Holy Week 2019 ~ Where is the Love? – Palm Sunday

Greetings Dear Reader,

Holy Week begins with the commemoration of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Jesus arrives to the celebratory welcome of thousands.   What we do not discuss is the why of it.   We do not see that it is not simply those who know of Jesus welcoming him into Jerusalem.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is making a very clear statement.  He allows the people to welcome him as, “The King who comes in the name of the LORD.”   He verifies their thoughts that he is the promised Messiah.  He rides on to the temple to verify his claim.  He teaches from the Torah and heals people.

Here is the problem.  The people are welcoming him not as the Messiah who is there to redeem them.  They want him to use the power they have seen in him for three years to overthrow their oppressors, the Romans.  They do not love Jesus.  They love the idea of a man of power overthrowing their enemies with that power. 

The people cheer and cry “Hosanna in the highest.”  They welcome him as a conquering king but he arrives as a humble King.  His silence is only broken when those who are supposed to understand and protect the Law and the Prophets challenge him for accepting the praise.  They demand that he silence the crowd.  He reminds them that if he did, the very rocks would cry out worship to him. 

There is no love from the keepers of the Law, yet that very Law demands that they love him.  That Law insists, and Jesus verified that it is built on the idea of vertical love of the Father and horizontal love of humans, both neighbors, and enemies.  Most of these people do not cry out praise out of love.  They act out of their own interests.    

The people are asking him to conquer their enemies and they will make him king of the nation.  He has been telling them that if they make him King of their Souls, he will conquer the world for them through love.  Which do you think is the greater Dear Reader?

I must be sure that my following of Christ is for his purposes and not my own.  I must welcome him by loving the Father and every human as the prime mover in all that I attempt.  I must constantly ask where the love is in his interactions with the world then and now.  I must seek it, emulate it, and follow it wherever it leads.  I must never forget that the cheers of the crowd will turn in jeers that mock him before the week is out.  Praise offered without love turn to cries for his death filled with the hatred that really fueled that praise.

The love is not found in the praises offered for a wrong purpose.  It is found in the Son of God as he rides toward his death out of love for every human that has or will ever live.  That is the love we will look for throughout this Holy Week.  Please, share with me your thoughts Dear Reader.

Ride on to Tide – Michael Card

Sense the sorrow untold, as you look down the road
At the clamoring crowd drawing near
Feel the heat of the day, as you look down the way
Hear the shouts of Hosanna the King

Oh, daughter of Zion your time's drawing near
Don't forsake Him, oh don't pass it by
On the foal of a donkey as the prophets had said
Passing by you, He rides on to die

Come now little foal, though you’re not very old
Come and bear your first burden bravely
Walk so softly upon all the coats and the palms
Bare the One on your back oh so gently

Midst the shouting so loud and the joy of the crowd
There is One who is riding in silence
For He knows the ones here will be fleeing in fear
When their shepherd is taken away

Oh, daughter of Zion your time's drawing near
Don't forsake Him, oh don't pass it by
On the foal of a donkey as the prophets had said
Passing by you, He rides on to die

Soon the thorn cursed ground will bring forth a crown
And this Jesus will seem to be beaten
But He'll conquer alone both the shroud and the stone
And the prophecies will be completed

Oh, daughter of Zion your time's drawing near
Don't forsake Him, oh don't pass it by
On the foal of a donkey as the prophets had said
Passing by you, He rides on to die

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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