Surprise!
Everyone loves a good party, but when the party is for you, even better! You walk into a room full of people who love you and want to honor you. There are gifts, songs sung in your honor, good food. When the party ends you feel blessed, loved and special.
But what if you knew that those same people, the same ones who honored you and hoisted you on their shoulders, were going to turn around and in a matter of days want you dead?
That is the situation that Jesus faced on what we know as Palm Sunday.
Even as the crowds laid their cloaks and palm fronds on the ground under the donkey’s feet, Jesus knew they were going to turn on him.
As they shouted “Hosanna!” Jesus knew that in a matter of days they would be shouting “Crucify him!”
He knew how this week would end… in pain, agony, death, on a cross.
Yet even though he knew how it would play out, Jesus didn’t stray from the duty. In Matthew, we read how just days later Jesus asked his Father to spare him, yet he acknowledged that it was God’s will, and not his own, that must be followed:
36Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
42He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
43When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
45Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Matthew 26: 31-45
As we enter this holiest of all weeks, take time to reflect on that time so many years ago. A single man who came to die… for you, for me, for all…
May 26th, 2010 at 8:32 am
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