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)

The noise of noise

     As a teenager, I’d borrow my dad’s truck on a weekend night and head off for untold adventures.  As many teenagers will tell you, a weekend drive requires the right soundtrack.  I had collected best songs, pop in my homemade tape and crank up the volume.  Unconsciously, I’d turn up the volume throughout the evening.  The music seemed to keep us going when we were looking for that extra pickup.

However, I frequently made the same mistake upon my return home.  I’d forget to turn down the stereo when I got out of the truck.  The next morning my dad would get in and would be blasted out of his seat by my roaring stereo setting.  He’d come stomping into the house, questioning how in the world I could listen to music that loud.  He couldn’t imagine anyone’s ears surviving such a torturous volume.  I admitted that it seemed loud on Saturday morning, much louder than I remembered it Friday night.

Psychologists tell us that this is an example of desensitization.  In order for us to perceive the music to be as loud as it was previously, we have to turn it up.  Our ears grow accustomed to the noise and it must be louder than before to hear it at same level.  After a night of rest and silence, the same volume coming out of the stereo seems unbearably loud, though we never noticed it the night before.

Desensitization occurs in the human mind too.  Experiments have shown that our brains will tune out that which we hear often.  Test after test have shown that we grow accustomed to injustice or evil or oppression and we unconsciously ignore it.  What can save us from such a neglect of that which we know is right and acceptance of the wrong?  

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was treated with injustice with evil with oppression.  He was mocked, tortured, humiliated, and forced to carry his own instrument of execution.  We may hear the story so frequently that we forget just how loud this message is.  Like that stereo, we don’t hear the sounds that normal people hear.  We’ve missed the power of the travesty of the situation.What can save us from such a neglect of that which we know is right and acceptance of the wrong?  

SILENCE.

Sometimes we need a personal silence, a personal rest.  We need to quietly empty ourselves of the noise around us.  The noise of personal agendas, of pressures from the world, of expectations must be silenced to hear the power of the story.  Maybe we will hear a new power in the story.  Maybe we will hear the story for the first time.  

As we travel together this season of Lent (a time of preparation for the remembrance of Jesus’ work on the Cross) may we find the beauty of the silence.  May we find the beauty of emptying of that which keeps us from hearing the story.  May we rid ourselves of the noise of noise. 

May we then hear the loud cries of God’s Love for us anew.