HAVE YOU EVER...met someone who was famous?

They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Blessed is the king of Israel!”  John 12:13

This week is Palm Sunday!  This day churches celebrate the triumphal entry of Christ Jesus into Jerusalem.  This was the Sunday before he would suffer and die for us.  These people had no idea.  They knew that scriptures had foretold of a coming king who would save them, but they had NO idea what he was going to do for them.

Jesus was famous!  I would like to think that I would have wanted to see Jesus and believe in him.  Not just one of the people that wanted to see some famous guy going by.  What’s all the hubbub about?  Jesus had made the lame walk, blind men see, and even raised Lazarus from the dead!

I remember traveling to Springfield one summer day with my parents when I was younger just to see the president drive by in his limo.  Which one is he in?  We had no idea, if he was really in one of them.  I had a friend of mine who got to miss a day of school in high school to go hear President Bush speak at a college for graduation.  It was also exciting when Roy Blunt was the president of SBU while I was there.   He had been the governor!  I actually had the strange fortune of spending a few evenings hanging out at his house.  Fancy!  He wouldn’t know who I was though.

When we think of famous people, we think of rich people from the movies.  Someone who has won an Oscar or a Grammy!  My sister and I like to play the game…If you could hang out with someone famous for a day, who would it be?  Sadly, I have never answered Jesus, because he wasn’t really that famous.  He was more infamous to some people, like the Pharisees. 

I love historical Bible stories like this.   This one is written in all of the four gospels.  There are things that are special and different about each account.  Matthew 21:2 says that Jesus told his disciples to go to the village and find a donkey tied next to her colt and bring them both to him.  The other 3 gospels only mention the colt.  Mark 11:11 says that after the triumphal entry, Jesus went to the temple and looked around at everything, but it was late so he left with his disciples.  We know that the next day he goes back prepared to take care of “business”.  Luke 19:40, is awesome when the Pharisees tell Jesus to tell the people to stop.  Jesus says, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  The saddest is John 12:16.  The Bible says that the disciples didn’t understand.  It was only until after it had all happened and had been written down that they realized. 

All four gospels have the phrase that the people were chanting, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Wow!  Some of them got it right, if even for a little while.  He is worthy of our praise.  I love watching the kids carry the palm branches.  There is always some big choir or orchestra piece playing while they march down the aisle.  We look at how cute they all look.  This Sunday, think about why they are really doing it.  God had a plan that Jesus was fulfilling for you and me!

HAVE YOU EVER…waved a palm branch?

Psalm 118:26, Zechariah 9:9