Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?
Isaiah 53; John 19
This is Palm Sunday. This is the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. The people were thrilled to see the man who had gone about the area healing and feeding people and even raising some from the dead. The city was full of Jews who had come to celebrate Passover which meant the crowds who recognized and cheered Jesus were large. People took off their outer garments and cut down branches to create a carpet for this miracle worker. Matthew 21:9 says that the people shouted, "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest."
This seemed to be the last straw for the ensconced Jewish leadership. How dare this street preacher be treated to a royal procession. We know that on Thursday of this week Jesus would be betrayed by one of his own. Judas, for money, would sell his soul and the information about the whereabouts of Jesus so the temple police could arrest Jesus.
Have you ever had a dear friend betray you? The pain Jesus suffered from this betrayal was the beginning of his suffering for us. His turn-coat friend's action combined with the Jewish leaders' fear that they would lose their power turned the triumphal entry into a gruesome death.
Isaiah wrote, 700 years before the crucifixion, how Jesus would suffer and die. Isaiah is graphic and detailed. Jesus would suffer, be pierced, would take the pain of all of our sin and through this act, we find peace. There is nothing you can do for yourself to bring peace that lasts. You can try drugs, alcohol, work, play, television, art, books and hobbies. The only lasting peace comes from accepting the action Jesus took to suffer and die for you and for me.
How quickly the mob changes its cry. On Palm Sunday it is chanting, "Hosanna" as Jesus passes. On Friday at the open court being run by Pilate the same crowd is chanting, "crucify him." This shows us that we are all capable of betraying our friends, we capable of following the crowd rather than standing on our own beliefs.
In the 19th chapter of John we read the story as it unfolded and you can compare the writings of Isaiah to the writings of John and see that God's plan became reality. God's plan for man's salvation has always included the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament we read that God demanded that animals be killed and offered up to God as an act obedience. Some people think that all of our talk about the blood of Jesus is repulsive, but it is the opposite. The spilled blood of Jesus is not about death, it is about life. Without blood there is no life in any person. There are doctors here and isn't it true that without blood a person can't live? We can do without some parts but we can't do without blood. Therefore we are given life because Jesus gave us his own blood.
When a man was crucified, the officials would put a sign around his neck with his name, the town he was from and crime he committed. Pilate wrote on Jesus' sign, "Jesus the Nazarene. The King of the Jews." The people shouted to Pilate that Jesus is not the King of the Jews. His crime was that he claimed to be the King of the Jews. The people said, "We have no king but Caesar." But Pilate was fed up with these people and he knew that Jesus had committed no crime that his Roman legal training could identify and Pilate refused to change the sign.
Don't think that you are different from this mob. What is the king of your life? You have no king but money, your looks, your accumulation of things, your power, your standing in the community.
What Christ came to do was completed this week. We must learn that his blood is our life and that he is our only king.
