It has always amazed me that Jesus comes into Jerusalem and is greeted excitedly by palm waving people. Everyone thrilled and proclaiming how wonderful He is, and barely 5 days later the same group of people are calling for His death. How fast things can turn around in the world. A King one day, a heretic the next. And He knew the whole time what was coming. Even as He was riding in to the chorus of cheers and smiles. He knew how it was all going to happen.
Our own lives can change in a second. One day life is good, lovely home, happy family, the next day a hurricane, a mudslide, an accident, an illness. My daughter died unexpectedly less than 12 hours after we had seen her. We didn't know at breakfast the day before that would be the last time we would eat with her.
Shocking. Bewildering. Frightening. How to even cope with something like that? The only way I know, is to look at that which is eternal. Jesus Christ. Because this life moves at the speed of Light. So we need to focus on His Light.
Hosanna in the Highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. The cheering crowds may not have realized that God was truly in their midst that Sunday thousands of years ago. God coming into their town to save them, because they would not be able to save themselves from themselves. Jesus came to save us. To love us back into Heaven by taking all our burdens, our sins on Himself and then through His atoning death bring us back into relationship. We didn't know it at the time. We wanted a King. A conqueror. He wanted us to be His People.
Things can change fast. And sometimes what we think we wanted is replaced by what we really need. Love. Forgiveness. Joy. Healing. That is what Jesus brings us at Easter. He saves us, when we least deserve it. But sometimes we have to lose something before we can understand what we really need. It isn't necessarily the parades and the adoring crowds that life is about. It's about love and sacrifice and being willing to surrender our ideas of how everything should happen to God. The journey Jesus took reminds us that we may, indeed go through a time of suffering but Easter is just around the corner.