Matthew 21:1-11
This week I found out the cry hosanna means save us. I can relate to this, I think we all can today. The crowd calls out for this Messiah to save them. Save them from the oppression of Roman rule. Save us from pain, anxiety, suffering, death, loss of job, loss of house, loss of life, please save us. The answer is yet to come. It certainly gives us a different way to look at holy week.
Holy Week is usually the build up to celebration. Maybe all these years we have only gone through the motions of it, waiting for Easter to arrive. With glory, splendor and wonder as well as candy and bunnies. Yet going through this week this year really puts us into the frame of sacrifice.
We sacrifice our physical connection with one another. We sacrifice our time with loved ones. We sacrifice times in our children's senior year that we will never get back. We sacrifice and we want to be saved from this grief. Save us, Messiah, save us this pain. Save us this sacrifice. Save us from this time.
Yet we are not to be saved and neither was Jesus. It is such a juxtaposition of worlds on this day. It seems we start with Jesus being hailed as king, we have never heard the hosanna as a plea, save us. I mean isn't that what God is for, to save us from pain. I think we see the answer as we read of Jesus deserted, jeered at, mocked, stripped down and flogged, broken, where is the savior in that. He can't save himself, how can he save us?
Maybe a lot of us are feeling this way right now. We expected to be saved from financial destruction, from losing our loved one, from having to make hard decisions. Yet time and again this is life. A season to cry, a season for good, a season to mourn, a season to learn what this cross is really all about. Grief and fear and anxiety shut away from the world hiding in fear. Sound familiar?
Maybe, just maybe we will hear this story differently today. Maybe it will echo and resound in our very souls because saving us is only part of living this life. Learning to face our pain, learning to face our fears, learning to grapple with being laid bare and naked is all apart of life. What we learn from it, how we go forward from this point on will determine everything. Will we be able to grieve and heal, will we be able to realize being saved isn't the answer, will we be able to learn the deepness of love's bounds and set ourselves free once again?
Come to me, all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Maybe not this day, maybe not this hour, but come and know we have a partner in our suffering. One who knows what it is to be laid bare and naked and alone, the One who went through all of this, so he could know us at our core. Yes, this is a very different day, yes we don't know the end of this story yet, but we know the ending of love's breath is more love, and this is the capital we need to see us through these days. To not let our hearts grow hard and weary, but to have them burst forth from the tomb free from the thought that we are the ones in control. We surrender again to knowing we are weak and frail, but God comes through always. Easter is coming, Easter will arrive, how will we receive it?
This week I found out the cry hosanna means save us. I can relate to this, I think we all can today. The crowd calls out for this Messiah to save them. Save them from the oppression of Roman rule. Save us from pain, anxiety, suffering, death, loss of job, loss of house, loss of life, please save us. The answer is yet to come. It certainly gives us a different way to look at holy week.
Holy Week is usually the build up to celebration. Maybe all these years we have only gone through the motions of it, waiting for Easter to arrive. With glory, splendor and wonder as well as candy and bunnies. Yet going through this week this year really puts us into the frame of sacrifice.
We sacrifice our physical connection with one another. We sacrifice our time with loved ones. We sacrifice times in our children's senior year that we will never get back. We sacrifice and we want to be saved from this grief. Save us, Messiah, save us this pain. Save us this sacrifice. Save us from this time.
Yet we are not to be saved and neither was Jesus. It is such a juxtaposition of worlds on this day. It seems we start with Jesus being hailed as king, we have never heard the hosanna as a plea, save us. I mean isn't that what God is for, to save us from pain. I think we see the answer as we read of Jesus deserted, jeered at, mocked, stripped down and flogged, broken, where is the savior in that. He can't save himself, how can he save us?
Maybe a lot of us are feeling this way right now. We expected to be saved from financial destruction, from losing our loved one, from having to make hard decisions. Yet time and again this is life. A season to cry, a season for good, a season to mourn, a season to learn what this cross is really all about. Grief and fear and anxiety shut away from the world hiding in fear. Sound familiar?
Maybe, just maybe we will hear this story differently today. Maybe it will echo and resound in our very souls because saving us is only part of living this life. Learning to face our pain, learning to face our fears, learning to grapple with being laid bare and naked is all apart of life. What we learn from it, how we go forward from this point on will determine everything. Will we be able to grieve and heal, will we be able to realize being saved isn't the answer, will we be able to learn the deepness of love's bounds and set ourselves free once again?
Come to me, all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Maybe not this day, maybe not this hour, but come and know we have a partner in our suffering. One who knows what it is to be laid bare and naked and alone, the One who went through all of this, so he could know us at our core. Yes, this is a very different day, yes we don't know the end of this story yet, but we know the ending of love's breath is more love, and this is the capital we need to see us through these days. To not let our hearts grow hard and weary, but to have them burst forth from the tomb free from the thought that we are the ones in control. We surrender again to knowing we are weak and frail, but God comes through always. Easter is coming, Easter will arrive, how will we receive it?
Comments
Post a Comment