The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD! Hail to the King of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said: “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming, riding on a donkey’s colt.” His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him. (John 12:12-16)
They really didn’t want God. They wanted power. They were tired of being pushed around by the Roman political and military machine. They were tired of having their religious and cultural identity squashed, or at best just politely tolerated by people who claimed they knew what was best for them. They were tired of heavy taxes with no representation. They had had enough. It was time to draw a line in the sand. It was time to start fighting back. So when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, as far as they were concerned, the time had come. The time had come to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression right then and there. The time had come to restore the kingdom to Israel. The time had come to get rid of the evil Herod and his pitiful side-kick Pilate and all the other weakling pawns and puppets of Caesar and to put a rugged descendent of David back on the throne— here, today, now. If an “uncircumcised Philistine” had posed no threat to the young David, then why should the pagan Caesar pose a threat to this Nazarene who might just possibly be the promised successor of David? Now it was Rome’s turn to be afraid. The Romans hated the Jews and perhaps some of the Jews might have hated the Romans. The rich hate the poor and the poor hate the rich. The whites hate the blacks and the blacks hate the whites. The Republicans hate the Democrats and the Democrats hate the Republicans. The world is filled with angry people, and everyone wants God on their side. God becomes a convenient tool in the hands of angry people who think they are religious. “If only we could get God on our side, he’d give us power over our enemies. Then the world would be just the way we want it. Just do what we say, God, and we’ll give you your token worship. We’ll give you the palm branches, you give us the power. Just fulfill our desires and honor our agenda and let us use you to accomplish our goals. Sure, we’ll be nice religious church folk. We’ll return the favor. Just side with us against our enemies and things we’ll be just fine between us and you, OK, God? So glad you see things our way”. The people had an agenda, but it wasn’t God’s agenda, and Jesus wasn’t buying into their demands. Jesus didn’t come to make Israel great again— at least not at his first coming. He came on a lowly donkey, not a regal white horse. That should have tipped them off— he wasn’t playing into their agenda. He didn’t come to give them power over their enemies. God had a different plan. Jesus was working off a different script. Jesus knew that angry, power-hungry people build oppressive and dysfunctional societies. He didn’t come to take down one oppressive kingdom just to replace it with another. He came to show us how to face the issues in our own hearts— the greed, the anger, the bitterness, the manipulation tactics, the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle prejudice, the insatiable desire to get what we want, when we want it, even if it means stepping on someone else in order to get it. He came to show us the way of mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and sacrificial love. He came to die for those who killed him. He came to die in our place so that we could know God personally and experience forgiveness of sins and eternal life. What would have happened had Jesus allowed the people to make him their king right then and there? They might have built a better world, temporarily, but it would have gone sour again, even with Jesus as their king. Even with a perfect king, a kingdom can’t be perfect if its subjects have sinful, unredeemed hearts. The anger, the bitterness, the manipulation and the power-plays would all have returned with a vengeance. Unredeemed men and women can’t build a perfect society, even with the perfect king. That’s why we believe in two comings of Messiah. He came the first time to redeem us, to die as a substitutionary, atoning sacrifice for our sins as the Lamb of God. He came to save us, to change us, to give us new hearts. He came to teach us the ways of humility and self-sacrificial love. When he comes the second time, then he’ll have something to work with. He’ll have the redeemed hearts of eternally thankful people who will have spent a lifetime learning what it means to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and their neighbors as themselves. He’ll have people who will have spent a lifetime learning how to be compassionate and humble and forgiving because the power of sin and death over their lives has been broken, and they’ve been set free to love God, others, and self. Then he’ll have the materials he needs to build his kingdom. Then he’ll have his kingdom, not based on power, oppression, and military might, but based on loving God and loving each other. Then he’ll have people who truly want God’s agenda, rather than people who want to use God in order to further their own agenda. Then he’ll have people who want to build God’s kingdom rather than people who want to use God as a tool to build their own kingdom. That’s the message of Palm Sunday. If we’re trying to use God as a tool to make America great again, we’ve missed the message of Palm Sunday, and we have nothing to celebrate. God doesn’t give power in exchange for palm branches. We might as well hold back our palm branches.
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