True to your word?

We approach the week that Christians celebrate Palm Sunday.  The Sunday before Easter, this Sunday commemorates the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the week that He was crucified.  People heard that He was coming and they had also heard about the miraculous things He'd done, the healings, the teaching.  They had heard that He was a king.  They were ready to make Him their King--or so they thought.  

The people were suffering under a difficult Roman rule.  They had little say-so in how things were done.  They were ready to be free and handle their own affairs.  Jesus, they thought, would be the one to give them the self-rule they desired.  On Sunday, they were ready to call Him King.  On Friday, they called Him a criminal.  They were not true to their word.  What changed?

What changed was certainly not Jesus' message.  He said that His Kingdom was not of this world.  He said that He would turn all the expectations upside down.  He said that following Him would require that we give up everything else.  

Maybe the difference was that people finally saw what Jesus meant.  They saw the Gospel demonstrated to the fullest extent: the Righteous One giving up His life for us all--even while we were yet sinners, and even before we could understand what He was doing.

You see, it is easy to SAY that we want Jesus to be our King.  But to put into action requires more than we are often willing to give.  Jesus' message is one of:

being meek when we want to be strong

being peacemakers when we want to fight

loving those who in insult us

going two miles when someone asks us to go one mile

loving our enemies and not just our friends

giving extravagantly without earthly acknowledgement or reward

following the narrow road

laying down our very life--even when others will not appreciate it

That flies in the face of everything we want to do.  That's our human condition.  But it is the Gospel's call requires us to follow this Christ, even when we don't want to or don't always understand what He's doing.

Those of us who say that we are followers of Jesus must then ask ourselves, "Are we being true to our word?"  Like those that were waving the palm branches that day, we've said that Jesus is King.  With our actions, are we being true to that word?  Or are we like those who called Him a criminal by ignoring His teaching, His words and His example?  

As we approach this Palm Sunday, it is my prayer that we would encourage one another to remember God's encouragement to us: "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one anther--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)