This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday. It is the start of Holy week, or remembering
Jesus’ last week on earth. The Gospel
story for Palm Sunday is Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The people are shouting and proclaiming him
the Savior. They are waving Palm
branches and laying their cloaks in the road to make a carpet for his Donkey.
Even though
they are right; Jesus is their savior he is not the kind of savior that they
want. He has come to offer his life as a
sacrifice for their sins. But they want
a conquering king. They want a warrior
with an army of angels to overthrow the
Romans and give Jerusalem back to the Hebrew people.
I was trying
to think of a Geeky analogy to help you understand what was going on. How this parade could turn into a mob that
would demand his death.
I thought of
the Dragon Con Parade each year. Not
only Dragon Con attendees, but lots of regular citizens of Atlanta come for the
parade. They cheer their favorite
characters. Any given year there will be
a good number of the soldiers from the 300, a group of Amazons including
several Wonder Women, The Avengers, Some of the Justice League, and of course
the 501st. My great hope is
that this year someone will do Beebo God of War.
Now just
imagine if the crowd didn’t realize that they were Cosplayers. What if they thought that they were real
soldiers and Super Heroes. There are a
lot of problems in our society today.
There is lots of division. Lots
of anger, even hatred. Imagine you are
in the crowd and see the chance for these heroes to make everything right
again. They could march down to city
hall (or even Washington DC) and kick out all the corrupt politicians. They could fix all our problems. They could save us from ourselves and our
poor political decisions. That would be
worth cheering for. Then, you realize
that isn’t why they are here. That they
are not going to do anything about the mess we are in. Would you feel betrayed? Would you feel angry?
Jerusalem
had political problems worse than we do.
They were occupied. The Romans
appointed puppets to rule for them. If
they didn’t do what Rome wanted, they could be replaced. They had no say in their governing. If they spoke up they could be arrested or
even killed. They knew the stories of
God saving the people and leading them out of slavery in Egypt. They knew that God promised a savior. But they didn’t realize that politics come
and go. Rome wasn’t going to rule
forever. In the grand scheme of things,
who has political power isn’t that important.
Don’t get me
wrong, Hitler was evil. He needed to be
opposed. Some of the Roman Emperors were
nearly as bad. They fed people to lions
for sport, or my particular favorite, they would dip people who refused to
worship the Emperor in Pitch and light them on fire to use as street lights at
night. The Jews were right in wanting to
get out from under Roman rule, but that wasn’t why Jesus came.
Jesus came
to save us from our sins. Our salvation
isn’t earthly, because if you kick out one corrupt government another will
eventually take it’s place. Jesus came
to give us a place in God’s heavenly kingdom.
Jesus came so that we would have a place at the heavenly banquet.
The story of
Palm Sunday and what follows is to long to read for a five minute
devotion. So for those who want to hear
the whole story you can find it in Luke 19:28-40. If you really want to know what is coming you
can continue with the passion story, some of which I will cover next week. You can find it in Luke 22 starting around
verse 14 and continuing through the end of chapter 23.
