Palm Sunday Faithful

Last night, we were pulling out of the OMS campus (where we lived from 2007-2010) when we noticed five men sitting at the side of the gate, talking.  As we pulled up to the gate, Matt rolled the windows down and called out to them, realizing that we knew every one of them. Four of them jumped up and came to the window, shaking our hands and catching up, one mentioning he'd been in chapel on Friday with a team and really appreciated Matt's Palm Sunday message, one of them asking about the girls.

After we greeted everyone and spoke for a bit, I realized that the fifth man was still sitting in the shadows silently, arms crossed grouchily across his chest.  Matt is never intimidated, and immediately called out to him, "Hey friend, how are you? What's going on."
Still refusing to get up or come closer, he responded from the shadows,  "I'm fine, no thanks to you and last time I saw you."

Wracking my brain, I realized that the last time we'd seen this man was over Christmas break. One of the days that Matt was terribly sick and in bed, he'd come to the Seminary and to our house, asking for a large amount of money. We had just come through year end and New Years and Haitian Independence day and helped many people in our community here far more than we had intended or were able. Matt was terribly sick, and the last several times we had helped this particular person we'd been discouraged by his dishonesty and manipulation.  So, praying as we responded, as we ALWAYS do, we had visited with him for a few minutes, and told him that we were simply unable to help right now.

He apparently had been holding onto this, even now, and while Matt tried a few more times to chat with him, he grumbled again that we'd done nothing for him, and after wishing everyone well, we headed home.

I'm a major people pleaser, and pulling away I felt terrible...we had let him down, he was upset with us, we hadn't done what he wanted three months ago and now he wouldn't even speak to us.  I HATE knowing someone is upset with me.

Thirty minutes later, as I was reading this to the girls before bed about Palm Sunday, I realized that this was an ongoing struggle, a continual difficulty in life and ministry, that He can intimately identify with.

What our old friend and mission employee was wanting, what he made clear, was that he wasn't interested in us, wasn't interested in relationship or ministry or anything else...but that he was interested in getting money, and when he didn't get what he wanted, he could not show anything but coldness.

I've always been so intrigued by the triumphal entry story.  Not so uber-triumphal, was it.  On a small donkey that didn't even belong to him, entering into Jerusalem, people had seen and heard of the miracles.  They had seen the blind given sight, food multiplied, even seen the dead raised, and they were excited about what they had seen Him do, and were perhaps thinking about what He might do for them for them.  They covered the ground with their coats and palm branches, Hosanna, Save us.  

They wanted saved, truly, though I'm not sure anyone was thinking about from their sins that day.  They wanted saved from Rome, from their sickness, from their poverty, and when they had seen that perhaps this man, more than any before, could do it, they gave him a king's red carpet entry...only days later, trampling over the same rotting branches to demand he be crucified.

When they thought he could give them that which they wanted, they waved their branches, and when they realized He was not going to conquer Rome, that He was going to take a beating, and turn the other cheek, too...that he was not going to liberate them from oppressive rule, they not only were no longer interested in Him...they wanted Him DEAD.

They were not actually ever interested in Him...only in what He might do for for them...though "save us" was exactly what He was about to do, though liberation was exactly what He came to give.

What He was offering today, Palm Sunday, and everyday, wasn't really what people wanted, and they killed him for it....and most people still aren't really interested.

So believers, shouldn't we expect that what we're offering, in the name of Jesus, will most often not be what people really want, and will begrudge us?

But Praise the Lord Jesus didn't give people what they truly wanted, didn't liberate their bodies from Rome and leave our souls hopeless before the Lord...praise the Lord He saw the true need, had the true love, got the true need we didn't even understand, and met it, perfectly, instead.

Be encouraged with me, this Palm Sunday. 

We don't need to be people-pleasers in the world today, family, nor is it what the world needs.  We need only be faithful to the Father, the very and ONLY thing that took Jesus down that palmy road to that rugged cross, and our Father will do that which is truly needed, the work in people's hearts, that which transforms.

Waving palms and shaking fists, outstretched hands and grouchy shadows, may we be faithful.