LET US STILL CELEBRATE
Luke 19:11-44 - “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They replied, “The Lord needs it.” They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and we remember the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
John 12:12-19 - The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! ” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”
Can you see Him approaching the gates of Jerusalem? He’s riding a donkey foal. It is the week before Passover and the noise and the pre-eminent jubilation hangs over the city while surrounding land. People pack the streets, and they are singing, dancing, and waving palm branches. They throw their cloaks on the road before Him. Can you hear them shout? “Hosanna!” “You will save us!” “There is our king!”
Jesus passes by, and if you look closely, you can see his cheeks are wet with tears. He does not tell them to be quiet. His time has come. He is revealing Himself to all people.
Zechariah 9:9 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
But Jesus wasn’t the King they wanted.
He is the King they needed. And the King we need.
Right now, we are trying to adjust to life during this pandemic. Our government has recently warned that we will have a surge of new cases in the coming few weeks.
We have a choice.
We can choose to stay silent in fear, grief or anxiety, and let the rocks do our praising for us. We can choose to push off Easter, to a different month, or just skip it this year...
Luke 19:40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
Or we can choose to remember that God is not any different today than He was then. He is the God “I AM,” and He is near.
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
We can choose to acknowledge that King Jesus still sits on the throne, at the right hand of God. The true throne He was heading towards as He entered Jerusalem.
Hebrews 10:12 “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,”
We can choose to celebrate that Jesus conquered death and that we are free.
Palm Sunday is not a time to be somber, even this year, especially this year.
It is time to celebrate!
We get to celebrate this Palm Sunday as the beginning of Holy Week. The Holy Week that leads to the ultimate gift and sacrifice of our King, our Savior, our Messiah which leads to His Resurrection.
We get to zealously wave our (paper) palm leaves, sing “hosanna” and look forward to His return. To rejoice that He has already risen and that the price is now and forever paid. To have hope. We get to share that hope with a world so desperately in need of it.
John 4:13-14 “Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ ”
We may not be able to celebrate in our usual fashion, all together in our Sunday best, but we can still choose to see this time is a gift. Even now He is redeeming this situation and this time. He has loosened our ties to schedules and routines that we use to pretend we have control. We can choose to see this as a time that brings us back to the very reasons we all gather to celebrate in the first place.
This year’s Holy Week, we can focus fully on the meaning of it, without the distraction of the traditions that typically surround it.
So let us celebrate! Let us remember that we still have hope! Let us pray together that He heals and that He saves! So that through us, the world might see that the King we follow is still the joy of the world and is worthy to be praised.
- Katie Erickson, Communication Director