What would you do today if you knew you were going to die on Friday?
Would you visit your parents, siblings, other family members to say goodbye? Would you try to find all those odd documents, pensions, investments, savings books etc and make sure that someone knew where everything important was so that they could sort out your affairs after you were gone? Would you write your life story for those coming after you? Arrange all your photographs in date order and put peoples names on the back? Perhaps you would talk to your minister and make a last confession and receive communion and prayer. You probably wouldnt choose to spend your last five days on earth in the way Jesus chose to spend His.
There are a couple of things which strike me about Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on palm sunday. Firstly the colt or young donkey. Nowhere else in the gospels are we told that Jesus rode anywhere. He seems to have walked from place to place so we have to assume that today he is riding on a colt so that the Biblical prophecies can be fulfilled. But what I love about this is that Jesus has pinpoint accurate knowledge about where this colt will be and what its owners will say. This is the gift of the word of knowledge operating at its best. Im absolutely sure that Jesus hadnt set up the donkey to be there beforehand. He just knew, by the gift of God operating within Him, where a suitable donkey would be and that He needed to be on it that day. Always obedient. Ever faithful. Our Jesus.
The next thing I notice is that the disciples put their cloaks over the back of the colt - and the crowds throw their coats on the floor for it to walk on.Both strike me as being somewhat.... odd gestures.
Im not really sure why Jesus would have needed any sort of saddle in order to ride into town. People rode horses and mules all the time in those days and probably few of them could afford or would have need of a saddle. So the norm must have been for people just to ride bareback. Im sure Jesus would have been happy enough to ride bareback. But the disciples felt led to ' honour' him with a covering for the beast. I wonder if this was because they secretly believed that Jesus was going down to Jerusalem to start an uprising. To declare Himself as Messiah. To establish an earthly Kingdom. If you think about it, what the crowds were doing was throwing quite probably their only coat on the floor to be trampled on by a horse. Put yourself in their shoes. Picture your favourite coat. Are you happy to throw it on the floor and let it be trampled on just because the guy next to you is doing the same?? There must have been some extraordinary atmosphere there that day and such an excitement in the air.
In scripture garments often represent authority. I think that people were spontaneously honouring the Jesus they loved, submitting to Him in a sacrificial gesture, full of belief that they were about to witness the rising of a great leader. THE great leader. The anticipation must have been palpable. Sobering to realise that only five days later these adoring crowds had vanished and the coats were firmly returned to peoples backs.
Then there are the stones. When Jesus said that if the people didnt praise Him then the stones would - I really believe He meant it! And I SO wish the people had shut up so that the stones could have had a chance at praising Him. What do stones sound like when they praise God? Well what do you know? I Googled it. And here is what stones sound like Awesome!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUaPeyxjKgE
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBfrLoBpsIQ
What I love about science is that the more it probes, the more it discovers about how exquisitely the world is made. We now know that whales sing songs and dolphins communicate over miles of ocean. We can hear the tones in the buzz of a bee and the sounds of cells dividing in the leaf of a tree. I recently heard on the radio the sound made by a black hole in space!! Scientists have been able to record the singing of the stars for a while now. The whole of the universe is indeed giving God praise. All the time. The Psalmist couldnt possibly have known it but he was so right when he said in Psalm 96
Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it.12 Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
13 Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes,
he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his faithfulness.
We know what lay ahead of Jesus on Palm Sunday and so did He. But those around and with Him didnt. They were caught up in the excitement of the Festival and the possibility that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to take His place as Messiah. It is all too easy to misread the signs. To gloss over the uncomfortable truth because it doesnt make sense to us and to grasp on to our own understanding. We all do it all the time. How we need those spiritual gifts of knowledge and discernment so that we can read the signs of the times and not miss what God is really doing. Let us not be carried along by a crowd which is praising God one minute and shouting ' crucify' the next ; honouring and submitting on Sunday and vanishing into the background on Friday when its time to stand up and be counted.
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