A Cycle – Palm Sunday 26

Mt. 26:14-27:66

Did you ever wonder why the religious leaders, the disciples and the Jews could not make the connection between the prophesies and Jesus as the promised Messiah? 

In was amazing that connection was still ignored after all His miracles and His resurrection.  The day before His crucifixion the people exulted Him and danced with joy before Him. They welcomed Him as the Messiah on that day.  Only to cry out “crucify Him” the very next day.  I invite you to consider how you are responding to the reason Jesus was willing to set aside His divinity so that we would be clothed in righteousness.  Do we welcome Him with the same exuberance as they did or is our faith in Him based on an incorrect image of how we are to respond to Jesus.  

Their misunderstanding of the Messiah shows us e how easily we can acknowledge Christ, worship Christ and at the same time be as misguided as them and Judas.  Christ passion and death was God’s plan for restoring the glory God intended for us at creation.  We are designed for intimacy with God and called to live out that intimacy every day of our lives for an eternity.  We lost that intimacy because of the sin of Adam but that never changed God’s plan for us. We have the wisdom of thousands of years of refined reflections on the scriptures and the development of doctrine to remind us about who we are and how we are to respond to God. The real question for us is are we as fickle as the people of Jerusalem were on that day and the day following.

   It is easy to say we believe but it is harder to live that belief when we are confronted with our need to believe even as it seems our faith will not be rewarded.  Our human nature is weak, and it fails us when we are confronted with our need to stand up and defend our faith. The issue for us is it is easy to conform and hold onto accepted norms of our faith.  Unfortunately, when we do that, we fail to experience an encounter with Christ that is life changing. But we know from the scriptures how difficult that was for the disciples after His arrest and passion. 

 When given a choice to stand firm do we like them retreat and seek the comfort of going along with the crowd.  Do we respond as the discipled id that night and flee to protect themselves.  Do we remain in the crowd and remain silent, not wanting to draw any attention to our belief in Him. Has our faith become private, and our worship restrained because we do not want to bring attention to ourselves. We ignore a simple spiritual truth and that is t we are called to be a people set apart, a people who are willing to stand firm in the face of evil and become bold in our belief in Christ as Lord.

We need to do more than wave palm branches and sing about the King of Glory among us.   We are to become disciples who are willing to go out and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.  Many of you are doing that by visiting those who are homebound and those incarcerated in our prison system. Visiting those in hospice and nursing homes.  Many of you host bible discussion groups or reach out to those whose live lifestyles which are less than God intended, But those who sere are in the minority and all of us are called to be bold in our witness and willing to stand firm against those who want to silence the gospel of salvation is through Christ and Christ alone.   

We need to do more than admit we have failed to believe Jesus is the only way to the Father.  We need to admit our focus is on doing things to be acceptable to God instead of appropriating the grace won for us by Chris’s sacrifice.  In churches everywhere the focus will be on the institution of the Eucharist.  Rightly so but that fact will not challenge us to embrace what His death achieved for us.  Complete and total forgiveness for all our sins, past present and in the future. 

It is time for each of us to reflect on how we are responding to Chris’s death and His promise of eternal life.  It is not what we do to become acceptable to God. It is what Christ did to remove the barrier of sin separating us from God’s embrace. It is time to follow Him to the cross and sit before Him as John did and acknowledge Jesus truly is the answer in our quest for holiness. It is time to listen to Him and respond by giving Him your heart instead of our sacrifices and adherence to rituals.

He endured a horrific flogging, taunts and insults, a pain filled journey to calvary, and the nails driven through his hands and feet.  All the joy of the day before was an external response to who they believed He was, but it was not enough to prevent them from stand up when it endangered their lives.  Yet God knew how fickle we humans are and sent Jesus to endure it all despite our unwillingness to stand up and be counted.  God’s plan for our salvation was set in motion the minute Adam and Eve sinned and today it still demands a response from us.  It is a public declaration before others embracing the Lamb of God who died for the forgiveness of our sins.   

There is only one way to respond to this gift of God to us.  Wait until we are filled with power from on high and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to the heart of God as we celebrate our rtransformation as sons and daughters of the living God.