20th March 2016 will be Palm Sunday, the day Christians remember Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem the week before his passion, death, and resurrection.
After spending nearly 40 days of prayer and fasting, most of us get through Lent with genuineness about our relationship with God. We welcome the whole season seeking to know and love Him better.
For many of us, Lent becomes a time to face ourselves. We can surprise ourselves when we notice our laziness, destructibility, or superficiality. The disciplines that seemed so promising at the outset get a little burdensome, a little inconvenient, too easily forgotten.
On the contrary, we should recognize that this is precisely what Lent is meant to teach us—we need a Savior! We are in way over our heads.
As we prepare for Palm Sunday, Let us ponder some of these aspects:
– The generosity of the woman who anoints Jesus; the greed of Judas, who sells Him for profit
– The apostles repeatedly falling asleep in Gethsemane; Jesus in watchful and agonized prayer
– The kiss of intimate friendship; the threatening crowd arriving with swords and clubs
– The raucous, conflicting false testimony in the Council; the silence of Jesus
– Jesus’ accusers demanding that He identify Himself; Jesus quoting Scripture (“One like a Son of Man”) to alert them to the fact that they already know who He is
– The silence of Jesus during His beating by the Temple guards; the loud denials and cursing of Peter when he is identified as a disciple
– The release of a convicted, murderous insurrectionist; the condemnation of Jesus on charges of insurrection
– The crowd calling for Jesus to demonstrate His power on the Cross by delivering Himself; His cry of abandonment
– The Jews mocking and ridiculing their King; the cosmos paying homage to its Creator by darkening the sun
– The apostles fleeing; the women remaining, watching to the end
