21:1 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
21:2 saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.
21:3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately."
21:4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
21:5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
21:6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them;
21:7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.
21:8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
21:9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
21:10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?"
21:11 The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
Recently I had a conversation with an atheist, an interesting conversation, if you discount that he is like a man standing in a field of dynamite sticks. It takes only one to go off, and he is dead. But for an atheist being dead is simply being all dressed up and nowhere to go.
If you understand about dynamite, then you understand my likening it to the frailty of life. Dynamite doesn't need a blasting cap of mercury fulminate to set it off. If the weather is right it sweats explosive liquids that can set it off at any time. So the unstable condition of dynamite is much like the unstableness of life. Our last breath is always in our nostrils.
For the atheist, that's it. We simply cease to exist, to think, to be. We become one with the dust and the dirt, and the mind stops all functioning and returns to the nothingness the atheist believes it was before the miracle of human birth and quickening of mind. For the those who do not know God, do not believe in a higher power, the end of life is very bleak. That famous philosopher "Anonymous" is reputed to have observed that “Atheists don't solve exponential equations because they don't believe in higher powers.”
But seriously, the man who has made a fortune playing upon religious confusion, Richard Dawkins, has said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." To which I reply, he is almost there. Go one god further than those of our imagination, to the God who has given us reason to believe He is what He says He is, the great "I Am." In Him is life, love, forgiveness and a future.
Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis, has said, "Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses." A very astute observation, in many cases where people have reached for God but stopped short of believing in and committing to what they have found. But the main thing wrong with Freud's observation is that....we all die. We run out of time in our life-long investigation of life and death. Illusions and wishful impulses will not help us when death comes. They will not carry us safely across the mythical River Styx to new life. And we want to know, what happens when this life ends? For Freud's statement to have the ring of truth, we must ignore the testimony, the multiple testimonies that stand in agreement, that we have been told what happens after. For we have been.
In the last verse of the very well-known 23rd Psalm, we read: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever."
More directly, Jesus Himself tells us, in John 14, verses 1-3: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
This kind of talk is very upsetting to some. The whole idea that someone might have an actual relationship with a spiritual being they don't agree exists causes arguments, family splits, and to this day leads to murder and mayhem.
But you have to ask yourself, as it was expressed by the Christian comedian, Brad Stine, "Who is more irrational? A man who believes in a God he doesn't see, or a man who is offended by a God he doesn't believe in?"
What is very upsetting to some, both those who don't believe there is a God, and those who give their allegiance and worship to more palliative man-made gods, is the idea that we who worship the great "I Am" declare His agenda; we know God has a plan. And regardless of how we see events in this earthly sphere, God is working that plan. God is never surprised. He planned it all before time existed, and we are continually amazed as we see written prophecy from thousands of years ago coming to pass.
Men judge people and events as if they were gods, approaching people and events as if God were subject to such earthly emotions as anger, jealousy, greed and self-interest. That is only natural, because those are the emotions that drive us. But they do not drive God. Our God has told us plainly, in Isaiah 55:8-9, “'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" It should come as a surprise to no one that the finite cannot fully understand the infinite, that the created does not understand the reasoning of the Creator.
Jesus did nothing during His short lifetime on earth that was without reason. Whether it was the shriveling of a barren fig tree, the healing of a blind man on the Sabbath, or riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
His disciples would have had Him ride into Jerusalem's gates on a white horse, as was the custom of returning heroes and conquerors. But Jesus, the exalted Son of Almighty God, was still incognito. His disciples knew just enough to put it together after His predicted death, a death they would not believe was about to happen. Still, Jesus gave them just enough to understand who He truly was, without tipping His hand to others.
In a scene that must have caused apoplexy among the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus came riding into adoring crowds in Jerusalem as a conquering king, as the citizenry gloried in His approach, laying the traditional palm branches and their cloaks in the path before Him, and laying the groundwork for His enemies who would crucify Him.
Verse 21:9 of our scripture today tells us the crowds went ahead of Him and were behind Him shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" His fame as a teacher and a healer preceded Him, and the crowds, in their enthusiasm for this great prophet, gave voice to who He truly was, "Son of David," coming "in the name of the Lord."
And yet even in those moments of wonderful rejoicing and acclamation, Jesus must have had on His mind what was waiting ahead of Him ... the cross of crucifixion, the acceptance of all that sin upon Himself, in agreement with the Father.
All of it part of a defining moment in the history of mankind. No misty myths from the mind of man, no pastiche of this legend and that legend, this guess at what happened, that extrapolation of a possible happening. No, a moment in recorded history.
Many people have set out on announced investigations to prove the Christ non-existent, God a hopeful figment of man's imagination, only, like Paul, to meet the Christ along the way, and become His loving disciple.
Thomas a' Kempis, writing his "The Imitation of Christ" in the original Latin, suggested to us that "man proposes but God disposes." When we look at God from the outside, try to make sense of what He is doing, what He wants from us, without bothering to know Him, to study His words to us, we naturally come up with a very human, often emotional, and always off-track summation of what this God we know only second or third hand is up to. We can follow our own instincts and ideas, fit what we know of God to our view of events, and propose what will happen or should happen.
But God has not asked our advice. He has His own agenda. His ways are not our ways, and our finite proposals have no bearing on His infinite manner of disposing with events, people, and nations. He is not on our team. He invites us to be on His. That's what His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the approaching Easter are all about. But make no mistake about it, God is not joining anyone's team. We're joining His. Or not. In which case I pray for your immortal soul. Another moment has passed. Don't wait. Amen.
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