Grace and Peace to you on this Palm Sunday. Today is normally a joyous day of God’s gathered people in church buildings, processionals with palm branches and maybe picnics and parties. Following is a reflection on Palm Sunday events as referenced in the Bible. I invite you to spend some time this reading the text, meditating or having conversation with others who are with you or that you may communicate with on the phone or via other social connections.
THEME: I WILL GLORY IN THE CROSS
Sunday, April 5: Since the time of my childhood, the hymn refrain, “In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.” Has found a special place in my heart. I remember the older saints in my home church singing “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross” with a holy reverence and strong voices. They were probably 50 years of age, but they seemed like they must have been around forever. They sang that hymn and especially the chorus with such conviction that they convinced me, even as a child, that it must be true.
On Palm Sunday Jesus and his disciples made their entrance into Jerusalem, like they had done on so many occasions, especially when it was Passover time, but it was oh so different this time. This time there was a crowd that surrounded Jesus and lauded him with great accolades of honor and praise. They took off their precious cloaks and laid them on the ground for the donkey to walk on and the crowds to pass over. They broke off tree branches and waved them in the air as though they were attending a royal person. They laid the branches in the street and they sang and celebrated that a king, God’s king was riding into town. Imagine what a stir this must have caused in this very busy city and in perhaps one of the busiest seasons of the year. While it stirred up the crowd, the people who did not know Jesus were asking, “Who is this that causes such a stir?” It also stirred up the hostilities and the anxiety of the town and temple leaders. Already that had looked for an opportunity to arrest Jesus and a way to turn the people against Jesus. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus goes to the temple either that day or the next and overturns the tables of the money changers and drives out the sellers of the animals for sacrifices. That action did not endear Jesus to even more people.
Jesus also began to more fervently prepare his disciples for his death, which they could not fathom and did not want to consider. Contemplating the cross was too hard for them to deal with, but the cross was a reality that would not go away.
Why would anyone consider the cross as a thing of glory? Paul some years later would write a letter to the churches in Galatia, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” NIV “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” KJV
Paul knew that if it had not been for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross his sins would have swallowed him, but by the cross he was able to leave the things of the world, that once made him think highly of himself, to now think highly of Christ because of his sacrifice on behalf of the whole world. I can still hear my home church folks singing,
1.Jesus, keep me near the cross; there a precious fountain, free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calvary’s mountain.
Refrain: In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.
2. Near the cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me; there the bright and morning star sheds its beams around me.
3. Near the cross! O Lamb of God, bring its scenes before me; help me walk from day to day with its shadow o’er me.
4. Near the cross I’ll watch and wait, hoping, trusting ever, till I reach the golden strand just beyond the river.
Prayer: Lord Christ, may we find your glory even in the harshest circumstances of life. May we bear the cross of Christ so that others may see your grace and glory. Amen.