Blessed Is He Who Comes In the Name of the Lord

With our celebration today of the Lord’s voluntary entrance into Jerusalem, the place of His death, our prayerful and thoughtful reflection on the last days of His earthly life begins – we enter into the Great and Holy Week. It is a week that should be, for all true Christians, a week like none other. It is a week that would have us look intensely at human love and hate, nobility and crassness, selflessness and selfishness. It presents the life of a man, Jesus, Who devoted Himself to making God’s Word and Kingdom real. Although we believe Him to also be God incarnate, we know that He went through His suffering and death as a man. He was able to endure all with a nobility that was made possible because of His most profound faith in God, Who He knew as His Father.

His entrance into Jerusalem is very important because it informs us that: (1) He voluntarily accepted the suffering and death He knew He would have to endure because of the accusations people were levying against Him; (2) He was willing, because He believed that what He taught was the right way to live, to die instead of deny His beliefs; and (3) He rejected    human praise and power because He realized that such things are not what is important in life. In order to stress His awareness of what the pursuit of power and glory can do to a human, He chose to ride into Jerusalem on a simple young donkey. In the past, conquering generals rode into Jerusalem on great stallions to stress their power over the people.

Christ rode into Jerusalem not as someone who desired to have power over people but, rather, to stress that His simple way of living and believing leads to the fullness of life. Brutalizing others for the sake of personal glory is not the way of God.

What is the lesson we can learn from thinking about this event in the life of Jesus? Centering our life around human praise and power is not the way of God and does not bring His Kingdom into existence. It is very important to learn that God’s Kingdom is not established by doing things that can gain us human power and praise. God’s Kingdom only comes into existence when unconditional love and acceptance of others is made real by the way we treat others. People only yelled Hosanna to Christ because they thought He would free them from their conquerors. They thought He would use His power, which they witnessed in the miracles Heperformed, to destroy the Romans. They did not sing Hosanna because they believed in what He taught.