The Coming Palm Sunday
With Easter in the past, the mystery of all that surrounds that crazy week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection is epic! Think about these things:
● Jesus warned and educated His disciples multiple times and in detail about what was coming as they headed toward Jerusalem - yet they didn’t seem to really understand or get what was happening.
● One of Jesus’ handpicked disciples would betray Him for a small amount of money.
● That same betrayer would lead the authorities and their guards directly to Jesus at night.
● That same betrayer who was handpicked to follow Jesus would kiss Him to let the authorities know “this was the one.”
● The authorities who arrested the Son of God were supposed to represent God to the people.
● The same people who welcomed “THE King” into Jerusalem with Palm Branches yelled, “crucify him” just a few days later.
● The disciples who vowed to stay by His side no matter what, ran away at His arrest.
● To think the Son of God would allow Himself to be beaten to near death, and then crucified by the very own people He created is very humbling.
● During the days Jesus’ body was in the tomb, the disciples hid in Jerusalem.
● The disciples seemed to completely forget the promises Jesus made that He would rise from death after being killed and that their weeping would be replaced by joy when that happened.
● Even when the women who Jesus had shown Himself to after He rose from the dead told the disciples, they still didn’t believe it!
● When Jesus did eventually show Himself to the disciples after His resurrection, He showed them the holes in His hands, feet, and the spear hole in His side.
What a mysterious and crazy week, yet that has turned into the most pivotal week in the history of mankind - no other compares. For God so loved us that He gave His one and only Son so that we could believe in Him and have eternal life!
God’s wrath from our sin placed upon Jesus’ shoulders in exchange for life that will never be quenched or stopped. Communion with God re-established and the promise that Jesus will one day return to give us new bodies that will live in a new world! No movie plot is or will be as epic as God’s plan and to be part of His Kingdom!
Yet, even though that first Palm Sunday happened two thousand years ago and it ended with the palm branch wavers mocking Jesus, there is another “Palm Sunday” coming that we all will be participating in - with our new bodies by the way! Read this from Revelation 7:9-11:
“After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a great roar,
“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God.
This coming “Palm Sunday” is vastly different! This time all of creation from every tribe and every nation and language will be standing in front of God’s throne and before Jesus “holding palm branches in their hands!” All the elders from days past, all the angels, all the heavenly beings will be there with us and we will all be SHOUTING together:
SALVATION COMES FROM OUR GOD WHO SITS ON THE THRONE AND FROM THE LAMB!
Pastor Don Erehart
