I sat listening again to a teaching about the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Crowds surrounded him waving palm branches and laying their coats on the ground before him as a grand gesture of acknowledging him as their king. All around him came shouts of adoration, proclaiming “Oh save!”
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna! Blessed is the king of Israel!”
They couldn’t contain their jubilation, and their excitement was heard far and wide.
Their king had finally come and he would set up his kingdom and make all things right.
My mind couldn’t help but jump ahead to what I knew they’d be facing near the end of the week. Their gleeful expectations would be turned upside down. Their hopes and dreams would be dashed, their hearts broken. In my mind and heart I stood with them in grief on that Friday as they watched their king being arrested and beaten beyond recognition.
They wanted their lives to be made right here and now, but they wouldn’t be, and I understood that frustration. Like them, I have been desperate for solutions and when those solutions didn’t come as quickly as I wanted, or at all, a part of me became disillusioned.
I knew what it meant to have certain expectations, certain hopes as I lifted up prayers to my King, month after month after month, sometimes year after year, and see many of those prayers go unanswered. I understood just a little bit of that devastation at not receiving what I wanted, what I needed, or, what I thought I needed.
Their disappointment would cause them to assume He wasn’t at all who He said He was, and in just days, that, and the prompting of the chief priests, would lead at least some of them to change their shouts from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify him!”
I felt a sorrow for them I’d never quite felt before. Oh, if they only knew.
They saw Him die, buried, and they returned to their homes and lives the way they’d always been. No King, no kingdom. I couldn’t help but grieve with them.
On the third day, as they sat in their grief, the one in whom they’d placed all their hopes, the one who’d been wrapped in burial cloths and secured in a tomb behind a large stone with guards securing it, would surprisingly, miraculously, joyously be raised to life and the stone rolled away. I can just picture the smile on His face as He waited to surprise them all. He showed Himself first to the disciples, and then to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time.
He’d be with them over the next forty days, speaking to them about the far greater salvation of their souls, their freedom from sin and the healing of their hearts. He’d tell them of the kingdom of God where He was going to prepare a place just for them and all who would believe in Him to live with Him forever.
Of course He wouldn’t leave them alone, though. He’d send His Holy Spirit to fill them with power, with love and boldness, strength and courage, peace and joy.
No, His earthly kingdom would not yet come, and they would still live with all kinds of hardship, sickness, and much persecution, but He had for them, and for us, a far greater way.
They’d shouted to be saved, but their desires were only for this life. God had so much more in store.
“Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life? If the old way, which brings condemnation, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new way,
which makes us right with God!”
2 Corinthians 3:8-9
Just as Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, had far greater plans for them, He does for me and for you.
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,
who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5
Yes, in this life we will still face trials of all kinds, but we can glory in them knowing He’ll be with us every step of the way, strengthening us, giving us courage and wisdom, making us into the very image of Christ as He prepares us for our eternal home. In His wisdom He’s using it all for His glory in ways we cannot begin to imagine, and that is call for joy.
May we keep the faith in the One who loves us, and at the end of our very short lives here, may we, too, say –
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.”
2 Timothy 4:7-9
