Palm Sunday

Misunderstanding and confusion stands at the heart of Palm Sunday. The people of Israel in Jesus’ time were searching and hoping for a great leader, a messiah. The most honored and revered of their past leaders and heroes was David, the warrior king, the one whose talents and courage extended the boundaries of Israel, the one who established Jerusalem as its proud center, the one who created a sense of pride in the hearts of its people. But in Jesus’ time the people living in Israel were often humiliated by Roman occupying power. It’s not difficult to understand their longing for someone like David, who might invigorate and restore their pride and remove their oppressors.

So when Jesus demonstrated his power not only to feed the five thousand but to restore life to a very dead Lazarus, and when he announced to his followers that he was in fact the messiah, many thought he had to be the One! He had to be the man “fired up” as we say in the political jargon of today with a great plan for the future.

The story of Palm Sunday has to do with that kind of misunderstaning and the distancing that took place as Jesus showed himself more in the image of Isaiah’s suffering servant than of assuming David’s royal perogatives. Read Isaiah 50:1-9a and Matthew 21: 1-11 the lessons for Palm Sunday and think about what they might mean for today!

submitted by Rev. Dr. Ralph Ahlberg

~ by Rev. Dr. Edward Horstmann on March 10, 2008.