Palm Sunday – the beginning of Holy Week. We usually look at Holy Week with the end of it in mind and it all shines with the hope of salvation and resurrection. But suppose you were one of the people that laid palm fronds in Jesus’s path as He entered Jerusalem, hailing Him as King. You expected Him to finally do away with Roman oppression and establish Himself as King of Israel. From your perspective Holy Week is all about dashed expectations and unmet promises. Viewed from the perspective of the triumphal entry, Holy Week is not the greatest victory in history, but an utter disappointment.
That’s why, for me, the essential scripture to read and understand for Palm Sunday is not the Gospel accounts of the day, but instead the Old Testament Isaiah, who quotes God:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Bearing that verse in mind, you have to simply do away with expectations of God altogether. You see, we cannot know what He is up to because our thoughts are not His thoughts.
Here’s the thing – anytime we are disappointed in God; anytime we do not think He has met our expectations, it is because we think our expectations matter more than His. And in doing so we think the way we want things to go is better than the way He does. But He is Creator of everything and King – His ways are higher than our ways. How dare we be so presumptive? Our expectation and will is secondary to His.
So, in a sense, Palm Sunday really is all about establishing Jesus as King by acknowledging that He does not need elevation to that office. He is already there. Palm Sunday is about recognizing that we need to descend from where we have placed ourselves – on His throne. If we are disappointed it is not because God disappoints, but because we are too doggone proud to accept our own place in His order.
This morning, when the kids are coming down the center aisle with those palm fronds remember that God does not need us to put Him on the throne – we need to kneel before the throne He is already on.
