streets and cities after themselves.
They talked about their power and how great the world would be if people
follow their rules.
Jesus’s
inauguration consisted of hatred from Jewish leaders who saw him as a heretic
and a threat. How dare a human being
call himself the Son of God! A
carpenter? A teacher? A healer?
Yes. But the Son of Almighty
God? Crucify him! And they planted the seeds of crucifixion
cries within the crowds of people who believed.
Jesus’s
inaugural speech was silence. In front
of an earthly king he stood, asked to justify himself and his agenda
(love). When personally questioned and
challenged, he didn’t take the bait to bring glory to himself. Earlier in his ministry he told the
disciples, I came to serve, not to be served.
He came to serve God, not to be served as king. His disciples promised they would always
stand by him, yet like the crowds that turned against Jesus, his chosen
disciples fled too.
The
Jewish people were seeking their Messiah but they didn’t expect him to be a humble
human servant. They wanted a powerful
military leader, but their ‘King’ washed the feet of his disciples in a way
reserved for slaves. They wanted defeat
of Roman occupation, but their King delivered forgiveness rather than
retaliation. The power that Jesus
provided the Jews, the Gentiles, you, and I, was the power of love. We inherited as an unearned gift salvation
and eternal life through the King that bore our sins with a crown of thorns.
Jesus
came to us (we didn’t go to him) and the kingdom that we have inherited is
present today. It is a freedom unknown
by earthly governments that is only found in Christ’s love and
forgiveness.