Palm Sunday

Psalm: Psalm 118:19-29
Old Testament: Zechariah 9:9-17
Gospel: Mark 11:1-11
Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anybody but today is Palm Sunday.  Palm Sunday is an interesting time in the life of Christ as well as the Church.  On the one had both Christ and we recognize the important and amazing thing that is happening as Jesus enters into Jerusalem and is welcomed as King and Messiah. Yet we, and I think Jesus did as well at this point, know that this “triumphal entry” can only end in disaster.  From Jesus’ perspective he has made an enemy of everyone in power.  He has the support of the mob at this point, but we also know how fickle that can be.  One day these people are shouting “King of the Jews” and placing palm branches for him to walk on and not even a week later this same crowd is shouting “crucify him!”  Jesus is in a very precarious position in the last week of his life.

This week our two Old Testament passages are laden with messianic foreshadowing.  The Messiah was the hope of Israel, the one who would restore their fortunes.  I was particularly struck by the readings from Zechariah today because of the militant and violent imagery.  When we read these prophecies from the Old Testament it makes perfect sense to believe with the Jews that the Messiah would be a warrior-king and throw off the oppression of the “Greeks” as Zech. says.  Yet this is not the picture we get of Jesus.  He rides into Jerusalem on a colt, not a war horse, which Zech. also prophesized.  Jesus certainly challenged the powers of this Age, yet he did not do so in a violent way.

This type of imagery which is so prevalent in the Old Testament passages about the Messiah makes me ponder our own tradition about Jesus’ second coming.  What are we to make of the apocalyptic militant language in Revelation or Matt 24?  To this we can even add the great natural upheaval portrayed which will bear witness to Messiah coming.  Yet when Jesus came most of this prophetic language was symbolic.  I think if we read closely enough the prophecies of Jesus’ first coming in comparison to the Gospel accounts, it gives us great insight into how we are to interpret and understand his second coming. 

This week I encourage you to spend some time reading Jesus’ teachings from his final week before his crucifixion.  Maybe start in Matthew 21 and read through Easter and Matthew 28.  Ponder the teachings Matthew places during this week and their importance to who Jesus was. Perhaps one means to think about this week of Jesus life is to view through it the lens of Phil. 2:5-11.  My prayer is that we will all have the same attitude as Jesus, by his Spirit, to the glory of the Father.  May Christ be King in our lives in this world.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,

and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW,

of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.